Microsoft’s push to separate the concept of Xbox games from the Xbox console itself has always felt a little...annoying? The corporation’s “This is an Xbox” campaign has been more confusing than anything else. However, the really significant aspect of this detaching of the games from the machines is the releasing of once-Xbox exclusives onto Sony’s consoles. And in the case of flagship release Forza Horizon 5, it’s proven such an enormous success that the game has outsold everything else released on the PS5 this year.
While we should always take industry analysis figures with a bucket of salt, it’s being reported by the Alinea Insight newsletter (thanks GI.biz) that Forza Horizon 5 has now sold over 3 million copies on the PS5, pushing it ahead of Monster Hunter World, and seeing it outselling last year’s PlayStation exclusive Astro Bot in a third of the time, and far ahead of one of this year’s big PS5 launches, Death Stranding 2, which Alinea says has sold one million over the last month, but is now leveling out.
Platform exclusivity has long been held as vital for the success of a console, ensuring people are forced to pick up this $500 box rather than that one. And once you’ve got your customer locked in, they’re yours for the generation. This led to the nonsense of the “console wars,” a successful marketing campaign of tribalist disharmony that’s still fought out in comments sections and X replies to this day. Gross. But as Zack observed at the beginning of this year, that era is now over. And the signifying factor? The announcement that lifelong Xbox-exclusive racing franchise Forza was to see its games released on bitter rival Sony’s PlayStation.
This bemused audiences who had spent decades as the target of inculcating campaigns of division, many genuinely upset as they perceived that their brand loyalty was being betrayed. But if any argued that it would fail, that door is well closed. According to Alinea, what drove FH5 into the lead was a recent 25-percent-off sale.
The weird thing is, as much as it may upset those who formed parasocial relationship with their console manufacturer, this is pretty much a win for everyone involved. Most importantly as far as I’m concerned, it means more people get to enjoy a truly fantastic game without having to buy a whole new console or PC. But it also means millions more dollars for both Microsoft and Sony, given that the PlayStation owner will be getting a chunk of every sale.
Obviously, Microsoft’s moves are in large part a tacit admission of having lost this console generation—it was reported last year that the PS5 could be outselling the Xbox Series two to one, although some estimates claimed the difference could be as much as five times. If you’ve got millions more people owning a PlayStation, it makes a lot of sense to sell your games to them, even if you’re losing a portion of each sale.
This means we’ll likely see former Xbox exclusives now hitting PS5 on day one—Forza Horizon 6 could be an example. The argument for Xbox remains that these games will also be on Game Pass, with that accompanying sense of being “free.” Meanwhile, Sony still refuses to put its own first-party games straight onto its own subscription service, PS Plus, and is certainly showing no signs of reciprocating when it comes to launching its games on Microsoft’s consoles.
It all makes for far more interesting times, and if nothing else, hopefully the increased sales might stop sodding Microsoft from closing more studios.
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