Forza Horizon 6 has already sold almost 5M copies

Forza Horizon 6 is a certified HIT. We use Alinea Analytics' Steam and Xbox estimates to dig into the launch, Game Pass, the cross-platform split, and what comes next.

Playground Games’ latest is doing exactly what everyone expected, and then some. Forza Horizon 6 is nearing 5M copies sold across Steam and Xbox in the week since its advanced-access launch on 15 May, and just a few days after its full 19 May launch.

Forza Horizon 6‘s gross revenue across platforms now exceeds $325M, with around 1.7M players opting for the premium advanced early access edition (including the Game Pass add-on).

It’s a serious commercial result, and the launch performance puts Forza Horizon 6 in the top four of 2026 releases before the first week is even done.

Let’s get into the numbers.

Xbox players bought a new game in … droves

Our data shows that Xbox gamers across console, PC, and cloud (I’m not doing the XBOX thing…) really showed up for Forza, accounting for 42% of copies sold (almost 2.1M) versus Steam’s 2.8M.

That’s an unusually strong Xbox-side performance by any standard, but it’s made even more impressive by over 3M people accessing Forza Horizon 6 via Game Pass on top of that 2.1M paid number.

HUGE launch numbers for Forza, and thoroughly deserved for Playground

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%.

The reason is regional, as Xbox’s player share is heavily Western, where price points are higher and players were more willing to eat the cost for advanced access. Steam’s player base is more geographically diverse, including China (the #2 Steam market for Forza Horizon 6), Japan (#4), and Brazil (#6).

Regional pricing means Forza costs less per player in those markets, which decreases revenue per unit even though unit volume is healthy.

It’s neat to see Japan coming in at #4 on Steam, versus #8 for Forza Horizon 5 and a whole percentage point more audience share – no surprise given the Japan setting of Forza Horizon 6.

Setting a game in a market is the single most reliable way to grow that market’s share of your launch, and Playground has executed on that lever. There’s a very big China-sized open goal for Xbox there. More on that later.

Game Pass is cannibalising some of the premium revenue still

There’s revenue sitting on the table here, though. Both the Steam and Xbox versions would have sold better if it weren’t for the day-one Game Pass inclusion, with 3M+ players accessing Forza Horizon 6 via subscription rather than purchasing it outright.

The counterargument Microsoft might have pointed to is subscription lifetime value. If even a quarter of those 3M Game Pass players are net-new subscribers or retained subscribers who would otherwise have churned, the lifetime value of the subscription relationship comfortably exceeds the launch sale that didn’t happen.

That’s the kind of maths Microsoft had been doing internally until Spencer, and it’s the same thinking that has justified day-and-date Game Pass releases for over five years now. It’s not the right call to make amid stagnating subscription growth, though.

It’s been a BIG month for Game Pass

This is now the consistent shape of Microsoft’s first-party Steam releases. 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.

Forza has also reached hundreds of thousands of Chinese gamers via Steam, where China accounts for 13% of the Forza Horizon 6 players. Xbox is specifically looking to grow its brand in China, and Forza seems like a prime franchise to be part of that push. More on that later.

The early in-game content has also done well. Around 170K Steam players bought the Forza Horizon 6 treasure map, generating an extra $400K via a simple map unlock (bit of a cheeky thing to make folks pay for, if you ask me).

But you can’t deny: Xbox is collecting meaningful incremental revenue from players who already paid full price (or more!) for the game, on content that costs effectively nothing to produce. It’s the kind of monetisation move that’s quietly defining Xbox’s first-party economics amid Game Pass and hardware stagnation.

Forza fans showed up en masse

Of Steam’s Forza Horizon 6 players, 44.6% previously played Forza Horizon 5, while 28.9% previously played Forza Horizon 4. Owing to Game Pass, that number is even higher on Xbox (console, PC, and cloud), with 93.3% of Forza Horizon 6 players on Xbox having previously played Forza Horizon 5 and 76.5% having played Horizon 4.

The franchise is doing what successful franchises do, which is converting its existing fanbase while pulling in new entrants at the edges.

Looking deeper at what else Forza Horizon 6‘s Xbox players have been playing this month gives a clearer picture of the early audience composition:

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As you can see:

• The most-played game on Xbox so far in May among Forza Horizon 6 players was … drumroll … Forza Horizon 5, played by 16.7%. Plenty of folks getting their homework in, it seems. The same pattern shows up on Steam, where there’s no Game Pass players but 12.8% of Forza Horizon 6 players still played Horizon 5 in May.

