After accidentally selling people a Forza Horizon bundle worth £170/$200 for 61p (about 70 cents), Microsoft has begun to realise that it might have messed up. Players who picked up the games at their historically-low price last week are finding the games missing from their library, but at least they're getting their precious pennies refunded too.
Last week, users on Resetera (via The Gamer) noticed that the Swedish Microsoft Store's bundle of Forza Horizon 4 and 5 (and all their DLC) was selling for an absurdly low price in Swedish Krona. In the two-ish hours before it was fixed, a whole swarm of users from across Europe and the UK descended on Microsoft's store to take advantage of the pricing error. US users were excluded from the feast, but it turns out that didn't matter anyway, since Microsoft has decided it would like its expensive game bundles back, thank you very much.
Today, Resetera users are reporting that their sly purchases are being refunded and the Forza premium bundle is being removed from their accounts (or else reverting to their normal Game Pass versions). Hopefully they got some play time in before their purchases slipped through their fingers.
- This Redditor rocked up to Best Buy and bought an RTX 4060 gaming PC for cheaper than its extended warranty, saving $1,195 and their friend from buying a console
- Saber Interactive's head honcho pulled a wild stunt to nab the Halo: Combat Evolved remaster, telling Microsoft he'd do the job for free before ultimately squeezing the publisher for millions
Pricing errors are weirdly common in online retail. Even weirder: Companies often honour them rather than take Microsoft's tack. It was only in August this year that EA decided to honour one of the biggest pricing errors we've ever seen, which saw FIFA 23 sell for about 6 cents. Then again, FIFA 23's standard price was meant to be about $50, so EA wasn't eating quite the loss that Microsoft faced on these Forza bundles.
If you just had your 70 cents refunded (or you're an American who never got a bite at the apple anyway), you can always pick up the Forzas in the Steam autumn sale, which began yesterday. Fair warning, though, they're not on our list of the best autumn sale deals, so maybe you're better off waiting until they're under a dollar again. Better hope Microsoft doesn't notice next time.
