No Project Natal or DLC plans for F1 2010

Codemasters has told Eurogamer that it does not plan to support PlayStation Move or Project Natal in F1 2010, which is due out later this year, and that we're also not going to see any downloadable content.

That's because F1 2010 is the first "next-gen" instalment in a multi-year licensing deal with Formula One, and as soon as the game ships in September attention will turn to the 2011 instalment.

"No, there's no support for Natal or Move in 2010," a spokesperson for the series told Eurogamer when we were getting our hands on F1 2010 for the first time recently.

"It's something we're thinking about, something that's on our radar for future games, because it's a multi-year licence for us. It's not like a one hit and one hit only, so it's something we're considering."

That need to push forward will also preclude the team from looking at downloadable content for this year's iteration.

"There's no plan for DLC, because as soon as we're done with 2010, we're straight onto 2011," we were told, "and it's about getting that core gameplay experience right and then once we've started doing... Once we've got that nailed in 2011, maybe DLC could follow after that."

That desire to nail the authenticity has been paramount, but Codemasters was also anxious to make it clear that F1 2010 will be very playable for the average F1 fan as well as complete petrol-heads. For example, we asked whether subtleties like grip and wing angle would be influential or relevant to the majority of players and how that influenced design of the control system.

"Ideally a wheel is the best way to play it, I don't think anyone would dispute that," we were told, "but it is very playable on the pad now. We've been working on the balancing on the pad for the last six or seven weeks, getting that as tight as we can, so that you do feel little nuances like the feel of understeer and oversteer, that we can get it through the pad as well as we can.

"But also, the audio feedback and visuals can help with that, so for example, a little bit of tyre squeal when you feel like you're understeering can actually see your car kind of drift a little bit because you're getting understeer, then that's the kind of feedback that really helps with a pad, though a wheel is the best way to play it."

There may also be minor concessions to gameplay - the most obvious possibility relating to the Virgin Racing cars, which began the real-life season with fuel tanks to small to run the cars to the end of the race at race pace.

"Yeah, that's an interesting one. It's something we've got to decide whether that's definitely going in, whether you will be able to finish the first couple of races; whether we divorce that level of authenticity for gameplay reasons..."

Oh, and we asked who is likely to win the real-life season (Eurogamer's F1-loving editor reckons either Button or Alonso, slightly insanely). Our friendly F1 2010 spokesperson thinks it's "going to be between Hamilton and Vettel".

Check out our F1 2010 hands-on preview for more.