Open world games that use your local weather and time of day.

Why don't open world games like Assassin's Creed or GTA use a function where you can put in your city or what have you, and watch the games environment match what you can see outside your window? I remember in Star Wars: Rogue Leader for Gamecube, that when it turns night locally, it does so in the games training. Now, why can't a game do something like that? Though more advanced of course. Hopefully on the next consoles, they can achieve this. It's not overly important, but it'd be a cool touch I think. 

Gameplay being a thing, some things in open worlds only occur at certain times, and having to wait/set your gameclock so you can go to the club in GTA or something like that doesn't sound appealing.

Its a neat idea I guess, though it would suck for people who like, almost never get rain or always has rain or something in their area. 
 
The Pokemon games has always been corresponding with local time.

Black and White did it too.. if i remember correctly. 
 
Pc games have done this for a while, here and there. If the shoe fit the game of course.

Burnout paradise uses your time fool!

Shenmue allowed you to use the actual weather conditions for the time period of its setting. That's the closest example I can think of. I don't see the idea as more than a novelty feature.

I thought about this a lot while I was making weather for the first Stalker game. Man that would be neat and add shit-tons to the atmosphere. Being able to smell the rain while it was raining in-game? YES PLEASE! (Not for time of day, just weather conditions)

I remember this was a feature for the first Black and White game (is there a concept for this yet? there should be) but there were no servers close enough to me for an accurate reading.

Not the weather, but Pokemon and Animal Crossing have stuff like that.

Yeah, that would be cool as long as you had the option of turning it on or off. 

I mean, it may seem obvious, but provided you don't game it, Animal Crossing has always used your local time. I think the major issue with using local weather would be the fact that it may make the game world feel too much like your real world. Both GTA and Assassin's Creed strive to accurately depict a unique locale. For example: Say you live in Colorado. The version of Rome in Assassin's Creed Brotherhood would probably feel a little bit strange covered in snow. I think it could probably work for game like Animal Crossing where you are playing in a town of your own creation and imagination, but just wouldn't work in most open world games that are trying to represent a real-life location of knockoff a la Liberty City.

Games are about immersing yourself in a different fictional world; having things that tie into the real world seems completely counter to that. 
 
Something like this could also discourage you from playing the game in certain situations - "oh, it's a rainy day, I'm going to play a video game! ... Oh, crap, it's also rainy in the game world too..."  
 
The World Ends With You did a sort of similar thing where you earned XP from not playing the game, which seemed incredibly silly, as like I said, it encouraged you to not play the game..

That sounds like an appealing option to me. I remember playing through Hitman Contracts ( a game where every level takes place at night while it's raining ) during a rainy night. It added to the atmosphere quite a bit. Maybe that's why I seem to be one of the few people who really enjoyed that game.

I'm almost positive that there is a sports game that allows you to play a game using your local weather. I can't remember which one right now though, probably Madden or NCAA
 
Edit: Just saw that the title said Open world games, Lol my bad.

@BeachThunder said:

Games are about immersing yourself in a different fictional world; having things that tie into the real world seems completely counter to that.

Something like this could also discourage you from playing the game in certain situations - "oh, it's a rainy day, I'm going to play a video game! ... Oh, crap, it's also rainy in the game world too..."

The World Ends With You did a sort of similar thing where you earned XP from not playing the game, which seemed incredibly silly, as like I said, it encouraged you to not play the game..

I did find myself trying to only play Heavy Rain only while it was raining (partly because I knew the game was short and I wanted to stretch it out), but damn if my part of Texas hasn't been droughted the past couple years. I ended up picking it up one sunny afternoon and that was all it took to finish it. I'm always looking for more ways to immerse myself, which is why I bought a buttkicker for my gaming seat. However I don't think I'll be buying any of those AMBX style wind makers or that smellovision type thing they had at one of the recent trade shows (CES?). But I still wanna experience that ionized air scent in rainy games.

Or maybe I should just move further north and solve a number of problems, such as the whole living in Texas part.

@BeachThunder: I'm sorry, I think it can be the total opposite. I agree that games are supposed to immerse you, but the way they immerse you is not to alienate you from reality (that's not always the case I'm sure, but still). I personally wouldn't care if in a game environment it rained, and outside it rained as well. And again, I said that it's totally optional, so if someone didn't like it, it didn't need to be used, but I think some will benefit off it so it's worth being put in.

On paper it sounds pretty awesome, but I'm terrible at keeping dates so this will more likely hamper my enjoyment. Especially when I kept missing Friday's to have Lapras show up inside the Union cave in Pokemon Gold/Silver.

That would be fairly boring for me living in arizona where 80% of the year is sunny weather.

Check out that thing they showed at CES'11, ScentScape. I like the premise, but I expect it to function as poorly as modern 3D TVs. I'm excited to smell where it goes in the future though.

Animal Crossing: City Folk not doing this was a big mistake, in my opinion. Considering they have the Wii Weather Channel, I'm sure they could have easily synched it up. Though, they'd have to have an option to disable that, because well, players would like diversity. It never snows in my area, for instance.

@TheGreatGuero said:

Animal Crossing: City Folk not doing this was a big mistake, in my opinion. Considering they have the Wii Weather Channel, I'm sure they could have easily synched it up.

Holy crap, that's such an obvious solution that I want to facepalm myself.