Tom Burt, who owns #203 of the all-electric sports car made by the Silicon Valley company, wrote on Tesla's "Customer Blog":

A team of sound engineers from Microsoft Game Studios (some working on Forza, some on Project Gotham Racing) asked if I was willing to take my Roadster to a track so they could record a variety of sounds. Some time ago they had the opportunity to record Tesla motor noises when a prototype was being run on a dyno at Tesla. But the teams were excited about the prospect of recording other sounds, particularly tire skid and squeal noises, without the interference of loud engine and exhaust noise. Of course I said "yes."

Burt provided pics of his miked-up ride, which you can see above. (There are more at the link).

Burt is listed on Microsoft's official site as a corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for litigation. The Tesla Roadster did appear in PGR 4 (released 2007). Of course, why would they re-record the engine note if it wasn't needed for a new game? It could also be that Burt misspoke or misunderstood who was asking for the audio.

We've reported on rumors of PGR 5 in development in the past, so this is not exactly surprising. Still, I've emailed Microsoft to notify them of Burt's comments and ask them for one.

Microsoft Executive Confirms PGR5 in the Works [Kokugamer via GameStooge]

"We did our homework and saw a huge opportunity to move beyond traditional racers and create a game completely focused on making racing ‘fun' again," said Martyn Chudley, Creative Director, Bizarre Creations. "Blur delivers a new style of racing experience for all gamers, regardless of their experience, skill or genre preferences. Everything the player does, both in their cars and with their cars, is a dramatic adrenaline rush; it's a real blast!"

Blur will feature 20 cars, offline or online, on a track and offensive and defensive attacks set in real-world locations ranging from L.A. and San Francisco to Hackney, UK and Barcelona, Spain. The game also supports four-player split-screen play.

"We know that racing can be fun for everyone, and we are excited to enter this genre with a game that keeps players in the pack and combines fun with intense racing battles," said Maria Stipp, EVP and GM of Owned Properties, Activision Publishing. "Bizarre Creations is one of the most creative studios in the industry with a rich heritage of top-rated racing games and we are excited to partner with them on Blur, which is set to break the mold of traditional racing games."

The game will be presented through "Bizarre's innovative new community-based interface", according to the press release.

This unique story-driving social network evolves dynamically as players compete in different races, make new friends, rivals and fans, and connect with other racers both in-game and in real life.

Custom Groups will let anyone create multiplayer modes with custom settings. These new modes are then shared through Blur's "social network" so others can try the modes as well.

Blur is set for a fall release on the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360.

Speaking with Edge, the studio's creative director Martyn Chudley has told of Bizarre's final weeks with Microsoft, as development on Project Gotham Racing 4 (which I maintain is the best racing game of this generation) was being wound up.

I'm not going to slag [Microsoft] off in an evil way, but obviously we worked on PGR4 for them, and I think that PGR4 was the strongest Gotham game we did – the most fully rounded. But towards the end of that project they wanted us to bring it in early, to chop six weeks off development. But the way we work is really right up to the wire, so basically the game is nowhere near finished at six weeks to go, so we had to dig our heels in and say that our contract said that we're to bring the game in on this day, and that's what we were going to do because we cannot compromise the work that the lads have been doing, and the quality of the game.

They didn't realise how bad a situation it would have been – we needed that extra six weeks, and it got us concerned with the future with Microsoft… We were getting disillusioned with Microsoft and they were getting corporate and cocky as well because of the shift in power between them and Sony.

Perfectly understandable, and stupid of Microsoft to let one of their better studios get away like that. But, uh, why the deal with Activision, of all people? How can the publisher that makes exploitation of a franchise a core business aim be any better?

Interview: Bizarre Creations' Martyn Chudley [Edge]

Gotham’s owned by Microsoft. They will be doing with Gotham whatever they want...We still own the Kudos element. We have a joint patent with Microsoft, so that’s something we could use in the future if we wanted to.

So smile, PGR fans! Bizarre can still make PGR, they just can't call it PGR anymore. Savvy!

Bizarre Creations boss: “Do we do Gotham 5?” [VG247]

...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]

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]

Compared to PGR3, 4 has twice the number of locations, improved graphics, and of course, bikes. The focus is on "you" being the star, so you customize your character's profile with stuff like your country so that you can participate in regional competitions online. Each region then goes on to send their best to world competitions, which will crown a world champion PGR player in the end. Pretty neat.

The environmental effects are definitely something to notice. There's rain, snow, ice, and even puddles on the ground, all affecting your driving. The snow and rain change your car's exterior to a have a "rain" effect, but the real interesting view is the cockpit view. When you're inside the car, you can see the water go up the windshield and around the side windows. Looks quite realistic, and should spice up the cockpit view enough that you'll want to be inside even with the decreased visibility.

