So did Forza 6 bomb in sales?

[SimTourist]

Looking at some of the first leaderboards in the career/rivals it seems there's no more than 35k entries in any of them worldwide. Does this mean Forza 6 flop hard? No info from MS either and hardly any discussions on the forums. Did Forza 6 simply come and go and nobody noticed? Could this mean the end of the franchise? Previous entries had decent sales overall but Forza 6 seems to have sold the worst so far. What do you guys think?

 

[05XR8]

Did F6 come out too soon? If the XBOX came out last year and FM5 came out last year, FH2 dropped the same year, is 1year enough of a gap to release a new game? Maybe not enough advertising. I've only known about F6 through gtplanet and XBONE via V8 Supercars.

 

[Daniel]

Did F6 come out too soon? If the XBOX came out last year and FM5 came out last year, FH2 dropped the same year, is 1year enough of a gap to release a new game? Maybe not enough advertising. I've only known about F6 through gtplanet and XBONE via V8 Supercars.

What? Forza 5 came out almost 2 years ago.

 

[McLaren]

The game's only officially been out less than 2 weeks & we're already speculating that it bombed?

Dumb thread is dumb.

BTW, a quick Google search indicates it launched at 2nd in the UK during its first week.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/09...olid-v-the-phantom-pain-slows-down-to-fourth/

 

[SimTourist]

The game's only officially been out less than 2 weeks & we're already speculating that it bombed?

Dumb thread is dumb.

BTW, a quick Google search indicates it launched at 2nd in the UK during its first week.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/09...olid-v-the-phantom-pain-slows-down-to-fourth/

So how do you explain low numbers on the leaderboards? First week is usually the strongest for most games, with a steady decline after that.

 

[05XR8]

What? Forza 5 came out almost 2 years ago.

I just got an XBONE. Thought it was this year like January. I've only payed attention to FM5 and FH2 since this year.

Edit: maybe it was last year I've seen it. Time flies when(I was) playing GT6.

 

[PzR Slim]

I've noticed the relatively small numbers of people who have set times on the leaderboards. Also the very small number of people who are in the top leagues. I thought there would be 10's of thousands but when I've been racing in the pinnacle leagues there are only hundreds.

I think many people underestimate just how much damage FM5 did. I've said previously, and been laughed at, that a UK dedicated Forza website I have been a member of since FM2, and was incredibly active, died a death as a result of FM5, and the vast majority of people have not returned and bought FM6.

FM6 is much, much better than fM5 but the damage is already done. FM5 was a huge mistake.

 

[willbsn13]

S Class Rio Full has like 540k leaderboard times IIRC.

Also there's this: http://news.xbox.com/2015/09/games-join-seven-million-forza-players

I know it's not sales, but its still a really good number,an attach rate of half (considering theres only about 15-16m xbox ones out in the market) is really good for a racing game. I think the Forza franchise is doing fine, in terms of sales and profitability. Otherwise, they wouldn't be making them yearly.

 

[skazz]

S Class Rio Full has like 540k leaderboard times IIRC.

Also there's this: http://news.xbox.com/2015/09/games-join-seven-million-forza-players

I know it's not sales, but its still a really good number,an attach rate of half (considering theres only about 15-16m xbox ones out in the market) is really good for a racing game. I think the Forza franchise is doing fine, in terms of sales and profitability. Otherwise, they wouldn't be making them yearly.

Is that one of the demo rivals events?
They would naturally have a much higher number due to being available to demo users.

 

[VXR]

Do career events post times at all now? I know mods disable times, but you never seem to get an exclamation mark next to your time in career races. Could be that no career times are recorded on the leaderboards?

 

[VBR]

Not to forget the Project CARS effect. Even though the game is riddled with bugs, there are many people who still continue to play it for the the good that it's bringing.

I don't know if I could ever go back to Gran Turismo after playing P CARS, maybe many ex FM fans feel the same.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

So how do you explain low numbers on the leaderboards? First week is usually the strongest for most games, with a steady decline after that.

I would explaing the number you mentioned by saying you were looking at the wrong car/track combo.

If you want a true idea how many people have played so far look at Rio in S class since the first thing every one does is run that Ford GT around there that will be an indicator. The number there is more than 10 times what you mention in your OP. Currently I am seeing over 1/2 a million times posted there. 539,434 to be exact as of the time of this post

 

[SimTourist]

I would explaing the number you mentioned by saying you were looking at the wrong car/track combo.

