Here’s some great footage of the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the GT5 demo used to host the second round of the GT Academy 2010 competition. This race took place amongst the Portuguese finalists, and it’s a treat to watch. To compare it with the real thing, forum user CoolColJ matched the above clip with the following on-board lap from one of BMW’s Ring Taxis. Watch them both simultaneously to how GT5’s ‘ring compares…
Polyphony Digital has updated their sales figures for the Gran Turismo franchise, and the company’s latest title, GT PSP is now on the list. In the four months since its release on October 1st, 2009, it has sold more than 1.8 million copies around the world, making it the sixth-best selling title on Sony’s portable console.
A big thanks to reader “slyght”, who picked up on my request for video from SLS AMG Driving Experience at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. He’s recorded and shared a complete (and mostly clean!) lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife in the demo, which you can see above. According to his email, the speakers were quite muddled on the TV so we don’t get an accurate impression of the sound, but the demo does include all the basic settings and the option to select professional or standard physics. Thanks once again to slyght and everyone who sent this in!
Remember the PlayStation: The Official Magazine article which announced the Indy Racing League would be coming to GT5? That was wrong, according to a correction listed in their latest issue as found by our own RAZORBACK2015:
In our February 2010 cover story on Gran Turismo 5, we incorrectly stated that Indy (IRL) racing cars and tracks would appear in the game. While the Indianapolis Motor Speedway will indeed appear in GT5, Indy cars currently will not.
It would be interesting to know the full story on how this happened, given how confidently it was written in the original article:
For the first time ever in the series, both NASCAR and – as exclusively revealed to PTOM – Indy (IRL) cars and tracks will be included in Gran Turismo 5.
While this obviously hurts our confidence in everything else they “announced” (most notably the confirmation of “weather” and “night racing on all tracks”), we can at least be thankful neither of those two important features were mentioned in this “Gran Update”.
The games being used to run the GT Academy national finals are showing off what appears to be our first look at Gran Turismo 5’s extensive online race management features! Click through the screens below to see for yourself, paying special attention to the live weather and time-of-day information prominently displayed near the top of the screens… Thanks to Carbonfibre and Stu for grabbing these pictures!
The first GT Academy 2010 national finals are now complete! TiZzla won in New Zealand, while GTP_DHolland came out on top in Australia. Congratulations to both of you! Participants and attendees are sharing their results, pictures, and impressions from the event here in our forums, so head there to find out how it all went down.
Unfortunately, the finals were not without their controversy -- as it appears Sony failed to present a completely fair and professional event for the racers, viewing the national finals as little more than PR stunts instead of serious competitions. Our user vrrm, who was not racing, was able to see just how poorly executed the event actually was (via his forum post):
For Sony this was a promotional event. It was about publicity. For the participants it was a potentially life changing sporting event. These two approaches do not fit well together.
For example I saw photographers taking pics, with flash on, while kneeling in front of & just to the left drivers. This happened to Devie during a race, a few seconds before he went off. I saw another racing incident that put Dan’s participation in the final in question happen right in front of Glen Seeton (the guest racing car driver steward), but he was on his mobile phone at the time and didn’t notice.
Each driver had a steward looking over their shoulder to judge whether race behaviour was fair. None of these stewards had any real knowledge of GT. Only one had racing experience (Seeton). Towards the end of the day when people were growing tired the steward job often fell to young girls on the Sony publicity team. This is completely unacceptable. Racing rules, stewards and scrutineers at events like this must be drawn from people experienced in Gran Turismo. Protests should be handled seriously by a panel rather than by a marketing manager who is more concerned about keeping to the event timetable.
I completely agree with vrrm that the lackluster organization for such a competition is unacceptable. If you’re about to participate in your own national final later this month, be forewarned and expect less than ideal conditions. Talk and communicate with other participants, and respectfully remind your local Sony organizers that unfair and inconsistent stewardship will not be tolerated.
The first European finals start this weekend, with Austria, Germany, Portugal, France, and Switzerland. Thanks to ripping_silk for snapping the above photo from the NZ finals!
UPDATE: Now with video!
Uh oh. In an interview with Spanish website Canarias Al Dia, CEO of Sony Entertainment Portugal James Armstrong had some disconcerting words for Gran Turismo fans. Via Google translation (user subsonic offers another, human translation):
We believe that launching the product this fall, before Christmas, but not yet decided. I do not rule that uses the MC but I doubt it. ‘GT 5′ is a great hope for Sony, a very important game for the company, which generates much income. We would have wanted him out before but we think the priority we are giving it our best. I’m very confident in this game that we launch this year and help us consolidate PS3 as the console that is large.
This actually isn’t the first time we’ve heard from Mr. Armstrong. Back in November of 2008, he told a Spanish financial newspaper that GT5 would “arrive at Christmas [2009]” – a date which was both privately disclosed and publicly confirmed several times throughout last year before Yamauchi set the now-postponed Japanese release date for March of 2010. Nevertheless, his reputation unfortunately precedes him, making his comments all the more believable. For the rest of us, the release date drama continues…
Thanks to Freeman_Cruz for digging this up!
Now that we’re into February, the second round of GT Academy 2010 is about to begin! Participants down under will kick things off this Wednesday, February 3rd, before the European finals begin this weekend. Our forum moderator Sphinx is compiling a list of each national final, along with its date, venue, and all GTPlanet users who are competing.
If you plan on going to your local event, send me an email and take a camera, as I would like to document each national final as best I can here on the news blog. Good luck to all!
