Forza Motorsport Was Never Going To Have Split-Screen, Affirms Xbox CEO

Speaking in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Phil Spencer confirmed that the lack of split-screen functionality in Forza Motorsport was a creative decision. After seeing the number of people using split-screen, the team decided it was insufficient to justify the resources required to make it happen. Spencer also clarified that Forza Motorsport’s situation is different from Baldur’s Gate 3 due to that reason.

The lack of split-screen in some of the upcoming titles on Xbox has caused concerns among fans who believe that Xbox Series S is holding back Series X as they have different specs, and developers have to make games for them both. Phil Spencer dispelled these concerns by clarifying that two of the major games in this situation, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Forza Motorsport, have two different reasons for the lack of split-screen.

Those two things aren’t really related. Forza Motorsport was never going to have splitscreen. That’s just a decision the team made based on usage. We see how many people play in splitscreen and just decided to put our dev effort where people are actually playing,” says Phil Spencer.

It comes off as a surprise, especially since Turn 10 creative director Chris Chisaki’s statement a few weeks ago emphasized the technical side as the main contributor to this decision. It could be that it was one of the factors, and they could bring split-screen, but it wasn’t worth investing in due to the reasons Phil Spencer gave in his interview.

(FYI) Unfortunately, #ForzaMotorsport has three legacy features that won't be ready for launch

– Spectator mode
– Racing with Ai in featured multiplayer
– Splitscreen pic.twitter.com/4YCPf9TWes

— Alan Feely (@IdleSloth84_) August 11, 2023

There is also the issue of Microsoft‘s feature parity clause, which suggests that games released on both Xbox Series X|S must have the same features, and should only see a difference in performance-related things, like frame rates or resolution. Spencer also expanded on that matter in the same interview.

In terms of parity, I don’t think you’ve heard from us or Larian, that this was about parity. I think that’s more that the community is talking about it. There are features that ship on X today that do not ship on S, even from our own games, like ray-tracing that works on X, it’s not on S in certain games,” says Phil Spencer.

Spencer’s main concern is to make games available on both consoles, and so far, it is doing just that. He also seems to have reached a solution with Larian Studios developers, as Baldur’s Gate 3 has been confirmed to arrive on Xbox this year. The game will not have split-screen co-op on Series S, but fans are still happy to experience it on their favorite console.

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Forza Motorsport is an upcoming sim racing video game developed by Turn 10 Studios and published by Xbox Games Studios. It is scheduled to release on Xbox Series X|S and PC on October 10, 2023. It is the eighth iteration in the Forza Motorsport series and acts as a reboot, dropping the sequential numbering.