Microsoft and Playground Games have captured the top spot in 2026 first-party video game earnings with Forza Horizon 6, which generated an estimated $579.2 million in gross revenue. According to a market study published on Tuesday (13) by the research firm Alinea Analytics, the open-world racing title outsold every other internal studio release from both Microsoft and Sony during the calendar year. Sony’s highest-ranking exclusive, Marvel’s Wolverine, placed second on the chart with $192.9 million in estimated gross receipts on the PlayStation 5.
Released on May 19, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S consoles and personal computers, the sixth entry in the racing series reached 8.8 million copies sold outright in less than five months on the market. Market analyst Rhys Elliott, who authored the Alinea Analytics report, noted the speed of the title’s commercial trajectory across hardware ecosystems. “Xbox’s Forza Horizon 6 – of course – takes the top spot, with $579.2M in revenue generated through 8.8M copies sold. Mario Kart World’s absurd numbers aside, Forza Horizon 6 is the fastest-grossing first-party racing game,” Elliott stated in the document.
How Xbox Game Pass and Steam shaped the commercial split for Playground Games
Consumer spending on the racing simulator favored Microsoft’s native storefront, though PC players on Valve’s digital distribution platform and subscription users contributed heavily to the final tally. The consultancy calculated that more than 10 million subscribers played the Japan-set title through the Xbox Game Pass catalog following its May debut. Even before the official launch, demand on PC was high, with Steam pre-orders surpassing 500,000 units and generating nearly $30 million a month ahead of release day. A significant portion of the subscription audience also paid extra for add-on bundles to unlock early access and bonus cars, boosting total earnings beyond standard full-price retail purchases.
Trailing by nearly $386 million in the second spot, Marvel’s Wolverine accumulated approximately 2.5 million units sold roughly one month after its commercial debut. Created by the internal studio Insomniac Games exclusively for the PlayStation 5, the comic book action title saw boxed retail discs account for roughly 31% of its total unit volume. Despite mixed critical reception online, verified buyers on the PlayStation Store awarded the game an average user rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars, making it the fastest-selling PlayStation 5 exclusive since Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in 2023.
The financial breakdown and engagement metrics for the leading racing release demonstrate how revenue was distributed across digital storefronts and subscription tiers:
- Share of Forza Horizon 6 gross revenue generated within the Xbox ecosystem (console and PC app): 56.7%
- Share of Forza Horizon 6 gross revenue generated through the Steam store on PC: 43.3%
- Number of Xbox Game Pass subscribers who purchased the premium edition upgrade for Forza Horizon 6: 1.3 million players
- Additional gross revenue produced specifically by Game Pass premium upgrades: $82 million
- Pending user wishlists for Forza Horizon 6 registered on Steam for future discount alerts: 4.5 million
Cross-platform revenue splits for MLB The Show 26, Halo, and Gears of War
Sony’s San Diego Studio claimed third place on the 2026 leaderboard with MLB The Show 26, which brought in an estimated $192.7 million in gross sales, outperforming the previous year’s edition by 25%. Because the baseball franchise operates as a multiplatform release, earnings were divided almost evenly between rival hardware, with 52% of revenue originating on PlayStation consoles and 48% coming from Xbox hardware. Fourth place went to Microsoft’s Halo: Campaign Evolved, which collected $86.6 million in gross revenue. In a reversal of traditional console loyalties, the Halo release generated its largest revenue share on the PlayStation 5 at 46.5%, outpacing the 41.1% recorded on Xbox devices and the 12.2% earned on Steam.
Bungie’s extraction shooter Marathon, published by Sony, secured the fifth spot after grossing $61.0 million from 1.7 million copies sold while maintaining an active daily player base of roughly 50,000 users. Personal computers drove the majority of Marathon’s commercial performance via Steam with 56.7% of total revenue, while the PlayStation 5 contributed 27.2% and Xbox consoles accounted for 16.1%. Right behind it in sixth place, the fighting game MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls reached $51.6 million in revenue across roughly 800,000 units sold. Severe technical optimization failures on PC pushed 82% of that title’s spending onto the PlayStation 5 hardware.
The final two slots in the eight-game ranking feature one major release from each console manufacturer. Microsoft’s Gears of War: E-Day pulled in $42.1 million in gross revenue across 311,000 direct unit sales—split between 210,000 copies on Steam and 101,000 on Xbox—alongside 722,000 Xbox Game Pass subscribers who paid $30 to upgrade to the premium edition for early access on October 1 ahead of the October 6 standard launch. Closing out the list in eighth place, the single-player action title Saros, built by the studio Housemarque for PlayStation, earned $40.4 million from 521,000 copies sold on the PlayStation 5 after two retail price cuts brought its cost down to $49.69. “A Steam launch would inflate those numbers, but PlayStation has seemingly abandoned a multiplatform strategy for single-player games,” Rhys Elliott observed regarding the commercial ceiling for Saros.
Single Microsoft racing release outearns five Sony studio titles combined
Five months of sales from Playground Games’ flagship racer generated more money than Sony’s entire five-game lineup featured in the 2026 study put together. While Forza Horizon 6 brought in $579.2 million on its own, the combined gross revenue of Marvel’s Wolverine, MLB The Show 26, Marathon, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls, and Saros reached $538.6 million across all platforms.
The market analysis also measured the 2026 release against older entries in the racing genre. Its direct predecessor, 2021’s Forza Horizon 5, crossed the $1 billion threshold in lifetime gross revenue across Xbox, Steam, and PlayStation hardware. Meanwhile, Sony’s flagship driving simulator, Gran Turismo 7, accumulated roughly $834 million in lifetime revenue solely on PlayStation consoles—a figure Alinea Analytics expects Forza Horizon 6 to surpass during the 2027 calendar year.
PlayStation 5 port and first paid expansion scheduled for January 2027
Every sales total and dollar amount detailed in the October 13, 2026 report reflects proprietary tracking estimates compiled by Alinea Analytics across digital storefronts. Neither Microsoft nor Sony has released audited corporate financial disclosures confirming the exact internal revenue of these specific 2026 titles.
Commercial momentum for Forza Horizon 6 is set to expand on January 26, 2027, when the official PlayStation 5 version launches alongside the game’s first paid expansion and a free content update. Buyers who purchase the Premium Edition on Sony’s console will receive early access starting on January 21, 2027, and pre-orders on the United States PlayStation Store have already placed the Premium Edition at fifth place and the Standard Edition at ninth place on the platform’s best-seller charts.
