14 DAY TRIAL // Ken Lobb, the creative director working at the Microsoft Game Studios, says that the Forza Motorsport series of racing games was not created specifically to compete with the Gran Turismo franchise from Polyphony Digital and Sony.
According to the executive, the first game was a result of the passion of the team at Turn 10 and their desire to create a game that reflected their take on the genre, which no other title was able to deliver.
Lobb is quoted by Edge as saying that, “You can look at the business side and say that Turn 10 was built to compete, but the reality was that we had a bunch of car fanatics who really wanted to have a go at making a racing game.”
He adds, “The core of that team was there the two years before Forza 1 shipped. It wasn’t leadership coming down and saying, ‘We must build Polyphony. Let’s create a team’. It was from passion first. That’s where Forza came from.”
Some gamers have accused Microsoft that it lacks the development studio power required to create entirely new concepts and that it simply aims to copy the most successful titles that other companies are creating.
The most recent Forza game was a launch experience for the Xbox One home console and sold pretty well, with the development team at Turn 10 continuing to deliver car packs for long-term fans.
A new title, which will probably be focused on other types of racing, might be announced during the Microsoft press conference at E3 2014.
Gran Turismo 6 was launched for the PlayStation 3 home console later in 2013 and included a wider variety of cars and tracks than ever before.
The development team at Polyphony Digital has suggested that it might be working to port the title to the PS4, but that it currently does not have an official announcement to make.
At the moment, the company and Nissan are once again collaborating on the GT Academy.
The racing game genre will also witness the launch of DriveClub this year, the racing title that will be exclusive to the PlayStation 4, and The Crew, the Ubisoft-made open world title that will be delivered later in the fall.
Microsoft has big plans for the near future and has promised that fans will get more information on entirely new titles for the Xbox One and on some impressive sequels.