Can't have a major release date without competitors taking a crap all over it. In this case, Electronic Arts and Codemasters. We love it when people talk trash about other folks' products. Let's you and him fight!
Need For Speed is a different experience from GT5, of course, and Patrick Soderlund, a senior vice president for Electronic Arts, understands this. He still regards Need For Speed: Shift 2 as a direct competitor, and a better one at that.
"I think they have a very sterile, almost car collecting type of product where that's mainly what we do and I think we can offer something different," Soderlund told CVG.
Codemasters, which takes this racing business rather seriously, just released F1 2010. Their CEO, Rod Cousens, praised GT5 as a "phenomenal product," and then proceeds to call it "boring."
"You can have a technically phenomenal game, but you can also have a game concept that doesn't really appeal [to some racing fans] and could be accused of - and you have to be careful how you write this - of being boring," Cousens said.
No, you have to be careful how you say that.
"We don't have that problem," Cousens went on, "We feel the adrenaline rush that we'll always provide in F1 will not be matched by anyone else. You're going to have all the cars, all the tracks and all the worldwide locations - not to mention the best strategy, and the best damage, as far as we can."
EA Claims Gran Turismo 5 is Very Sterile, Codemasters Accuses it as Being Boring [Operation Sports]