Talk Playstation 3 News

Any racing fans around here? I know I am, and also glad to hear of news from Polyphony Digital that a real demo of Gran Turismo 5 will be coming to the Europe PlayStation Store on December 17th.

In this demo, you’ll be playing around in the new GT Academy 2010. If you live in the following countries at the bottom of this article, then you’ll be able to race for a top 20 spot for each country, and be invited to a National Event. Once you make it to the National Event, only will you race against opponents to join the Top 20 Elite of GT Academy 2010.

With that in mind, only top 2 of those 20 Elite, will be taken for some intense racing training. You’ll drive two different modifications of the Nissan 370Z. One being race tuned, while the other non-tuned.

This competition starts on the 17th, running all the way til midnight on the 24th. So make sure to post your best times by then.

The GT Academy will run in the following countries:

• UK
• Ireland
• France
• Switzerland
• Italy
• Germany
• Austria
• Denmark
• Norway
• Finland
• Sweden
• Spain
• Portugal
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• Australia
• New Zealand

Source

It’s been out in Japan for a while, and people were wondering when the rest of the world would enjoy this feature. Well the people on the US PlayStation Blog have dropped some word.

Coming as a free download from the PlayStation Store you will be able to play games featuring Ad Hoc mode, such as Gran Turismo and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, over the Internet through the PS3. Your PSP connects to the PS3 via Wi-Fi, allowing you to chat online with fellow gamers.

It will also supports voice chat through the Wireless Headset of PlayStation Eye.

Source: US PlayStation Blog

This week, the creator of the Gran Turismo franchise was at the SEMA show, which he does every year. He talks about why it has taken a long time to develop, and the development costs of Gran Turismo 5. As well as how many cars he envisions for the game to have, and how many tracks we’ll see.

In GT5, they’re aiming for at least 1,000 cars in the game, while you race it out on 70 different tracks. All the cars will be on disc, no need to download them to the Hard Drive he says. As far as DLC, they may do it, but no plans as of yet. Also the game costed $60 million to create.

If you wanna check out the full interview, click here.

Gran Turismo 5 is set for launch in Japan in March 2010, while other regions have to be determined.

There were rumours floating around the web suggesting that Gran Turismo 5 will have a track editor. People said these rumours are false but e4g.info decided to contact the developers to find out if it was true or not. Now, we have a official answer.

Yes it will have a track editor. You will be able to rebuild a track from scratch or edit the tracks that are already put in Gran Turismo 5.

So there you go, a track editor!

With a recent video of Polyphony Digital, Kazunori Yamauchi, shows the box art for Gran Turismo 5. As can be seen there are 3 different cases for each disc. Will this be the standard edition, or the Collector’s Edition of the game? At this time nobody knows, since Sony refuses to comment on it. Each disc case is red, black, and blue, as can be seen below.

What do you readers think of it?

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At GamesCon, somebody was able to take some footage of Gran Turismo 5, and it’s crash physics. With the introduction of crash physics in the Gran Turismo franchise, players can finally get the real sense of damage from their vehicles.

When the conference began, you can already feel the vibe of excitement of what Sony was going to display. The audience was even enthusiastic. Here’s a brief summary of the conference. 

The conference started off with montages of the games spanning from the PS3, PSN, PSP, and PS2. Jack Tretton appears and talks about the PlayStation franchise. The first game they displayed was Uncharted 2, the single player portion. The depth you saw in the vastness was great. It looks to be a promising sequel. The next game was MAG, their surprise hitter from last year. They showed a live 256 player match, and the game held up magnificently. It looks to play just as CoD4. After the two PS3 game showing they focused on the PSP front. Kaz Hirai came onto the stage, and finally revealed the PSP GO, the newest iteration for the PlayStation Portable. Along with the display came two new games. The long awaited Gran Turismo is FINALLY coming to the PSP. Along with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. A new Resident Evil title is in the works for the PSP. Third Party titles were shown, ending with a montage.

Sony’s iteration of the motion controller scene was unveiled. you could really tell it was still in testing. But the way they presented it was just humorous. It really wasn’t for it to be unveiled to the public but they did the best with what they had. They showed off how responsive the motion controller was, and some mini games you can play within it. The new motion controller will be compatible with the PS Eye. 

