Gran Turismo 7 vs Forza Horizon 5 sales

[MysticGon]

I'm going to try at cut through all the PR stuff since sales figures are not disclosed for either series anymore.

Gran Turismo has a series total found here.

製品情報 - Polyphony Digital - ポリフォニー・デジタル

www.polyphony.co.jp

Gran Turismo Franchise Sales Surpasses 80.4 Million

*1Global sell-through data as of May 5, 2018. About Sony Interactive Entertainment Recognized as a global leader in interactive and digital entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is responsible for the PlayStation® brand and family of products and services. PlayStation has delivered...

www.sie.com

Forza Horizon talks about player counts.

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news.xbox.com

GameInformer - The Final Level

Polyphony Digital talks about player counts as well.

Gran Turismo Sport passes 14 million players as Gran Turismo 7 release draws near

That's a lot of traffic.

doublexp.com

For those following along at home that is Forza Horizon 4 & 5 at 24 million & 18 million players respectively. Compared to Gran Turismo Sport's 14 million. But you have to take into account both Forza's are available on Microsoft's Game Pass subscription service as well as on PC. As far as I'm aware GT Sport has never been available for free. Not via bundles, PS+ or Instant Game Collection. Used copies complicates matters for all 3 games.

Something else both series also share is that in North America their latest releases set launch month records for franchises. Great news for both series surely but which sold more?

There seems to be no question which was played more owing to Forza being more casual, on more platforms and available via subscription. But what does that mean for sales.

Well to along with the NPD record Horizon 5 also clenched the title of biggest Microsoft launch of all-time

Forza Horizon 5 "largest launch" of any Microsoft game

Forza Horizon 5 is off to a great start, according to new stats released by Microsoft. Playground Studios' excellent ra…

www.eurogamer.net

and if you compare that to their Xbox 360 era when they set all of their previous records you might be able to paint a picture of what unit sales could look like.

Halo 4 held the old record of $300 opening week or roughly 5 million in unit sales.

'Halo 4' snags $220 million on first day

First-person shooter on pace to rake in $300 million in first week.

www.usatoday.com

GT7 made ton on money but in terms of unit sales it's off of the stratospheric heights the series enjoyed in it's heyday.

What are the UK's biggest Gran Turismo games? | UK Time Tunnel

In the days before Horizon and God of War and Uncharted and Spider-Man, there was one first-party PlayStation franchise…

www.gamesindustry.biz

GT5 managed 5.5 million in it's first month for instance...

Gran Turismo 5 ships 5.5 million, 60 million for series

www.destructoid.com

So comparable to Xbox's previous best.

It's hard to compare since revenue isn't even disclosed but while one series is on the upswing the other is off of it's best. What say you? Which do you think has sold more in unit sales.

@Himura Kenshin I'll give you a chance to respond if you like before I block you for wasting my time.

 

[enpleinjour]

UK launch sales:

Gran Turismo 7 - 54,000 (D = 57%) -> 125,600
FH5 - <14,000 (physical only)
FH4 ~ 70,000 (physical only)

Well to along with the NPD record Horizon 5 also clenched the title of biggest Microsoft launch of all-time

The tweet referenced in the Eurogamer article is about playercount. 4.5M players, its not about sales or revenue.

@Himura Kenshin I'll give you a chance to respond if you like before I block you for wasting my time.

This seems needlessly antagonistic. I thought this was a genuine sales thread. Are mods really going to allow this?

 

[adriandlte]

I would like to correct/point out some things.

1) Forza Horizon 5 was only the biggest Xbox launch in terms of players for a month, since Halo Infinite surpassed it just a month later. Latest player numbers were 18 million and 20 million respectively by January.

2) The previous Xbox records were not set during the 360 era. Halo 5 made 400 million dollars in its first week (Halo 4 did 300 million), becoming the biggest Halo launch ever in terms of revenue and the biggest Xbox launch ever at the time.

3) NPD says Forza Horizon 5 was the biggest Forza release ever in terms of revenue, not the biggest Xbox release ever in terms of revenue.

