Forza Horizon 6 has made at least $20 million from advanced access on Steam alone

Xbox revs up the RPMs with its latest release, showing that consumers are willing to spend $120 to play specific games in early access.

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Forza Horizon 6 looks to be a success on PC even before its official release. Microsoft's strategy of 5-day early access is apparently paying off in the new Forza game, at least on Steam.

According to SteamDB's tracked figures, Forza Horizon 6 has amassed over 172,000 players. Since those users have to pay a hefty $120 to even play FH6 right now, a quick bit of math shows that the game has made at least $20 million in gross sales revenue on Steam alone.

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So, what does this mean?

While the numbers are an update on Xbox's operations, particularly its best-selling racing series, this financial performance mostly just reinforces the early access trend at Microsoft.

We shouldn't expect Xbox to change course any time soon, and these steeply-pay-gated 5-day early entry periods are highly lucrative for the group because they take advantage of one of gaming's most powerful persuaders: FOMO, or fear of missing out.

Technically, this trend of being able to play games ahead of official launch is called "advanced access" on Steam, not early access. Valve explains:

"Unlike Early Access, Advanced Access is not a unique model of development for a game, it's simply an opportunity to play a game before it fully releases on Steam."

Basically, it's just moving the goalposts on what is and isn't an official release, and adding another toll to be collected along the way. Microsoft employed this strategy in a bid to help offset dropping profits and sales of its first-party games, which are cannibalized by its own Game Pass subscription service. This way, the games can potentially squeeze out an extra sale, even from Game Pass subscribers.