Who knows.  However, in today's market, particularly for US reviews - which make up a lot of Metacritic - I can see Forza appealing more for a couple of reasons.

The two titles are, in my view, more different than it might appear, and GT5 in particular I think is less attractive to US reviewers.

The main difference I see in a lot of the reviews is game vs simulator.

Now let's be straight about this.  Gran Turismo, at its core, is more designed as a simulator.  You drive, you try and get it right, you fail, you stop and do it again.  Simulators, by there nature, are about repetition aiming for perfection vs more traditional gaming mechanics, where you might be able to soldier on with some damage.  That's why PD have been so reluctant to add it - even though it becomes a necessary evil online.  BTW I wouldn't be surprised to find out they were a bit reluctant about online, too.  In GT, at heart, if you make a major blunder, in true simulator tradition you're supposed to stop and restart.  The point is to get it right, not see how well you can carry on.

Forza 3 has many aspects of a simulator, but they are tempered in the name of being a videogame.  It puts continuing a race with simulated (not massively well to be honest bu decent) damage ahead of no-damage and try again.  It is more embracing of online whereas this actually remains a little odd in Gran Turismo - a driving simulator is about you getting better at finding the perfect driving line, not racing online.  This means that, taken as pure videogames, Forza's core approach is probably better for the average gamer and a better suit for online play.

In short, GT5, as evidinced by the warm reception from heavy duty simulation orientated reviews, is the better driving simulator.  I have no doubt about that having played both (Forza 3's a good simulator so don't go all argh on me, but it's not as good as GT, that's all).

But, Forza 3 is more accesible, it's more consistent and it probably - in terms of market and the US market in particular - is better tuned (forgive the pun) to satisfy the market perception of what such a title should be like vs GT5.

My advice now I've played both for a while is simple.  GT5 is for you if its all about the cars and the course and a very accurate, clinical simulator aimed at repetition and continuous improvement, with a huge host of depth and features across the A Spec/B Spec, licences, special events, etc.   However the depth of different features can be a little variable as there are so many.

Forza 3 is for you if you if you want a good simulator with the edges rounded off and balanced for fun but with a lot of depth there if you chose to explore it.  There are less features overall, but what's there is very consistent.  It's also a bit better balanced online with the damage.

Personally I prefer GT5, because I prefer a hardcore simulator, but reading the reviews, and seeing in particular that GT5 in many US centric reviews is - amazingly and incorrectly in my view - getting marked down for what is in fact being an excellent simulator and called out for not being a bit more fun, arcadey, etc. makes me feel the above is certainly correct.

Both titles are really very good, but they're more different than they seem on the surface, and by it's nature GT5 offers more to nitpick than Forza 3 and a tougher beast to judge, which I think has led to the lower overall score.

Graphically, they are two different beasts and I'm not touching the which is better arguement - not directly - but I would note that GT5 takes an approach which has caused some confusion and is less consistent than Forza 3, which I believe has been contributing to the whole arguement in this area.

Technically, on the surface it seems a fairly easy call.

GT5 is rendering 16 cars - of which the premium cars are superior in detail to Forza 3 - at 720p with 4xAA vs 8 cars in Forza 3 with 2xAA at 720p.  GT5 can also support 1080p with 2xAAt.  So, technically, it seems clear cut.  GT5 is rendering far more detail in most cases and in most cases at a similar frame rate.

But, PD have made some interesting choices - not saying they are right or wrong - which I think gives GT5 a somewhat odd look at times and has clearly given some - many - reviewers a hard time deciding how it fares graphically.

The first thing is that they've aimed higher than Turn 10 graphically overall and in terms of how many cars are in play.  That's pretty ambitious and, given the relative similarity of PS3/360 power, something that I was interested to see how they'd attempt it.

In short, they've done so by in a sense grading the graphical effort rather than making everything look very consistent.

So, the premium cars and the track - and by track I mean the road surface - get by far the most attention.  The cars and tracks are easily the best available today both in terms of detail and graphical fidelity. Forza 3 has good tracks, but not - currently - to the level of GT5's every bump in the tarmac reproduced levels.

But, the graphics aren't quite so polished as we move to the trackside.  PD clearly taking the view that it doesn't have to be quite the same level.  Now, it's still very, very good, but there's a drop in detail as we move away from the track itself.

Finally, they've decided to stick with 2D trees, etc. to allow for more power elsewhere - for example 16 cars vs 8 cars.

Overall, I think the decisions make sense, but it does mean GT5 can be an odd beast visually at times.  The cars/track always look amazing (track = the tarmac) but the surroundings can look less good which can jar next to the good stuff.

Now, by comparison, Forza 3 is more consistent.  Forza 3 never looks better than GT5 when GT5 is looking its best - which is most of the time to be fair - but it always looks more consistent and there are far less moments when something breaks the beauty.

In short, Forza 3 to the naked eye I believe often looks better because of the consistency Turn 10 aimed for, and the fact they settled for a steady frame rate rather than push the engine to the limits.

I'm not arguing which is better - they both have pros/cons - but the upshot is GT5 is technically better in many ways but incurrs some rough edges as a result of pushing the engine so hard whereas Forza 3 is more consistent overall.

What's interesting for me is what the sales of each - and other driving titles - indicate of the real demand, what it's for and where it is.

Right now, although brand, etc. helps, it seems to me that - like it or hate it - GT5 appeals more in EMEAA and somewhat more in Japan.  The big demand in EMEAA seems to be for very fun titles like Mariokart or the more hardcore simulator of GT5.

