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Forza Horizon 5 Tops 4.5 Million Players, Largest Launch Day Ever for a First-Party Xbox Game

Forza Horizon 5 Tops 4.5 Million Players, Largest Launch Day Ever for a First-Party Xbox Game - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 09 November 2021 / 2,829 Views

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer via Twitter announced Forza Horizon 5 has had over 4.5 million players across the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC, and cloud. 

This figure is enough to make it the largest launch day for any first-party Xbox game. Peak concurrent players have reached three times higher than the peak of Forza Horizon 4.

"We've invested for years in Xbox so more people can play. With 4.5+ million players so far across PC, cloud & console, Forza Horizon 5 shows that promise coming to life," said Spencer.

"Largest launch day for XGS game, peak concurrent 3x FH4 high. Thank you players & congrats to [Playground Games."


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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24 Comments
Kakadu18 (on 09 November 2021)

You love to see it.

  • +9
scrapking (on 09 November 2021)

3x the peak concurrent player count vs. FH4? Which itself was an awesome game?! I'd love to see the breakdown between Xbox, PC, and cloud players!

  • +7
Azzanation (on 10 November 2021)

Well deserved.

  • +6
Koragg (on 10 November 2021)

Forza Horizon always delivers!

  • +5
scrapking Koragg (on 10 November 2021)

Right?! Few other franchises can boast such consistent high quality. And not only consistently good, but generally perceived to be better and better every time.

  • +1
Pemalite (on 10 November 2021)

Nice to see Xbox getting some success and big numbers happening with an exclusive.

  • +5
ironmanDX (on 10 November 2021)

That's crazy....

  • +4
golfgt170 (on 10 November 2021)

Concratulations to XBOX, and TURN10 for making the best racing game even better! Now if only i could get my hands on a SX...

  • +3
SecondWar golfgt170 (on 10 November 2021)

Its Playground Games who are the lead developer on the Horizon sub-series.

  • +10
zakr1995 SecondWar (on 10 November 2021)

Playground Games, with Turn 10 studios assisting them

  • 0
scrapking zakr1995 (on 10 November 2021)

And I think Playground Games uses the engine/tools that Turn 10 develops. I see Forza Motorsport is the testing ground for the engine and tools, and Forza Horizon as the logical implementation of them! :D

  • +2
G2ThaUNiT golfgt170 (on 10 November 2021)

It's actually Playground Games, but it does make me REALLY look for forward to what Turn 10 does with Forza Motorsport assumingly next holiday season!

  • +1
Kristof81 (on 10 November 2021)

I had quite a few connection drops yesterday. Their servers must have been on fire!

  • +2
KratosLives (on 10 November 2021)

Sucks I can't play it. That wait for gt7 burns

  • +1
scrapking KratosLives (on 10 November 2021)

You could sign up for a Game Pass free trial, and stream Forza Horizon 5 to a phone/tablet/PC/smart fridge/whatever, if you'd really like to try it. :)

  • 0
KratosLives scrapking (on 11 November 2021)

Can you game cloud on android? Such as linking gamepass to the pixel 6 pro and sync a controller to the phone$

  • 0
AkimboCurly KratosLives (on 11 November 2021)

Yeah that's exactly what you can do!

  • 0
scrapking KratosLives (on 11 November 2021)

Yep. I have read anecdotes on articles and YouTube videos of people who didn't own an Xbox or a gaming PC, but signed up for Game Pass Ultimate anyway and just streamed games to their mobile device(s). Often they went on to later get a gaming PC or an Xbox, but they were able to check out the streaming version of the service for as little as a $1, so why not?

  • 0
hiccupthehuman (on 10 November 2021)

Congrats to PlayGround!

  • 0
flint (on 10 November 2021)

Okay I don't wanna be that guy, but isn't that just 1 in 5 gamepass subscribers checking the game out?

  • 0
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Dulfite flint (on 10 November 2021)

I will eventually, but when I saw the PC Gamepass download was 110 gigs I decided to wait until I can clear up some space. I'm sure I'm not the only one lol.

Also, a lot of people impulsively want to get/download games on launch day when they feel the hype. I'd imagine many that thought this weren't able to get it downloaded in time on launch day as that's a lot of gigs. Most people don't have fiber.

  • 0
Kakadu18 Dulfite (on 10 November 2021)

Those 4K textures take alot of space.

  • 0
scrapking Dulfite (on 10 November 2021)

At least on Xbox, I was able to queue the download (and reserve the space) months in advance, and the download started weeks in advance of release.

  • 0