What The Hell Happened To Project Gotham Racing?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ส.ค. 2024
- The Project Gotham Racing series hasn’t been heard from in many years. The latest entry in the series was a fairly early release for the Xbox 360 and, after that, it’s been pretty much dead. But why is that? Why would a racing series that garnered such a loyal fanbase suddenly vanish as it did? What the hell happened to Project Gotham Racing?
- เกม
This was by far, my favorite racing series of all time. It didn't have the extreme complication of simulation racing, but it also felt realistic and fun. I thought the tracks were nice with varied visuals at interesting locales. Bring it back!
Midnight club >>
@@shawn4354 Midtown Madness > Midnight club
It did feel very "authentic" in exaggeration :)
It was amazing. Playing last man standing and cat and mouse on that cat just added to the fun. What a time to be a gamer back then
PGR 4 was my favorite racing game on the 360. Project Gotham Racing was backwards compatible so i was hoping it'd be available to download, but couldn't find it on Xbox's Store. The superbike was my favorite by far
PGR4 is my favourite racing game of all time. I remember playing Cat and Mouse with Ferrari’s and Minis.... just an awesome game.
Bulldog is what I fell in love with
I agree. I would play every night with several other guys from around the world
Finally some recognition for that great driving series.
Bizarre Creations was acquired by Activision, not EA
@o k t o b e r both companies suck today and must receive hate but yes, some people pound EA down for the wrong reason sometimes
11 months and still haven’t fixed this
I don't think I would buy a PGR5 if released under Activision. Besides, I think Project Cars is the spiritual successor to PGR (I think some of the PGR developers moved to Slightly Mad studios)
@@BinaryReader actually developers from Bizarre moved to Playground Games along with devs from Codemasters so Forza Horizon games are actually saw as spiritual successors for both PGR and CMR franchises. Also, the name PGR is owned by Microsoft so Activision can't release Project Gotham Racing games with this title at least
@@jintei8524 That's good to hear. Honestly tho, I think the racing genre is deprived without PGR. It's such a beloved franchise, the controls in PGR were a perfect mix of arcade and precision racing, I've never felt that simulation derived racers ever came close to capturing the sublime game feel of those original games. I've made do with Project Cars in the interim, but it's just not the same.
Imagine what they could do with modern hardware today. Fully high fidelity Tokyo, New York, Shanghai and London, with more refined physics derived from PGR4, with Geometry Wars: X playing in the garage.
Seriously, those games were perfection.
Pgr3 and 4 was absolutely amazing and I still have a place in my heart for it. I say that as a gt and forza fan. Pgr was kicked to the kirb because Ms didn't want it cannibalising forza sales. It's a shame because it did sell very well in the uk
Great game got it with my Xbox 369 loved it.
Sales don't really matter now to Microsoft because of gamepass and horizon is feeling very stale, this is the right time to bring it back
OMG! I loved project Gotham Racing!! I would love it if Microsoft put it on their xbox store!! I started at PGR 2 and I use to play online and just chat with people, there was a core group of people who lived in the UK I would play with and then my friends from high school joined in, we were living in the USA and just out of high school having our first jobs. I loved earning kudos. I would love for it to come back for the feelings of nostalgia!!!
PGR 2 and PGR 4 are some of my favourite racing games it's sad what happened with bizarre
As a former dev at Bizarre Creations, who started there as a Junior artist during the initial development of PGR4 - some info:
- PGR, and the rights to it as a series are most likely held in perpetuity by MS, as they were our publisher at the time of development of all the PGR series.
During the latter development of PGR4, not only were they not giving us quite the degree of agreed QA support beyond what our studio could do (as Halo 3 was also launching the same month and was getting a LOT of attention), they were also developing Forza 2 internally, as a direct competitor (even though it was much more of a sim, compared to our arcade-sim hybrid).
This didn't go over brilliantly internally. It was with some satisfaction that PGR4 scored 10/10 in Official Xbox Magazine, where it was the footer story on the cover with a 2-page review; vs. Halo 3's 8 page Review and full cover story getting a 9/10.
It was after this, that the studio owners opted to go independent.
However, the cost of this, and the significant expansion of the team during the 2006-2007 period meant it was costly. Not least as Bizarre were one of very few studios that paid overtime. Martin Chudley (Studio head and all round good dude) then reached out for a new publisher. Activision didn't have a racing game specialist in their stable, so they came in (each dev at the studio got a years pay as a joining bonus). Activision weren't quite as publicly awful then as they are now, (but were well on their way).
