EA: Shift 2 can beat sterile GT5

Just hours before Sony’s Gran Turismo 5 at last arrives at UK retail, publisher EA has said that its upcoming racer Shift 2: Unleashed can offer a more authentic driving experience” that Polyphony’s racer.

If you look at Hot Pursuit and Gran Turismo, there is a big difference in those two products and they will share audiences to some extent,” EA’s senior VP Patrick Soderlund told CVG.

But at the same time I would think that they also have non-overlapping significant audience that won’t buy Gran Turismo but will buy Need For Speed and obviously vice versa.

But if you compare Shift and Gran Turismo, I actually do see Shift as a direct competitor to Gran Turismo for sure. Would I want to compete with Gran Turismo on sheer scale – meaning number of cars and the depth that they have in the game? Probably not.

What does make sense to me – I think they have a very sterile, almost car collecting type of product where that’s mainly what we do and I think we can offer something different.

Our idea is that if we can offer the most authentic driving experience and portray what it feels like being inside a race car, then I think that’s where we can excel and where we absolutely will beat them. That I know for sure.”

Certainly the first Need for Speed: Shift specialised in portraying exactly how manic it feels to hurtle down the road at 200mph in a metal box, but to square up to Gran Turismo on any level is a very bold move.

Shift 2: Unleashed will be released in spring 2011.