Forza Horizon 6 sells 4.9 million copies despite Xbox Game Pass "cannibalizing" revenue, says analyst

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Forza Horizon 6 has sold 4.9 million copies since its global launch on May 19, a major accomplishment for an Xbox game in 2026, according to analyst Rhys Elliott.

The head of market analysis at game data tracker Alinea Analytics explains in a new installment of The Alinea Insight Newsletter that Forza Horizon 6 has earned developer Playground Games $325 million in about a week – with plenty of assistance from the 1.7 million players who opted to buy the racing game's early access on May 15. None of that would be too surprising for a highly desired, AAA game, however, if it weren't for how many of its sales came from the Xbox storefront.

Yes, we are a place in history where the fact that a game published by Xbox Game Studios is, in fact, selling well on Xbox is a big deal. New Xbox CEO Asha Sharma is hyperaware of this – otherwise she wouldn't be scrambling to reduce Game Pass' subscription price, expand its tiers, and move into a new era for the company with the next-gen console Project Helix. Forza Horizon 6, then, might be the perfect transition.

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"Our data shows that Xbox gamers across console, PC, and cloud [...] really showed up for Forza, accounting for 42% of copies sold (almost 2.1M) versus Steam's 2.8M," Elliott reports. "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."

Forza Horizon 6 is also generating a bit more of its total revenue on Xbox compared to Steam – 51% as opposed to 49% – due to Xbox's mostly Western audience treating itself to more expensive regional pricing.

But though it's receiving plenty of blessings in the form of big sales numbers and big regional price tags, Xbox still found a way to be its own worst enemy. Elliott says, "Game Pass is cannibalizing" some of Forza's revenue, and "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," the analyst continues, since 3 million players who decided to either begin or renew Game Pass subscriptions for Forza Horizon 6 make up for fewer direct sales with their promise of ongoing Game Pass payments.

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

So Game Pass might still need help to become a success. At least Forza Horizon 6 doesn't.

Yes, Fable is still coming to PS5 despite Xbox's plans to "reevaluate our approach to exclusivity," and Playground Games confirms the RPG isn't getting delayed, either.

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Ashley BardhanSenior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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