Yup, just what I suspected.
“Forza Motorsport 7 wasn’t received very well”
Then the article links to another article by Polygon that praises the game, lol.
Where did Esaki say this stuff? #ForzaMonthly? Would be nice to watch the actual footage.
Bringing Motorsport and Horizon closer together wasn’t very good for the franchise as a whole. FM7 is the more serious game between the two and its incorporation of certain goofy elements from FH3 and 4 just didn’t work. Esaki’s words are confirmed by what we’ve been getting in FM7 lately, I mean, we got cars like the Roush Turbo Mustang, 917 Pink Pig, Skyline Super Silhouette, AMR1 and now the Merkur XR4Ti, all of which rare cars with varying degrees of history in motorsports. And the new unicorn is the Diablo GTR, which had its Supertrophy series in the late 1990s and was converted into FIA GT-spec by Reiter in the early 2000s.
I usually look forward to Chris’ interviews in #ForzaMonthly, as he’s always honest and clear. The game is on the right path now, all that’s needed is some more polish with regards to car bugs. Unsurprisingly, the racing is also far better than in Horizon so Microsoft knows that they need somewhere to channel the more serious racers into now that Horizon has completed its metamorphosis into a full-blown arcade title.
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I suspect a 3rd forza franchise, increasing the dev cycle for each title to 3 years instead of 2.
The development cycle is already at 2.5-3yrs. By the Tune one game is released, 18mths has already been spent behind the scene on the next iteration of a franchise. There needs to be an overlap otherwise the game would take much longer to be released. I’ve worked with developers via a website I had. And they always stipulated that the ‘percieved’ Window by the public is much smaller than it actually is.
The moment a game approaches gold, the team that had been working on the game about to be released, moves across to the smaller team that has been building the game behind the scenes for the last 12 - 18 mths min.
We would get Developememt kit code (only avail on disc from the developer and only playable in what’s called a Dev-Kit) not long after the newest game is released. Meaning that they had been working on the next iteration for done time.
Chris and Aaron in the latest Forza Monthly stream indicated very clearly that they had come into this game with the intention of pushing the physics of FM(7) much further than currently is available. To bring it to the forefront of all computer rac8ng console games. Watch the stream towards the last half . .and listen clearly.
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Improvements? Ghost Sim Leagues and MP lobbies plus more tracks please.
If you watch and ‘listen’ to the October Streaming you’ll hear their first main focus is and should be the physics of the game. Which is the foundation of any racing game. They have made some changes already in the recent updates.
I grabbed two cars that handled like brats on Indy oval, sliding everywhere, even though they were cars designed for those tracks.
Both the Corvette and the Ford DPS and I can tell you, both stuck to the track, unlike they used to. I could do the fastest laps I’ve ever done even against Pro and Unbeatable opponents in long enduro races. I could setbthe car up to litterattly run flat strap through every corner without lifting, unless there was traffic.
Whereas before, I had to either change gear to regain traction and control. But not any more. And on various circuits, the cars I had issues with, handled much better. But those I had over compensated in suspension changes, handled worse. Needing to be returned to standard settings, then retweaked where nessesary.
They havent released any of those updates yet.
. He did say minor increases had been made, listen to the stream. It’s aftervthe discussion regarding the collision dynamics, which have not been released yet. But minor changes have been made. As two cars I definitely had huge issues with, now perform beautifully.
Edit: to P00hjead. I take your thoughts and yes, you’re correct. I must have been so excited that between watching the Zbathurst Supercars race, and listening to Chris, things merged into one hehe.
But true. I can see some tweaks in how some of my set ups are handling. Mostly in hiwbthe tyre to road adhesion exists. So ‘so ething’ Has happened. As the week before, the cars handled like a sloppy sock on a glossy globe. Not very well lol.
But now, ,I stick where I need to, without a single change. Each were original tunes, no mods made at all.
Looking forward to the next few years as the franchise moves forward.
There must be more going on. I dont understand why they dont put all this effort towards FM8, a game they can sell, instead of putting it into 7 when they get nothing in return. Only to turn around and put all those changes into 8 and release a game that is comparatively the same.
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Because it no longer suits the overal business model of the franchise.
You have a piece of hardware that will exceed the limits needed and allow complete online racing, which is where their focus is solidly at presently, somthere will be no more consoles, as we know them. Already they recommend you buy externalmterabyte hdd’s, as expansion on the Hardware is no longer viable.
The game has reached its peak, and will simply changebto Forza Motorsports (period) . . . . Way back in 20190, at E3,mwhich I attended and whichbwas the release of the 360 Slim, I still have mine from that E3, and it works a treat.
However, at that event, there was muttering that by the end of the next decade, we will simply have a single game, which will run online, helped in homes by a monster teraflop Machine. Which is already here.
It’s not the end. In fact, it’s the beginning of a new wave or era. So let’s not bemoan the fact that change is occurring. Look at the fact that ppl like Chris Esaki are bringing excellent physics to the game. Physics that will take it into the next level of racing.
Yet to be introduced is the new collision physics. Both fir online (MP) and Forza FC, but also Carrer and Single Player.
But like Aaron stated, it takes time. And working on a new iteration, would simply take them away from a model that they are continuing to tweak.
If T10 had left FM7 behind in the state it was around April this year, they would never have the opportunity to sell an FM8 in the future, as they would’ve killed the franchise there and then. If FH4 had had a trouble-free release, it would’ve been the final nail in their coffin.
As a comparison, SMS is a small fish next to them, but they announced Project CARS 2 a week after the release of Project CARS 1, which had all sorts of problems on release day and had been delayed twice for “polishing”. This decision rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, especially after the aggressive marketing campaigns by SMS, which involved things like letting rash fanboys loose in sim racing forums.