 

[MysticGon]

I would like to correct/point out some things.

1) Forza Horizon 5 was only the biggest Xbox launch in terms of players for a month, since Halo Infinite surpassed it just a month later. Latest player numbers were 18 million and 20 million respectively by January.

2) The previous Xbox records were not set during the 360 era. Halo 5 made 400 million dollars in its first week (Halo 4 did 300 million), becoming the biggest Halo launch ever in terms of revenue and the biggest Xbox launch ever at the time.

3) NPD says Forza Horizon 5 was the biggest Forza release ever in terms of revenue, not the biggest Xbox release ever in terms of revenue.

Thanks for the corrections.

 

[Blue Monty]

GT Sports was bundled with PSVR and PS4 btw

 

[OkashiraStyle]

Hands down GT7.

As much as the American gaming community likes to try since 2009, lifetime sales of Forza are never comparable to Gran Turismo . GT is a true gloabl evergreen title as its still charting very strongly now. GT sales have been hard to come well over a year (one of the core "Japanese principles" lost as Senior Analyst of Ace Research Institute, Hideki Yasuda so elegantly put it).

Last we heard about GT sales even was from Third Point Management owner Daniel S. Loeb (Sony's largest shareholder) in which GT Sport was at over 8 Million.

 

[Himura Kenshin]

@Himura Kenshin I'll give you a chance to respond if you like before I block you for wasting my time.

My response is, I was waiting for the part where you detailed...

Game Pass complicates things but Horizon shits on Forza Motorsport AND Gran Turismo from a great height.

I must have missed it.

Also, please do not use the Install Base sales and news section to make threads for your own personal callouts, whether it be directed at me or anyone else. This is a fine discussion to have and a good thread otherwise as you did not approach it with the same (not to mention incorrect and patently false) energy you displayed in the above quote. However, you should have resisted lowering yourself with the callout antics. I've been around for a bit now and you're a much better poster and forum member than you displayed here.

 

[Pancracio17]

Doesnt FH5 include a live player counter of all people playing the game to date? Ill see if I can check it out later.

 

[Remember_spinal]

I’m not even sure how you can go about comparing pure sales with player count.

We either have to measure the player count between titles or hard sales. Theres no player count for GT so it seems kind of pointless.

 

[fiendcode]

That 14m GT Sport player figure is a little suspect imo. It doesn't come from PD (or even PlayStation afaik, it's from a different Sony group working on AI) and indeed just a year prior PD did directly report a 9.5m player count.

Gran Turismo Sport Reaches 9.5 Million Players

According to Polyphony Digital studio boss Kazunori Yamauchi, the total lifetime player count for Gran Turismo Sport now stands at 9.5 million users. Yamauchi shared this figure as part of an interview with Japanese journalist Toshifume Watanabi, for the Japanese regional version of Octane magazine,

www.gtplanet.net

A year prior to that it was only 8.2m.

Gran Turismo Sport Has 8.2 Million Players

gamingbolt.com

I find it a little tough to believe it took GTS four years to manage 9.5m and then it just suddenly did 50% more in another year for no apparent reason? After doing just over 1m the previous year? Maybe it's best to wait for Yamauchi or at least someone from SIE to give an updated figure?

I’m not even sure how you can go about comparing pure sales with player count.

We either have to measure the player count between titles or hard sales. Theres no player count for GT so it seems kind of pointless.

PD only gives player count updates now, they hide actual sales.

 

[Bodokoh]

Sony and Microsoft are too scare to give real sales numbers like Nintendo.

I also don't take Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox 1st party sales numbers seriously because game like Luigi's Mansion 3 is more profitable than games like GOW 2018, HZD, Ucharted, Halo, Forza, and etc.

 

[MysticGon]

Posts like these also help to muddy the waters with their emphasis on the word 'and' as if the player count is a separate stat from it being the biggest launch (without specifying by which metric).