They go back to the PS3 lineup. Showing off Assassins Creed 2 footage, and then Final Fantasy XIII. What Sony showed next was unexpected. Final Fantasy XIV was announced, and will be a PS3 Exclusive. Along with the long awaited unveiling of Agent, another PS3 exclusive from Rockstar games. When LittleBigPlanet released, it was focused on PlayCreateShare. Another company came out, and decided to put a spin on it. The game will be race oriented, from designing your own tracks, to designing your own characters. It will be nice to see what the community makes out of this. 

A teaser was shown for Gran Turismo 5, and it looks amazing, damage will finally be introduced into the series, along with NASCAR. The gorgeous lighting, and the detail to each car is amazing. Sony showed off the new The Last Guardian, a game from the creator of Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus. Another beautiful game. Sony finished off with a live demo of God of War III.

Expect an article on each title throughout today and tomorrow on the titles unveiled at todays E3. If you watched the Press Conference, what did you enjoy the most out of it? 

John Koller, Sony Computer Entertainment America’s marketing head has revealed that the future of Gran Turismo might be found on other platforms, not just the PS3 and PSP.

[Polyphony Digital] report directly into our CEO, Kaz Hirai, so it’s a little bit of a ‘wait and see’,

But we look for that franchise to continue on as many platforms as possible.

At the recent GDC event, Koller said pretty much the same thing:

GT5 across all platforms, just to see what makes the most sense.

Many people are suggesting that the game will make it’s way to the PC market, especially in China.

Expect more information at E3.

Source.

The team behind the Gran Turismo series could be looking at expanding their genre base since at the moment all they do is make car games.

Japanese gaming magazine GeMaga interviewed Polyphony Digital president Kazunori Yamauchi in which, Yamauchi spoke about his company and the future. The first thing he said was that Gran Turismo 5 may not make the 2009 release date which was set not that long ago.

Yamauchi said that he wants his company to make a new, different game. Could this mean that will make an entirely new game no one has ever seen before? Or will they attempt to make a first person shooter?

It would be interesting to see what they come up with.

Source.

During Gran Turismo’s 10th Anniversary, they held an event at New York called “DOWNSHIFT SESSION 2008.” At the event, people were able to learn about the history of Gran Turismo, and was able to play all the past titles. 

Polyphony Digital was able to show off Gran Turismo 5 Prologue with Sony’s new digital projector “SRX-S110.” The projector displays 3480×2160 pixels, meaning 2160p. Not only that, but it was capable to be played in 240fps. 

 

Gran Turismo in 4 times the resolution of Full HD

Polyphony Digital also presented two technological trials for the next generation at this event. Both of the presentations, were founded on the philosophy of “achieving the highest possible quality” held over the years by Gran Turismo.

One of these, was a time trial competition using Sony’s newest digital cinema projector, the “SRX-S110”. Gran Turismo 5 prologue is already in Full HD resolution at 1920 x 1080 pixels, providing the highest resolution possible in today’s TV content. However in this time trial, the Full HD image was increased to twice the resolution both vertically and horizontally (4x the surface area), enabling game play at an ultra high resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. This was performed by connecting and synchronizing four Playstation 3’s outputting a quarter of the image each at 1920×1080 pixels, but you must remember this demands an extremely high quality image from the source that can withstand the ultra high resolution. It can be said that this demonstration was only made possible, because the source image was Gran Turismo.

 

What supported this time trial on the display side, was the newest digital cinema projector from Sony, the SRX-110. This “4K”SXRD”(*1) projector is the next generation in projector technology, enabling a resolution of 4096 x 2160 pixels, equivalent to the high resolution image of 35mm film. The high 4000:1 device contrast ratio and a response time of 5 milliseconds, also adds to the level of breathtaking image expression introduced here.

The crowd was simply amazed by the clarity of the image displayed on the massive 220 inch screen, and the players who participated in the time trial expressed their excitement of how perfectly in focus the screen is even close up, and at the quality of Gran Turismo.

