We Can Imagine A World Where Turn 10 Develop PGR5

Speaking last week with Kikizo, Microsoft's Shane Kim has been asked about the future of the Project Gotham Racing series, now that creator Bizarre have up and left. His response should help out any 360 racing fans who are yet to put 2+2 together:

...you know, we have a great internal racing studio in Turn 10, the creators of Forza Motorsport. And our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing.

Shane Kim Interview [Kikizo]

Goodbye, Project Gotham Racing 4, You Will Be Missed

"Looking at the room, I can tell that you.
Are the most beautiful girl in the...room.
(In the whole wide room).
And when you're on the street, depending on the street.
I bet you are definitely in the top 3.
Good lookin girls on the street.
(Depending on the streets)."

Celebrate Valentine's Day with new DLC from one of the top 3 racing games on Xbox 360. One's free, one will cost you. Here are the full details:

Scottish Government Fighting Drunk Driving With Xbox 360

The Scottish Government is worried about youth adult drunk driving. During their most recent drunk driving initiative, police caught 150 people under the age of 25 (granted, there are roughly 5 million people in Scotland, but the BBC feels the stat is important, so we're letting you know). Now Scotland is putting £10,000, or almost $20,000, behind in-game sober driving ads. They'll be popping up within online-enabled games Need for Speed: Carbon, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson had this to say about this new campaign:

It is innovative, it is new, and it is far removed from the more traditional methods we have been using. I believe that is what we need if we are to reverse the number of Scots families suffering the tragedy of a loved one being lost.

Xbox games tackle drink driving [bbc]

Domino's Delivers 12 Days Of Xbox

Russ Swift, UK's top stunt driver, was hired by Microsoft to burn a good luck message with skid marks onto the parking lot of Battersea Power Station for Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton.

Swift created the Project Gotham Racing 4 stunt with a sports car, a motorcycle and three sets of tires. The end result: a 50-foot Go Lewis, meant to cheer Hamilton on for this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix.

Hit the jump for the full press release and unfortunate Freudian Slip.

Xbox 360 owners are swimming in demos this week. Following up on yesterday's release of The Simpsons Game and Conan demos, the Marketplace welcomes two newcomers, Project Gotham Racing 4 and F.E.A.R. Files: Extraction Point, the latter of which I really enjoy typing. PGR4 is fortunately available worldwide and weighs in at 1.27 GB, so clean your internet pipes for maximum downloadiness. The demo features three cars, two bikes, and two tracks. That's value.

The other demo, which I simply cannot be bothered to type out again, comes in at a more trim 584.87 MB, but thumbs its figurative nose at anyone not in Canada and the U.S. Sorry, rest of the world. You're going to have to settle for PGR4.

Bizarre Acquisition Phase One In Activision Global Domination

The buy out of Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre Creations by Activision may just be the beginning of the second biggest third party publisher's plans to add to its collective. Activision Europe boss Joerg Trouvain says that the company isn't just interested in getting into the racing genre—some 10 percent of the market, they say—they're targeting growth... and more growth.

It just makes sense really. Everyone who's anyone has a dedicated racing game studio these days—Polyphony Digital, Turn 10, SEGA Racing Studio, Evolution, Criterion—so Activision was just filling in holes. Don't be too surprised to see more and more currently independent studios brought into the corporate fold; not the other way around.

Activision: 'Bizarre buy is just the beginning' [Develop]

I'm so behind on games right now after Tokyo that I really shouldn't be buying anything new, but I fear that the siren call of Phantom Hourglass will be too strong to resist. What's on your game purchasing horizon this week?

The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS)
Control Link with your stylus as he sets sail for a new adventure in this follow up to Wind Waker.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (PC)
Take out the Strogg online.

NBA Live 08 (X360, PS3, PS2, WII, PSP)
The latest NBA game from EA.

NBA 2K8 (X360, PS3, PS2)
Ever notice these things always come in pairs?

Project Gotham Racing 4 (X360)
PGR returns for a fourth round of racing action.

RACE 07 - The WTCC Game (PC)
A racing game for the PC. See, I told you they come in pairs.

MLB Power Pros (WII, PS2)
Little big headed people playing baseball imported from Japan.

Spider-Man: Friend or Foe (X360, PC, PS2, WII, PSP, DS)
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Crash of the Titans (X360, PS2, WII, DS)
Crash Bandicoot spins his way on to the 360 and a possible new career.

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow (PSP)
Gabe Logan comes out the other side of a Dark Mirror and finds his own Shadow.

Hour of Victory (PC)
World War II gets another workout in this FPS.

FlatOut: Ultimate Carnage (X360)
We like the cars, the cars that go boom.

The Chosen - Well of Souls (PC)
Defeat the evil wizard and his hordes of monsters. The classics never die.

Despite E3 rumors that Project Gotham Racing 4 would see delays, the game has gone gold and will hit store shelves on October 2nd. And hopefully beyond the potential bonus of Bizarre Creations freeing up more resources for The Club, they'll find it in their hearts to make another Fur Fighters. Because let's admit it, even though cars are kind of a big deal, there's more money made in cute kitten posters alone than all of Ford and GM profits combined last year.

The truth is a cold, kittenless void, isn't it?

New PGR4 Screens

Project Gotham Racing 4 is less than a month away so Microsoft decided that now would be a good time to ship out a batch of new screenshots all taken with the game's Photo Mode. Hey, did you realize you can view pics captured in Photo Mode in 3D by using a standard pair of red and blue glasses and turning on the 3D glasses cheat? I had no clue.

New batches of PGR4 screens are expected every Thursday until the game's release, we're told.

Nothing Says Concept Car More Than Xbox 360 Dashboard

We were impressed with the innovative and the extreme car designs submitted; We hope that Mihai Panaitescu will be excited when he sees The Flux faithfully created on the Xbox 360.

PGR 4 Commecial Shoot Goes Awry

PGR Used In PS3 Promotion... Again.

Clip: PGR 4 Wetness Trailer