Do you think marketing exists in a vacuum? I'm not saying they're wrong for mentioning it, if I had to market a product and had two key features where I'm ahead of the competition you can bet I'm gonna mention and emphasize it. It just was definitely aimed at their main competitor that had just launched at that point.
I think advertising basic features of your game exists in a vacuum, yes. I think that if GT7 didn't exist, they would have said the exact same thing. If GT7 had full ToD/weather on all track and in-game raytracing, they would have said the exact same thing. This is basic information about the game that needed to be communicated clearly to potential customers.
Because the previous game, FM7, did
not have full ToD and weather. FM7 also didn't have raytracing. That their new game does have these things is worth mentioning purely based on progress from their last game. They would be colossal fools not to, those are probably two of the biggest upgrades from FM7, at least in terms of ones that will appeal to all users. It's insane to be reading this as a targeted attack ad on GT7 when you can just look at FM7 - they're marketing a product that has two key features
over it's own previous version.
It's not Forza's fault that Gran Turismo had pretty good ToD and weather all the way back in 2010 (frame rate issues notwithstanding), and failed to capitalise on their lead. Forza has been really, really slow getting to this point, and it's been something that Forza players have been griping about for a long time. They've been behind pretty much every other sim racing game, and yet somehow they're now taking shots at GT7 by
finally having these features and daring to talk about them. Huh.
You gonna say it's shots on GT7 when they announce their track list and car list too? What if they have more? I bet they're gonna have some tracks and cars that GT7 doesn't. Is mentioning them a shot at GT7? Is
everything that is different or better going to be a shot at GT7? Because you might as well just stake your flag now if so.
I have to agree with
@Artremis here. Now I don't know for sure IF T10 actually took shots at PD or it's just a coincidence that they stated those features but it does feel like they're taking shots when I watched the reveal.
It feels like that because it's so bat **** crazy that Polyphony chose not to universally roll out ToD/weather, and doesn't seem to be making much effort to update the tracks that aren't fully featured. Any racing game talking about ToD or weather seems like a shot against Polyphony now, because they're the ones standing out from the crowd. And not in a good way.
What if they start talking about microtransactions? What if they don't have microtransactions at all? Is that going to be useful information that consumers are interested in, or is that also going to be shots at GT7?
Just because one dev does something poorly, doesn't mean that anyone talking about doing the same thing in a better way is automatically punching down. Sometimes you can just talk about your game, and it's impolite to assume malice where there's no evidence for it.
