PS3 Fanboy

For those of you racing fans who've been looking around the world of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue for your favorite tracks and walking away depressed, it seems a new dowloadable expansion may coming (it isn't said to be an expansion, but releasing another full demo/game seems silly). The expansion seems to be labeled as SPEC II and will have the race track "Nurburgring" for download. It sounds as difficult as it looks. Lots of small, tight turns to master. PS3Forums has a few off-screen shots as well as several different links lending credibility to the claim. Keeps your eyes and ears open for more info -- we'll keep ours ready as well.

North American sales for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue pale in comparison to Europe's numbers; however, SCEA is still very much pleased with the results. NPD numbers showed that 224,000 copies have sold at US retailers, making the game the sixth best selling game overall and the second best selling PS3 title for April.

Considering that GT5 Prologue marked the first time for a pre-full game Prologue title to hit North America, the game actually sold well. Also, the statistics have yet to take into account sales from the PSN version, so the numbers could possibly be exponentially higher. For those of you who just can't get enough number crunching, here are some other interesting stats: Polyphony Digital's website reports that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has shipped 550,000 units in North America, 300,000 in Asia/Japan, and a massive 1,380,000 in Europe.

Sony also expects that Gran Turismo 5 will do even better. "I don't think that these NPD sales fully represent the true anticipation for Gran Turismo 5," said Stephanie Yoshimoto, a SCEA senior product marketing manager. "GT5 will have a much larger overall scope that will inherently attract a larger, mass market audience."

Editor's Note: This review was published earlier, before the reviewer completed all the license tests. We pulled the review, acknowledging it was an inaccurate representation of the game. The reviewer has completed all the license tests and has provided a new, edited review.

Before gamers ever really got to play it, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was already slapped in the face with accusations of being nothing more than a glorified demo. Branded with such a stigma, many gamers had turned away from Prologue and decided to wait out until next year when the "real" GT5 races out. Are these people vindicated in their racing abstinence? Or are they missing out?

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue does continue the tradition of maintaining the most realistic driving sim out on the market. It does this with stunningly gorgeous visuals while at the same time playing like a charm. A rigid online mode does drag the title down a bit, but overall, Prologue will leave you well satisfied. This is one PS3 exclusive that'll definitely make you proud to be a PS3 owner.

When you hear the word "soon" from Polyphony Digital, you have to interpret it as "in a year, or our next game" at the very least. Anyway, Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi said they've been in talks with automobile manufacturers who initially "hated the idea of deformation, now they're slowly coming around to it ... We've still got a few to convince, but we will. Expect deformation in the very near future: very, very soon." Sounds almost too good to be true!

Yamauchi also talks briefly about Prologue, but it's nothing particularly new. He apologizes to fans for not being able to shovel out a full game all in one go, but we're fine with this set-up -- we want Polyphony to get the game to where they want it before releasing it.

If you think you can get away with not purchasing Gran Turismo 5: Prologue because you're so sure that as soon as it's released, the whole game will get a release date a couple of months later, you're wrong. On a recent PlayStation Blog post, associate producer at SCEA Chris Hinojosa-Miranda responded to comments about the game, saying that "GT5 is still about a year away. You should just decide now to buy [Prologue], enjoy it, go online and race against anyone and everyone, rank number one worldwide, get the girl (or guy) and become the most popular kid in town." But what if we already are the most popular kid in town? What then, Mr. Hinojosa-Miranda?

In the comments section of his most recent post on the PlayStation.Blog, SCEA producer Takau Imasaki mentioned that in-game voice chat and a private race setting will be available for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in later updates. Now this news comes in as semi-official as it was not part of the original post, but was made in response to a reader's question. Imasaki wrote, "Private races with buddies and in-game chat are all in the works... but will not be ready from day one. Will keep you posted on the progress!"

We're hoping Mr. Imasaki makes sure that promise is kept. While we won't be seeing these additions by the time Prologue drives its way home with us, we're still anxiously awaiting to hit the GT racing circuit nonetheless. These new features are definitely great, but we can live without them for just a bit longer.

[Via CVG]

If you don't watch a lot of TV then you might miss these Gran Turismo 5 Prologue commercials. Or they're only airing in Europe. Or if you do watch a lot of TV and see these, you might want to see them again. So here are two TV spots for the upcoming driving simulator -- and they look spectacular. The second one can be found after the jump, because we don't want to put too much awesome up front and overwhelm you. Plus it's a lot longer.

