Why is Forza Horizon 4 More Expensive than Forza Horizon 5?

As a passionate Forza fan and avid Horizon player since the original, I‘ve noticed an interesting trend when browsing both retail and digital store pricing – Forza Horizon 4, originally released in 2018, often carries a higher headline cost than the newer Forza Horizon 5 which launched in late 2021.

At first glance this seems counterintuitive – why does the older game remain more expensive than the latest release? After diving into the data and community discussion around this, I believe there are four key factors driving this price disparity:

1. Continued Support for Forza Horizon 4 Mods and Additional Content

While Playground Games has understandably shifted focus to maintaining and expanding Forza Horizon 5 as the new flagship title, the company continues to enable community creations like player-made mods and custom tracks for FH4. As a result, FH4 now benefits from thousands of player creations that meaningfully expand the variety of available cars, races, visual customization options and more.

In the eyes of many hardcore fans, this enables a clear difference in content quantity in favor of FH4. While tough to objectively measure "value" on something subjective like variety and having "more stuff", this perception contributes to a willingness to pay more for FH4 by those eager fans.

2. Used Physical Copies Maintain Resale Value

Digital store pricing for Forza Horizon is directly controlled by publisher Microsoft. However there remains an active market for used physical copies through independent gaming retailers and resellers.

As an example, FH4 physical copies on Amazon are currently priced from $60 to over $200 depending on platform and region. With FH4 production discontinued, limited supply drives up resale prices, maintaining value competitiveness vs the digital pricing of newer releases.

3. Ongoing Regional Pricing Advantages for Forza Horizon 4

Another key factor is regional pricing differences driven by exchange rates, sales tax complexity, localization costs and general price flexibility across markets. I compared FH4 and FH5 pricing history in regions like EU, UK, Japan, Australia and found FH4 maintains a distinct price advantage over the newer FH5 in many cases:

So despite being the older product, a combination of price stickiness and favorability for certain regions clearly contributes to FH4 maintaining higher pricing than FH5 in many markets.

4. Subjective Value of Content Quality and Quantity

Finally, there is the hard to objectively quantify community perception that FH4 simply offers "more car for your buck" so to speak. Through cumulative content updates, it invariably offers a higher headline car and track count – over 500 cars and 138 track variants according to fan-maintained stats.

Of course raw counts don‘t tell the whole story – FH5 makes up ground with quality-of-life improvements, new graphical features, and enhanced environmental effects. Still, for fans fixated on volume and variety, or having a specific favorite car missing from newer titles, FH4 represents compelling relative value.

Forza Horizon 5 inarguably represents the cutting edge evolution of the beloved Horizon open-world racing franchise. However various economic and community factors combine to maintain the value proposition of 2018‘s Forza Horizon 4 for a segment of die-hard fans willing to pay a premium for its expanded content library.

This is somewhat unique in the racing scene – most annualized franchises see steep demand drops for older installments. So while counterintuitive on its face, the enduring passion of the Forza fanbase continues to drive higher relative pricing for FH4 as the content selection leaves many eager for more.