Talking Point: Is Forza Horizon 5's PS5 Price Point Too High?

Given that the likes of GT7 (and it's predessor GT Sport) are releasing all it's additional car DLC in free updates, then it definitely raises eyebrows paying and extra £15 for extra cars

I originally thought it was, however if it's the same price on Xbox then the price is correct I would say. It shouldn't be cheaper just because it's now on team blue

@Scouse_Pirlo Thats because GT7 and its predecessor are live service games. The monthly updates are disguised season updates.

There's no way MS sell this cheaper on another system than on Xbox.

It's a 4 year old game. The Premium edition should be for the price of Standard edition and with that being said, the complete version of the game should be the only one being sold at this point.
Don't test the goodwill of PS owners Microsoft.

Not going to lie I played it on Xbox, done everything.. but I'm going to gladly do it again on playstation so I can play it with my PS friends
The price is the same as Xbox, they can hardly sell it cheaper on ps without also reducing Xbox price too, which obviously is going to cut into their profit margins. At the end of the day they are a commercial entity who wants to make as much money as possible, whether someone wants to pay that price though or wait for a sale is up to them, same as with any other game.

Interesting in the UK Xbox all access that got you a series s or x console and 24 months GPU paid over 24 months interest free has now been stopped.
They really trying hard not to sell consoles or GPU with a console.
Was an amazing option and deal for people being interest free paying monthly and always worked out cheaper than buying separately.

I think if you own the Xbox version you should be allowed to own the PS version for free.

"To be fair to Microsoft, the game costs exactly the same on the Xbox Store."

Well, there ya go. If you don't wanna pay premium prices, wait for a sale. I got Horizon 4's $100 (or something) edition for $20. It'll happen

I await the article scrutinizing Returnal's listed price.

I honestly thought it would be $70. Personally I think it's a fair price. The game may be older but it's brand new to the audience it's coming to so I think $60 is perfectly fair. Porting a game still takes work to do. It's not a simple copy and paste job.

Now personally I'm not really interested in it anyway because I just don't do racing games outside of Mario Kart basically. However, should Halo launch at around the same price I'll gladly pay it.

@OldGamer999 Honestly, I bet that would probably be more an issue with Sony than Microsoft.

Its the price the company value the game at, just because it's been a few years doesn't mean the value has dropped, no? That's like saying every year a game is on the PlayStation store it should drop in price permanently, Horizon Forbidden West is still £49.99 so are you saying anyone buying that new in 2025 is getting ripped off?

If you don't value this game at its current price then you simply don't buy it until it's on a sale for a price you think it's worth getting at.

I think it should have been £70 complete edition.

Regardless of my personal opinion it is going to sell in bucket loads.

nope , it’s $60 on PC, so its fair. if a console version has to pay more than a PC version then it would be a problem

It's a standard price for a big budget game, plus it's coming to a new console. It's also massive, so it's not like you can do everything in a couple of hours. I expect it to go on sale very quickly and often.

These polls often don’t offer some of the most logical answers, as in this case: Yes, not buying it.

@OldGamer999
"I think if you own the Xbox version you should be allowed to own the PS version for free."

Lol, what?

So a couple of things:
1. Microsoft are clearly experimenting with what they can and can't get away with. Basically market research.

2. They still want to promote that Gamepass is the best way to play the game and the cheapest.

3. MS games go on sale very often so it doesn't matter too much when it comes to waiting. With Forza every Playstation sale is a unit they never accounted for so... PURE PROFIT.

I never pay full price for games anyhow. But I play FH5 regularly. It really is an astonishing game and one of the greatest ever made in my opinion. If you go into it wanting a race sim you'll be disappointed but it really is extreme fun on a console. There's alot to do, it has great music, a feelgood factor and the graphics are still excellent, despite being 3 to 4 years old. Make sure you play the seasonal content because you get rare cars and Forzathon points to spend on cars.

@breakneck Apparently Sony takes 30% to be able to sell on it's store, but yes, alot of profit to be made.

In this economy? If a game isn’t on sale for 20$ or less it’ll have to wait.

For me yeah but I don’t necessarily blame them. Gran Turismo 7 is consistently expensive as well.

