'Forza Motorsport 5' debuts on a real racetrack in Australia

Like the friendly jibes between Chevy and Ford fans, it's a toss-up whether Sony's "Gran Turismo" or Microsoft's "Forza Motorsport" is king of the racing simulators.

With "Gran Turismo" and Nissan hosting their own virtual racing series for the past five years, and with game sponsorship on real GT-R endurance racers, the "Forza Motorsport" team is playing catch-up Down Under. On Oct. 13, an all-green Xbox One livery will adorn the Holden VF Commodore race car in Australia's most famous race, the 1,000-kilometer Bathurst 1000. (Disclosure: Xbox is owned by Microsoft, which owns MSN.) The car has 640 horsepower and a top speed of 186 mph.

The V8 Supercar series is full of production-based, Australian-built sedans, much like the local metal running in the British Touring Car Championship and the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters in Germany.

Essentially, the Xbox One sponsorship is only good for the Bathurst, and despite what Microsoft says, the computer giant doesn't have its own racing team. Instead, it partnered with Triple Eight Race Engineering, which has won the Bathurst 1000 five times and four driver and team championships since the team's inception in 2003. In the U.K., Triple Eight – now separate from Australia – has racked up an additional 22 championships since 1996, primarily as the former official team for Vauxhall, the U.K. version of Holden. Both brands are under General Motors.


Both "Forza Motorsport 5" and Xbox One, which had been under controversy for its potential to record and identify gamers without their knowledge, will debut on Nov. 22.

[Source: Xbox]


Source: MSN