If you want a true idea how many people have played so far look at Rio in S class since the first thing every one does is run that Ford GT around there that will be an indicator. The number there is more than 10 times what you mention in your OP. Currently I am seeing over 1/2 a million times posted there. 539,434 to be exact as of the time of this post

So less than 10% of players are playing the career then? Doesn't seem right.

 

[UkHardcore23]

A Forza game every single year is sure going to fatigue gamers, Has it bombed? Who knows as maybe they are happy with 1 million plus sales each year which im sure it will hit. What i will say is Forza 6 is the first Forza i have not bought day one and dont intend on buying it either due to Forza fatigue and i cannot be the only one also i do think PCars is the better game so going to stick with that just now and look forward to AC and GT (Although not holding too much hope for GT being good)

 

[RPM Bibblefish]

So less than 10% of players are playing the career then? Doesn't seem right.

There is a lot of content. Between the career, tuning, painting, leagues and standard multiplayer i can fully understand the low numbers currently showing on the leaderboards.

Personally, i've not touched leagues or standard multiplayer yet and spent most of my time tuning and testing on a couple of tracks.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

So less than 10% of players are playing the career then? Doesn't seem right.

It depends on where you are looking. In career mode you have a choice between classes of cars to run in many of the events or at least the early ones. I know I have ran some of them in C others in B and a few in E so I would assume others are doing this too and to be honest career mode just does not appeal to a lot of people. Most people I know treat it the same way as I did starting up and that is to run the Ford GT and look for a way to get to the main menu. Some will run some career races when they have nothing else to do and others won't do it at all.

Some go straight to painting others go straight to rivals and then only a few of those will run multiple classes on multiple tracks, many will focus on one or two tracks and/or specific classes so only that intial race that everyone is forced to run is a true indicator of the number of players.

In FM4 for example I ran every class of car on every track in the game yet I did less than 5% of the carreer mode as I found most of the races to slow to get into, to short to be any fun, to easy and to low on the payout was much better to run online with friends or rivals.

In FM2 they had a leaderboard for career mode that posted the total race time for each and every race. That is the onyl Forza I ever bothered to complete the career mode on and on that one I did all the races more than once in addition to running every class on every track multiple times and tons of online racing. Over all FM2 was the better game of any Forza thus far. Newer ones have some cool cars, added tracks and better graphics but the actual game was better in FM2 in many ways.

 

[chromatic9]

The game's only officially been out less than 2 weeks & we're already speculating that it bombed?

Dumb thread is dumb.

BTW, a quick Google search indicates it launched at 2nd in the UK during its first week.
http://www.dualshockers.com/2015/09...olid-v-the-phantom-pain-slows-down-to-fourth/

Being second place doesn't tell the story. Many new games can be first or second with low sales.

So how do you explain low numbers on the leaderboards? First week is usually the strongest for most games, with a steady decline after that.

Perhaps this can shed some light, the UK for example has gone from around 100k sales for Forza 4, to around 38k sales for Forza 6.

Still very early mind. This game can pick up the sales over time and do well at Christmas and GT/Forza are great as console bundles.

I think it's just some driving game fatigue and too many Forza games.

 

[doctorrg]

So less than 10% of players are playing the career then? Doesn't seem right.

There is a lot of content. Between the career, tuning, painting, leagues and standard multiplayer i can fully understand the low numbers currently showing on the leaderboards.

This. Everyone is doing the first race, so it's really the only indication of numbers. Even once you start career people can choose different paths. But yes, certain car and track combos have hardly been played. I've seen tracks where you could still get a top 15 time by leisurely driving a clean lap.

 

[HAL20XX]

FM4 was released 6 years into the lifecycle of the Xbox 360. FM6 is 2 years into the One's lifecycle. I'm not sure it's a fair comparison to make.

 

[Ryan81]

^ Agree wholeheartedly. Don't forget, that by 2011 when Forza 4 come out, many people had a 360 and therefore had access to games. At the moment, the new gen consoles have only been out just shy of 2 years and a lot of people are no doubt waiting for the price to drop, for more games to come out etc. It's a lot of money to pay for some people just to play one game, no matter how great it may be.

 

[chromatic9]

FM4 was released 6 years into the lifecycle of the Xbox 360. FM6 is 2 years into the One's lifecycle. I'm not sure it's a fair comparison to make.

Well it's not about being fair, it's data that perhaps explains less players so far.

Forza 6 is probably lower than Horizon 2 which released in 2014, a year less install base and Forza 3. Yes FM3 was out in 2009. I don't have Forza 2 numbers, it did release 2 years in like Forza 6 but this was the second Forza game 8 years ago, a totally different market that I don't think would be a good comparison either.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Really impressive how much they are promoting this game, seems like it is advertised frequently on most channels in the UK.

