Microsoft is making a huge gaming headline this week. "Forza Horizon 3," Microsoft's latest entry in the company's racing series, has sold more than 2.5 million copies worldwide and passed a whopping $1 billion in retail sales. The company made the announcement this morning.

In a recent Microsoft Xbox Wire post, the Redmond-based software company announced that, as of December 2016, the entire Forza Horizon franchise has already passed the $1 billion mark in total retail sales.

Although this may sound as big numbers for "Forza Horizon 3," but it still nowhere to go when compared with the hard hitting Microsoft's Halo series, which made more than $5 billion in revenue.

In addition to the big announcement, the software giant has also shared to the public a number of other Forza stats for 2016. Among the shared information is about the estimated numbers of people currently involved in the Forza community on Xbox One and Windows 10 platform during that year. The company also claims that the Forza series, which include Forza 5, Forza 6, and the latest "Forza Horizon 3," is now the best-selling video racing series for today's generation of game consoles.

Finally the last stat that been shared, Microsoft announced that Forza has already reached more than three million people members in the racing series' online racing community every month. The software giant ended its note by teasing that the company can't wait to see what 2017 will bring to the table. Many have speculated that this might be a reference to Forza 7, the rumored newest entry to the Forza franchise.

As mentioned earlier by GameSpot, the Forza Motorsport 7 was unofficially announced by Racing Wheel Manufacturer in the end of 2016.

Developed by PlayGround Games and Launched on 2016, "Forza Horizon 3" is an open world racing video game developed for Windows PC and Xbox One console. The game, which is the third Forza Horizon and the ninth entry in the long-running Forza series, features cross-platform play between the two gaming platforms- the PC and Xbox One console.