Xbox 720: ‘Project Gotham Racing’ Could Be Launch Title

The Xbox 720 may get Project Gotham Racing as a launch title.

Project Gotham Racing is one of those racing games that was popular for a while, and then kind of faded in the midst of the ever-evolving Need for Speed series. It was big on the original Xbox, and the only racing title made by Microsoft, making it an exclusive.

The idea in Project Gotham Racing was not just to reach the finish line first, but also to rack up more points than everyone else. You had to win within a set amount of time, giving you little margin for error. Mastery of the controls was the best way to rise to the top in Microsoft’s first party racing title, but that could be said for any racing game. In some of Need for Speed Carbon‘s race challenges, you had to be able to drift without touching any walls, so apparently the idea of meeting challenges has evolved since then.

Project Gotham Racing stood out from the rest with its realistic portrayal of actual cities including San Francisco, London, Tokyo and New York City (AKA Gotham). The Xbox 720 version should be expected to offer perhaps twice as many cities if not more, possibly including Miami, Phoenix, or Rio de Janeiro.

Lucid Games, made from ex-Bizarre Creation staff, was said to have something big coming in mid-May, and has teased a new title on Facebook coinciding with the reveal of Microsoft’s next generation console.

Of course, this is all speculation, but if the teaser image, including a road sign saying “Road opens 2013” and a reported set location of London have anything to do with it, Project Gotham Racing is our best guess. No comments are being offered at this time, as per the standard for Microsoft since the supposed info leak a while back.

All in all, next generation consoles almost always launch with a racing game, so this very well could be it.

What do you think of the Xbox 720 possibly getting Project Gotham Racing as a launch title?