Is priced exactly how it is currently on Xbox and Steam so I don't understand the controversy, PlayStation should get special treatment? It will be on sale many times over just like the first batch of Xbox games so this is definitely a non issue.

@AdamNovice It would be a choice irony if the PS5 MCC collection had a fully updated/patched version of the whole schmeer on disc while the XBox version is (thanks to all the additions and such) a glorified access key these days.

I’d still buy a copy, though!

@Juanalf This reaction confuses me, too. It’s the same game, same pricing, same addons. I get that we like to pay less for things when possible, but that likely won’t happen till it comes time to delist Horizon 5 due to licensing. Horizon 4 got INSANE discounts shortly before that, so I guess any holdouts will get their chance for a discount in a few years!

£55 is good for this game. It is the best racing game hands down.

But it should be £60 with both dlcs at this time. The 'early access' is a complete joke btw.

Every game they've brought over so far has been reduced within the first 2 to 3 months in a sale.

Sony did this on pc with until dawn, talk about that. I already played that game on PS4 now they want full price for it on pc like it's a new game

Too high for me, I'll probably wait until it comes to about £15-£20

@OldGamer999 I feel like you need to adjust your expectations. Microsoft didn’t start porting over the IPs to PlayStation…Their rival…for free. They’re trying to make money, and they’re good at making money. The chances of them EVER giving PlayStation owners a free game because they already bought it on Xbox are EXTREMELY slim. There is about a 2% (rough estimate) chance of that ever happening.

@GeeForce RIGHT?!?!?!

It's a 4 year old title it should've had a permanent price drop by this point

This is the third article on Forza Horizon (PS)5 this weekend. Slow news weekend clearly!

Xbox do lots more sales than Sony imo so hopefully this game will get into lots of peoples’ collections. Astonishing game. Cross progression would be nice as I have it on PC.

My initial gut feeling was that it was priced a bit too high, idk why. But thinking about it and knowing thats it’s priced $60 in the Xbox store, i think it’s perfectly fair.

I do think it’s a bit disappointing thats it’s not a complete edition. But yeah the price is definitely fair, and as many have pointed out you can always wait for a sale. Personally, i wont be buying the game, but call me when Fable gets ported

£84.99 preordered. (Don’t care about the early access but the DLC is great). I own the Xbox version and it’s worth every penny. It’s a bargain for what you get.

It's the same price on Xbox and people are still happy to pay the same price for remastered PS4 games

What most don't factor in is that Sony has to get 30% of all sales on it's platform, so that is an immediate loss for Microsoft. So naturally it won't be reduced in any fashion.

"When a game is a late port it's often cheaper or has extras"

Unless you're called Nintendo Switch at which point it's always the same as original launch price or more expensive than originally and the market shows that that's A-OK.

Welcome aboard!

Its the same price as it is on Xbox so it was never going to be cheaper on PS5.

Whatever happened to "Support the Devs" and "I'd even pay $150 as its a good game" and other such nonsense?

Why does the wallet snap shut when its not Sony trying to fleece its player base? How much is Sony going to charge to give players yet another unneeded ReMaster with next to no changes, additions or updates simply because it needs cash quickly without the risk or cost of developing a new game?

And now you get upset because MicroSoft is treating you the same as its own playerbase?

I'm surprised people expected it cheaper. It's a Microsoft game. No way we're they giving it discounted. It's £50 on steam. Plenty of 4 year old PS games are currently that price or more. There's still bags of content for the price.

I have pre ordered it. Looks amazing. £55 I thought was a fair price.

Looks about the right price- maybe the Deluxe option is pricey but that’s an optional extravagance that’s easy to avoid by buying the Standard version and getting the extra content on offer down the line. Interested to see what the Pro enhancements will be.

It's not my type of game. But I know if the knew Indiana Jones has the same price for base game, I would still pre order it. As I am really excited to check that out. I would still count it as a new release also, so wouldn't feel hard done by, with a new release price point either.

The fact not all the DLC is included in any of the versions is the real scam lol

@Drago201 they want Xbox owners in their sub service. They can’t offered too good a deal else people might just buy games they want to play. Even people here are claiming it’s “free” on Xbox at £15 a month it’s not free. They want people to stick with £15 a month

Of course it’s too expensive. Any digital only game usually is. I can go pick up the physical xbox version from CEX right now for £8

@czDante92 Exactly! MS bring us your games and don’t you dare charge us the same price as you charge your old loyal customers!

