While Playground Games has celebrated the fact that Forza Horizon 6 has gotten more than six million players, it’s yet to confirm any sales figures for the racing game. According to estimates by Rhys Elliot of Alinea Analytics, 4.9 million copies have been reportedly sold so far.
It means that the gross revenue for Forza Horizon 6 across PC and Xbox Series X/S is higher than $325 million. Of the 4.9 million copies sold, around 1.7 million were believed to have been for the more expensive Premium Edition (which provided three days of advanced access).
Interestingly, when it comes to platform splits, Elliot estimates that 42 percent—almost 2.1 million—were on XBOX platforms across consoles, PC, and cloud. Steam, on the other hand, accounted for 2.8 million copies. The fact that it sold this well on XBOX despite being available through Game Pass is also noteworthy. This has also meant that XBOX accounts for around 51 percent of gross revenue, compared to Steam’s 49 percent, because when players buy from the Microsoft Store, the company doesn’t have to pay Steam any platform fees.
“That’s an unusually strong Xbox-side performance by any standard, but it’s made even more impressive by over 3 million people accessing Forza Horizon 6 via Game Pass on top of that 2.1 million paid number,” wrote Elliot. “Despite Xbox accounting for fewer paid copies than Steam, the Xbox version of Forza Horizon 6 is actually generating more revenue. Xbox accounts for around 51% of total gross revenue, against Steam’s 49%.”
Regional pricing also contributed to this revenue split across platforms. Elliot has noted that the XBOX player base is based heavily in the West. Steam, on the other hand, has a more geographically diverse audience, with China, Japan, and Brazil being the second, fourth, and sixth biggest markets for Forza Horizon 6, respectively.
Some of the revenue that could be generated by Forza Horizon 6 is still seemingly being left on the table, however, due to Game Pass. “This is now the consistent shape of Microsoft’s first-party Steam releases,” Elliot explained. “Steam does the unit-sales heavy lifting, Game Pass absorbs the engagement on Xbox, and the day-and-date strategy quietly continues working exactly as designed. And of course, there’s the PS5 version coming later, which will bring in millions more players.”
Looking at overall demographics for Forza Horizon 6 on Steam, 44.6 percent have been fans of the franchise, having previously played Forza Horizon 5. On the other hand, 28.9 percent had also played Forza Horizon 4. On the XBOX side of things, across PC, console, and cloud, Game Pass pushes these percentages higher, with 93.3 percent of Forza Horizon 6 players having played 5, and 76.5 percent having played the fourth instalment.
As for what this says about the PS5 release, comparing sales figures to other existing games, Elliot believes that a day-and-date release on Sony’s console would have helped Forza Horizon 6 handily beat other high sellers, like Resident Evil Requiem with its reported 7.1 million copies sold. Currently, Forza Horizon 6 sits at the number 4 spot, below Resident Evil Requiem, Slay the Spire 2, and Crimson Desert.
“The PS5 release of Horizon 6 later this year is going to be a key strategic data point for Xbox in all of this,” noted the analyst. “Forza Horizon 5‘s PS5 numbers are sitting right there in our dataset, and Forza Horizon 6 – even with the Forza-on-PS5 novelty wearing off a bit – has every commercial signal pointing to outperforming that.”
For more on Forza Horizon 6, take a look at our review.
