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Speaking to Edge, Bizarre Creations’ creative director Martyn Chudley and commercial director Sarah Chudley have explained some of the reasons behind the decision to leave behind independence and Microsoft.
“We were talking throughout the whole of that year about what we were going to do,” said Martyn. “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.”
He continued: “We were talking with Activision, and then they were the third biggest publisher in the world and with no racing studio, or racing title; they tried for ten years to come up with a racing franchise and hadn’t managed it. 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.”
There was also the feeling that Microsoft held the Forza series in higher regard, focusing its attention on developer Turn 10.
“… their main focus was always on the Forza team,” said Sarah, to which Martyn added, “and that was at the expense of us. They brought out the Forza [Xbox 360 console] bundle. And that was disappointing, because the guys worked so hard on [PGR4]. It just didn’t get the exposure and the marketing – it got the critical acclaim, but wasn’t as commercially successful as the other projects.”
For the rest of the revealing interview, head over to Edge.
Bizarre Creations is currently working on Blur, a new racing franchise for Activision.
