This is more of adding to the subject than a direct reply. I believe a big reason for the divide is just simply that Matchbox made a more diverse line up of cars, where as Hot Wheels, then and to this day is 70% American cars, a lot that are fairly obscure to European kids. As a kid I had things like Vauxhall Cavaliers, Ford Sierras, Escort XR3/Cosworth, too many to name but there were all the mundane relatable cars and the performance cars and Iconic race cars of the era. Hot Wheels only started showing up once they bought Matchbox and I only had about 10 or so and I never cared for the crazy decals or unlicensed stuff.
Although Hot wheels is now more popular in Europe because Mattel give their baby a larger budget to play with. You never see Matchbox adverts unlike Hot Wheels, HW gets 4 Layers of decals opposed to MBX’s 2 and Hot Wheels can have a higher metal content. Plus sine Mattel bought MBX in the late 90’s they went from doing real cars to things like a police badge with wheels or a rhino car etc, just look up Hero city. Then in 2006 to 2011 they went back to the realistic mundane cars that people really were a fan of, but in 2012 they went crazy on decals, off road vehicles, plastic bodies, basically fantasy generic brightly coloured plastic utility vehicles. Thankfully they are now back to the realistic cars albeit from a Americanized point of view.
So Its purely down to the fact that Matchbox make more cars that us in Europe find more relatable (I just picked up a M5 Police car, ND MX-5, 1969 Nissan Skyline, Jag F-Type, 300C and a Volvo V60 Polestar) and Hot Wheels make more cars that Americans would like. Hot Wheels have brought out the first Jaguar in about 10 years for example, where as out of the 300 cars they release every year, you can always guarantee about 5-10 different Mustangs and they same for Camaros. Also the fact they might release one Jaguar, Aston Martin, Maserati every couple years and that out of the 8-9 different versions of the 5th gen Camaro that constantly see release, you can see why its perhaps still not as popular or as recognised as Matchbox in Europe.
They have a pretty big BMW special thing going on and I always see quite a few Nissan whatevers and civics . you are a bit exaggerating on the number of mustangs and camaros. The only ones I collect are the oddball ones they have like the Vega and g bodies and of course any trans am .
I personally, love the aesthetic of the game. I call myself a car Fanatic and seeing this stupid new DLC I start to abhor Turn10. I see cars as a piece of art and art is defined vastly different, since aesthetic itself has no definition. But at some point, aesthetics can turn into something grotesque which I think they achieved well and after purchasing the Deluxe Edition for 100Euro, which made me really madd, since I did not receive a lot of additional content they offered later on, im really glad I havent spent more Money on the season pass and the additional DLC´s.
TL:DR : You like the new Hotweels DLC or not? I personally think: An absolute NO-GO!
Can’t wait to actually play this. I was…well still am…a huge hotwheels fan. It might not be realistic, but it should be fun. Brings me back to the good old days of world race.
Hey we will know how good the expansion is tomorrow cause tomorrow is the release date and we will be able to test each car out and if I am correct the cars will be free for the first purchase like the Blizzard Mountain cars where and I wonder what car we will start with when we first go to the Hot Wheels world I think it might be the Rip Rod
I think that Twin Mill is reward like Focus RS RX.
Perhaps it will be once unless you use AH at an opportunity to obtain the monster of the twin-engine…
This was the point I was hopeing to get across Forza racing games are sold world wide, in many many countries and in different lanuages. Yet they seem to have forgetten that some how. After years of having cars from all over the world as well as different tracks from arround the world. The Horizon series up till this HW release has used the country it is depecting to set the theme of the main game and to some extent the the add ons, BM was a good add on in keeping with the Australian theme. But Hot Wheels is almost a totaly American theme. And sets an entirely different atmosphere from the organized open world road racing it has all ways been about.
Horizon has all ways been about competing in organized races on every day roads. Not Plastic click together tracks.
You guys did read where I preferred Matchbox, right. So I pretty much agree with everything you said except for whole stereotyping inferences Americans are Hotwheels and Matchbox are Europeans.
I understand why HW did what they did. They were competing against Matchbox. They chose a fantasy edge after all these where toys/models. Again I PREFERRED matchbox too.
This is how either worked for me and probably this expansion too:
Get the track set. Build the track set. Run cars on it once. Then do it again with neighbors. Then make biggest downhill starting point using dressers and pillows to see which cars could go fastest, jump the furthest. But most time was spent collecting the cars and playing with out the tracks.
Majorette! Completely forgot about them. Had loads of metal cars when I was a kid. Still have quite a few dotted around my house at the age of 34… the wife is very happy about that
I am not specifically saying Americans don’t know or like Matchbox. I am saying that when I grew up, almost nobody had HW where I live in Europe and that I think HW is more popular in the US compared to the EU (at least when I grew up).
I am sure there are people in Europe who prefer HW and people in the US that prefer Matchbox, but I do think that the majority of people who grew up with HW are Americans (but I never lived in the US, so maybe I am wrong).
Maybe nowadays that’s not true anymore as HW seems to have had a big push in Europe as well (but I am 33, so I am not completely sure when that happened).
I am not saying one is better then the other either (although I do prefer more realistic looking cars myself, I understand why people like the crazy HW cars with all the tracks).
It’s just pure preference.
