If you hadn't read about this from the live blogging earlier today, then better put on the seatbelts GT fans -- this one is going to be quite a ride. The PlayStation brand and Nissan car manufacturer are giving racing enthusiasts a chance to live out a dream with the introduction of GT Academy. GT Academy is a competition that'll earn two lucky gamers a four-month training program for a real racing license, and using it to race for team Nissan at the January 2009 24-hour endurance race in Dubai. Yes, you heard that right, a chance to race a real car (a Nissan 350Z) in a real competition. That doesn't come often. So, want to know how you can enter?
Well, to get into the Academy you'll have to register via the PSN with your copy of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. You'll be first entering into a special online tourney qualifier before going into real cars for a "series of elimination-based competitions on and off the racetrack" starting at the nation level. This will go on for eight months all across Europe (sorry, not for any other region). You'll be able to sign-up at the end of May when GT Academy goes live. Good luck! Godspeed!
Posted Mar 20th 2008 3:30PM by Majed Athab Filed under: News
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.
Stylish elegance. That seductive red color. No, this isn't a TV commercial for some new car. We're just stating how much we've fallen in love with Gran Turismo 5 Prologue's Ferrari F2007. Just look at those sleek curves. The detail on this baby is so life-like it's hard to believe that this is just a digital rendering.
Do you share in our excitement? Interested in seeing more? You can have a better look at the F1 car in the gallery below. Sony's Three Speech blog has even more pics to drool over, so be sure to check them all out.
According to the Gamespot, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will arrive as a free downloadable title on the PlayStation Store later this year. If this is true, Prologue will largely expand upon the previous free GT download, Gran Turismo HD. Prologue adds more cars and tracks, and a slew of new features, such as a new "TV" mode. The TV option will provide users replays and videos from manufacturers. A great Game 2.0 3.0 nod would allow users to create their own replay videos and share them with their friends through the PSN.
A new "Home" mode will allow greater integration with the upcoming online service. "The goal is to create as seamless an experience between the game and the Home service as possible."
Just like the PS3, the goal is to have Prologue constantly evolve through updates. "It's possible that additional improvements, such as damage modeling, could be a part of a future update to the game somewhere down the line." Certainly, exciting -- hopefully, we'll find out more as Tokyo Game Show draws nearer.
Can something look too good? That's what we're asking when we look at these brand new screenshots of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Of course the cars look good. But we're taken aback by the detail found in the drivers and the environments. The attention to detail is more than impeccable -- it's scary.
So how does it look when it's in motion? Click past the break to see. Or, watch in glorious HD.
Slowly but surely, interesting morsels of information are streaming out of Leipzig. Here, Jeux-France managed to capture some new video of Gran Turismo 5. Over four minutes of glorious real-time gameplay to feast on. We could say things like "that looks great!" But, we think you're more than capable of making that judgment yourself.
Supposedly, the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will support DualShock 3 -- at least according to a NeoGAF retelling of Japanese publication Dengeki PlayStation. This has sparked discussion that the controller featured on the official GT5 website (pictured above) is actually a DualShock 3, not a Sixaxis. But honestly, we all expect the rumble-enabled PS3 controller to look identical to our current Sixaxis controller. A silhouette won't tell us much.
Hopefully, we'll find out something at Leipzig later today.
If you've been itching for some Gran Turismo 5 news to gawk at, let us direct you to a thread over at NeoGAF. Not only are there a lot of great screenshots from the official website, but user Doctor_No took it upon himself (or herself!) to translate the latest Famitsu interview with Polyphony Digital's Kazunori Yamauchi. We'll detail the finer points below, but all of them are worth looking over.
GT5 will be playable at Leipzig, where multiple online features will also be announced.
GT5 Prologue will be Home compatible!
While called Prologue, Yamauchi says there will be options to make money, buy cars, etc.
In the final build, there are ambitions to let you walk around a "town" and look at cars. We imagine this means your Home avatar checking out other people's GT5 cars.
GT5 Prologue will have 40 cars and 4 tracks, totaling 8 configurations.
If you use a steering wheel for the game, you can look around the cockpit in cockpit view by moving around the D-Pad. Nice.
In the full game of Gran Turismo 5, you can fully customize the interior of the car.
Right now, 16 cars are in each race, but in online modes, the number may shrink to 12.
Any money, cars, etc. you earn in GT5 Prologue will be able to transfer over to the full Gran Turismo 5.
Wow! This really seems like an ambitious title, so we're salivating to get our hands on the game as soon as possible. GT5 Prologue is rumored to launch on October 24th, so we'll wait until around then.
Three Speech uploaded some incredible new images of Gran Turismo 5. And we have to admit, they look more real than real things. Yes, the cars are impressive, but we're fascinated to see human character models that match the visual fidelity of the vehicles. Check out the new images below, and try to tell us you're not stunned.
[Update: the page listing the cars appears to have been removed and Sony has issued a statement regarding the list as bunk. Although the list is false, we still believe GT5 will have continued updates for their cars, although it will most likely not be 10,000 vehicles strong. We apologize for this error.]
Don't get too excited when you check out the full car list for Gran Turismo 5. Read the paragraph at the top first. Initially, the game from Polyphony Digital will feature a paltry 340 cars and the others will be added in due time via downloadable content. With such a large list of cars and an already perfected driving sim, we think it's not that far of a stretch to say this is going to be the onlyGran Turismo game on the PS3. Also, with such a list of cars, we're about 98% certain that damage will not be featured. Personally, we hope they include the Ford Probe GT '93, not because a certain blogger at PS3 Fanboy drives it or anything ...
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.
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!
