GTPlanet

If you’ve been holding off on GT5 Prologue because you don’t want to pay for a “demo”, you are quickly running out of excuses - especially if you’re in the United States.  As has been reported around the web, Target has dropped their in-store price on the game to $9.98.  That’s an incredible $30 less than the old MSRP for the game (and what’s still listed on their website), and $20 less than it’s new Greatest Hits price.

Although the most likely explanation for the price cut is to clear out old inventory and make room for the Greatest Hits packagaing, a GTPlanet user has already reported getting a Greatest Hits game for the low price, and someone at SlickDeals.net claims there are no mentions of sales or clearance tags.  As good and unusual as this is, we don’t know how long it will last - so head down to your local store and pick up a copy right now.

A “demo” that has sold more than 3.3 million copies will be added to the PlayStation 3’s “Greatest Hits” library on June 16, along with several other popular titles which have “reached a significant sales threshold”.  Thus, GT5 Prologue continues the decorated history of the franchise, with each worldwide release attaining “Greatest Hits” status.

Of course, when PS3 games are added to the library, their price is reduced to $29.99.  With usual MSRP’s of $59.99, this is a significant cut.  However, Prologue has been available for $39.99 since its release, making it a less exciting addition to the library.  Regardless, it’s an interesting announcement for Sony to make, especially considering what a flood of Gran Turismo 5 news at E3 could do for sales of Prologue…

Alba, a long-time creative character in the GTPlanet community, has maintained a slick, free GT5 Prologue PS3 theme for the past few years.  The latest version was just released, and it’s looking better than ever!  All you need is a USB drive and 60 seconds to get this running on your own console - grab both red and blue versions of Alba’s theme via our download mirror below or directly from his website, follow the installation instructions, then head on over to his forum thread and say thanks!

Alba’s GT5 Prologue Theme Pack (w/Backgrounds) 15.4 MB

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Earlier today, Amar212 dropped an odd bombshell on the GTPlanet Forums, posting a cryptic message full of hidden details about Gran Turismo 5.  Before you continue, have a look at Amar’s post for yourself.  It’s an exciting, well-crafted read that you are sure to enjoy.  If you’re still lost, keep reading for our careful analysis of each main point - and why you should believe them…

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The engineers at Digital Foundry have used GT5 Prologue to demonstrate one of their new video performance analysis tools.  As you can see in the clip above, their software graphs the frame rate at a given point in time while marking each torn frame.  They cite all of the criticism that the game has received for “tearing”, yet their objective results show the game performs exceptionally well.  Another revelation: frame rate is cut down to 30 FPS during the “pre-race drive-by”, with lots of torn frames.  Once the player gets control of the car, the game rockets up to 60 FPS, with no obvious explanation.  Watch how the FPS is, otherwise, only really affected when  other cars are in very close proximity.

What the Digital Foundry guys found most interesting, though, was how the actual level of anti-aliasing changed depending on what resolution the PS3 was set to output:

GT5 is a very special game in that while it runs with 2xMSAA in 1080p mode, at 720p, it renders at 1280×720 but invokes 4xMSAA - one of the few games on PS3 that actually does this.

You can learn more about what MSAA means, or just head on over to Digital Foundry’s blog entry for more details.  Thanks for sharing your results, guys - we’ll be watching for a follow-up the next time the game is updated.

This head-to-head shootout between GT5 Prologue and Forza 2 by the Inside Sim Racing guys caused quite a stir in our forums last week, and it’s worth posting here for those of you who missed it.  Needless to say, the latest GT game didn’t fare quite so well, partly due to the fact that it wasn’t able to provide the features, size, or scale of a complete title.  This has put some GT fans up in arms, and you can argue that some of the evaluated criteria wasn’t appropriate.  That aside, their critiques are honest.  More than anything, though, the review spotlights what features Gran Turismo 5 needs the most in order to stay competitive.

Check out the video and see for yourself!

In a rather surprising “public” appearance, Gran Turismo series creator Kazunori Yamauchi is starring in a Japanese commercial for GT5 Prologue, which you can see above.  There’s nothing new (aside from Yamauchi-san’s acting skills), but it’s interesting to note that we are seeing some new efforts to advertise the series…  This video just popped up on the web, but it could have been running for quite some time now - if any of our readers in Japan could clear this up (along with what is being said), please let us know.

UPDATE: Commenter fade006 brought another video of La Sarthe to our attention.  Check it out:

Take a look at this: video of the infamous Circuit de La Sarthe, home of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.  No, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen La Sarthe (or even the Nurburgring) in high definition, but this is the best look we’ve had of the track in motion.  Like the special “Nurburgring Special Edition” version of the game, the track is probably just a ‘glorified’ version of the same model we saw in Gran Turismo 4.  Regardless, to a fan base starving for new GT5 Prologue tracks, this clip should provide a tiny bit of refreshment (and hope!).  Thanks to GTPlanet user seizure_ for digging this up - check out his forum topic for more.

NOTE: For the skeptics, the instrumentation is from GT5 Prologue: