I'm Glad Forza Horizon 5 Is Coming To PS5 - It Finally Signals The Start Of Xbox's Best Era

Feb 6, 2025 - 19:00

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Forza Horizon 5

I completely understand the frustration surrounding Forza Horizon 5 no longer retaining its Xbox exclusivity, as I too used to be a huge advocate for exclusives remaining exclusive. I remember, with a tinge of remorse, being determined that my favorite games stayed on the platforms I had and that anyone else who wanted to play it needed to buy my console of choice. Of course, I've since grown substantially and realized how trivial that sounds now. After all, there's nothing better than everyone being able to enjoy a masterpiece.

However, the situation surrounding Forza Horizon 5 on PS5 poses a far greater existential problem as it marks the start of a great shift in Xbox's release strategy, and more importantly, its entire identity. This isn't merely Xbox testing the waters as it had done with the likes of Sea of Thieves and Pentiment, nor is it a third-party title that it's finally surrendering to PlayStation. Forza Horizon 5 coming to PS5 is a big deal, but one that I strongly believe benefits everyone, including the fans who are watching it go to those they've considered enemies for too long.

Forza Horizon 5 Coming To PS5 Is A Good Thing

It Makes Games More Accessible

For a long time, Xbox was one of the three main competitors in the console space, with its fans dogmatically defending it against those who preferred PlayStation, myself included. However, dwindling console sales and a lack of newer titles, coupled with the failings of the Xbox One resulting in users having little to migrate to their new next-gen hardware, means that Xbox is very much on the back foot. It has been tough to watch, especially as someone who spent the majority of his teens playing on the 360 and loving absolutely every second of it.

Of course, this downward trend has seen Xbox shift to taking on more of a publishing role and snapping up third-party developers. However, this could only work for so long as PlayStation's installation base is simply far greater than Xbox could ever hope to achieve. I'd like to say that I predicted Xbox porting its exclusives to PS5, but it came as a shock to me when Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves made the leap. However, from that moment, I was under no illusion that it would stop there, nor did I hope that it would.

It really began to sink in that Xbox was completely giving up any pretense of maintaining a footing in the long-since irrelevant console wars when it announced that Forza Horizon 5 would be coming to PS5. To relinquish Forza Horizon 5, one of the great tenets of Xbox's exclusives, feels like Xbox's biggest sacrifice. It is absolutely losing a fundamental piece of its entire sense of self, but, in doing so, is ensuring its survival and making the gaming landscape, at least for the consumer, a far better place.

Exclusives, as much as they encourage healthy competition - something I have advocated for for a while - are a thing of the past, an obsolete model from which to build a fanbase. They divide players, shrink the potential market, and as a result, reduce sales. Square Enix has found this to be the case with the Final Fantasy series on PlayStation just as much as Xbox has with its plethora of failed exclusives. Putting games on as many platforms as possible not only builds healthy fanbases, but it also ensures a far wider pool of income, which benefits everyone.

It Marks The Start Of A New Era

Emmerich Voss Scowling at Indy in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

I remember walking into my local game store when I first got the PS4, looking for new games. Despite it defying literally all sense and logic at the time, I was hoping to grab either Halo or Gears of War. When I eventually realized that both games were locked to the Xbox One, I begrudgingly relented and went home. At that moment, when I finally saw all the games I'd no longer be able to play without paying out another huge amount of money, I finally understood the frustration of exclusive games.

An Xbox Series S with characters from Avowed next to it.

Xbox Should Keep Supporting The Xbox Series S, But Not For Every Game

Despite the significant challenges developers have faced, Xbox wants to continue releasing its first-party games on both the Series S and X.

That's why Forza Horizon 5 coming to PS5, which marks the beginning of Xbox's best era, is such a big deal, as no longer do people have to suffer from such frustrations. While admittedly a very trivial problem in the grand scheme of things, this concept of withholding art to a specific platform feels utterly archaic, as it divides those with money from those without, further worsening access to culture to those who need it the most.

While I'm not certain we'll shift to cloud gaming in the very near future, Xbox's first steps at dropping its exclusivity of some of its biggest games - with the likes of Halo reportedly coming to Switch - are the closest we've gotten to a world in which people don't need to spend $1000 just to play the games they want to. It encourages easier access to art in a way that even TV and films are struggling to do thanks to the rise of streaming services, which can only be a good thing.

I'm not particularly worried about Xbox losing its identity as a major player in the console space, much like Atari and SEGA did decades before it, and indeed feel it important to stress that I hope PlayStation follows suit.

It also sees Xbox's revenue increase thanks to the sudden influx of available platforms to release on. Naturally, the finances of a billion-dollar corporation isn't something I'm particularly invested in. However, having more money means that Xbox can invest more in a better and, hopefully, better value Game Pass, as well as sorely needed indie games. This is why I'm not particularly worried about Xbox losing its identity as a major player in the console space, much like Atari and SEGA did decades before it, and indeed feel it important to stress that I hope PlayStation follows suit.

I Hope PlayStation Learns From Xbox

Exclusives Need To Go

Atsu riding a horse with a castle in the distance in Ghost of Yotei.

PlayStation and Nintendo are the final holdouts in a console war that feels as if it ended years ago, with both developing games that feel intrinsically a part of them. It seems almost impossible for PlayStation's brand of single-player narrative-focused games with a lot of sliding between narrow walls and walking along cliff edges very slowly to release on any other platform. Similarly, I cannot envision a world in which Mario games are playable on Xbox.

However, as much as those games currently do well on their respective platforms, it is only a matter of time before the influx of PC handhelds and a rising need for PC ports - especially for Sony - make the concept of individual consoles feel redundant. Currently, on my ROG Ally, I can play Xbox games, PlayStation games, and indies via Steam. People have also - although I absolutely do not condone it - found ways of emulating Nintendo games on PC handhelds. These devices completely change the way we perceive the gaming landscape, and soon, I imagine, they'll dominate the space completely.

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I hope then that PlayStation also begins making its major first-party titles multiplatform to further increase people's access to video games. It may sound a tad idealistic, especially as PlayStation is still doing extremely well, despite a bizarre lack of any actual first-party games on the PS5, but I'm hopeful that it'll happen, eventually. Who knows, maybe Forza Horizon 5 could be the start of a revolution in gaming, and potentially even all media, that sees people's access to art no longer be restricted to how many consoles or subscription services they can afford to pay for.

Source: Sea of Thieves/YouTube