 

[Cobalt]

I mean FH5 does has a chance at being ahead due to it launching earlier and being on PC. I remember that the early edition sold a few million units before the game pass launch. But lifetime sales it will probably be GT7 unless MS begins to heavily bundle FH5 with every Xbox.

 

[allan-bh]

With 25 million Game Pass subscribers, I don't see Xbox first party games sales being a relevant metric anymore, except on Steam.

Gran Turismo 7 will sell more, but in number of players Forza Horizon seems to be in another league. Only Mario Kart can compete with FH now in the racing genre.

 

[allan-bh]

2) The previous Xbox records were not set during the 360 era. Halo 5 made 400 million dollars in its first week (Halo 4 did 300 million), becoming the biggest Halo launch ever in terms of revenue and the biggest Xbox launch ever at the time.

This was a spin, Microsoft included revenue of the $500 special edition Halo themed Xbox One to be able to say it was the biggest Halo launch.

Halo 3, Reach and 4 trounced Halo 5 launch.

 

[MysticGon]

More info to consider.





We know FH5 is outpacing FH4 in player count but Game Pass is much bigger than it was in 2018.

There is also the saucy line Microsoft liked to crow about Forza being the best selling racing franchise of the current console generation starting in 2012 with Wii U per NPD, a stat they said included Mario Kart. I was a line they used up until the launch of Switch for some strange reason...

Forza Horizon 3 hits 2.5M copies sold, pushing Forza series above $1B (update)

That’s a lot of shiny cars

www.polygon.com

 

[adriandlte]

This was a spin, Microsoft included revenue of the $500 special edition Halo themed Xbox One to be able to say it was the biggest Halo launch.

Halo 3, Reach and 4 trounced Halo 5 launch.

They did that with the other games too. They always include revenue generated by limited edition consoles. And they are very limited in quantity anyway.

Edit: typos.

 

[Xevross]

This is an interesting comparison, as others have pointed out it is really hard to compare these two amongst units sold or player counts. GT7 will likely trump FH5 in the former, while FH5 is leagues ahead in the latter (worldwide).

I think the best like-for-like comparison would be revenue generated, since this is what the business cares about most after all. FH5 doesn't have MTX to monetise game pass players, but it does have the ultimate edition upgrade and ability to purchase some of those items separately (two DLCs, car pass, VIP). GT7 has the upfront purchase and more standard MTX in the GAAS approach. I would love to see how they compare in revenue.

 

[Hellblade]

Some data about Forza in the UK

 

[enpleinjour]

Posts like these also help to muddy the waters with their emphasis on the word 'and' as if the player count is a separate stat from it being the biggest launch (without specifying by which metric).

Not really, as once again it refers to play count just like the MS PR which defines biggest launch by player count.

 

[MysticGon]

Some data about Forza in the UK

Now this is interesting. There was a line of reasoning that said Game Pass didn't actually hurt sales but in fact had the opposite effect and helped them. As the service grew the launch revenue for some games has also grown but with Gran Turismo that could just be because of inflated prices.

 

[allan-bh]

They did that with the other games too. They always include revenue generated by limited edition consoles. And they are very limited in quantity anyway.

Edit: typos.

We know based on NPD data that Halo 5 launch was way lower than previous games. There's no way of being a record launch.

 

[Welfare]

They did that with the other games too. They always include revenue generated by limited edition consoles. And they are very limited in quantity anyway.

Edit: typos.

Halo 5 uniquely includes hardware revenue (console and controller). Every prior revenue report was game only. Halo Reach and 4 had hardware bundles and special controllers as well and we know Halo 5 sold way less units than either Week 1. Microsoft needed to include hardware to puff up Halo 5.

 

[Xevross]

Now this is interesting. There was a line of reasoning that said Game Pass didn't actually hurt sales but in fact had the opposite effect and helped them. As the service grew the launch revenue for some games has also grown but with Gran Turismo that could just be because of inflated prices.

That's basically what Mat Piscatella has always said based on what he's seen of the US market. Chris Dring usually has the opinion that game pass hurts sales based on the UK market.

