Even before the sale to Activision was announced, Microsoft handed Bizarre Creations a pink slip. They’re going to use in-house resources to develop their Project Gotham Racing series.

Could this have been the reason for the sale? Possibly. But Bizarre isn’t just a one trick pony. They’ve put together a few other nice titles, like Geometry Wars, Boom Boom Rocket, and The Club. They’ve confirmed they’re working on two new big franchises under the Activision umbrella.

A few things need to be looked at here. Does Microsoft have the in-house resources to keep Project Gotham at the current level of fun and style? Will Bizarre take their development knowledge and create a game with Activision to put Project Gotham at the bottom of the barrel? Only time will tell, and we’ll keep you posted.

Activision dropped some serious cash to acquire Bizarre Creations, the developer of Project Gotham Racing and Geometry Wars. The actual price wasn’t released, but I wouldn’t expect it to be cheap.

Bizarre Creations had a statement regarding the news on their own website:

Well, we’re no longer tied to just one platform for starters. Our future titles can be on whatever we please – we are a truly multiplatform studio now. Of course that doesn’t mean that we’ll be forced to make a port of every game to every console in existence… we simply have that option available to us.

Both of our two main game teams are about to start work on two new AAA titles for Activision. One will be a racing game, and the other a character game. Of course we’ll make some more detailed announcements in the future, but be prepared for something big and exciting!

Very cool. Could PGR5 end up on all consoles? Only time will tell.

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The highly anticipated racing game from Microsoft has already gone gold, well ahead of its October 2 release date reports gamerscoreblog.com.

The official “PGR 4” web site at http://www.pgrnations.com contains the most recent news and updates in the Project Gotham universe. Currently, the web site is the home to the game’s full robust vehicles list, including models from the world’s top car and motorcycle manufacturers, as well as the official Achievements list. The site will be continually updated to give fans a true home base with all the “PGR 4” information and content they’re looking for.

If PGR4 is anything like Forza, expect this game to be a monster.

Many people are looking forward to the new PGR 4 title, which comes complete with motorcycles now. Today the game has been confirmed to launch on October 2, 2007 in North America with an estimated retail price of $59.99. PGR4 boasts an all-new career mode, dynamic weather system and PGR On Demand. The game will also feature some exotic locations, including St. Petersburg, Shanghai, and Macau, plus most importantly a revised kudos system.

Here is a new screenshot of PGR 4 along with the newly announced car list. For more screen shots and the newly added motorcycle list as well hit the jump. Some of these new screens are pretty sweet.

Added Cars

-Ariel Atom 300 Supercharged 2004
-Aston Martin V8 Vantage 2005
-Austin Mini Cooper S 1964
-Chevrolet Camaro Z28 1969
-Ferrari F430 2004
-Caparo T1 2007
-Caterham R500 2000
-Lamborghini Gallardo 2004
-Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren 2005
-Tesla Roadster 2008
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“Project Gotham Racing 4″ is the highly anticipated next installment of the blockbuster “Project Gotham Racing” (PGR®) franchise, developed by Bizarre Creations exclusively for the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system. With a dramatic new weather system, revamped career mode, revised Kudos system, new tracks and locations as well as the world’s most iconic vehicles, “PGR 4″ takes racing to a new level of thrill and excitement.

For the first time in “PGR” history, drivers will have the option of racing a variety of motorcycles from top manufacturers, such as Ducati, BMW and Honda. Whether on two wheels or four, players must perform daring and stylistic moves to win over their fans, who will cheer them on as they follow their road to racing notoriety.

Hit the jump for more…

Lack of disk space on the DVD for PGR4 is going to inhibit some of the game’s production, namely the ability to race on the same tracks and day and night. This is a posting from Bizarre Studios, the OFFICIAL forum for PGR4. The blogger mentioned here is Ben, who is also an OFFICIAL game developer. When asked whether the day/night tracks would be available, he replied:

You won’t see different times of day per city because this involves recreating all the textures again (one for day and one for night). Whilst this wasn’t a problem for our dev team, it was a problem fitting all this data onto a single DVD. So we’ve worked around the problem by providing different lighting models per city. For example, Macau is always in the daytime, but if you play it during a storm everything looks darker and more foreboding. If you play during a blizzard then things are slightly tinged blue and everything seems more frozen. Of course, playing this track in sunshine will make everything appear bright and yellowy.

It seems that Bizarre is the latest developer to have the DVD’s limitations stand in the way of progress.

We saw the trailer before showing the rain, now we have one showing the snow, this time at Nurburgring, which is probably the most famous track in the world.

What gets me is that the snow doesn’t seem to have any effect on the driving physics. If I’m taking a sharp turn at 80mph in a Ferrari, you better believe I’m going to spin out multiple times. It doesn’t look like that happens from this trailer. Hopefully this gets resolved before the game ships.

Unfortunately there’s no HD lovin.

Project Gotham Racing 4 will have some really nifty dynamic weather effects. Want to see what ran on your hood looks like? You’re in luck.

Maybe they’ll have some races in a blizzard where you have no traction.

Here’s your HD goodness.

All three of these games look beautiful. There’s no denying that. But how do they stack up head to head? A user sent us this image to show the differences between these 3 games with cars they have in common.

Personally, I think GT HD has better car detail than both of the others. What do you think?

Full image after the jump.

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