TMK, the rights to PGR as an IP stayed with MS who had, and have, absolutely zero future plans with it. Activision wanted a fresh start. Along came Blur.
A solid game, looked good, was fun to play,a nd carried on a bit of the PGR legacy.
It failed for several reasons: Activision had no idea to market it, 'what was its hook' and ability to keep players engaged long-term? We brought this up to Acti. They said it was fine, there was a market desire for this game. Their advertising didn't do much to help vs. the 'what is the hook' question. It might have just about managed to do ok, but it came out a week after Split/Second (another arcade racer with a much more freeform arcade-y track and exploding planes etc, definitely more on the 'Burnout' side of things); as well as the same day as ModNation Racer.
One thing a lot of people don't know about, is that at Bizarre, during the development of PGR4 we had a second development team working on a shooter called 'The Club'. It was fairly well received, scoring in the 70's and 80's, and published by Sega. So our full team wasn't working on PGR4.
It was the experience of working on this that meant we worked on James Bond: Blood Stone for Activision. Again, it wasn't marketed well and came out to mixed reviews.
Not long after that, we shut down.
Any sequel to Blur is likely held by Activision
Any sequel to PGR is likely held by Microsoft, though as a much longer series I don't know it the studio itself retained some partial rights
Thanks for the info, from EGDE's article in 2005 Bizarre Creation stated that Microsoft pretty much copied the whole team assembly of them to create Turn 10 and that sounds really bad, from then on I have been wondering if they are ripping you guys off, seemed like the truth. Especially when Forza 4 just balantly copied the Kudos system. I knew PGR4 didn't get enough support and that's really awful. I just hope Lucid Games can have a good start after rushed development of Destruction All Stars.
Also, I have The Club on Steam, solid game but the GFWL problem is preventing me from saving it! I might need to buy an expensive copy of Xbox 360 version instead. In fact I almost have all the games that Bizarre created, only Metropolis Street Racer is missing.
Thanks for the information. I still play PGR4 instead of all the new games.
Project Gotham Racing, the spiritual successor to the incredible Metropolis Street Racer from the Sega Dreamcast.
Most people don't even know that. Incredible.
@@ColdHardTruthNews you'd think really?... but then remember that it's been just over 20 years ago that msr came out, so there is a bunch of 20 or so year olds that don't know. lol
@@gozuam1617 True.
Such a good game
I remember getting this game with my Xbox 360 back in 2006 and the graphics blew me away like when you walked around the garage the wall and metals all had divots and imperfections it was crazy to me
BRING BACK PROJECT GOTHAM RACING!!!!!!! I NEED MY NOSTALGIA FIX.
It was bought by Activision not EA.
They need to make the whole series bc on the series X
TO be honest
Forza Motorsport and horizon franchise has been clearly replace the project Gotham racing in every manner
But THIS IS my one favorite and respectful GAME
As cool as the Horizon racing games are I just much rather PGR still. They had this special charm and style that Forza just doesn't have.
@@CasepbX Could not agree more 👍🏻
Neither are a patch on PGR
I remember thinking these graphics were mind blowing when they announced this game 😂
Activision acquired Bizarre Creations. Come on guys... at least get your facts right if you're attempting to be purveyors of gaming history.
And now Microsoft own Activision
I wanted Halo with my OG xbox, the store didn't have it. So I took PGR 1 :)
Didn't look back.
Also, let's not forget metropolis Street racer ... the daddy of PGR
PGR 2 is one of the best racing games ever made imo. Great physics and fantastic track design, seriously the tracks in PGR 2 are so incredibly well made they would beat most real life tracks both in terms of design and aesthetics. Not to mention it might actually be the best looking original xbox game as well.
It was the first mp game for me and my friends and also the 1st time I ever bought dlc....the France and Long Beach pack
The graphics were a huge jump from the first game. Which is why they went from 60FPS TO 30FPS.
I would love to see another PGR game. I remember this was a day one buy for me with the OG Xbox.
I'll tell you what happened to Project gotham racing.
ACTIVISION (more evil and greedier than EA) bought it just like many many more other studios and closed them. I really wanted Blur 2, prototype 3, next James bond game, Transformers 3, Singularly 2 and a lot of other games which Activision owned.
Bizarre was bought by Activision, not EA. Also it was Activision's fault Blur did not sell. This game had awful marketing and they did not include ANY information about the game on the box, which was huge problem back then. It was the only racing game I knew nothing about in local stores and it had nothing to interest me. For many years I did not knew that it was developed by Bizarre Creations. And IMO PGR4 is THE best arcade racing game ever made.