[Update: finding the news slightly suspicious, we had our very own European blogger, Jem Alexander, double check the number with SCEE. They confirmed it to be true. So there you have it!]

It's not every day games go "platinum" before they're even released. Generally, this occurs with huge titles, but even taking that into account it's an uncommon feat. Factor into that the notion that a game whose title explicitly states it's a Prologue to a full game ... and it's nearly unbelievable. But in Europe alone, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has achieved just that: one million pre-orders.

What we need to remember is that the pre-order number is not only for Europe alone, but also just for the Blu-ray release of the game -- not the downloadable version. If half of the people who intend to purchase the game pre-order it and the other half download it, well, this is going to be huge. Add America and Japan into the mix and we've basically got the best-selling PS3 title to date; at least, that's what we're assuming will happen. What about you?

Takau Imasaki, producer for Gran Turismo 5 at SCEA, recently talked a bit about the upcoming US release of the game. Slight tweaks are being made to make it a more user-friendly title for the Western audience. By releasing this trial game, Prologue will serve as a testing ground for Polyphony's first real foray into online gaming. They're trying to "catch up to Microsoft in that regard," they said.

Car damage? It will eventually happen in the series, but not until the designers are able to "perfect" it. Don't expect it any time in this series of GT games. Also, because users are already being charged for this early preview of the full GT5 experience, there won't be much DLC in Prologue. That would be a little mean, no?

[Thanks, Patrick!]

[Update: Clarified wording.]

Click for high-resolution image.

Every time we get a glimpse of GT5, we can't help but feel overly giddy for more. Luckily, Sony's Three Speech blog really cranked out the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue screens today with more shots of tracks, cars, and the pit. The environments look so spectacularly life-like it's almost scary. We wouldn't want to crash in such a real simulation; it's just simply too much of a scary thought.

Despite our crash-phobia, we're really looking forward to getting in this game's driver's seat and burning up some rubber. GT5's March-April release is just too far away.

[Thanks Clayton!]

With the advent of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, a lot of people are wondering how many of the features will make it into the final version of Gran Turismo 5. One would expect all of them, but here's what was gleaned in a recent interview: more cars in a race, global community connectivity, increased drift control, better competitor AI, and a veritable car encyclopedia.

Kazunori Yamauchi's own garage is nothing to scoff at: a souped up Nissan 350Z, Honda S2000, Mercedes SL55, a Porsche GT3, and two Ford GTs. Two! Lucky man.

[via Videogaming247]

European release dates are usually up in the air until someone announces a big delay, or some kind of issue causes a game to get a much later release than its Japanese or American counterparts. Sony has promised that Europe will see a release of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue sometime in late March. No price or solid release date, naturally, but it's still interesting to see the game almost upon us. The US release date is still tentative, but aiming at a mid-April launch. When we get more solid confirmations, we'll let you know!

The team at Polyphony Digital made this short video (starring Santa!) to wish everyone Merry Christmas. But don't expect Rudolph and his red nose in this vid. No, Santa's driving away in a new car. And it looks awesome.

[Thanks, Jeffrey M.!]

It would seem Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has made its launch in Japan and to the lauding of many a critic as an excellent game. Er, partial game. Well, we aren't entirely sure how to classify it, but it's launched in Japan. If you're really good at reading Japanese (or lines of question marks as this Firefox browser insists on showing), you can probably glean some more information from the listing, but as far as we can tell, it's totally a different language and we, like, can't read it.

There seem to be planned updates through the new year already. It is great to see such continued support for the game. Hopefully we'll get our hands on it soon enough and see how poorly we actually drive. According to simulation.

Did you know that Polyphony Digital, makers of the world-renowned Gran Turismo series, actually works on real cars? In fact, they're responsible for the multiple function display of the upcoming Nissan GT-R. These displays are typical of modern airplanes, but is being utilized in Nissan's posh car.

CNET goes through the details: "there are 11 user-definable display panels, its components (gauges and meters in both analog and digital display mode) being arrangeable according to the user's needs and taste." This technological piece of overkill could only come from Polyphony, with their thorough knowledge of both technology and cars.

This isn't the first time Polyphony has worked closely with car manufacturers. It also produces simulation movies for car manufacturers, most likely using the same technology used in the Gran Turismo series.

[Thanks, w.c.!]