Personally I think its pretty clear that game pass hurts unit sales more often now, but games that have lower expectations and turn out to be high quality are often boosted by GP, the same as what happens with some PS+ games.

 

[enpleinjour]

Gamepass has categorically caused severe software decline for Xbox titles.
Halo, Gears and FH5 have all had notably worse legs and physical openings that are down 70%+ in the UK.

[Week 44, 2015] HALO 5: GUARDIANS (MICROSOFT) - 150,000 / NEW
[Week 49, 2021] HALO INFINITE (MICROSOFT) - <39,000 / NEW (phy >digital)

[Week 40, 2018] FORZA HORIZON 4 (MICROSOFT) - 70,000 / NEW
[Week 45, 2021] FORZA HORIZON 5 (MICROSOFT) - <14,000 / NEW

GEARS OF WAR 4 ~ 92k
GEARS OF WAR 5 ~ 23k

Whats being mistaken is Steam+Xbox sales. Gamepass is not nearly as popular as Steam on PC, so Steam sales for a game like FH5 can grow while Xbox sales decline.

Furthermore, for third party titles, GP results in big declines as well. We see this in the UK market, where Playstation:Xbox physical splits are tilted 25-30% MORE to Playstation than what is normal for a title.

For instance, Sniper Elite sold 93% physical on PS, whereas the average physical split for a western title in the UK is 55-65%.

 

[Cobalt]

Gamepass has categorically caused severe software decline for Xbox titles.
Halo, Gears and FH5 have all had notably worse legs and physical openings that are down 70%+ in the UK.

[Week 44, 2015] HALO 5: GUARDIANS (MICROSOFT) - 150,000 / NEW
[Week 49, 2021] HALO INFINITE (MICROSOFT) - <39,000 / NEW (phy >digital)

[Week 40, 2018] FORZA HORIZON 4 (MICROSOFT) - 70,000 / NEW
[Week 45, 2021] FORZA HORIZON 5 (MICROSOFT) - <14,000 / NEW

GEARS OF WAR 4 ~ 92k
GEARS OF WAR 5 ~ 23k

Whats being mistaken is Steam+Xbox sales. Gamepass is not nearly as popular as Steam on PC, so Steam sales for a game like FH5 can grow while Xbox sales decline.

Furthermore, for third party titles, GP results in big declines as well. We see this in the UK market, where Playstation:Xbox physical splits are tilted 25-30% MORE to Playstation than what is normal for a title.

For instance, Sniper Elite sold 93% physical on PS, whereas the average physical split for a western title in the UK is 55-65%.

The physical splits isn’t gamepass. Microsoft is selling more Series S consoles than Seties X and the owners of the S can’t buy games physically while for PS only like 1/5-1/6 are digital consoles.

 

[Blue Monty]

The physical splits isn’t gamepass. Microsoft is selling more Series S consoles than Seties X and the owners of the S can’t buy games physically while for PS only like 1/5-1/6 are digital consoles.

To add to this since mid xbox one era , Xbox software has shown a digital splits closer to the ones from PC than consoles (Sony/Nintendo ones) . Series S is only making the digital split even more favored to digital

 

[enpleinjour]

The physical splits isn’t gamepass. Microsoft is selling more Series S consoles than Seties X and the owners of the S can’t buy games physically while for PS only like 1/5-1/6 are digital consoles.

To add to this since mid xbox one era , Xbox software has shown a digital splits closer to the ones from PC than consoles (Sony/Nintendo ones) . Series S is only making the digital split even more favored to digital

We already get digital data.

Physical splits for western games tend to be 70% PS. With digital included its in the range of 55-60%.
GamePass games have 90%+ physical splits for PS, clearly showing how it significantly decreases software sales.

I've been tracking UK splits for over a year and the data is clear.

 

[adriandlte]

Halo 5 uniquely includes hardware revenue (console and controller). Every prior revenue report was game only. Halo Reach and 4 had hardware bundles and special controllers as well and we know Halo 5 sold way less units than either Week 1. Microsoft needed to include hardware to puff up Halo 5.