 

The Ultra-Real, 240fps Demonstration

The other display was a playable demonstration on a Nano-Spindt FED / Field Emissions Display developed by Sony, with a frame rate of 240fps (240 frames per second).

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has already achieved a frame rate of 60p (progressive), but in this demo, Gran Turismo was made playable at four times this frame rate at 240fps.

The SXRD demonstration described above used four PS3’s to improve image quality, but this used the same to increase the frame rate.

The display used in this demonstration was the 19 inch nano-Spindt FED screen produced by FE Technologies, who is a company that has taken over the development of the FED technology that was being developed at Sony. This display contains over 10,000 electron sources called the nano-spindt emitter, per pixcel. A fluorescent substance is exposed to the electrons from the emitters to produce light, and this format is very close to a cathode-ray tube in principle. The resulting view angle is wider in comparison to a LCD panel, and it shows superior performance when displaying moving images, with no blurring of the outline.

 

 

 

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For some of our readers who where worried and wondering if Gran Turismo would still be coming to the PSP, we have some news for you. Only it’s no release period/date.

Shuhei Yoshida said to Eurogamer.net that the game is still in development.
It seems Polyphony Digital is working on this project but because of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and Gran Turismo 5, the PSP version got a backseat until they were properly done with the PS3 versions.

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The Playstation.Blog has notified everyone that a new update is available for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. This update adds three new cars, a number of gameplay and performance enhancements.

So, what are the new cars?

GT by Citreon

The “GT by Citroen” concept car is the result of a groundbreaking collaboration between French automaker Citroen and Polyphony Digital. The formal debut of the vehicle took place yesterday at the Paris Motor Show, coinciding with the release of today’s update to the game. A video of the “GT by Citroen” can be viewed in HD within Gran Turismo TV.

The other two cars are Ferrari California and the Lotus Evora. The GT by Citroen is available for 1 Million credits; the Ferrari California will go for 300,000 credits the Lotus Evora for 100,000.

GamePlay Enhancements

• Penalty system
• Race events are also being updated, with tweaked difficulty levels and increased earnings for winning a top spot
• Improved responsiveness when using the wireless controller
• Improved sound volume balance for sound effects and music for a better racing experience
• Drift Trial races have also been changed to feature a rolling start.

No word on how big this download is. Check out the Playstation.Blog for more information.

Sony Computer Entertainment has announced that the Gran Turismo franchise has broke the 50 million barrier as of April 30th 2008. This was achieved in just over 10 years after the first Gran Turismo was released in December 1997.

Producer of Gran Turismo, Kazunori Yamauchi said:

“Initially, Gran Turismo was an ‘alternative’ racing game, kind of an outsider in the genre”

“And we made it thinking that it would be okay as long as it reached out to ‘the select few who would agree with us.’ So this figure — 50 million units — is simply astounding. If you go to a game store and look for a particular package, and pay for it at the cash register, though the time may be very brief, it still takes at least 3 minutes or so. It’s simply mind boggling and hard to believe that this has been repeated 50 million times all around the world in the last 10 years. I would really like to thank all the fans who have supported the Gran Turismo series over the years, for all their passion and love of the game. We’d like to continue making every effort to create cutting edge, high quality games, so that we don’t disappoint anyone’s expectations.”

Click through for full press release.

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Wondering if Gran Turismo will make it for the PSP? Wonder no further. Gran Turismo PSP is set to be released sometime in 2009. Polyphony Digital CEO Kazunori Yamauchi told VideoGamer.com yesterday that the real driving simulator will arrive on the Playstation Portable.

Yamauchi states:

“We’re hoping to have it out by next year, during next year,” stated Yamauchi-san. “A lot of our efforts have been consumed by the amount of effort it takes to develop on PS3, so hopefully we’ll be able to rebalance it next year.”

So it’s definitely going to happen, we will just have to be patience and wait for it.

IGN has stated that GT5 Prologue is to feature damage to cars as early as this Autumn. Kazunori Yamauchi has confirmed that Prologue will finally implement damage for the first time in the racing series as a downloadable upgrade.

Yamauchi goes on to say:

maybe by Fall we’ll be able to implement it

IGN will have a full interview with Yamauchi tomorrow. I will post an update regarding this. Check back soon!