Only Sony has the right to charge us the same price for Miles Morales as it did on its release even though the game as no real post launch support. How does MS dare releasing more games on PS then Sony and expect us to pay full price for them. The game should be given to us on PS Plus at this point since it’s free on gamepass.

It'll bring the prices down they said, it's so convenient they said. Here's your rosey digital future. Enjoy!

No it’s not high at all. It’s a “new” game for the PS base. Besides Forza horizons are full games. If the price is too high then one can always get subsidized gamepass to play Microsoft games. The price is competitive with every other digital release on PS.

@johncalmc people expect everything to be free and cheap. All while the gaming industry suffers from inflation like everything else. Then people get sad when studios close. Video games are such a cheap form of entertainment compared to the hours of value they provide.

Anyone else feeling graphically this generation has stared to get weak and games are not looking outstanding.

I mean take FH5, HFW burning shores absolutely stunning looking games. But in 2024 and so far this year and maybe Ghost 2 will change this nothing is showing this new generation in its fourth/fifth year as wow look how stunning this looks.

All we get is low 1080p resolutions upscaled which results in not great results.

I mean go play FH5, last of us part 2 even uncharted 4, spider man 2. They hold up easy to anything in 2024 and right now.

Not sure what developers are doing but the graphics and level of detail of new games are getting out shined by 2 and 4 year old games.

I’m sure this is cost cutting and resource issues etc.

I remember even when a few third party games used to look wow when first released.

Remember all the promotions for this generation and demos of game engines etc, they really have not come to fruition.

@Frmknst Completely free? Are you really saying that? Game Pass Ultimate is £180 a year... it's a very long way away from free.

It's fine as it's a new game to the PS ecosystem, ergo it gets a new game price. But there's a wedge of people who've already bought it on Xbox or PC, and an even bigger wedge that have played it via GamePass on Xbox or PC (I'm in that category with Series X that I've since sold). So a full price pickup isn't particularly appealing.

Lightbulb moment - amazing that GamePass has effectively cannibalised Microsoft's sales on a completely different platform where GP isn't even available. It really is a blight on the industry.

@DonkeyFantasy I forgot about the dialogue until you mentioned it...

Its a 'brand new' release on Playstation hardware - the alternative is to buy an Xbox Series X or PC to play this game at least at the same 'quality' settings which will cost you a lot more.

The fact it's a few years old is irrelevant! Games that are 'delayed' on ANY Platform through whatever marketing/exclusivity deals don't release 'cheaper' when they finally come out and if we look at numerous 'remasters' and ports of older generation games to 'current' hardware, these are often releasing at the same price as the new games. The Last of Us Pt 1 cost more for PS5 than it did when it released on PS3 a decade before...

I'd be more annoyed if the game was launching at a more 'expensive' price than it launched on Xbox but it is the SAME price - yes it may now be available on 'sale' - but its regular price not on sale is the SAME as the PS5 launch. Its still the cheapest way to play FH5 if you only have a Playstation.

I won't comment on the price, but all I can say is : this is an incredible game. Xbox is giving here to all Playstation players, maybe, its best game ever released.

Past years, a lot of Xbox games have been called "average" or "cool, but..."

There was one single masterpiece, although, that was as beautiful as immensely fun, and it was this game. Yeah, you understood : I'm a big fan.

I honestly don't know what Microsoft is doing right now for its own brand, I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing. All I can say is I'm glad PS players are going to be able to experience this incredible game.

@Skynet04 On their own storefront maybe. You can shop around at least. I can get the PC/Xbox version for £22.

@johncalmc A new game for playstation is still a 4 year old game for the rest of us. And when I can buy the Xbox/PC version for £22, this is a rip off.

If it exactly matches up with the Xbox store pricing then what is the issue here? PlayStation players can’t expect preferential pricing - unless Microsoft really did want to speedrun killing off Xbox consoles!

@Ilyn but you can buy it second hand on Xbox for £30 on PlayStation there is not an option to do that

Saying it's same price on the Xbox store is just another reason why there should be a physical release I can pick it up for £30 on Xbox physically we don't have that option on PlayStation because of greedy Microsoft they have always hated the second hand market and is slowly getting rid of it and people are not even bothering to fight back anymore

@Dampsponge ok cool how is that a comparison or even relevent Can you buy an Xbox to play it on if you don't already own one for the remaining cost, no!

