Not long after Turn 10 announced the upcoming release of a downloadable race track for Forza Motorsport 2 on the Microsoft Xbox 360, complaints from fans about the steep price made the developers decide to drop the required Microsoft Points. Twin Ring Motegi, according to lead designer Dan Greenawalt, is worth 600 MS points, but they're letting it go for 400 MS points instead.

The community manager at Forza Motorsport 2's forums explained, "The goal of DLC isn't so much a revenue generator (production costs usually far outweigh your return), but it's more of a way to keep the community engaged in your game."

Given that the said community wasn't happy about having to buy blocks of 1000 MS points to avail of one map for 600 MS points, the price was reduced to allow users with 500 MS points to purchase the downloadable content.

Twin Ring Motegi should be available from Live Marketplace in a few hours, come 9:00 a.m. (GMT) of October 26 for all regions. If you need more details, click on the link below that will take you to Forza Motorsport 2's community forums.

Dan Greenawalt, Turn 10's lead designer for Forza Motorsport 2, recently had a talk with GameSpot about their upcoming piece of downloadable content for Forza 2. The track, known as Twin Ring Motegi, will be made available to gamers on October 26, and in preparation for that, Greenawalt offered to respond to some questions regarding the choice of track and tips for handling the course.

First off, the justification for the track. Greenawalt explained that Twin Ring Motegi gave gamers the most value for money, if you're looking at the dynamics of the course itself. The twin ring layout offers multiple ways for gamers to set up races, and because of it, "Motegi moved to the top of the pile because of how many ribbons that we could give players with this one environment. Basically, we knew that Motegi would give players the most gameplay bang!"

How many ribbons? Well, according to Greenawalt, there are four configurations set up, including three road courses and an oval. That certainly brings up the expectations for just one "track".

That being said though, Greenawalt does give gamers a bit of a heads-up regarding what Twin Ring Motegi has in store for them. He explains,

The full track is one of the longer ribbons in Forza Motorsport. It's a nice mix of combination corners and pretty brutal hairpins. The short West Course is one the shorter ribbons in the game so that there are always cars around. The bonus is that Motegi Speedway is really different from any of our other tracks (even the other oval). The NW curve is tight enough that braking is still required. This also seems to make it less of a pure flat-out top-speed contest than the Nissan Speedway.

The Twin Ring Motegi DLC will be made available on October 26 for 600 Microsoft Points. In the meantime, you can check the read link below for the rest of the interview. Enjoy!

It ain't candy, but it looks like Microsoft's planning to release a potentially sweet deal for the buyers before Halloween. The company has just sent out a press wire announcing that they will be releasing holiday promo packages for their Xbox 360 Premium (20 GB HD) and Xbox 360 (120 GB) consoles, which will include two free games: Forza Motorsport 2, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox, Xbox 360, GBA, Wii).

Guys interested in making their purchase are reminded that ever since MS' previous price cuts, the Xbox 360 Premium kit will cost you US$ 349.99, while the Xbox 360 Elite kit will cost you US$ 449.99. That's a total of US$ 90 in freebies, in case you're wondering. Expect both holiday specials to land in your local retailers by the end of October.

Fans of Turn 10's Forza Motorsport 2 for the Xbox 360 will want to look out for new downloadable content scheduled for release this weekend. The first DLC is for a 2007 SEAT Leon Cupra. This pack will be free of charge, much like the download pack you guys received last August.

The second download pack will add 10 new cars to your garage, at an expected cost of 400 MS Points. Here are the new vehicles you can expect to get in this upcoming Forza 2 pack:

• 2006 Audi R10 (#8 Audi Sport Team Joest) Prototype
• 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T Hemi
• 2006 Dodge Challenger Concept
• 2006 Honda Civic Si Coupe
• 2007 Honda Civic Type-R
• 1967 Lamborghini Miura P400
• 2006 Lamborghini Miura Concept
• 2007 Porsche 911 GT3 RS (997)
• 2007 Saturn Sky Red Line
• 2007 SEAT Leon Supercup
  

Just log on to Xbox Live Marketplace come the appointed day, and these new packages should be up for grabs. That's all for the moment. We advise guys to keep alert for any related updates.

If Amazon.com's recent figures indicate anything, people dig Microsoft's recent price drop for their Xbox 360. The online store is reporting that the Xbox 360 Pro (the 20GB model) has risen to the number four rank under the site's Video Games category.

This puts the console just below Sony's PlayStation 3 60GB (at third place), which received a price cut of its own last month.

Another 360-related item on the list is Microsoft Game's Forza Motorsport 2. Amazon reports that this racer has burned enough rubber to  be their number one seller for the moment, with the Nintendo Wii tailing behind at number two.

The Xbox 360 Elite is at number nine, with the Core System model nowhere to be seen on the first page of the list. As a recap, the Xbox 360 Pro currently costs US$ 349.99, the Elite US$ 449.99, while the Core System US$ 279.99.

 

It looks like Turn 10's promise of downloadable content for August held true, as word has come to us that it's got free cars for download via Xbox Live, as well as a tournament for Forza Motorsport 2 fans.

The news is that three new Nissan cars and a Peugeot car are now available for download through Xbox Live. These are the 2007 Nissan Altima, 2007 Nissan Sentra SE-R, and 2007 Nissan 350Z. They're available for download on all regions, so as long as you have an Xbox Live connection and a copy of the video game,  Forza Motorsport 2, you're good to go. On the other hand, you can also pick up the famed Peugeot 908 race car for 50 Microsoft Points.