I have brand new copies of PGR3 and 4 in my collection as these two games were up there with my favourite racing games of all time. Purchased a limited edition Xbox 360 Slim yesterday and taking delivery tomorrow so it's time to revisit these classics and I can't wait!
When PGR1 first came out, the graphics for it blew other games out of the water at the time. PGR2 was the most fun offering a lot more cars, cities, and online. I only got to try PGR3 when I traveled overseas, so I didn't have access to my Xbox system. That same time, I also tried Forza 3, and when I got my Xbox 360, I was hooked on Forza and continued with FM4, 5, 7 and Horizon 2, 3, and 4. But even now Forza has been dropping the ball, so I don't really spend time with racing games anymore. The PS2 and Xbox era was the best time for the driving/racing genre.
it's kind of annoying that all the footage we are seeing is from trailers and not actual gameplay
they should reboot this series with pseudo futuristic cars (rather than flying cars, i mean cars more akin to those in cyberpunk) whilst keeping the cars from pgr 1-4 as legacy vehicles. it could really be one of the most unique racing hybrids on the market, especially with those new cars.
Project Gotham 3 is still better than forza. The experience itself . Let’s not even get into test drive unlimited
I loved PGR, loved the variety of challenges that kept things fresh and the nice blend of realistic handling without getting bogged down in setups. The fact that cars couldn't be set up was a real bonus to me as you had to change your driving style car to car to get a lap time out of it and you could compare car lap times with others knowing the difference was all down to the drivers. City racing is also a lot more entertaining than track racing, more colourful, easier to pick braking references too, I really wish they still made these.
That was Activision, not EA... But I would love to see a new PGR. Maybe Playground could do it, since the PGR IP is still in Microsofts hands.
For me PGR 3 and 4 were the best racing games EVER. The weekly(PGR3) and daily(PGR4) tourneys were the best thing ever and it was never replicated. I miss the series more than any other game
Til this day Project Gotham 2 is still my favorite racing game. The whole series was really good.
I played the heck out of it… I was for the longest time gold on many categories and one day I pushed through the difficulty, platinum medals look so good 😝 Not to mention the grand unlock TVR.
PGR was great. Loved it.
I enjoyed the driving in #3 so much more then #4. I definitely liked what they added to #4 with weather, bikes, more tracks etc. But the driving felt off for some reason. Maybe a little more realistic then #3 not quite sure. I made so many friends and had so many fun years playing #3 I won't ever forget it. Still my favorite racing game I've played.
By far my favourite racing series.
What happened? Forza happened. The same with Prince of Persia = Assassin Creeds happened. What happened with Burnout? EA happened (like with many other games). Medal of Honor? Battlefield happened. I miss Project Gotham Racing and Burnout series a lot. I really miss games without open world where you can drive anywhere. I prefer games with closed tracks like in old games.
I loved PGR 4. I also had MSR on the Dreamcast which I loved and it was the forerunner to this series.
How I wish they’d release a new PGR. Such great times playing that. It drove fairly well but was fun, had realistic damage and nothing comes close nowadays IMHO. Newer games have better graphics and physics etc but they don’t know how to build a fun game
Man I loved playing pgr2 over Xbox live on my OG xbox
I love this game.
I still own every single one.
Microsoft needs to have Turn 10 a Second Studio so they can bring this game back while work on Forza
Forza Horizon is a worthy replacement which takes many of PGR’s best attributes.
I agree with this statement, is just sad to see such a talented group of people who really enjoyed racing go out the door..
I loved this game. The very first one was one of my favorite Dreamcast games.
MSR was on Dreamcast. PGR started on Xbox OG.
Msr was a good game though
@@IIopopoII Project Gotham was a rebranded MSR. MSR was the groundbreaking game on Dreamcast by developers Bizarre. they took over 100k photos from cities around the world then created the likes of the streets of London very accurately right down to restaurant and jewellery shop places being as they are in real life - it was a very ambitious and rewarding game to play on Dreamcast. Then MS bought up loads of Devs to support their Xbox. That's how MSR became renamed to project Gotham.