• Next on Xbox is the triple whammy of free-to-play games my nephews force me to play with them: Fortnite (played by 16.6% of Forza Horizon 6 Xbox players), Roblox (13.7%), and Rocket League (9.8%). This tells us plenty of those early Forza players enjoy more casual free-to-play games and have families who also play. The Forza audience is a household audience, not only a hardcore audience, and the crossover with Roblox reveals all there.

• At #5 is Subnautica 2 with 9.4%, showing that many Forza Horizon 6 players buy plenty of new games each month (or make use of all the new Game Pass day-one releases). On Steam, 10.3% of Forza Horizon 6‘s players also played Subnautica 2 this month. The games are not similar in any meaningful sense, but both were highly anticipated, and there’s a cohort of gamers who buys absolutely everything.

What Steam players love – and don’t love – about Forza Horizon 6

Based on our Steam user review sentiment data, validated by my 15-ish hours in the game (so far!), there are plenty of reasons why players are loving Forza Horizon 6:

• The Japan map is a standout. It’s a lush visual representation of Japan with detailed rural landscapes, mountain roads, authentic Japanese landmarks, and outdoor scenery that captures the country’s natural beauty. The map design is also rad, with verticality, varied biomes from urban Tokyo to rural mountain areas, and road layouts that are genuinely more fun than previous entries.

• Japanese cultural authenticity is the other big positive theme – the authentic Japanese music, cultural references, JDM car culture representation, and Tokyo venue authenticity work super well. The car roster is extensive too, with a large selection including proper JDM cars, classic Japanese automobiles, and comprehensive tuning options that car culture fans are responding to.

• The audio has had significant improvements too with realistic engine acoustics, exhaust notes, and detailed motor sounds that closely match real vehicle audio characteristics. This is the kind of stuff Forza fans notice immediately but the mainstream tends to miss. Gotta keep the core happy.

• The new auto-drive feature is also landing well among some players. The mode really lets players enjoy scenery and complete activities hands-free, reducing stress and enabling casual play alongside competitive racing. This is a smart bit of accessibility work and might be a direct nod to the Forza audience composition (households, casual players, the low-attention-span Roblox-and-Fortnite cohort).

• Technical: While it hasn’t all been smooth, smart optimisation allows for high graphical settings on mid-range hardware here, with DLSS and frame generation providing smooth 60+ FPS experiences. For a launch title at this scale, the optimisation work is genuinely above the curve – despite a couple of misses.

This game is absolutely fantastic, one of the best racing games there’s ever been, and press, players, and (last but least) I all agree on that. There have been some negatives, though:

• Unfair computer-controlled players is a big one that stood out in our sentiment analysis, with many reviews complaining that the Drivatars receive unfair advantages like supernatural grip on dirt paths, unnatural acceleration, and draft-speeding so severe it acts like an intentional brake check. The kind of issue that’s straightforward to patch but unhelpful at launch.

• PC instability and Steam errors have also been an issue for some. The launch was met with some rough bugs on PC, including a startup glitch that stopped Steam players from getting past the main menu, and frequent crashes related to specific code errors.

• The story is still cringe as hell: The campaign has been widely flagged as the least compelling part of the game, with forced voice acting and dialogue that comes across as cringey and out of touch with actual car culture. The narrative side has never been Forza’s strength, though, and this entry hasn’t changed that. I pretend it’s being ironic, because surely it is, right? Right!?

• Server and connectivity issues round out the negatives. Due to the massive influx of players, the online matchmaking service has struggled with stability issues and sluggish menu navigation in the weeks following launch. The kind of problem you’d rather have (it’s caused by demand) but a problem nonetheless.

Players are loving the game across the world. Forza Horizon 6 has an 80% positive Steam user score overall. But China is pulling that number down, as it tends to.

China is dragging the score down as usual, but there’s a future opportunity here

Here’s the language breakdown from our platform:

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Strip Simplified Chinese out of the average, and the positive review score jumps to roughly 86% (from 80%). That’s a meaningful and consistent with patterns we’ve seen here and here over the past few weeks.

Beyond the usual reasons of Chinese gamers having fewer ways to get their message to developers via the Great Firewall, and the antagonistic relationships between players and game companies the F2P market has normalised, our sentiment data points to three specific causes for the Forza Horizon 6 review bombing.