Sometimes games are discounted in sales on Playstation and not Xbox This is also true vice versa. Promotions and sales happen at different stores & retail outlets not all of them offer the same deals.

Fact is at the moment It's a new game on Playstation store and it has a new game price as a result.

Charging more just prices people out, so fewer sales. It's a stupid strategy. Corporate greed. You would think they would want to make more money by selling more copies, and get more people playing at a lower price.

Vanilla Forza and Horizon are up there with GT so would easily be ranked as amongst the very best racing games on PS5, and with some of the best graphics on the console.

Seems perfectly reasonable pricing.

Surprised that anyone would be passionately complaining about the price.

Anyone who was that passionate and interested in the game has had ample opportunity to play them on XSX - noting you can buy the XSX console used, play the games and then sell the console for what you paid - so excuses about the price of the console are null and void.

Forza Horizon can also be played on a GF Now sub at 4K 120fps, or on a relatively modest PC or gaming laptop. I've even seen videos of it running well on relatively cheap mini-PC's.

So yeah....who are these passionate fans complaining about the price, who couldn't be bothered to jump the incredibly low bar required to play it years ago?

When the PS4 was riding high the only (only) reason to buy an Xbox beyond supporting your purchases was Forza Horizon. I’d still argue the PS4 (and 5) still have nothing as good.

Of course it’s worth £55.

They have a better case for pricing Forza as full price than Nintendo with Donkey Kong Country Returns and that still sold well.

@Kenobi42 selling less at a higher price is often more profitable. Why do you think so many products and services are so high?

@Kenobi42 they're not charging more though.it's the same on Steam as well.

Stop complaining. It's a flagship game from Xbox. This is like Xbox owners complaining about paying full price if Sony ported The Last Of Us and charged full price🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️ why do you people want everything nothing nowadays. Things cost money, get used to it.

@Koren616 You have misunderstood. I'm not comparing sales price to other platforms. I'm talking about charging more / a higher price for a product resulting in it pricing people out. If you don't inflate prices, more people can afford to buy it.

Its the MS Acquisition tax!

But seriously, the best thing they could have done is drop the price across current formats 1st, then match the new prices on PS5.

@OldGamer999
The issue is that unlike more difficult architectures of early console generations, this generation was very easy to program for so the ceiling was hit very early - particularly by Sony themselves (eg Demon Souls, Anything from Insomniac, GOWR, Horizon etc), but also a few others.

Now the same should have been true of last gen too I think, but studios just seem more ready for this gen.

It should also be noted that 1st party dev studios like insomniac had a large input into the key specs of PS5 and Pro - Mark Cerny said as much.

Even less able studios hit their celing early - even if the results were not as good, they were still using all the power the PS5 has to offer, just not as efficiently.

Now you have studios whose ambitions go above the hardware - certainly the base PS5 anyway / their ability with the hardware. Thats when you get low resolutions / performance issues, etc.
We will likely see more and more cases where the Pro is used to 'fix' these issues, as devs effectively target more power than they have in base PS5.

Also remember where a dev team has that all important 'show' footage to wow customers, they may well be using a multi-thousand £ PC, or if they have to use a PS5, a Pro, to make that footage, and it will be from a 30fps mode.
Thats why I have always said all 'show' footage should be mandated as locked 60fps from PS5 - then you really know what you will be getting.

I think it will be a case of when almost everyone that wants it buys the Digital version, A physical Edition will be announced

Surprisingly expensive

@Rich33
I’m pretty sure Sony studios will give us a few games with wow factor before this generation is out, but I don’t think anyone else will, probably not a third party.
Maybe gear e day with the coalition or even fable.

@OldGamer999
Sony are a pretty safe bet at the moment, as really should MS as they should be aiming at Series X, which has more often than not shown itself to be very slightly inferior to PS5, but their output has been somewhat patchy.

@Dampsponge not having an option to buy it second hand is a shame, however in terms of price it means nothing as Microsoft don't control that. Someone could give you a copy for free, but that wouldn't mean all copies should now be free.