In related news, Xbox and Nissan are celebrating the release of this new DLC by kicking off two different contests. The first is a Nissan Sentra SE-R racing tourney, whose details you can read about below:

The 32 bracket 256 player tournament will kick off on 18th August and take place over the course of seven weeks. It will finish on the 6th October with a championship race live at the L.A. Auto Show. Finalists will compete for a series of prizes including a chance to win a new Nissan!

The second is an in-game customization contest, where players can customize their Nissan Sentra SE-Rs to come up with the coolest paint job. They'll be judged by members of Turn 10 and Nissan, so you better make those paint jobs extra stylish.

Full tournament details, registration and rules can be found at www.xboxlivetournament.com beginning August 10. In the meantime, you might as well start practicing your driving and styling skills.

Guys who own a copy of Forza Motorsport 2 for the Xbox 360 may want to keep their eyes peeled for a game update coming in this Monday. As Community Manager Che Chou explained over at the Forza 2 official site, this Monday patch will be part one of two updates Turn 10 plans to implement for Forza 2 on Xbox Live. Here's a brief summary of the tweaks to expect when update #1 lands:

• Deny gifting and reselling of cars with locked paint jobs.
• A temporary ban on the Lotus Elan use on scoreboards and in multiplayer.
• Allow cars to be fully rotated while being viewed in the Auction House. Why? Because so many of you asked for the camera to be unlocked in Auction House so you can look at the paintjob on the roof of the car we thought we should do good by the community.
• A number of scoreboard problems have been fixed.
• Removed host's ability to boot players during a race.
• Miscellaneous fixes aplenty.
  

Further along the road, Chou tells us that the devs plan to implement more fixes, like resolving the recently spotted problem of inappropriate pain jobs. And in case you're looking for new cars and tracks, Chou says to expect downloadable content come this August. That's the short rundown on the updates - readers can view Chou's full explanations over at the read link below.

 

In a weekly Pitpass community update made back in Monday, Turn 10 has confirmed that Microsoft's Forza Motorsport 2 does not cause the Xbox 360 faults directly. But because there are still claims that could cause alarm to existing Xbox 360 owners, Turn 10 has reiterated that they do not have a solution for the issue.

"We've gone and tested Forza 2 extensively against the hardware and have confirmed that the game itself does not brick Xbox 360 consoles," said Community Manager Che Chou. He assures people that although the instance reports may seem numerous, they note that it's a small percentage of users that have reported the issue.

That said, however, Che Chou did comment, "We acknowledge that it's very frustrating. ... There isn't really a software solution here." He pointed out that Microsoft's warranty and unit replacement service was still active, stating that the company would "ensure that newer units -- or at least the ones they return to you -- will have the red rings of death issue resolved."

  

With high customization options, comes great responsibility - unfortunately, a few naughty players in Forza Motorsport 2 might have been sick at home when they taught that in gamer school, as racism is still very much rampant in the game despite Microsoft and Turn 10's best efforts. We get you all the details with this rather disconcerting abuse of Forza 2's best customization feature yet.

As we all know, Forza 2 lets you go crazy with artistic license with the game's Paintjob Editor, a feature that allows you to customize the way your car looks. While this itself has produced some of the most gorgeous-looking paint-jobs we've seen, it's also given rise to some paint-jobs that border from the slightly-disturbing to the downright offensive. One such example, from the source link we've given below, shows a car displaying "White Power" and a swastika on its chassis.

It's not that Turn 10 didn't see this coming, though. Since day one of the game's release, they've taken measures to prevent this sort of thing from happening, closing auctions involved with these sort of cars, as well as putting up an abuse report system where eagle-eyed players can report offensive auctions. A look at the current auctions, though, will reveal that this isn't quite working as it should.

Here's hoping Turn 10 and Microsoft steps it up a notch in dealing with this kind of issues. Artistic license is all well and good, but when you're stepping on someone's heritage or condition, it's not all fun and games anymore.

 

There's a certain thread in the Forza Motorsport 2 forums that's already reached a whopping 60 pages, and it's all about the random glitching, crashing and overall just weird behavior of the game while it's being played. While a few bugs and crashes can be chalked up to a careless glitch, there's even a few reports of the game actually causing owners' 360s to contract the all-too-horrifying red ring of death - which means that there's something not quite right with Forza 2. Let's dig a bit deeper to see what the posters are actually going through.

Reading the thread, we find out that the crashes happen randomly at any point in the game. Some posters report the game crashing during offline races, others while purchasing or painting new cars. A few even reported the game crashing even while there's no visible activity at all, such as during loading screens or just looking at your own cars.

It's to note that the users who have reported these incidents have made it clear that they've taken steps to ensure that their consoles have been properly taken care of and are very well-ventilated during play, as well as not having any problems of the sort with other high-end games for the Xbox 360.

Another alarming post comes from poster srt4turbo2004 - saying that Forza 2 has pretty much forced him to change consoles, with the same result of the game crashing. He also noted that the crashes are telegraphed by a grinding noise, a noise that occur ed even with a fresh-out-of-the-box console. Weird.

We can only hope that Turn10 addresses this issue and fast. Forza Motorsport 2 clearly has a lot of fans who want to enjoy the game as much as they could, and are disappointed that these crashes are preventing them from doing so. Updates as we get them.

Thanks to Mike for the tip!