Forza Horizon 5 sold 2 million copies on PS5 in a single month (updated)

UPDATE: The Microsoft employee in question has clarified that the sales figure is not official, and was based around Alinea Analytics estimates.

"I unfortunately don't actually have any internal sales figures lol. I simply picked that number from this analytics post earlier this month."

Forza Horizon 5 reportedly sold 2 million copies on PS5 in its first month, according to a now-edited LinkedIn page of a Forza developer.

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The Forza Horizon series is one of Xbox's most popular video game franchises, reaching 45 million players worldwide. Forza Horizon 5 was chosen to be among the first Xbox exclusive AAA games to come to PS5. New sales data reports underline why this decision was made, showing that Microsoft was apparently on the right (race) track by prioritizing Horizon instead of Motorsport.

Unfortunately, a lot of the info we're now getting is a result of the Xbox layoffs. Microsoft recently laid off more than 9,000 employees company wide, and major Xbox studios were hit, including the team that makes Forza games, Turn 10. Reports indicate that 50% of Turn 10's staff was laid off as part of the personnel cuts, and that Forza Motorsport is effectively on ice as Xbox prioritizes Forza Horizon.

Now thanks to a recent LinkedIn CV, we have a better understanding of why Horizon was prioritized. Playground Games co-founder Gavin Raeburn says that Forza Horizon makes more money than all of its competitors combined--Gran Turismo, F1, Need for Speed, The Crew, etc.

According to Harrison Bolin, a former Turn 10 game designer, Forza Horizon 5 sold a whopping 2 million copies on PlayStation 5 in its first month of availability. The game launched on April 29 on PS5. Bolin has since edited his page to remove all references to FH5 game sales on PS5, so we've included side-by-side comparisons.

Upon release, Forza Horizon 5 helped Microsoft conquer the PlayStation Store's charts in April. Microsoft also topped the PS Store's top downloads list in May with the help of the racing game.

Microsoft hasn't discussed any details on sales figures for its exclusivity-breaking Xbox games. Typically, the company will only announce a game's active playerbase, which is a combination of game sales and Game Pass access.

Analyst firm Alinea Analytics estimated Forza Horizon 5 sold 1.3 million copies on PS5 in May.