Forza every year: Can Microsoft keep it fresh?

[TekkenLord]

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...keep-it-fresh/

The next Forza won't be coming from Microsoft's Seattle-based Turn 10 Studios this time round. Instead Forza Horizon will be made right here in Britain by the all-new super-studio Playground Games.
Playground was established in January 2010 by a group of ex-Codemasters veterans and sold Microsoft on Forza Horizon - originallynamed Forza World - quickly enough to justify an almost unprecedented recruitment drive. Thistime last year Playground Games employed a mere eighteen people. Now they employ over one hundred at their Leamington Spa studio, with talent from across the UK's games industry, and more multi-discipline racing game expertise than just about any studio on Earth.

There's a track designer from MotorStorm, an environment artist from Driver San Francisco, a vehicle artist from Criterion, and a character artist from Need for Speed: Shift.Take just a quick glance at Playground's recruits and it seems they poached half the people who worked on Race Driver: Grid, and took on innumerable refugees from the Project Gotham and Split/Second developers at Bizarre Creations and Black Rock.
Horizon's first trailer teases clear roads and wide, open spaces. Chopped together from stock footage and licensed music, Horizon's sizzle video is all supercars blazing along desert roads, city streets and country lanes. In-game footage will have to wait until E3, but Horizon is a different direction for Forza, taking it off the track and onto the open roads for the first time in its history.
Turn 10's support for Forza 4 will continue up until Horizon's release. Last year Microsoft kept EA from putting Ferraris in Shift 2 so EA returned the favour by blocking Porsches in Forza 4; money heals all wounds, and Forza 4's May 22 Porsche expansion includes twenty Porsches, twenty new events, and ten new Achievements. DLC packs will continue until the autumn when Playground release Horizon.
Playground have only been fully staffed up since February, so that release date seems improbable, but the British team are almost certainly repurposing Turn 10's engine and assets library for their road racer, just in time to fill Forza Motorsport's off years. Turn 10 and Playground can tag team on Forza the way Infinity Ward and Treyarch tag on Call of Duty - Motorsport in the odd years and Horizon in the evens.
Instead Forza Horizon will be made right here in Britain by the all-new super-studio Playground Games.

Turn 10 have already announced a 2013 release for Forza Motorsport 5, and with Microsoft's next generation console due in the autumn of next year it's unlikely to be a current generation game. Horizon is the last big racer in a generation of driving games that Forza has dominated.

[radgamer420]

MS just needs to come up with some more IPs instead of taking the few that they have and beating them to death.

[DarkVincent07]

MS just needs to come up with some more IPs instead of taking the few that they have and beating them to death.

I agree.

Plus, no matter who is developing it, its never a good idea to bring out a game a year for a series... The best its worked is COD and AC.. but even they grow stale imo

[claud3]

I am completely sick of this.. i mean why so soon, plus i have barely finished and drove all the dlc car packs already. They need to slow down, before they run out of steam and just overwhelming us with the same racing experience all the time

[Yungstar 2006]

sounds good..

[J3ff3]

4 was a great step up from 3 imo, so i see no problem with this.

as long as there is substance to it i don't think it matters.

[MATRIX 2]

I fail to see anything wrong with a 2 year cycle. Yearly updates are a gimmick.

I'd rather see these guys work on a PGR 5 as a launch title for the next xbox.

[Soldier 95B]

Forza has always been releasing every 2 years. They continue the 2 year cycle and the game keeps getting better and better. Best console racing sim to date IMO.

[Sylar]

I'm not too bothered about yearly releases, if I haven't finished the previous game then I'll just wait til I have, usually end up saving some money anyway

[Nitey]

So long as they stick to the 2 year cycle, I don't really have a problem. The games are packed with so much content they could actually release them every 3 years and I wouldn't care ^_^. Fuck yearly releases

[claud3]

Still against it, its going to come to the stage were i am going to just buy the ultimate collectors editions from ever year edition of forza. Thats because they will release a dlc car pack ever month, and come the end of the year they will release an ultimate edition to make room for the new forza game