Forza 5 Motorsport will be helping to kick off the Xbox One launch on November 22, but just how "next gen" will it be?
According to Turn10 creative director Dan Greenawalt, it's about much more than just looking better, and Microsoft has a fairly decent advantage in this area.
With so many areas of research within the company, game teams are able to bleed other areas of the company for ideas.
"We have research working on medical technology, we have research working on robotics and artificial intelligence," said Greenawalt, speaking about Microsoft broadly. "And we're able to use that to bring that power to bear in a game. That's incredibly difficult for a game company to do, but it's not very hard for Microsoft."
"So I know Microsoft is not thought of the gaming sexy brand, but as a creator, I love being involved," said Greenawalt. "Being able to get on an email or get on an IM with a 25 year PHD from research in Cambridge that works on robotics...I can't do that if I work in almost any other company in the world."
The birth of Drivatar
One aspect of Forza 5 that this has clearly played into is the cloud-based Drivatar feature which learns and mimics your racing behaviour, letting others race you even when you're away.
But Greenawalt went on to add that this was only the start of finding innovative uses for the cloud, and that other will soon be coming up with even bigger and better ideas.
"We're going to ping pong around for a year, people are going to keep coming up with new ideas. That, to me, is the most exciting component. Because it's in an essence unpredictable, whereas the optimisation of the hardware, that's predictable. You know it's going to happen."
- Want to read our Xbox One hands on review? Of course you do
