Look, you might be considering spending $60 on this fall's Forza Motorsport 4, if you're a racing fan and you've got an Xbox 360.
But would you consider spending $90?
You'll save money if you do that, Microsoft said in a press release today. That added $30 will get you a Forza 4 "season pass"—giving you access to six pieces of downloadable content for the game through April, while saving you 30% if you bought them a la carte. That's a savings of $13, better than the interest rate you'd get if you kept that money in the bank until the DLC was ready unless you have a big principal.
Why go the $60 + $30 route?
Season Pass gets you 60 new cars added to the promised 500 or so in the main game (not counting the non-driveable Halo 4 Warthog). The cars will be released in six packs between November and April, designed to keep Forza fans who get the new game in October both entertained and disinclined from trading the game in.
Wait. There's more. Did they say six packs? No, they meant seven. They're tossing in the game's day-one DLC that other chumps will have to pay for when they get home and unbox their copy of Forza 4. Season passers will enjoy this first DLC—the first DLC, the American Muscle Car pack—for "free". It includes:
- 1964 Ford Fairlane Thunderbolt
- 1965 Pontiac GTO
- 1966 Chevrolet Nova SS
- 1967 Dodge Cornet W023
- 1968 Dodge Dart HEMI Super Stock
- 1968 Pontiac Firebird
- 1969 Shelby GT500 428CJ
- 1970 Buick GSX
- 1970 Dodge Cornet Super Bee
- 1971 Plymouth GTX 426 Hemi
Convinced to go the $90 route, yet? If so, then, maybe you could cough that money up a little early?
Forza 4 comes out on October 11 in North America, which is when the Season Pass goes on sale on Xbox Live, but if you pre-order now, you can get five more cars — the 1965 Ford Mustang GT Coupe, the 1997 Lexus SC300, the 2011 Koenigsegg Agera, the 2011 RUF RGT-8 and the 2011 Tesla Roadster Sport in what Microsoft hilariously refers to as "the limited quantity 'Launch Bonus' car pack." Because when you're offering digital content, supplies just have to be limited. There are only so many bytes in the world, or something.
Credit to Microsoft to plan on releasing DLC for Forza well past its launch. That stuff doesn't get made for free, so asking gamers to pay and giving them a deal makes sense for all parties. Right? $90 option, anyone? It beats the $103 one.
You can contact Stephen Totilo, the author of this post, at stephentotilo@kotaku.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.