A potential tease for Project Gotham Racing 5MSR/PGR2 are joint top the best racing games I've ever played. Not just because of the style of racing, that was a lot of fun. Specifically why I think those games are so great is the soundtrack and the tracks, more specifically the cities. Each city had a real atmosphere to them and it was because, I feel, those cities had radio stations playing music that was native to that country e.g. Stockholm would play bands from Sweden, Yokohama bands from Japan etc. Even the DJ's spoke in the native tongue. To me, that really made me feel good to come back and play it, because racing games to me aren't necessarily about the cars, it's about the tracks. And while PGR4 probably had the best gameplay of the series, a lot of what made that series special was lost when they had this generic soundtrack where you could listen to any song at any time.
MSR went a step even further by basing the day/night settings of the tracks be set upon the Dreamcast's internal clock, so if you were playing at 12PM on London it would be the daytime in the track, but if you drove in Tokyo next, it would be 8PM their time, and so you would be driving at night. It can be a bit gimmicky sure, but I loved that. I'm amazed no other game has done that, not even PGR.
It's wishful thinking, but I hope PGR5 brings those elements back. But still, PGR5 as a potential launch title for next Xbox? Would be a big deal for me.