Yeah, I just read your thread on Resetera about it. Very informative, thanks for making it. O'Connor's comments about 5 million copies in 3 months were most likely shipped and not sold, since you estimate it sold 3.8 million copies in two months, so 5 million total shipped in 3 months with lower sell-through sounds reasonable.

Edit: this one if anyone wants to read it.

 

[Pancracio17]

By the way, FH5 just hit 20m players according to the in game leaderboard. Offline accounts arent counted by there shouldnt be many of those.

 

[Megiddo]

Curious, how easy is it to start another "player" in Forza?

 

[Pancracio17]

Curious, how easy is it to start another "player" in Forza?

I think you just need to complete the tutorial race, but im not 100% sure.

 

[Welfare]

Yeah, I just read your thread on Resetera about it. Very informative, thanks for making it. O'Connor's comments about 5 million copies in 3 months were most likely shipped and not sold, since you estimate it sold 3.8 million copies in two months, so 5 million total shipped in 3 months with lower sell-through sounds reasonable.

Edit: this one if anyone wants to read it.

I have a more updated thread here https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/the-halo-franchise-sales-history.38/

 

[adriandlte]

I have a more updated thread here https://www.installbaseforum.com/forums/threads/the-halo-franchise-sales-history.38/

If Frank is not lying and those are sales I don't see how 5 million copies in 3 months is bad at all, then. Especially since it took Reach almost two years to reach 7 million according to Microsoft. Am I missing something here?

 

[Welfare]

If Frank is not lying and those are sales I don't see how 5 million copies in 3 months is bad at all, then. Especially since it took Reach almost two years to reach 7 million according to Microsoft. Am I missing something here?

The sell through rate of Halo 2, 3, Reach, and 4 were much higher than Halo 5. Those games all sold through over 5M by the end of their first holiday. 6M is most likely the low bar end

Halo 5 could only ship 5M and that's with a low sell through rate. It could've taken 2 years for it to finally hit 5M sold through.

 

[SoonyXboneUhh]

Well shipped / sold through is not a concern for Microsoft any longer with no retail sales anymore.

 

[Welfare]

Well shipped / sold through is not a concern for Microsoft any longer with no retail sales anymore.

Back in 2015 and 16 it was which is the timeframe Halo 5 sales talk would be relevant.

Xbox One software underperforming helped spur the urgency of Game Pass. Now look, Forza Horizon 5 is at 20M players and Halo Infinite is +20M.

 

[adriandlte]

The sell through rate of Halo 2, 3, Reach, and 4 were much higher than Halo 5. Those games all sold through over 5M by the end of their first holiday. 6M is most likely the low bar end

Halo 5 could only ship 5M and that's with a low sell through rate. It could've taken 2 years for it to finally hit 5M sold through.

I see, thank you. Is the chart with sales data in your thread from Microsoft or are those estimations the retailer made?

 

[Welfare]

I see, thank you. Is the chart with sales data in your thread from Microsoft or are those estimations the retailer made?

The picture is from Microsoft given to retailers in a "retailer quiz" preparing them for Halo 4. Basically a marketing tactic.

Retailer Quiz Reveals Fresh Halo 4 Details | XboxAchievements.com

Some new details on Halo 4 have been revealed by a retailer quiz on Microsoft's ExpertZone, a site designed to educate retailers about t...

www.xboxachievements.com

 

[adriandlte]

The picture is from Microsoft given to retailers in a "retailer quiz" preparing them for Halo 4. Basically a marketing tactic.

Cool, I had never seen it!

 

[SoonyXboneUhh]

Back in 2015 and 16 it was which is the timeframe Halo 5 sales talk would be relevant.

Xbox One software underperforming helped spur the urgency of Game Pass. Now look, Forza Horizon 5 is at 20M players and Halo Infinite is +20M.

Sure. Was just saying that's it's now moot for all Microsoft first party games to have the discussions about shipped / sold through.
After the Activision aquision tho, COD will be a first party with significant retail sales again, that might not move if the game is not well received like Vanguard.