There has been speculation ever since Forza Motorsport 4 was shown off at E3 that Porsche was not going to be in the game. In this in-depth interview of some features with Dan Greenawalt he confirms it.

What’s the status of Porsche in Forza Motorsport 4?

This kills me. While Forza Motorsport 4 will feature RUF, it will not include Porsche cars. As many of you know, since the beginning of the Forza franchise, the Porsche license has been available only through a sub-licensing deal with EA. In Forza 3, we were able to feature more than 35 different Porsche models by offering to collaborate with EA. For Forza 4, we were looking forward to adding even more Porsche cars, and we were especially looking forward to featuring multiple Porsche experiences in our new Autovista mode. In the end, however, EA couldn’t see their way towards collaborating again.

We’ve asked our contacts at EA to reconsider their position frequently and regularly over the last 18 months. We also reached out to various influential people in gaming to lobby on our behalf, and on your behalf, but that was to no avail.

In our business, we stay friendly with all of the manufacturers and licensors necessary to deliver players rich and innovative automotive experiences. As you’d expect, this includes quite a few key people in Porsche circles. To make sure we tried everything, we consulted with these advocates and were happy to find they were already aware of the situation and lobbying from within on behalf of Forza 4--and, despite the result, we thank them for their efforts.

While we respect EA’s need to run their business as they see fit, we’ve regularly collaborated in the past and hope we can find our way back to that approach. Forza had the exclusive license for all Ferrari cars, for example, on the Xbox and PC platforms. But at the end of the day, we’ve always found that we just weren’t willing to block other racing games from having Ferraris outright, as we believed that this would do nothing but hurt the racing ecosystem.

I’m very sorry for all of this. Fans shouldn’t have to think about any of this – you should just be able to drive Porsches and Ferraris in the games you love. Porsche makes wonderful cars and I’m sorry that we won’t have them in Forza 4. As I mentioned earlier, we have added three RUF cars in Forza 4. RUF is a manufacturer in their own right, not simply an aftermarket mod shop—they completely remanufacture and enhance the models that they start from, and the results are unique, incredibly fast, and the cars look great. Losing more than 35 Porsche models is a lost opportunity for Porsche fans (as well as a lost opportunity to make future Porsche fans), but I hope that Forza 4 players understand and enjoy the new makes and models that have taken their place.

This really sucks, as someone who has put more than 800 hours into the entire Forza Franchise, Porsche's were some of my favorite cars to drive.

I'm still positive this game will be amazing and I've already pre-ordered the collectors edition and can't wait for the game to come out.

Here is the link to the entire interview, everything else they go over sounds amazing and now there will be 150 levels instead of 50! Who's ready to start grinding levels!

http://forzamotorsport.net/en-us/underthehood1/

What are your guy's thoughts?

as long as RUF is in there I guess that's okay.

Looks to be no fault of Turn10 at all.

But still a shame... This will be the best forza game ever, with or without porsche!

I'll repost my thoughts from the Forza Race Night thread here:

While it's easy to rage at EA, and in all fairness, I'm going to give some PR guy a heaping load of snark and bitterness if I hear any Porsche exclusivity BS while trying Need for Speed: The Run at PAX, do keep in mind that Turn 10 has an exclusivity agreement with Ferrari on the PC and Xbox 360 platforms. I don't know if they're any more flexible about that than EA, but we can all agree on this: car manufacturer exclusivity in this day and age is a load of shit.

It's really disappointing, but I'm more disappointed this sort of whole-manufacturer exclusivity bullshit is still a thing 13 years after the original Gran Turismo.

What is an 'RUF'?

@Crixaliz: The best way I can describe them is that RUF is to Porsche as Saleen is to Ford. RUF takes various Porsche chassis and then adds their own parts and style to them, creating what's considered new cars out of something that looks very much like a Porsche...since, y'know, it kind of was at one point.

Gran Turismo started using RUF when they couldn't get the Porsche license but wanted to have vehicles similar to the Porsche body style. Forza's doing the same thing here.

Oh EA................ 
 

The Porche's are probably my favorite foreign car designs of all time, it's really going to suck not seeing them in Forza 4, and it sounds like EA just didn't want to let the license go this time around for what is likely a very poor reason.

I'll still get Forza 4, and NFS: The Run, no matter what as I'm sure the later will be decent and the former great. But man oh man is EA really digging a hole for themselves with the Origin EULA and now this in one day.

ea is really fucking shit up!

Only three RUF cars? God... There's plenty of good looking RUF's out there, but in the end my favorite car manufacture is not in one of my favorite car & racing franchise. Why can't we all just be friendly with the licensing these days... Since Forza 4 have a new XP system for car manufacturers - what should i pick now then? Why EA? Why?

I'm not even way into Porche but this really bums me out. It's unfortunate EA is taking a strong-arm approach to everything as opposed to building a superior product that people actually want to gravitate to.

Perhaps they'll get things worked out eventually and release a Porche DLC pack or something. Lame news, though.

Does EA just hate everybody or something?

Man, just as EA started to improve a few years ago, they've been throwing that goodwill away over the last few months.