If you are sick of playing Gran Turismo, you will be able to buy Forza Horizon 5 on PlayStation 5 in the coming months.
Xbox’s Forza racing series will, for the first time, be made available on a rival PlayStation platform as Microsoft shifts its focus from the games console business.
Confirmed last week, Forza Horizon 5 will come to Sony’s PlayStation 5 in a matter of months, with an Australian Autumn launch window, after releasing for Xbox and PC in 2021.
This is the first time in the Forza series’ 20-year history where it has been officially playable on a competing console, as the series is published by Xbox Game Studios, with development from companies owned by Microsoft.
PlayStation has its own competing racing game series, Gran Turismo, which directly rivals the Forza Motorsport games, with Forza Horizon titles positioned as less sim-racers and more of an open-world arcade playground with cars.
Nearly 900 cars – including the Audi RS6 Avant, BMW M2, Chevrolet Corvette E-Ray, Ferrari SF90, Ford Ranger Raptor, Hyundai i30 N, and Lamborghini Sesto Elemento – will be available at the game’s PlayStation 5 launch, as well as expansion packs with one centered around Hot Wheels.
For the fifth iteration of the Forza Horizon series, the setting is Mexico, with previous locales including the UK, US, and Europe.
Of note, Forza Horizon 3 – which launched in 2016 – was set in Australia, but older titles up to and including Forza Horizon 4 are now delisted and unavailable to purchase digitally due to the expiration of car branding licenses.
Forza Horizon 5 being made available on PlayStation is the latest former Xbox exclusive title coming to the Sony console, following Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush.
Microsoft has been positioning its Xbox brand away from being just a console – after the tepid sales and lukewarm reception of its current Series S and Series X machines – and pivoting towards a games delivery service with the expansion of its Xbox Game Pass available across various devices.
Most recently in 2023, Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard – responsible for big-name games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Crash Bandicoot (who debuted on a PlayStation platform) – for $US75.4 billion ($AU121.21 billion).
Microsoft also has control over other notable gaming franchises such as Fallout, Age of Empires, Minecraft, Doom and Guitar Hero.
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