No love for physical copies and is the Ultimate Edition really Ultimate?

Forza Motorsport Legacy Motorsport
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First off I think FM6 will be a great game. This may be premature but, I will get it out in hopes to reaffirm the market for physical copies of games. There seems to be a big push by both XBox and PS4 camps to sell digital games. Forza Motorsport 6 is looking to be a prime example. I hope that long time Forza fans and fanatics like myself are given the opportunity to purchase an equivalent physical copy of the digital Ultimate edition. I would like physical media commemorating my enjoyment of the Forza franchise. A sleek attractive game case that outshines the Forza 2, 3, 4, 5, Horizon, and Horizon 2 cases I still keep proudly displayed. I would also like to do so while receiving every car and perk the ultimate digital edition gets.

Why do loyal Forza fans looking for a way to physically exhibit their pride and joy in what is one of or the best racing franchises in XBox history have to be excluded or deprived?

Its also getting really tiring shelling out premium dollars for VIP and limited, editions, and a season pass and not be afforded the opportunity to purchase every vehicle that is available before my season pass ends. I really dislike the different preorder bonus cars from different retailers. Depriving me of one or several cars I really want because I purchased from Gamestop instead of Best Buy or Amazon is a royal pain in the you know what. Then wait almost a year before I can buy the vehicles in a preorder pack after most of my friends list has moved on to other games is just ludicrous.

News flash they are all going to sell the product. Consumers will buy from their preferred retailers. In some cases they will not because the car they want from a preorder bonus is not available from their favorite retailer.

I love everything I have read and watched about the game itself thus far.

It is the handling of the bonus content that has me at a boiling point. Why can’t it be the Ultimate version whether a physical or digital copy provides every car available in Forza regardless of where I purchased.

Liveries from contests I understand but , Turn10, Microsoft, and Playground PLEASE for the love of God stop with the separate preorder cars, additional cars for digital vs physical copies, and promo cars.

If I as a consumer purchase a “Limited” or “Ultimate” edition make me feel as though I am actually getting top tier, differentiating treatment and let me have access to purchase all available cars. You were on the right path doing away with unicorns in my opinion.

So in conclusion, If it’s that costly to produce physical media then charge a little extra or give digital purchasers a discount. Drive sales towards digital media that way. Make your VIPs, Limited Edition, and Ultimate Edition purchasers truly special and give us access to all cars regardless where we buy or what format we purchase the game.

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It might have been mentioned before but preloading of games (digital downloads) allows millions of people to start & play a game at the same time.

The logistics behind distributing, let’s say, 2.5 million physical copies to 9 different large retailers in the USA and include the correct scratch-code for retailer-specific cars is just a major headache, both for the publisher as for the customer; you need to keep asking if/when a preorder can be made, maybe put down a deposit, hope the delivery comes in time, turn up on release-day, pick up your copy, go home again, install and finally play.

I am ofcourse unsure of anyone’s finances or time-schedule but I would be able to work in the time it takes in aforementioned example, my boss luckily pays me enough to purchase digitally and keep money leftover for snacks, drinks and XBL.

Yes, there are certain valid reasons for getting physical copies but purely from a financial viewpoint, I can very much see the advantages both for publisher, retailer and customer for digital purchases.

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I agree with that. And while preloading is beneficial it doesn’t matter much if the immediate strain of so many users creates server issues which a couple games that were pushed digitally have had. Granted there might have still been issues if only physical copies were sold. While probably rare and a better example would be PS4’s extended outages due to hacking. I can’t play if some malicious idiots decide to ruin launch day or early access by shutting down XBox live for several days. I could play single player if I had a physical copy. And on that note while long winded I’m simply saying drive digital sales with a cheaper price not with exclusive content.

If it’s truly about the consumer pass some of the money you are saving on to those that chose to purchase digital copies.

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Agreed.

Digital was supposed to be the dawn of cheaper games and lower distribution costs but the opposite seems to of happened. FH2 standard edition was £49.99 on the Xbox store in the UK which is just astronomical! I managed to get a £39.99 pre-order bonus edition from Amazon before the price rise which was a great sale overall. I simply cannot pay £50 for a standard game new release, it’s just not right in the UK. I’d happily spend £100 on a collectords edition with physical stuff, hands down, like i have with Fallout 4 for PC, epic.

Back on topic, I just wish overall it was fairer priced for EU in general.

