Forza Horizon 5 is the second Microsoft game to add a specific requirement on PlayStation 5.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, PlayStation 5 gamers will need to link their PlayStation account to a Microsoft account. This is the full text explaining this requirement on the official FAQ:
“On launch of the game, you will be asked to sign-in with your Microsoft account –sometimes referred to as the Xbox Live services that are a part of your Microsoft account – and link it to the PlayStation Network account you are currently logged into the PS5 console.
Linking a Microsoft account to a PSN account is on a title-by-title basis and permanent. Players have the ability to unlink the Microsoft account to that PSN account, for Forza Horizon 5, but will be constrained to relinking to only that specific and originally linked, Microsoft account.”
The FAQ also explains that you will need to have PlayStation Plus to play Forza Horizon 5’s online features. Single player and other offline features won’t have that requirement. Furthermore, since Forza Horizon 5 does not have cross-save and cross progression between Xbox and Steam, it also won’t be on PlayStation 5. Your saves on PlayStation 5 will only be available on the PlayStation 5, and can’t be carried over to Xbox or Steam, and the same is true of the other platforms.
Interestingly, Sea of Thieves also required that PlayStation 5 players sign in with a Microsoft account, but the finer details were different. For example, if you don’t have a PlayStation Plus subscription, you can play Sea of Thieves’ Safer Seas mode on PlayStation 5, but you won’t get any multiplayer that is otherwise available on that mode.
As we have seen before, Microsoft has been publishing games on PlayStation 5 and other platforms without these requirements. It seems in these cases, Microsoft can’t make a deal with Sony on how they store and share data, so Microsoft has to provide these services for PlayStation 5 users themselves. Of course, it’s also pretty clear that Microsoft will be getting a lot of PlayStation users signed up to Microsoft accounts from this requirement.
But based on how Forza Horizon 5 has been charting on PlayStation 5 pre-orders, Microsoft is absolutely going to get a lot of PlayStation users signing up to Microsoft accounts for the first time. This is a situation where PlayStation gamers are signaling they are willing to play ball with Microsoft to play their games. At this point, maybe we should be surprised about that anymore. Microsoft is absolutely building a player base on their competitors’ platforms.
