Codemasters Announces DiRT 3, Likes Motion Tracking

Codemasters has announced that it is working on a new game in the DiRT franchise, which will probably arrive in 2011 and might have a very different tone from the American accents evident in the second installment in the series. The racing game is one of the most successful franchises Codemasters has.

Gavin Cheshire, vice president of Codemasters, believes that innovation is the key to the success of the racing franchise, mentioning that both previous titles were reboots, adding that “I’m not saying we’re throwing all the codebase away, but we’re throwing the thoughts away and coming out with something fresh and new. Because if you don’t innovate, you’re dead.”

DiRT will not be using motion tracking, although that seems to be the big craze these days, with both Project Natal from Microsoft and Sony's PlayStation Move coming in the fall. This is despite the fact that Microsoft actually demoed Burnout with its motion tracking solution and with rumors appearing, the Gran Turismo 5 is being held back in order to launch with full support for the Move. Because of the limited range of physical movement needed, racing games are prime candidates to be adapted to the motion tracking devices that are coming out.

Cheshire revealed that “we’re focused on other priorities right now, and we’re not big enough to just try out a few things on Natal. We’re certainly looking, and we’ve got some great ideas, but it’s how you implement them” before also praising Sony's “sticks” for the functionality. It's still not clear how easy it will be to patch already released videogames to use Natal or the Move but if the two devices sell a lot this fall, then many developers, like Codemasters, might become interested in a retrofit.