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I agree with the different pre-order cars being kinda unfair…i’d love everything, but have to pick and choose?! Seems silly.

Also, I hate the fact that acording Xbox logic, $99 = £81 on the store…LOL, NO IT DOESN’T, as time of writing, $99 is about £64 so they are making us pay £17 above the exchange rate? That’s just ludicrous…but seems like it’ll never change :.

I’d love the ultimate edition but minus the VIP stuff and a lower price tag…£81 is way too much.

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You’re forgetting about tax, blame the government for the price difference, not Microsoft.

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Do physical games retail for 81 where you live?

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It cost money to produce and distribute a physical copy of the game to stores. If the companies can get everyone to buy digitally then they just saved them self a bunch of money. They can now pocket more of that $60+ game they just sold.

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Yes, as I posted on another thread - it is sad to see that there has been no physical limited/collector’s edition for the game announced alongside these digital versions. Being Forza Motorsport’s tenth anniversary and all, it would be perfect to have a commemorative edition with some physical goodies along with the disc plus all the ultimate edition content. As a Forza fan from the beginning, I’m willing to spend the maximum to get the very best and it was a let down with Horizon 2 there was just a standard ‘day one edition’ which then on top of you had purchase the additional content.

The steelbook cases, stickers and car booklets were all great collector’s items. Plus that USB flash drive and key chain from Forza 3!

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One thing people need to take into consideration is the price of two UE extra’s:

Car Pass | FM5 Price: £39.99
VIP | FM5 Price: £10-£15

Along with those you get some other packs that cost between £5.99 and £10. While on the game price front the average price depending on retailer is between £38 and £45.

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True, overall, the combined value is probably worth the extra as opposed to seperate prices. But even still, the pre-order location bonuses suck, picking and choosing and getting locked out of content has always been my bug bear with Forza games, at least with FH2 it was cars I didn’t want.

Still trying to get my head around which version to get as there is so much to go through and consider, dang.

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You do realizes the Pre-order cars are just top of their class custom livery versions of the normal versions ones.

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True but most likely a completely separate car as identified in game like the day one versions of FM5. So again why call it ultimate or limited edition if a consumer is not able to ultimately access all content available in Forza 6 from day one regardless of game media choice or retailer selection?

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And that is what appeals to some people…

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Yeah it is a little strange there has not yet been any confirmation of the ultimate edition being available as a physical copy. I have painfully slow broadband at 2.5 meg and although it’s fine for playing online it will make downloading this game painful even if they do pre-load it!

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It is a little annoying, mainly because of the time it would take. I have a pretty average broadband, so I’d be lucky to see a download speed of 512kbps, assuming the game is around 40 GB (a conservative estimate IMO), I’m looking at around 170+ hours of download time. The only real incentive for doing it this time around is the early access, although I haven’t seen anything confirming that this is available to all locations, maybe I’m just being too cautious by assuming it isn’t.

I agree pre order retailer specific cars are a real wind up and fundamentally immoral, but by the looks of it as far as I can tell they are just liveried, tuned editions of in game cars. But I haven’t read everything about it yet so don’t quote me on that. As for pricing I think it seems reasonable, when I think about how many hours I’ll get out of it, it seems like cracking value compared to other forms of entertainment. It’d be great to see UK/EU get US prices in our currency, but I can’t think of one single product where that’s the case.

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Anyone care to estimate the corruption risk of downloading a 40+ GB game? At 7 Mbps it works out to be about 13 hours for me.

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Quite low. I have done it with multiple games and not had an issue.

Only time I have had an issue is when installing the Road America dlc in FM5. For some reason it did not seem to download or “attach” properly. An uninstall and reinstall got it sorted.

I have downloaded maybe 20 full size games with no issue and my internet tests at between 7 and 10 Mbps.

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Corruption is zero since I even had timeouts updating my preview-firmwares and rebooted the console when it told me not to.

That said, and I can’t stress this enough: Microsoft states to have/need at least 4Mbps downstream for Xbox Live. If someone then states he/she hardly reaches 1/8th of the requirement, I do feel sorry for your crappy ISP but you knowingly decided/wanted to enter into a service-model that is above your weight-class, so to say.

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Yeah I really don’t want to get a digital-only copy. I like having a physical disc with my favourite games. Hopefully they’re just slow on announcing the physical version.

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