In US though I think driving really is more of a niche genre right now when it comes to more hardcore titles vs Mariokart type stuff (which is fun and not easy so don't think I'm knocking it, I own it).

GT5 is sure to be far and away the best selling driving title of its type, and Forza faces a real challenge as a result in terms of edging out the encumbent brand for that particular type of driving title.

In other words - for the moment, metacritic doesn't matter than much anyway in terms of impact on sales.

Well I think a lot of the criticisms were legit, and I hope that means the next GT product will be a better game for it. Too much high praise tends to encourage complacency. So a complacent PD worked hard on the core elemts of the game (200 premium cars and the best sim driving experience) but didn't put the necessary effort into the peripheral stuff, which is important to the overall feel of the game.

Turn 10, always feeling like the one who needed to catch up put attnetion into all elements, and therefore made the game feel better as a whole, especially to those who aren't sim racing fans.

Someone give this guy a round of applause...no one? Lemme guess, it's because it was too long and you didn't read it ¬_¬

You should, it speaks the truth!

I would say that based on the reviews Forza 3 was the better game of the two, reviewers as a whole were not reviewing simulators but driving games so the standard there was a different one. So whether or not anyone feels GT5 is a better/worse simulator doesn't matter because neither game was reviewed as a simulator.

To put it mildly Forza 3 did better than GT5 because it had better prioritisation of development resources.

Supposed excellence in driving recreation? Irrelevant to most game reviewers.

Having >1000 cars? Doesn't really matter when you have more than 400, heck even 100 is pretty overkill.

Rewind mode, better assists, accessibility all matter.

Online mode? Matters, apparantly the mode in Forza 3 is better.

Menu system? Matters, apparantly the menus are better in Forza 3.

Gameplay smoothness? Matters because noone likes slowdowns and it makes the game easier to play.

Etc, a lot of points have been covered to death.

GT5 has no right to be reviewed for the <10% of people who will play it for the fact it is a simulation, so in this case the reviewers were right to review based on the fitness of purpose for the intended audience. If GT5 is a low selling niche title then it deserves to be reviewed as one, however GT games tend to sell close to or upwards of 10M units.

Im not saying that 87% is a bad score or that the 92% of Forza 3 makes it a better game under any and all circumstances. However the reviewers got it right in this case when reviewing the games as games and according to the wishes of the wider target audience and not the narrow hardcore sim fan base.

........GT5 had a lot to live up to, Forza didn't

Way too look good, summarizing my superior post for punchy effect!  Some buddy you are!

And I agree mostly, although I think that your approach essentially invalidates the idea of catering to a niche and over compensates for the masses, which isn't fair, it also implies Transformers should score higher than Moon, which I can't allow.

I think for something like GT5 (i.e. a title which is clearly covering two bases) reviewers should use the dependable double score - as a videogame 88%, as a driving simulator, 93%.  Which, funnily enough, are the scores I'd give GT5 in each category.

Forza 3, before anyone asks, I'd score  91% as a videogame and 87% as a driving simulator.

Reasonable Forecast - Forza 4 will attempt to expand the simulator side to cater more to the niche (which going by the sales Squlliam, which you seem to be ignorning, may be more than the niche anyway ,particularly in EMEA, which explains why we make better cars here!) as well as beef up the fun side.  GT5 will receive patches/DLC which will attempt to do the same.  Forums will continue to melt when either title is invoked.

Yay, thanks buddy!

Well it doesn't really invalidate anything IMO, the sim audience got their sim reviews and the wider audience got their metacritic. Furthermore you'll find that something like The Moon got reviewed by far fewer critics and the critics generally used the right criteria. In movies you'll find it is a rare case where a movie intended for a select audience recieves a wide release. Hence the conflict between the specific casual / core / niche movie goers rarely comes out into the open. I.E. Avatar vs Benjamin Button vs Moon. People generally know what they are reviewing and for whom they are reviewing for.

The problem is this game is like an Avatar trying to be a Benjamin Button with a smattering of The Moon. The majority of critics follow the majority of the audience so the casual users may drown out the core/niche critics, everyones a critic really and almost everyone has an opinion which they will share though with discretion dictating whether you have to ask for it first or not! The only reason why it didn't get reviewed worse is that most critics in games are core video game players and it managaged to satisfy that audience quite well.

As for Forza 4 well the more significant change is the Kinect support, arguably the average will tilt towards viewing it as the first real hands free racing title and the audience may start to include a much more casual or at least non racing fan video game player audience. The improvements in simulation are really just the product of software development, Forza 4 is infact really Forza 2.1 or thereabouts in software numbering terms given Kinect and online are the only major changes to the software.

I've played both and I honestly thought Forza 3 was just the better experience. Just as a driving simulator GT5 is probably better.

hands down the best response in this entire thread, couldn't have said it better

the biggest load of crap I have ever read, and on that note the biggest FAILURE of this generation, how the HELL is it a bad thing for a game to be what it WANTS to be.....

there is no amout of facepalms that can surfice the dissapontment in the shear truth of that satement.

"Not all games need to be designed to appeal to EVERYONE and back in the day, there was much more variety on the shelves than there is today and that was a good thing. So the hope is we can find our people/find our tribe and treat them like the Gods they are. We take care of them and they'll take care of us." <--- David Jaffe

what the fudge has happened to gamers these days, it'a so sad