Michael Crider
Remember the 90s and early 2000s, when Microsoft was the butt of every monopoly joke, for some pretty damning reasons? Yeah, not so much anymore. After failing to dominate in gaming and mobile, Microsoft has been humbled a bit, and is willing to let others play with its multi-million dollar toys. Its flagship racing franchise, Forza, is the latest example.
Today the company announced that Forza Horizon 4, the latest in Xbox Game Studios’ open-world driving series, is coming to Steam on March 9th. The game was released in 2018 for both Xbox One and Windows, but the PC version has only been available from the very lacking Microsoft Store (AKA Windows Store). The Steam listing is now live, though oddly it can’t be pre-ordered yet.
Forza Horizon 4 is the latest of Microsoft’s high-profile games to hit Steam, following the Halo series, Gears 5, Sea of Thieves, and Microsoft Flight Simulator. It seems like Microsoft is less interested in pushing its store as a gaming destination, though it would still very much like for you to subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, pleaseandthankyou.
Microsoft’s franchises remain almost entirely exclusive to the Xbox on the console side of things, with the obvious and lucrative exception of Minecraft (which it acquired in 2014). A few smaller “indie” games which Microsoft publishes, like Cuphead and Ori and the Blind Forrest, have been released on the Switch.
Source: The Verge
