[i]Full Throttle is a series of posts from NihonTiger about racing games and the racing genre.
Sometimes, it'll be news. A lot of times, it'll be opinion. Sometimes, maybe both. And other times, maybe a look back at good old racing games. Enjoy.[/i]

Forza 3 comes out in just a few weeks, and while I'm drooling with anticipation, a little bit of somewhat significant news came out recently and no one noticed. It probably was because Turn 10 didn't write it up and send it out as a press release, but I digress. That's something for another time.

The news was that Forza 3 will have *gasp* stock cars in the game from Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge (Toyota is notably absent), based off the design of the NASCAR stock car before they revealed the Car of Tomorrow (CoT) a few years back. I'm assuming this is the case because they don't have NASCAR's license and the CoT is NASCAR's creation. These stock cars, though, are run in several different series, including some non-NASCAR ones, so I'm guessing that's why they're in the game instead.

It doesn't take away from the fact that Gran Turismo 5 has the NASCAR license and at least Daytona and Indianapolis (with many more likely to follow), but it does take some of the punch out of that big exclusivity that Sony thought they had locked up. After all, with the amazing custom livery creator and the ability to send other people liveries without having to send them cars, there's nothing that will keep the best of the best from painting almost the entire 2009 Sprint Cup field and sharing it with the world. Having been a regular on the Forza Motorsport forums during the Forza 2 era, I can recall several threads filled with customized cars that featured paint jobs based off those of NASCAR teams. With these new cars, they're not only going to be appealing to the NASCAR fans out there who might not want Forza because of the licensing, but those who paint cars for others are going to be happy they won't have to squeeze Jeff Gordon's #24 Dupont flame pattern on a Chevrolet Cobalt any longer. And there's nothing Sony can do about it.

Still, there might be some painted cars in the future, most likely as DLC: the Limited Edition crew gets a custom Charget stock car with an Xbox 360 paint job on it just for buying the game. This all might not mean much to you, but with no EA NASCAR titles being produced and with the PS3 being the only home right now to the license, it's a shot across the bow of Sony and Polyphony Digital that Microsoft and Turn 10 aren't going to let them just run away with what is actually quite a lucrative market.

And hey, with Gran Turismo 5 still off in the 2010 horizon, this is the only racing game stock car fans are going to have to satisfy their needs this holiday season.