So Microsoft gets rid of second hand sales by only doing digital so they control the price

@RiverGenie because in the future you won't be able to buy it cheaper because there won't be any any second-hand copies if it's only digital and they can charge whatever price they want usually digital store sale prices are more expensive than physical why people stand up to greedy corporations I do not understand don't you want consumer rights

Is this any different than when the first Spider-Man released on PC? I could be wrong but I think the full price game was stand alone without the DLC

@Rich33
Time will tell but things definitely haven’t been the same as my favourite era, end of PS3 and PS4 era, amazing times, even with the Xbox one x knocking out the odd cracker as well and Switch giving the big one as well 🤣

@Dampsponge So in the future there will never be sales anywhere ever again Look it's cool if you like physical media and want to collect it.

However to make an argument that just because stuff is digital that you will never get a game cheap is nonsens. My evidence is the myriad of sales that happen every where all the time including digital storefronts.

As with all games now, I'll play it when it comes to ps+ and if it doesnt, ill play whatever does instead.

extremely rare I buy games now, I basically play daily and yet I've bought just 3 games this decade. Once you get passed the initial sense of being left behind as each new big thing comes out and you build up a backlog of games you've not yet played, there's really no need to ever purchase anything else other than my ps+ subscription.

@OldGamer999 no way Sony would allow that. They want that 30% and the higher they can sell a game the higher that 30% is.

It's not the price by itself that irks me. It's the fact that its digital only and on top of that asks full price for a 4 year old game.
Also, I really want the Universal Icons pack but that is not availlable in any of the game's editions, so that would be another €10 added to the total.
This is what the future for gaming is going to be, isn't it?
All digital, meaning no alternative stores with competing prices.
I'm still probably going to get it, but I don't like this precedent at all.

I think the price is a bit high for returning players but not too much that it isn't worth it. Your getting a quality game here, especially if you haven't already played it.

On a personal note I'm not too fussed about the price on this one. I look at how much I'm going to get out of a game and if it's one that's going to make me invest my time in it especially as the golfing weather is on its way and spare time is at a premium for me so no I'm not too bothered about the price. If it supports a steering wheel then even better because I can't play racing games on a pad now unless I absolutely have to...and I don't. I can't wait to be honest.

I think price is fair considering it's new release on PS and Sony takes 30%. But, when full price I always buy physical copy so no way I buy digital game for full price. Will definitely wait for big discount. The same is valid for any other Xbox game ported to ps5, I honestly hope Gears collection will be physical release, if yes, I'll even preorder it

I'd pay $60 for a copy to put on my shelf, another $60 to gift to a friend who loves these kind of games.

With the way they're releasing it, I might be tempted to grab it if it hits $7.99. That's what I'm willing to pay for a digital license for this game.

It's very simple, no disc version, no buy. This is not a small indie studio, they have no excuse

Yes, 70 Euros (tax included) is too high! Digital prices are already relatively high when you consider the profit margins per product sold. But asking such a high price for an older product that has already sold well when it was released...just seems like peeing off customers for the sake of it. I get it, Sony wants their cut too. All the more reason for Microsoft to lower their margins and making sure to create good will with customers. And we all know that they need good PR. 50 Euros (tax included) would seem more reasonable. I'll wait for a deep sale though. So maybe in a year from now.

Ye it's deffo high 1st thing I thought when saw the article and Im on Xbox so doesn't affect me but 1st thing I thought was f that's steep 🤣😭. Suppose it expected tbh though. Guess be same way if we ever (doubt it'll happen) get some ps games on Xbox although id happily pay the full price for ratchet n astro 😅

It's a current gen game so I'm actually surprised it isn't more expensive. The way Sony have been repackaging PS4 games at high prices suggests Microsoft could charge more.

The fact it’s a few years old means you get more content than Xbox and PC at launch. It’s a fantastic game. I still play daily on PC. Online racing is still rammed. If there was cross save with the steam version I would probably double dip to play on my OLED TV.

PS5 don't have anything like it, the price is adequate for the game.

Horizon 5 Xbox Premium Edition as Download code is @21,49€ on G2A... standard is @11,63€ lol. I think a price point of 39,99€ on PS5 would be fair for standard and 59,99€ for Premium. Everything else is not good for a 4 year old game imo.

