Based on nothing other than subjective feeling, it does feel like racers are second-fiddle to first person shooters and third-person action/shooters but 18m is 18m. Maybe we've hit a resurgence. Maybe it never went away.
Racing games are definitely still a niche. A niche where the average racing game player has a lot of disposable income (not uncommon to spend 2000+ USD on racing gear in addition to a 2000+ USD PC) but still a niche from the standpoint of how many people are playing them.
Forza Horizon 5 has a couple key things going for it.
- Forza Horizon 5 isn't a straight racing game. You can think of it as a spectacle driving game that happens to have racing in it.
- Most of your average gamers aren't interested in racing games enough to pay for a straight racing game.
- But a great looking open world driving game that happens to have racing in it?
- Speaking of which, Forza Horizons sells better than Forza Motorsports.
- At the time of this article, the 2 most recent FH games prior to FH5 sold faster than the 3 most recent FM games. FH5 and Halo: Infinite would push 2 of the FM games off the list if the list was updated today.
- Xbox One: The 10 Fastest-Selling Exclusives (& How Much They Sold) (thegamer.com)
- Additionally you can see how sales of the traditional racing game (FM) were dropping off. FM5 sold ~351k in one week, FM 6 sold only 221k in that time and FM 7 only sold 176k in one week.
- Forza Horizons on the other hand increased sales over time. FH3 sold ~407k in one week while FH4 sold ~2 million in one week. And FH5 sold better than FH4.
- Forza Horizon 5 is on Game Pass.
- Not interested in paying for a racing game because it doesn't seem exciting? Try it on Game Pass.
- Don't have Game Pass? It's a cheap way to sub for one month to try it, or some other game and then try Forza Horizon 5 just for the heck of it.
- If they enjoy it, they'll talk about it to their friends who are also probably not racing game fans.
Of course, this would apply to FH4 as well, however, for the second point, Game Pass didn't have nearly as many subscribers back in Nov. of 2018. Also, FH4 didn't launch on Game Pass as it came out in Oct. of 2018. So it missed that critical launch window.
That said, it may help to spark renewed interest in racing games among non-racing enthusiasts. After seeing GT7 in the Sony spotlight, I'm hoping it sells really well also. It looks great. However, if Forza Motorsports sales is anything to go by, it'll likely sell well as the only PS exclusive racer, but it's unlikely to sell in anything close to FH5 numbers.
So for me, as good as it looks I'm not interested in playing GT7 or a future Forza Motorsport because I'm one of those people from the first point. I'm not really interested in racing games, but I absolutely LOVE FH5. Probably because it's not "just" a racing game. I primarily play it to just drive around and rarely race in it.
I'll be surprised if the next Forza Motorsports sells even half as many copies as FH5.
Regards,
SB