Forza Motorsport is one of this year’s most anticipated first-party Xbox titles alongside Starfield. A reboot for the series, the first Forza Motorsport title in six years brings cutting-edge graphics, a revamped career mode and driving physics, and a comprehensive car roster.
But despite positive reviews, Forza Motorsport’s UK retail sales have been disappointing.
Forza Motorsport debuts at number 23 in UK retail charts
According to GfK's sales data via GamesIndustry.bz, Forza Motorsport failed to reach the top 20 in the UK retail charts for the week ending 14 October, debuting at number 23. This is lower than expected for a AAA release like Forza Motorsport.
Even Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, a game that came out seven years ago, beat Forza Motorsport, charting at number seven. EA Sports FC 24 topped the UK retail charts, followed by Assassin's Creed Mirage, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Lords of the Fallen, and Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.
However, Forza Motorsport fared better in the Xbox Series X|S charts, finishing in third place according to Xbox Achievements.
Why are Forza Motorsport's retail sales low?
Although Forza Motorsport’s sales figures haven’t been released, there are a few factors to consider here. Firstly, GfK's data doesn’t include digital sales, despite the decline in physical game sales.
This means Forza Motorsport could still be selling well digitally. Xbox physical game sales are usually lower than PS5 too – so much so that Microsoft is rumoured to be removing the disc drive for the next Xbox Series X revision.
The digital-only Premium Edition also provided up to five days of early access, with the standard physical version released a few days later. However, Game Pass is likely the main reason for the low retail sales.
Forza Motorsport is available for all subscribers at no extra cost on Game Pass, so there's less incentive for Xbox players to buy the standalone game at full price.
A slow start on Steam
While we don’t know the Xbox digital sales, SteamDB gives us an idea of Forza Motorsport’s PC player numbers. Unfortunately, Forza Motorsport is off to a slow start on Steam too.
At the time of writing, Forza Motorsport’s all-time peak on Steam is 4,703 players according to the Steam charts. That’s much lower than Forza Horizon 5, which has an all-time peak of 81,096 players. This isn’t surprising as Forza Horizon’s casual open-world racing appeals to a wider audience. Forza Motorsport, on the other hand, focuses on track racing and simulation physics.
Even so, Forza Motorsport’s initial Steam player count seems low considering it’s been out for over a week.
Update 1.0 patch out now
Glitches and performance issues have hampered Forza Motorsport’s reception. Players have been losing career save progress and experiencing performance issues on PC.
In response, Forza Motorsport finally received its first major patch update this week. Update 1.0 brings bug fixes and stability improvements as well as major changes to car progression. You can find out more in the full patch notes here.
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