Microsoft’s business strategy of moving past the limitations of proprietary platforms seems to be bearing fruit this year, based on sales numbers trickling in for the first half of 2025. So far, it seems that the most successful game on the PS5 is none other than Forza Horizon 5, a former Xbox exclusive racing game that originally came out four years ago.
According to figures shared by the Alinea Insight newsletter, Forza Horizon 5 has reached 3 million units sold on PS5, which makes it the top-selling game on the platform thus far. It’s followed by titles like Monster Hunter Wilds (2.9 million) and Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2 million) on the charts. Both Wilds and Shadows lead the pack for best-selling games across all platforms based on the latest numbers shared by Circana, which places Forza Horizon 5 in the top 20 overall. Forza Horizon 5’s sales are impressive, though, when you consider that it hit PS5 in April 2025 — so it’s only had a few months to reach the top of the PlayStation charts. Perhaps it helped that the open-world racer was recently on a 25% sale.
Forza Horizon 5 is the latest in a long line of Xbox ports hitting PlayStation, which include exclusives like Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, and Grounded. Arguably, though, the cross-platform tactic isn’t a new one for Microsoft — games like Minecraft are platform agnostic. But the approach has proven controversial for fans who believe in things like ‘console wars,’ and customers who purchased an Xbox for the specific purpose of enjoying its exclusive games. While these people might be unhappy to know good Forza sales could motivate Microsoft to port even more titles to other platforms, the numbers also prove audiences are hungry to play these experiences outside of the Xbox ecosystem. More people playing a game doesn’t magically erase any enjoyment someone might’ve derived from it in the past.
Microsoft also hasn’t necessarily ported every big exclusive on its platform to the PS5, like Starfield or Avowed — at least not yet. But at this point, if an announcement does come down the pike, it shouldn’t be surprising. Xbox executives have been saying for a long time now that the company wants to bring its games to as many screens as possible. It’s also not alone in the strategy of releasing a timed exclusive, as evidenced by PS5 exclusives like Death Stranding going multiplatform years after its original release.
Plus, there are still reasons to buy an Xbox — at least you can’t get subscription services like Game Pass on PS5. But with numbers like the ones Forza Horizon 5 is reaching, the reign of timed exclusives will probably continue for basically everyone but Nintendo.
