PS3 Fanboy

You thought you'd have to wait until 2008 for some Gran Turismo fun, didn't you? Well you can stop thinking that right now as the latest piece of news to come out of the PlayStation Premiere event in Tokyo is an announcement that GT 5 prologue will be available in Japan in October. What is effectively a demo for Gran Turismo 5 will feature full online support as well as some cars which will be featuring in this year's Tokyo Motor Show.

Whether it will be available in the US or EU in October is up in the air, however it's fairly safe to assume it will be out before the end of the year. There is no word yet on what the price will be for the download, considering the current PSN offering is downloadable for free.

At Sony's E3 press conference, Sony showcased the stunning Gran Turismo 5 Prologue trailer. At first, we thought that some parts of the game were pre-rendered. We overheard one Sony developer telling us, off the record, that if any developer can make a game look that good, it's certainly Polyphony Digital.

Check out the new screenshots in our gallery:

The creator of the Gran Turismo games, Kazunori Yamauchi, has confirmed that there will be an in-car view in Gran Turismo 5 -- a first for the Gran Turismo series. Speaking to French motorsports TV show Turbo, Yamauchi said:

"To translate the real car into 3D, we use data and assets provided by the car manufacturers, but we also use a scanner that completely digitizes a car. Here's a scoop: We're also modeling the dashboards because you can drive from the interior view in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5."

The in-car view is something that fans have been requesting for a long time, so this should make quite a few people happy. It seems like Polyphony Digital is really pulling out all the stops this time around; this combined with car damage, shows that the Gran Turismo series truly is going next-gen (sorry GT HD -- you don't count). Makes you wonder how many of the changes are because of Microsoft's driving games though. PGR 3 has a great in-car camera, and Forza 2 has damage modeling already and they both have online play. So the Gran Turismo series definitely has some catching up to do in some areas.

For those of you who've been itching to hear anything definitive on Polyphony Digital's upcoming Gran Turismo 5, we've decided to take it upon ourselves to scratch that very itch for you. From some European magazine scans posted on the internet and presumably removed, the following have been agreed upon as features confirmed for the game:

• All cars and tracks from Gran Turismo 4 will make their next-gen debut.
• After the initial release, there will be downloadable cars and tracks to enhance the experience.
• Four different driving views will be available. Can you name them all?
• All Ferrari models, including those pesky F1 racers.
• Some new city tracks.
• Online racing will be supported for anywhere between 12 and 20 drivers.
• During races, dynamic weather conditions will persist, forcing you to really know what you're doing.
• Finally, car damage.

Well, that's an impressive list of features for Gran Turismo 5. It finally seems to be stepping up to the plate that competition like Forza and Project Gotham Racing set the bar on -- debatably. While many of the above features are pleasing to hear, the bit about car damage is the most intense. It will undoubtedly spark a war between people who think car damage needed to get attention in the GT franchise and those who enjoyed the game without it.

Personally, adding realistic damage in a simulation will make things a lot more difficult to do. Ruining your shocks, cracking your windshield, messing up that transmission should all come into play. Sadly, that's not how it will probably work. It'll just be car damage. Ooh's and Aah's. If you can't get it right from the exterior to the interior, what's the point? Who knows, perhaps it'll be as labor-intensive as real-life maintenance conundrums.

Simulation fans will have yet another reason to look forward to Gran Turismo 5. According to an special episode of Jeuxvideo.TV, a Saleen cockpit view will be included in the game. Fans may recall the previous reiterations included a cockpit view that was more outside the car than in, allowing you to seemingly smell the fresh air and swallow bugs while strapped to the hood. Well now, the cockpit view will actually show the components inside the car as well, giving fans a chance to check out the things one would see inside a car, like a dashboard with all the cool dials and buttons, and maybe even a few air fresheners dangling from the rear-view!

We say confirmed with a question mark because the debate is still up in the air, but apparently there was a little scuffle between a group of message board visitors and a Gran Turismo development staff member regaring the issue of damage to the licensed cars. The staff member worked on Gran Turismo HD and is hard at work on Gran Turismo 5, which is awesome. But here are a few quotes from the guy worth scratching our chins over:

• "...We're not ready to implement damage until they can be shown in a truly authentic way (which is extremely hard work if you think about it)."
• Damage in Gran Turismo would make the franchise unstoppable, don't you think? He responds: "No I mean, really, really, really hard work... to the extent of creating another game, almost. From our standards, what other games are doing is "simplified damage". You know how [anal] we are when making our games... we would want to simulate every single dent differently."

Not sure why they bleeped out anal -- it's a perfectly appropriate word, because Polyphony Digital really does get down to the most painstaking detail when crafting these games. So what's this sound like to you? The staff member who said this checks out. He's completely legit (but we can't reveal the obvious). We're saying there won't be damage this time. Maybe for GT5 A-Spec or something. I dunno. I won't mind. Besides, you're not supposed to crash in the driving sim games.
[Thanks, derrickgott007!]

This is speculation, but not exactly a rumor since it comes from a Sony Europe press release. While talking about the Gran Turismo HD Concept for download on day one of the European launch, Sony let slip a hint that more GT goodness will be gracing the consoles soon. Since Sony and Polyphony said they weren't going to add more to the HD Concept demo (if memory serves), this leads one to believe that Gran Turismo 5 is at least going to be demo-worthy by year's end.

From the press release: "A big year for Gran Turismo starts with a free download for PS3 owners. We can't say too much right now, but it's going to be a big year for this title; Gran Turismo HD Concept is just the beginning." So, maybe Sony hasn't been lying around complacently after releasing that concept demo -- they've been hard at work getting things done. Sweet. What do you guys think? A new HD Concept demo, or GT5?