For several months, the question of the future of Forza Motorsport was hovering in the Xbox community. Phil Spencer, boss of Microsoft Gamingfinally provided a clear answer during an interview with Famitsu. Far from announcing the end of the series, he recognized that the franchise was temporarily taking a back seat.
“When it comes to Forza Motorsport, sometimes we need to focus on games that release more quickly,” he explained, in response to fans’ concerns after workforce reductions at Turn 10 Studios. This studio, at the origin of the series, now seems to work at a more spaced out pace.
Launched in 2005 on Xbox, Forza Motorsport has established itself as Microsoft’s answer to Gran Turismowith a more realistic approach than its more arcade cousin, Forza Horizon. But in recent years, communication around the license has become rare, to the point of fueling rumors of an outright shutdown.
Phil Spencer justifies Microsoft Gaming’s strategy
For Phil Spencer, this break is part of a priority management strategy. “We understand the reaction of many to the downsizing of Turn 10 Studios,” he acknowledged. The idea is not to overload the teams and to better distribute resources between the numerous projects in progress.
“We have many games that we want to support carefully, and we sometimes give development teams more time to avoid constantly overloading them,” he said. Clearly, Forza Motorsport is not abandoned, but integrated into more flexible planning.
This vision builds on Microsoft’s current structure of more than 20 internal studios. “Our current structure, with several studios, allows this flexibility,” explained the manager. Each team can therefore alternate between short-term projects and more ambitious projects, with longer deadlines.
“We sincerely wish the success of the games we publish,” concluded Phil Spencer, emphasizing that the temporary withdrawal of Forza Motorsport was intended to better prepare it for a solid return.
A multiplatform future for Forza Motorsport?
The other data which revives the speculations concerns Microsoft’s recent cross-platform policy. The recent port of Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 shows that the publisher is ready to open its historical licenses to other consoles. This approach, unpublished a few years ago, could apply to Forza Motorsport.
If this series has always been exclusively linked to the Xbox ecosystemits realistic simulation approach gives it potential on other platforms, particularly among PlayStation players who are fans of Gran Turismo. Forza Horizon’s precedent proves that such a scenario is no longer improbable.
While awaiting official communication on the future of the license, the latest version of Forza Motorsport remains available on Xbox Series X/S. But with a release window now uncertain for the sequels, the spotlight is turning to other, more active in-house licenses, like Halo Or Avowed.