@ Tenacious ... Finally since this thread is GT first doesn't mean it's the only thing they care about, FM fans have just as much say. I'm sure you realize that but you come off as if you don't.
I think you're reading too much in what I'm saying, but hey, I love to hear myself type and I do have a few more things to post, take them for what they're worth. I'm going to address akira's remarks below in one post.
My point with this is that people should try before buy, and people should try before judge, is logical to assume that what you like is what many people like, but sometimes that is simply not the case..
I wont recommend the latest FM version to anyone, but GT5 is far to be an enjoyable long term experience, even with spec II it still lacks in plenty of areas.
These are kind of problematic. The first quote because in many games, you have to play them for some time before you decide they're really worth it.
I played Forza 3 for weeks before the flaws bit me, and they bit pretty hard. First, the Photo Mode, which I didn't get into right away for obvious reasons, I wanted to race and paint up some race cars first. I was aware that the previous games have problems with the Livery Editor working right with many of the cars, and this was the same in F3, so I was half ready for it. I also knew that I had to go through the ridiculous rigmarole of uploading pics to the Forza site, but I didn't realize how much they were being mucked up in the process until I started looking at them closely, and then tried to correct them, and how much work it was. And then the file handling bog came up, when you have more than 120 some odd of pics, vinyl groups or liveries. There is no sorting, everything just stacks up in a line, and the flipping through them all became a chore, even after a patch to try and fix it. It was taking forever to do what I wanted to do, paint up race cars and snap pics of them, the real joy of Forza to me, and I'm not independently wealthy or immortal. For others who just want to race and hotlap, do the online stuff and drifting, Forza is a dream game, and my remarks on it have no bearing for them.
With GT5, some of the flaws are more apparent, like the Standard cars and tracks, others a bit deeper, like the XP grinding ordeal. But at the same time, the goodies take spending some time with the game. Those who will only race Premiums won't know how fun some of the BMWs are, or the 3000GTs, or the racing Altezzas or Diablo. For some gamers, less potent sounds correlate directly to lesser physics and feel, for others, impeccable graphics rule. Those who don't like the graphic issues or exhaust sounds and turn their nose up at GT5 completely won't experience the marvelous physics. There are too many things for me to think of offhand of why I love this game. I was up till 3 am racing in it.
Forza 3 right off was loads of fun for me, even though I don't like Forza's driving views, but it took almost a month to realize that it had a huge crucial flaw. I stuck with it for another two or three weeks until I couldn't take it anymore.
GT5 right off was a lot of fun, though I hated the XP system which locked me out of buying cars I could afford, and the paint shop which had no paint of its own! As well as the limited A-Spec "career" which had very few races, and used very few of the tracks in the game! But the more I raced it, and the more I unlocked, the more cars I collected and experienced, the more I realized that the real treasure took some time to uncover.
From the looks of things around here, the hardcore GT players have for the most part embraced the frankly weird quirks the game has, some that make no sense. And from the look of the online racers, the casuals don't care about any of that. They just want to race, and in a world in which games are increasingly worth five days of play before being traded in, GT5 offers them infinitely more "long term" enjoyment, even if that's only a month or two.
Sure, Forza 4 is being unfairly judged around here. They're the upstarts who basically copied Gran Turismo rather than trying to chart their own path, but it's established now, and M$ will almost spend whatever it takes to keep it relevant. But the game does look incredible. The demo has impressed amar212 and Scaff, who are in the biz so to speak - Scaff in the real life auto world itself, so their word has quite a bit of weight to it. Yes, it's Forza, made by T10, and there's going to be a certain flavor which runs through the series, just like Gran Turismo has. If you don't like it... oh well, you probably won't like F4, but you won't know for sure. You really have to spend a lot of time with these racers, not a demo, to grasp what the organics of them are.
I'll be giving Forza 4 a fair shake in a couple of days, so we'll see how it goes.
As for Microsoft being just another business... yeah, right. No other company updated my credit card info without permission, but that's the sort of thing I expect from a monopoly.
On a serious note though GT5 stays in my PS3 the best game for me right now. So many things you can do in GT5 it's crazy. and having 8 siblings that are also GT nuts make it even better. I will never drop GT5 until GT6 comes out. This is one of my favorite saying from Kaz. 