As for bikes, the developers are trying to make them as "Project Gotham" as possible. Which is to say, more arcadey and less realistic in the effort to keep things fun. You can bump and grind into other bikes and cars, but if you go too hard or ram into a wall at the wrong angle you'll fall off and have to get back on.

You can play your career mode on either a bike or a car, and most races will have at least one bike to give everything a nice mix. So bikes are definitely in there in a big way. We asked how the racing wheel will work on bikes (it works fine on cars), but the PR referee chimed in and said they didn't have anything to say about that at this time.

Other cool things are volumetric fog—which you can actually get up and over in parts of levels—the presence of arcade mode like in PGR2, party and team races in online modes, regional championships, Gotham on Demand (a YouTube-like system to share and view video recordings of races), and "left of center" achievements.

Oh, and there isn't going to be a Geometry Wars Galaxies in this game, but there is going to be something along those lines.

Remember when Xbox 360 game PGR3 was used to promote PS3 title Gran Turismo? Boy, that was embarrassing! Hate to have something like that happen again. And somebody to get in trouble, too? Horrible. Thank car manufacturer Kia, because it has happened again. The automobile company's Spanish website is running a promotion the compares driving a Kia to driving a Ferrari Enzo on the PS3. (Ha!) Thing is, the license plate clearly says PGR on it — That's an exclusive Xbox 360 game, published by Microsoft even. When will they ever learn? Not before somebody can pull a hat trick, I hope! Brian Ashcraft

Ooops! [Kia via Acey Bongo's Thanks, Mark!]

From what I can see in the video it looks like those water effects are simply static skins attached to the cars, and not some sort of magical dynamic rivuletation system. Still pretty, but until I have to pull a t-shirt out of the back to wipe the condensation off the front windshield, driving games will never truly be real. Michael Fahey

Bizarre Creations is selling off a car to raise money for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

But before you get all excited, fantasizing about what sort of cool vehicle the people behind Project Gotham Racing might be giving up, take a look at that picture up there. That's the car.

It's a 1988 Granada 2.9i Ghia Auto. But not just any Gha, gha gha Ghia. This is bad boy was tricked out with some pretty slick Bizarre Creations decals including bullet hole effect stickers and the company logo... oh and some sweet flames.

The car was used by the team to compete in the Scumball 3000 rally across Europe, an event in which BC took a respectable tenth place out of 44. If you live in the UK and want to own the Granzilla hop on over the charity auction on eBay.

The price is only at 225 GBp last I checked. Brian Crecente

eBay Auction

Those charitable donations went to the Marie Curie Cancer Care organization which provides free nursing care for terminally ill patients. So, don't let that horrid pounds-to-dollars exchange rate get you down, people are doing good things out there! Kudos to the participants. Michael McWhertor

Bizarre folk raise 4,000 for Marie Curie [Bizarre Online]

While no screens or in-game video has leaked yet, Bizarre did give members of the press a look at the tech behind the game, as well as a quick hands-off playthrough. So what's so great about The Club that'll put your surround sound system to the test? EXPLOSIONS! Duh. But how about some attention to detail?

The final demo is with Mathias Grundwalt (Lead Sound Designer), who squeezed the group into his specially designed audio studio. He then proceeds to demonstrate all the different types of surfaces we have in the game, and how these affect the soundscape. For example, shooting a fabric sofa will sound much different to shooting a hollow metal container. But what if the bullet first passes through the sofa, and then hits the container at a slower rate? This demonstration really needs to be heard to be believed.

Neat. There's a promise of media and impressions to come, so hit up Bizarre's forums for further details. Michael McWhertor

Studio Update 22 [Bizarre Creations]

A Scottish researcher used Project Gotham Racing to research the effects of music and sound on player performance.

The study discovered that listening to relaxing music slows drivers down, but the best driving is born of silence.

While the effect music had on the speed drivers went isn't too surprising, there were some interesting discoveries made.

I would have hoped that aggressive music would have made people drive a little faster," Cassidy said. It did, though it also made them crash into a higher number of cones and barriers than those who didn't. More crashes occurred when the player couldn't even hear their own car.

But the biggest surprise came when the drivers raced to relaxing music. "I would have maybe expected it would make them more relaxed and would make them more accurate," she said. It didn't. The change in music caused the drives to slow down to an extent, but it also distorted their ability to estimate how fast they had been racing. In other words, they thought they'd been driving even mellower than they really were.

Pedal To The Metal: Heavy Tunes Cause Gaming Fender Benders [MTV, thanks Stephen]