Next big news will be: Gran Turismo goes open world in GT Forever. Makes Horizon obsolete. Sorry for double post.

Growing up for me, the price of games were approximately £29.99 ($34.99), the price I paid for Dizzy Egg for my Atari Amstrad desktop gaming machine. I don't remember when the price changed, but I do think anything above £59.99 has to be truly special!! I do think Forza is about right in the price band.

In the states it's 3rd and 4th(premium and standard edition) on the pre-order charts. Maybe similar elsewhere. Just saiyan.

It's already a top seller on PS Store. That's the answer to your question

@EfYI Mate, have you checked how much Gran Turismo 7 cost on PS Store? Since it's game of similar age as Forza Horizon 5.
And what do you think GT7 would have cost on Xbox, if Sony decided to make an Xbox port now?

There are no apologists. FH5 is best sim-cade racer on the market with humongous amount of additional content that was provided for free after launch. Game is coming on PS5 with new update also. Basically only competition is The Crew Motorfest. Microsoft would be dumb to price it lower. Especially when there is a cheaper way to play it - through Game Pass.

It's hilarious to read PS fans to talk about, how they are willing to pay for quality games (instead of those pesky Xbox fans who are not buying games, only playing them through Game Pass). And now when they have ability to buy 92MC rated racing game, they are complaining.

Do I think all games are priced too high? Yes. However, having just played this on Gamepass, it is like a lot of MS games - aggressively monetized. It is comparable to the purchase price on Xbox. It will go on sale pretty quickly for the base game, but the paid additional content is pretty large and expensive.

£54.99 seems about right to me, it will probably go on sale at some point. guess it just highlights the benefit of having all these games on gamepass

@EfYI the game isnt a 100 dollars the game its $59.99

@ParboldCoder used to be able to buy a house for 20k too

@ParboldCoder - $34.99 USD in 1990 to today is $81.00…so I don’t know what you’re complaining about…

@EfYI Early Access is probably only "bad" part about this, I agree. It's honestly so bad it's hilarious. Rest of the package is solid.

If you are crying that The Crew Motorfest is cheaper, then buy The Crew Motorfest. Plain and simple. Forza Horizon 5 costs same amount of money on PS Store as it cost on Xbox Store. So I really don't get the complaints. And since Forza Horizon 5 is charting higher then The Crew Motorfest with discount, it's pretty clear where users chose to spend their money lol.

I will repeat myself. I was reading for more than 5 years that PS users don't need first-party games day one in subscription because they "want to support the devs and quality." And now when they have chance to do exactly that, they are complaining about price. Comedy gold.

Btw. new Forza is pretty much given. That's why Playground Games has "Fable team" and "Forza team." And PS5 release won't change anything about it. It's just "free money" for Microsoft. Game sold est. 7 million copies on PC alone. And has 44 million users .

Me and the boys are big fans of racers, But none of us really liked this when we played a year or so ago on gamepass.

First off, I played this for a bit on XBox Series S, and it's not any better than the last version (maybe worse). I got bored with it long before I unlocked everything, while I enjoyed Forza Horizon 4 a lot longer.

I don't expect the PS5 version to be priced differently - but that also means I expect it to go on sale on the PS5 when it goes on sale on the XBox, for about the same price. The $100 edition has already been on sale as low as $45 on Xbox (source: xbdeals.net), so I expect a similar price before the end of the year for the PS5 version.

@EfYI the game is $59.99 if you want to buy ultimate edition then thats your choice it is also $54.99 on the xbox store.

Not it's not. Are ps5 remasters of PS4 games you can already play on ps5 to highly priced? Yes

@Ilyn The difference is the Xbox version is 'Play Anywhere' so you also get the PC and handheld version included Free.

@EfYI "I just think it is funny to see M$ pandering/hustling in $ony's backyard."

Just like Sony with their PC releases, right?

@Godot25 Yep the entitlement here is astonishing. First the outrage over their 'exclusives' releasing on PC (at full price too I may add), now this. Love to see it.

I own Halo mcc and gears of war digitally so i have no problem if ps5 dont get physicals of it. Ill gladly rebuy it just to plat them. All these talks of no physical no buy is ridiculous since sony pushed for ps5 pro with no disc drive.

@EfYI pure waffle.