Note: This post has added updates.
Reddit: eXtas1s: Forza Horizon 5 is the next Xbox game coming to PlayStation.
The rumour is that this will be announced next week, with a launch date to follow.
This rumour certainly tracks, imo. Like Sea of Thieves, FH5 is a years-old game, with a very active player base, it recently crossed 40M total players, and has no real competition (first or third party) on PlayStation.
This rumour has already kicked up all sorts of reactions about The Future of XboxTM, and in particular has re-stokesd a general ‘uncertainty’ around knowing what games will be Xbox exclusives or not, and for how long.
Xbox is still in the experimenting phase when it comes to porting games to ‘rival’ platforms. The console base is stagnant (like PlayStation), which means they’re looking for growth opportunities where they can.
Sea of Thieves was in the top sellers on PlayStation for 2 months, and no doubt FH5 would land near the top in sales charts on PS5 too.
But the strategy is a balancing act – Xbox want to leverage revenue growth opportunities, but if these moves come at the expense of engagement (monthly actives) or on-platform activity, they may well pull back or adjust.
In the meantime, Forza Horizon 5 is an absolute banger of a game; it’s great news if more gamers get to experience the festival!
Update 1: Jez Corden for Windows Central Gaming:
My sources indicate that Forza will not be announced for PlayStation next week. Although I can’t yet confirm what game, if any, will be announced as a port next week.
Update 2: eXtas1stv (translated):
On the one hand, calm for Starfield, there are no active plans for it yet.
However, for Forza Horizon 5 there are, and it will be released in the not too distant future. The announcement? It doesn’t matter if it happens this week, next week or the week after, but it is coming to PS5 in the next few months as I confirmed in my [post] and as many colleagues have already confirmed.
Some of our colleagues believe that the announcement will be imminent, others not so much, but it is coming.
Update 3: Next Xbox game on Playstation is going to be Flight Simulator
Via comments by a user from earlier this year, which have proven to be 100% accurate so far:
Flight Sim will be multiplatform, and a few other older 1st party IPs are also going to be multiplatform
(Of note from the leak, and that hasn’t been shown to be correct yet: Xbox have been in discussions to move to a ‘licensed device’ model, where 3rd party manufacturers can build consoles that will play Xbox games.)
Update 4: After all that, it was Indiana Jones.