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In a short but sweet interview with AutoWeek magazine which must have fallen through the cracks with all the other E3 news, GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi stated that “We will give the release date of Gran Turismo 5 soon.”  The question remains, though - just how soon is “soon”?  Speculation is mounting in our forums, with many pointing towards the upcoming Tokyo Game Show this September 24-27.  Aside from taking place on Polyphony Digital’s home turf (their offices are located in Tokyo), the 2007 TGS show is where they announced the release date for GT5 Prologue.  While this is just speculation, you can see the pieces of the puzzle would fit together quite nicely.

Another surprisingly interesting portion of the interview came when Yamauchi was asked about Gran Turismo 1’s development:

AW:  How hard was it to make that first game?

KY:  It took five years. In those five years, we could not see the end. I would wake up at work, go to sleep at work. It was getting cold, so I knew it must be winter. I estimate I was home only four days a year.

He also mentioned the original game was created by a staff of only 7 people!  Oh, how things have changed….

Since E3 earlier this month, the entire GT community has been looking forward to the release of July’s PlayStation Official Magazine, after last month’s issue promised a major Gran Turismo 5 feature article.  Early this morning, the new French edition started hitting newsstands, and it didn’t take long for scans to hit the web - for all the wrong reasons.  No new information could be found, and the screenshots were simply lifted from the official E3 trailer.  Some are still holding out hope that the UK or US editions will contain fresh content, but that’s extremely unlikely.  We’ll keep an eye out just in case…

People keep referring to this magazine as “OPM”.  However, that’s the acronym of the now-defunct “Official PlayStation Magazine“.  The new magazine is called the PlayStation: The Official Magazine.  Both were/are associated with Sony, which drove speculation that they would use their own media property to announce new information about GT5.

If there’s one thing the “general” gaming press knows about Gran Turismo, it’s that big news about the series can drive lots of traffic.  Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening right now in the Internet rumor mill, and it’s getting fans everywhere stirred up for no good reason.  It all started when Play.com - an online games retailer with of no particular authority - listed Gran Turismo 5 as “due for release on 27/11/2009″.  This isn’t anything new or exciting, as pretty much everyone who has waited on a game to be released is well aware how retailers wrecklessly throw release dates around.  Until an official date comes along, it’s little more than someone’s best guess.

That didn’t stop TheSixthAxis from picking up the random date (via a NeoGAF forum post) and running with it, further sensationalizing the story with the matter-of-fact title, “Gran Turismo 5 Gets UK Release Date”.  Of course, the link was promptly posted to gaming news aggregation site N4G, and has since spread to VG247 and PSXExtreme.  It’s almost funny to see the authors slipping down the slippery slope of quoting retailer release dates, as they are suddenly forced to acknowledge (and link to) a seemingly endless sea of nonsense.

Indeed, it would be funny, if it wasn’t taken seriously by so many people.  Casual fans won’t read this article, nor will they pay much attention to the source of TheSixthAxis’ date.  When the official date is then released by Sony (say, March of 2010), people will become very upset, claiming the game has been further “delayed”.  In reality, though, no date was ever moved, nor was the game ever “pushed back” from anything other than their own personal expectations.  Be wary of the internet rumor mill surrounding GT5 - I hope you’ll continue to rely on GTPlanet for accurate, cited news about your favorite series.

UPDATE:  A Dutch PS3 site claims to have contacted Play.com, who said the release date was given to them by the publisher. If that’s true, not only is Sony releasing 5 of their biggest titles on the same day (according to other games on Play.com with the same November 27th release date…), but one of Sony’s own representatives lied when directly responding to all of this drama.

Kazunori Yamauchi has to be aware of the excitement he caused when he said “We Can Release Gran Turismo 5 Whenever We Want“, but that didn’t stop him from doing it again - this time, in a video interview with GameReactor:

“We’ve actually reached a point where we can probably release it any time, except that you can also keep working on it as long as you want to, as well, so it’s just a matter of timing.  What really is the most important is that we keep working on it until we’re satisfied with the final product.  [...]  You’re waiting for something that’s worth waiting for.”

The rest of the interview is also very good, as he discusses more details about Gran Turismo PSP.

Not long after the dust settled at E3, people started to ask when we could expect the next batch of news from Yamauchi and his team at Polyphony Digital.  It didn’t take much time to find out: the PlayStation Official Magazine is expected to preview Gran Turismo 5 in next month’s issue.  Of course, there are no guarantees as to what this “preview” will contain - indeed, it may simply be a re-hashing of what we already learned at E3.  With that said, it makes sense for Sony to drive “official” magazine sales by using its own media property to announce new information.  Keep a close eye on those newsstands!

Some people were quick to lament that no “hard facts” regarding Gran Turismo 5 were released at last week’s E3 show, but now that we’ve had some time to carefully pick through the HD trailer, you can see we’ve actually learned quite a bit.  Much like we did with Gran Turismo PSP: What You Need to Know, let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together and find out exactly what Kazunori Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital told us…

(more…)

Thanks to an excellent new interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, we’ve just learned a lot about the progress of Gran Turismo 5 - and it sounds like it is further along than anyone may have imagined.  When asked about “how development’s going”, Yamauchi-san responded:

“I want to release it as fast as I can, but GT5 for us, when you talk about its status, it’s at a point we can release it any time we want, but we can always keep working on it. It’s very important for us to make sure everything is done perfectly and everything is done in detail.”

After just one brief paragraph, GT5 suddenly seems closer than ever before, implying that the major features have already been implemented.  If it’s true that his team at Polyphony Digital are just polishing things up and working out the bugs, it tilts the scales in favor of a 2009 release.

Yamauchi also addressed questions about GT PSP’s extended development time, and how the game has affected Gran Turismo 5:

“We first made the announcement in E3 of 2004, so [laughs] it’s been five years. Since then we’ve released GT4, Tourist Trophy, GTHD and GT5 Prologue. Of course we were always working on the PSP version a little bit at a time, but every time we have one of those releases it’s affected by that new title. So this is a software that was born in between GT5 Prologue and GT5, and it’s affected by both of those titles.”

“I don’t think there was a direct effect [on Gran Turismo 5], but I do believe that the development team really gained experience in streamlining displaying graphics on a very small space and also how to manage memory when the amount of memory available is very small. That sort of experience is something that was gained by the team.  And you know, this is the first time we’ve developed a portable game, and I think there is an effect on how we see games, and how we understand videogames.”

Check out the full review at Eurogamer.