1. Regional pricing disputes. Players in China voiced heavy frustration over the game’s pricing on Steam. Many users reported that the base and premium editions were disproportionately expensive relative to local wages, with some pointing out that Steam failed to adjust prices fairly across regions, forcing them to pay prices closer to USD or European levels. For a market where regional pricing typically works in the player’s favour, the perceived failure to honour that norm stands out. There’s a lesson here for Xbox if it really wants to boost MAUs.

2. No Chinese elements in the Japan map. Because Forza Horizon 6 is heavily centred around Japanese car culture (JDM), some of the vocal Chinese gaming audience has taken this to heart and expressed disappointment over the lack of Chinese car brands, cultural references, or localisation. This is a complicated one given the historical sensitivities between China and Japan, and there’s no real way Playground was going to avoid this particular tension…

3. Account and client issues: The requirement of the Xbox App and Microsoft Store infrastructure to process upgrades and cross-platform play has been a serious technical hurdle. Many Chinese users have struggled with these features because Xbox services lack robust infrastructure in China, leaving some players stuck in digital limbo or unable to successfully pre-load the game.

If I were Xbox, I’d address the first and third points right now (better regional pricing, and smoothing account options).

As for the second point…

Project Saluki and the China play

Microsoft is reportedly working on meaningfully growing the Xbox brand in China, with leaks pointing to a localised version of Game Pass codenamed Project Saluki. This initiative, discovered in recent updates to the Xbox PC app, aims to introduce a specific suite of Game Pass tiers, rewards, and subscription levels tailored to China’s unique regulatory environment and player habits.

Whether or not Project Saluki ships, Forza should be a big part of Microsoft’s China growth story. Setting the next Forza game in Shanghai would be the obvious move, and the commercial case (and one for following that MAU northstar) is strong.

The Black Myth: Wukong precedent shows what a well-positioned game can do in China when the cultural and pricing levers are all pulled correctly. Our Steam estimates show that around 10M of Black Myth’s players are based in China, and a meaningful share of that audience was first-time Steam buyers.

Forza Horizon Shanghai – if done right – could activate that national pride on top of the usual Forza fandom, if Microsoft handles it correctly and also keeps the core Forza gearheads happy.

At the very least, expect Xbox to add a China-based car pack to Forza Horizon 6 in the coming months. There is precedent. Our data shows that the Forza Horizon 5 Chinese Lucky Stars Car Pack is among the game’s top-selling add-ons, with almost 400K copies sold and a peak attach rate of almost 5%.

Forza Horizon 5’s Chinese Lucky Stars Car Pack

The pack includes four Chinese Domestic Market (CDM) cars from Lynk & Co, MG, Volkswagen, and Wuling. It’s included as part of the Ultimate Car Pack Collection bundle, but can also be purchased separately, and plenty of players did exactly that.

Where Forza Horizon 6 sits in 2026’s release calendar

With its 4.9M sold across all platforms, Forza Horizon 6 is currently the #4 top-selling new 2026 game by copies sold across Steam, Xbox, and PlayStation. The full top four:

1. Resident Evil Requiem (7.1M)

2. Slay the Spire 2 (6.5M)

3. Crimson Desert (5.3M)

4. Forza Horizon 6 (4.9M)

It’s safe to say Forza Horizon 6 would have already topped this list by the end of the weekend, had it launched on PS5 day-in-date. For reference, Forza Horizon 5 launched on PS5 almost exactly a year ago and sold almost 6M copies there ($330M in gross revenue).

The PS5 release of Horizon 6 later this year is going to be a key strategic data point for Xbox in all of this. 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.

If Xbox’s MAU north star means anything in practice, the PS5 window has to keep shrinking. We’ll be back to Forza Horizon 6 in a couple of weeks once the launch dust settles, with a deeper look at the retention curves, the roadmap, and how the China question evolves. And of course we’ll be covering the PS5 launch in detail whenever it lands. Hit subscribe below if you want both in your inbox.

For now though, Forza Horizon 6 is doing exactly what a tentpole first-party launch should do. 4.9M copies sold, $325M in gross revenue, 3M+ Game Pass players, and a global audience that’s clearly responding to the Japan setting. Playground has delivered. The question is whether Microsoft makes the most of it.

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[Alinea Analytics boasts the most accurate PC and console estimates in the business. Game makers use our platform to understand their audience, keep an eye on the competition, monitor sales trends, and spot new opportunities. We equip game studios and financial institutions with accurate data and the confidence to make smarter, data-driven decisions. Want to talk about all things games market data? We’d love to chat!]