EA has blocked Turn 10 from including Porsche in upcoming Xbox 360 exclusive racing game Forza 4.
"This kills me," said creative director Dan Greenawalt in an interview on forzamotorsport.net(reported by IGN).
"While Forza Motorsport 4 will feature RUF, it will not include Porsche cars. As many of you know, since the beginning of the Forza franchise, the Porsche license has been available only through a sub-licensing deal with EA.
"In Forza 3, we were able to feature more than 35 different Porsche models by offering to collaborate with EA. For Forza 4, we were looking forward to adding even more Porsche cars, and we were especially looking forward to featuring multiple Porsche experiences in our new Autovista mode. In the end, however, EA couldn't see their way towards collaborating again."
While clearly disappointed, Greenawalt remains hopeful that Porsche may one day return to Forza.
"While we respect EA's need to run their business as they see fit, we've regularly collaborated in the past and hope we can find our way back to that approach," he said.
"Forza had the exclusive license for all Ferrari cars, for example, on the Xbox and PC platforms. But at the end of the day, we've always found that we just weren't willing to block other racing games from having Ferraris outright, as we believed that this would do nothing but hurt the racing ecosystem."
EA is yet to comment on its decision, but it may have something to do with its own Shift series, which it hopes will compete with other simulation racers.
Last year EA executive Patrick Soderlund told Eurogamer he hoped the Shift series would overtake Sony's Gran Turismo series and Microsoft's Forza franchise as gaming's leading simulation racer.
"We think we can compete and ultimately become market leading in the simulation authentic motorsport segment," he said.
"One of the strongest points we have is, apart from the fact we have a very talented developer working with us and we now have an established brand underneath the Need for Speed umbrella in that segment, we also have the advantage of being a multi-platform offering.
"Forza can only be bought on Xbox and Gran Turismo is only available on PlayStation. We're the only one right now that is of a significant weight that can offer something up on all those platforms."
"I'm very sorry for all of this," Greenawalt concluded. "Fans shouldn't have to think about any of this - you should just be able to drive Porsches and Ferraris in the games you love. Porsche makes wonderful cars and I'm sorry that we won't have them in Forza 4."
to me thats some bullshit. need for speed sucks anyway.
srry the link is late, but theres a vid following the link so hope you enjoy
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-25-ea-blocks-forza-4-getting-porsche