@@rhythmicstu I remember the epic music in MSR. I still actually have the Dreamcast OG MSR game. Not copied but OG lol. Just need to buy a Dreamcast again lol. Also have Shenmue 1 & 2 on Dreamcast OG disks as well. As a 37 year old bloke who is nearly 38 in a month or so. I have nice memories of MSR & all PGR and bought them all. 👍😎
@@IIopopoII haha yea man msr and shenmue. I don't remember the music on mar - I'll have to check it out. I think those games are pretty much all I played on DC oh and soul calibur lol
I'd love 2 see a new Project Gotham Racing. I think Turn 10 Studios might have the rights 2 the franchise.
We want Gotham Racing Five, six and seven like today!
I Remember begging microsoft to acquire bizarre creations back in 2006 its a shame letting a talented studio from liverpool 🇬🇧 like that go to wasted by being acquired by activision, if they do bring it back i Would like to see every international cities get a track on it and a small story mode like the crew and online challenges on the game and i would have asobo do it they did great job on flight simulator and rename the franchise project city racing.
PGR4 remaster please 🥳
It would be very welcome if they continue the franchise. It were such fun games!
The way you displayed your cars in pgr4 was so good. They only comparable games would be test drive unlimited series and gta 5 online. I wish horizon took more care to make the houses and garage space special
The controls always drove me nuts and I had no idea what the point of kudos was 😂
I had PGR1 and 2 on the original xbox. Never played 3 and 4. I was in love with version 2. I honestly think the game was way ahead of its time. The graphics was amazing and this was early 2000. I miss the game and I was hoping there would have been a new version but like you said, where will it fit ? Now we have Forza and a bunch of others
this is probably my favourite racing series of games ever. and i still hope every day a new game will be announced. even though it seems very unlikely.
Still own my og copies of metropolis street racer and project gotham 1 & 2. they still give me the sensation of speed like no other game. only other game that ever came close was Grid race driver from 2008.
PGR needs to be brought back, to the necromancer!
PGR was a little bit ahead of its time. I loved all the PGR games I even made a steering wheel setup painted with PGR and Xbox logos
Xbox
Go power on an OG Xbox, or Xbox 360 and play Project Gotham Racing 2 for a bit. Let me know how fun it is compared to Forza.
Till this day, Project Gotham Racing 2 is one of the best all-around car racing games made, EVER.
Sure, it doesn't have an open world. It doesn't have car customization (and I'm a car guy) . However, for the lack of those things, it makes up for:
- Precise car handling for that day (the developers posted the number of speeding tickets received during R&D in the credits section of the game.
- Unique track destinations like Syndey
- Car maneuver events like cone challenges
- Garage walk around the floor with an arcade machine, infamous Geometry Wars
- Showroom to see all the cars and drive them around the test track.
- A pop-down radio head unit when you changed the in-game and local saved music tracks.
- 278 music files and 95% of that was in-game non-menu music
- Some of the most enjoyable and agitating AI to race against
- It was your Xbox racing gaming intellectual property POSTER child before Forza existed.
- The best racing game graphics on Xbox full stop. Even today the graphics are passable given how old the game is.
- It's a nearly timeless design, fun and addictive to play. It's like Halo but racing. No fancy performance mods, just you and the tool and how good you are with that tool.
It sure would be nice to have PGR on backward compatibility.
It sure would be nice to have a new PGR game.
I've played the first and the last PGR4 is one of my all time favourite games
The first PGR game if I remember had the fusion frenzy demo and Cel Damage
I wonder if we'll get a PGR5 now that MS bought ATVI.
This game never did any thing for me. Need for Seed, burn out, AC pro am, split second,mod nation,midnight club, and motor storm were my games. No one talks about split second or AC pro am.
It's unfortunate that there's not really any good way to play these games these days without buying an Xbox or Xbox 360
PGR3 ripped so hard, miss that game
Many hours spent split screen with friends playing PGR. What awesome game. The city design and atmosphere are still high points in my gaming memory.
I love the PGR series my absolute favourite racing games of all time. I remember going to a game shops for PS2 games and would see the Ferraris on the covers of pgr1 + 2 and had to get a Xbox. Got a xb and pgr1 ( + halo ) and hooked straight away, PGR blew my mind, I was in love. I had two copies of pgr4 as I was having soooooo much fun online. Forza is only ok and I've never had the same fun online like I did with pgr4. My favourite track of all time was on pgr4, St Petersburg Russia. Great awesome memories. I don't think a new pgr would work but I'd love to see the original four games or just pgr4 remastered but I know ms won't do it.
how many times did you repeat the same game loop making this video?