 

[HAL20XX]

Well it's not about being fair, it's data that perhaps explains less players so far.

Forza 6 is probably lower than Horizon 2 which released in 2014, a year less install base and Forza 3. Yes FM3 was out in 2009. I don't have Forza 2 numbers, it did release 2 years in like Forza 6 but this was the second Forza game 8 years ago, a totally different market that I don't think would be a good comparison either.

If you're trying to estimate sales performance without any actual data, then yes, a fair comparison is of the utmost importance.

It reminds me of a poll I saw gauging the number of people in each age range that owned a particular car. Everyone was shocked that the 45+ age range (no cap) had the highest ownership levels, despite the fact that all other age ranges were in 10 year increments. They tried to come up with all of these asinine explanations that didn't matter.

Flawed comparisons tell you nothing.

 

[McLaren]

So how do you explain low numbers on the leaderboards? First week is usually the strongest for most games, with a steady decline after that.

How do you explain that MS has no information available on sales, yet you use the amount of people on a couple specific leaderboards as a base to determine the game has flopped?

As @CAMAROBOY69 has said a few times, there are so many leaderboards, it would take someone a month just to try & throw times down on all of them.

That in combination with, again, less than 2 weeks of being available to the general public, makes your presumption look incredibly silly. This is a prematurely created thread, plain & simple based on such short time & evidence.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

The number I posted this morning of how many players had ran that first race was 539,434. It is now up to 552,873 so that means in the last 13 hours a little over 13,000 new players had started playing the game or at least playing under a gamer tag that had not yet played.

It is also a bad idea to read to much into the number of people who play career mode as many have no interest in career mode at all.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

The number I posted this morning of how many players had ran that first race was 539,434. It is now up to 552,873 so that means in the last 13 hours a little over 13,000 new players had started playing the game or at least playing under a gaer tag that had not yet played.

It is also a bad idea to read to much into the number of people who play career mode as many have no interest in career mode at all.

Lime Rock in C Class, right? I had checked that too, it's been going up pretty steadily every day. The game is just over a week old in the regions that got it last, and not even three weeks old for early access. That particular leaderboard number is already over a 1/3 the size of the top ones in FM5.

This reads like the Daily Mail's approach on gaming.

 

[HBR-Roadhog]

Lime Rock in C Class, right? I had checked that too, it's been going up pretty steadily every day. The game is just over a week old in the regions that got it last, and not even three weeks old for early access. That particular leaderboard number is already over a 1/3 the size of the top ones in FM5.

This reads like the Daily Mail's approach on gaming.

I was looking at Rio in S Class where you run the Ford GT in the intro race but that first one at Lime Rock would likely show the same number since there doesn't seem to be a way to skip it.

 

[IceMan PJN]

There is a lot of content. Between the career, tuning, painting, leagues and standard multiplayer i can fully understand the low numbers currently showing on the leaderboards.

Personally, i've not touched leagues or standard multiplayer yet and spent most of my time tuning and testing on a couple of tracks.

I'm driver level 44 at the moment and only completed part of the career. I'm not listed on almost any leaderboard in the game. Rather than doing a thousand short races on every track variant and every car class, I've done longer races in free play; several at least ten laps, several 20 to 30 laps. There's PI classes I've still never driven yet and I haven't driven on most track variants yet. Some tracks I've driven one variant in two or three PI classes, some once, and most variants I haven't touched yet in any PI class.

There's a lot of track and class combinations and players could be spread through any combination of them. Heck, when I played FM5 for over a year, after millions played the game there were still boards with only tens of thousands of times, after all that time.

 

[TonyJZX]

Its barely been a fortnight since release. Its been a pretty low key release hasnt it? I think there will be an uptick come Xmas but I dont expect this will sell as well as FH2? The subject is less mainstream. But its hard to imagine Turn 10 will be unhappy with how it sells given the metacritic. Its a title that has legs but it wont be like Destiny or something very much in the public eye.

 

[SimTourist]

How do you explain that MS has no information available on sales, yet you use the amount of people on a couple specific leaderboards as a base to determine the game has flopped?

As @CAMAROBOY69 has said a few times, there are so many leaderboards, it would take someone a month just to try & throw times down on all of them.

That in combination with, again, less than 2 weeks of being available to the general public, makes your presumption look incredibly silly. This is a prematurely created thread, plain & simple based on such short time & evidence.

Uhm, no, the leaderboard I'm looking at is the first track in the first career series, not rivals events.But yeah, maybe we should wait a bit more. Just feels like the community for this game is already half dead.