With Microsoft wanting a share of the PC gaming market, and with Forza Horizon draining the casual fanbase away from Motorsport, T10 can’t afford to simply give up on their game and earn themselves an even worse reputation than they had when the game was released.
Luckily for them in their friendly rivalry, not only did they have two great updates in July and August, but also FH4 launched with serious issues of its own. It’s gonna be more commercially successful, but a sizeable part of the community has found the game underwhelming next to the promises made by Playground. I myself was considering dropping FM7 for a while due to the connection issues I have, but the racing in FH4 is ironically one of its weakest aspects and the game is still in its initial stages, so a return to FM7 seems appealing to me. I would miss the Escort RS Turbo, but I would go back to the 964 Turbo S!
There’s also the fact FM7 is close to the limits of the Xbox One X. Make yourself some taxing scenarios and you’ll see fps drop below 60, especially during starts. There’s no point in releasing an FM8 with barely any graphical improvements, and not much room to develop physics when you’re designing yet another full game from scratch.
It’s actually very possible that, once Project Scarlet hits the stores, FM7 is not phased out, but morphs into the definitive… Forza Motorsport. I trust T10 can duke it out with the big boys and, in the console market, defeat Gran Turismo. The team does not seem to share Kaz’s stubbornness, for one.
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You can argue that but I see no evidence that’s how things work in the videogame industry. I also dont see any evidence that the Forza franchise was in danger due to FM7.
The problem with what you are saying is that huge numbers of the player base give up the game in less than 90 days, this is true for all videogames not just Forza. The same is true for sales, 90 - 120 days after release, sales are done with.
T10 is releasing updates for a game where 90% have moved on to something else and wont come back until FM Next. Whatever “reputation” T10 and Forza got from FM7, they are stuck with it. The vast majority of FM7 buyers wont see or even know about these updates and may not even notice them if they put the game back in 9 months later.
Are you sure about that? Because ReCore was a flop in 2016 and Microsoft still took the trouble to release a definitive edition of the game. Not only that, it was made available on the Game Pass.
Phil Spencer is currently the guy who calls the shots on the Xbox. “Videogame industry” clichés don’t apply to his leadership, nor with Microsoft’s current role in the industry itself, nor with gaming’s context these days. We’re talking about a guy who, after faced with the disastrous reception to the Crackdown 3 trailer at E3 2017, instead of canning the game like he had to do with Scalebound earlier that year, pushed the game forward and, from the looks of it, will ensure Crackdown 3 gets released no matter what. And this is because the gaming community is sensitive and behaves differently from other groups. Everything happens faster in gaming and you can be hero one day and zero the next.
FM7 at least made it past the million mark but you’re underestimating the impact the loot boxes thing had on people’s opinion of the game. Yes, they went the wrong route with them, but you had media outlets stating blatant lies about the crates in FM7 and people moving with the stream. VIP debacle was salt on the wound.
Forza Motorsport has not been a big moneymaker for Microsoft in years. On the other hand, it’s also one of their most important products, as there’s a lot of money to be made in the sim market, which extends far beyond game sales. They simply couldn’t afford to have an unsuccessful title bring the whole franchise down with it, especially when Horizon had hit a home run with FH3 and could divert much of the licensing budget towards itself.
But I liked that game. I haven’t played it since the definitive edition was released (I have been meaning to go back to it just haven’t done it yet), but I legitimately enjoyed every aspect of the base game. I have 44 hours of playtime in that game and 1000 gamerscore. This was all before the big update that “fixed” everything, and the only issue I ever ran into with the game was the longer than normal load times.
Reputation. Simple as.
The chance of me buying FM8 right now is ZERO. If they actully put some effort and FIX EVERYTHING in FM7, then I will consider getting FM8 in the future for sure. Stop telling companies to sell broken games and fix it in a next title.
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Its the tweaking of the current old model which prevents them working on the next model, where their future income lies.
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I did watch it and didnt hear anywhere that they had released changes, only that there were testing everything out on a private build not available to the public yet.
They arent going to change the performance of the cars as that would mean changing the PI system and anither wipe of the leaderboards. Thats why all the changes are to collisions and/or as an assist.
Lots of people think that somehow some part of the physics gets changed after every update or that handling has changed after they’ve been away for a while.
Apart from tweaks to the structure of the game such as removing loot crates, everything else looks to be focused on the game engine (Forzatech). The engine is by far and away the most important and complex element of any game. Just look at how many titles are built on 3rd party engines even by major studios.
Commercially FM7 is fast approaching the end of its money making life (as do all games 12 months after launch) so where better to test and implement changes and have them beta tested. For T10 this would provide two major benefits. Firstly, FM8 would be a far more polished product and other than new tracks, cars and modes, by ready to launch very quickly. Secondly, T10 could go where the real money is in having other studios use their engine. Something they haven’t much done in the past.
If you want to see where a studio is heading just go look at their job vacancies. In the case of T10 it’s development of the game engine, multi player and art/design.
Logically, T10 aren’t doing any of the current development for the sake of FM7. That horse has bolted. What we’re seeing is the direction and improvement they have in mind for the next game/s to hit the shelves.
They won’t go enforced full sim - not enough money in it, but what is interesting is how some of the new physics are selectable. It may suggest that a player will be able to set up his/her races anywhere between “standard Forza” and something much closer to simulation.
Anyway, it all bodes well.
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Some great thoughts in here!
I for one am pleased they won’t stubbornly try to keep the franchise in the two year cycle anymore. Fm7 was a disaster at the release and after 12 months there is still some big features missing and many others to fix. The support given post release has been excellent though and much needed. With the major updates coming, especially all the discussion about the ffb, the Forza future looks very promising to me.
ThanaJ
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