Not gonna lie. When this popped up on my feed, I thought I somehow missed out on a Batman racing game
PGR 2 & 3 were amazing games. I’d love a remake of this amazing racing game
I haven't seen this video and i don't really need to because i already have the answer, "Project Gotham Racing" was rebranded to "Forza Motorsport",
Same as "Collin McRae Rally" was rebranded to "Dirt"
I loved these games. What I remember most was playing my own background music!
Brings back some good gaming memories!
I remember PGR2 as one of my favourite racing games ever. The difficulty levels were near perfect, with platinum often being a proper challenge. This is where the fourth installment went wrong and why I don't believe it is the definitive PGR game. The highest difficulty could be beat too easily, sometimes on the first try. It's calendar style campaign mode didn't help either. Multiplayer was good fun though. I only played the third one in a store once, but I feel the series might have peaked with that one.
I think you got EA and Activision mixed up
Can a PGR disc play on a Xbox One? I loved 3 and I'd like to try 4.
No
You Need to make a amendment, Activision acquired Bizarre Creations and had asked them to develop Blur the game
I actually forgot PGR4 existed. I think I completed it and never touched it much again unlike all the previous games even the Dreamcast semi-prequel Metropolis Street Racer.
I think that was partly as I'd by then moved on to other games. but I have replayed the earlier ones many times.
I still own a 360 only to revisit this games every few months
This video is inaccurate. EA did not acquire Bizarre Creations, Activision did. Microsoft did not retain the license for PGR when that happened, and Activision were the ones to Bizarre Creations down. However, Microsoft has since purchased Activision Blizzard, so one assumed they've re-acquired the license for PGR. So hope remain for a 5th installment.
Don't forget about Project Gotham Racing Ferrari Edition which was made for the Zune HD. That one was a lot of fun as well!
I used to play the java version of PGR on my old Nokia phone, good old times
I loving project Gotham racing series all games . Best arcade racing game ever . pgr3 and Need for speed 2005 at the same period, pgr3 completely crushes Need for speed 2005 in terms of image quality. Need for speed didn't catch up until the hot pursuit in 2010 in terms of image quality.
They must to add Jaguar XJR-15, Italdesign BMW Nazca C2, Mercedes-Benz CLK LM, and bring back the Ford GT90!!
The one critique I have about the series of games is, although the physics are really close to be considered simulation, tends to have being very arbitrary with the car characteristics or class placement. For example in 2, the Pacific Muscle class is very weird balanced. Both the skyline and 3000gt would be the best in class, being very similar in their specs, then followed by the Evo, Wrx, and Rx7, and last the supra. But in-game the 3000gt Is dead last, the rally cars are very stiff unlike real life, and the in-game skyline is too drifty that, despite being top of the class, both the Rx7 and the rally cars drives better.
We desperately need PGR5
It's a shame that MS let this great IP die !!
I started with MSR on DREAMCAST and played all PGR games, my favourite was and still ist PGR 4. I love it ❤️
Thanks Activision for ruining another beloved game company.
Oh man the memories! PGR2 on Xbox live was sooo fun! I wish this studio was still around, hoping for 1 day to get a sequel to Blurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!! That was such a fun game online
What a game went round the nurbergring in just over 5 mins in my Enzo Ferrari happy times
Big fan of n2 in xbox era I played the gane from 2004 to 2012. Manage every gold medals and almost every platinium. But still some are too hard
6:10 was that booker T driving the bike ?
Activision acquired Bizarre Creations , not EA
But the og employee at bizarre creation formed lucid games to work on destruction all stars
I played every PGR and was a fan from the beginning. That said, I always thought PGR3 was better than PGR4. I bought PGR3 along with my Xbox360 and I have many great memories of late nights racing online. I loved the hell out of that game.
Remember when we used to be on Gotham TV if we were good? That was the epitome of being a gamer! Being seen by spectators
Do the physical discs work on xbox series consoles?
This was the best ever racing game ever I love bikes and cars beautiful video graphics
how u gonna talk about this series without talking about msr?????
I forgot how much I loved the project Gotham games.
Imagine if PGR5 will exist in the future…… 🤔
Activision brought his company to make Blur? it was a bit like mario kart but it flopped even tho it was a fun game so it got binned so did he and he was left with a development ban of 10 or 15 years which is up or nearly up he still owns the rights to PGR
Blur. That’s what happened.
I found this in my dads old stash of games
Haven't played a racing game since PGR4, tried Forza and hated it.
Blue was great also pgr designers and blurs designers went to work on forza