GTPlanet

Don’t bother checking your calendar – this isn’t another April fool’s joke!  

Polyphony Digital is moving into the restaurant business with the launch of the Gran Turismo Café at Twin Ring Motegi race circuit in Japan.  Opening just last week, the “exterior, interior, and even the staff uniforms have been decorated in the image of Gran Turismo, and there are additional items added to the already popular menu lineup as well.”  We don’t have any pictures of the actual place yet (if you’ve got some, please let us know!), aside from the provided logo and sketch.  The press release also mentions three GT5 Prologue “play booths”, but you can’t help but wonder if these copies have an HD version of Motegi thrown in…  It’s a little odd, but it’s cool to have the first permanent, public location branded around Gran Turismo.  Begin your pilgramige now.

Here’s a blast from the past -- check out these interviews from over 10 years ago with Gran Turismo’s creator, Kazunori Yamauchi!  The first video, which you see above, was filmed in 1998 after the release of the very first game in the series.  A very youthful Yamauchi-san discusses his inspiration for the original game along with some of the features he wants to include in Gran Turismo 2.  One of his more interesting comments: “In GT1, I didn’t want cars to spin when they collided, so that you could keep playing the game.  But gamers told me they want damage.  GT2 will have an option for car damage.”  Hmmm…  You may also recognize Shinobu Sawamura in the video -- she’s still working for Polyphony Digital, and we actually mentioned her in “The People Behind Gran Turismo” a few weeks ago.

This second interview was conducted some time later, after Gran Turismo 2’s release and before you could even buy a PlayStation 2 in stores.  At the time, Gran Turismo 3 was little more than a tech demo named “Gran Turismo 2000″.  This is really the first time you will hear Yamauchi’s well crafted “I’m-not-going-to-say-too-much-so-people-won’t-be-mad-when-it’s-not-in-the-game” statements that he is now so infamous for.

To see more videos like this, subscribe now to GTPlanet’s YouTube channel!

If you’re a regular GTPlanet visitor, you already know about the Citroen GT.  It’s a monumental and unique achievement for a video game production company – the one and only Polyphony Digital.  However, you may be surprised to learn how many “real world” projects the Gran Turismo master minds are responsible for.  Tucked away on their Japanese website is a fascinating timeline of  collaborative projects, from the Nissan GT-R concept in 2001 to the Citroen GT today.

One of their more interesting yet little-known design tasks involved Team Impul’s open-wheeled race car, which competed in the Formula Nippon racing series.  The timeline also provides an extensive list of every “special edition” version of Gran Turismo ever created, most of which even die-hard fans of the series have probably never heard of.  For example, did you know a special “training version” of the game was created just for drivers in Volkswagen’s ADAC Lupo Cup racing series?  I didn’t think so.  Learn more from the  flashy interactive timeline right here.

Aside from a few seconds of screen time in the rolling credits at the end of each game, few people aside from Kazunori Yamauchi get much credit for the countless hours of hard work that goes into each masterpiece of the Gran Turismo series. True, Polyphony Digital is a very secretive company – that’s just a fact of life in their industry – but there are hundreds of brilliant people getting their hands dirty (and sleeping on cots under their desks) who deserve more credit for what they do.  A single web page on Polyphony Digital’s corporate site offers the rare opportunity to place faces with names.  Thanks to the magic of online translation, let’s take a closer look at who they are.  GTPlanet wishes all of them well – keep up the great work, guys, we are looking forward to what you have in store for us.

Mitsuru Miura

Mitsuru-san is responsible for managing the online aspect of GT5 Prologue.  He’s the one who actually posts those news updates that you see in the game’s menu, maintains the time trial rankings, and online racing events.  He also works at a “lower level”, aiding the development of the actual network environment.  He had no game development experience prior to joining Polyphony Digital, but it hasn’t been an issue.

Kazuaki Matsuo

Kazuaki-san worked with Sony Corporation before moving to Polyphony Digital in 2005.  He specializes in service delivery systems, and now develops the client-side online software.  In other words, he writes the underlying code that enables online races and connectivity.  He states that he enjoys his job because everyone at Polyphony has a “clear purpose”, and the result of their labor is immediately visible in the products they produce.

Norio Takama

Norio-san has an extremely important job that affects everyone who plays Gran Turismo – he’s a mathematician who develops the physics models that define how each car moves and feels.  He originally worked for Sega, creating games for the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast.  This is a fascinating area of game development that is critical to the series, but unfortunately does not get enough credit thanks to all the popular attention to visual details.

Shinobu Sawamura

Shinobu is responsible for the stunning backgrounds and landscapes within the games.  According to Google Translator, she feels “excitement at the area covered by skin” for the opportunity to create virtual worlds, and enjoys working with people from around the world to put each game together.  Now, the question is, who are those other people from “around the world”?

Akira Saito

Before joining Polyphony Digital, Akira Saito developed arcade games.  Like Shinobu, he also works with visual effects, landscapes, and textures to make real-time computer graphics look more realistic (he’s obviously very good at what he does).  Like the others, he enjoys the working atmosphere at Polyphony, but also the clear sense of purpose and the fact that their work is covered extensively by “foreign reporters”.

There’s a new program coming to Gran Turismo TV -- it’s the “Inside Story” of how the GTbyCitroën made the journey from polygons to production.  Check out the high-definition preview above, then fire up your copy of GT5 Prologue to download the full program.  Here’s the description from Polyphony Digital:

The process from its design sketch to scale model, and to the creation of the actual car, is introduced personally by the Japanese designer of this vehicle, Takumi Yamamoto. The creation of the car within the game, and the “C42W, the information base of Citroen, are also introduced here.  In the finale, Kazunori Yamauchi drives the car on a circuit!

For more, subscribe to GTPlanet’s YouTube channel!

We reported last December that Polyphony Digital’s Citroën GT may actually be headed for production.  That’s now confirmed thanks to Citroën Product Manager Vincent Besson’s recent comments to Autocar.  Of course, no pricing or official specifications have been released, but we do know that it won’t contain the futuristic fuel-cells that we’ve played with in GT5 Prologue.  Instead, the French company will enlist V8 power from a GM or Ford motor, much like the one found in the concept that the car magazines have been playing with.  As was originally speculated, production will be limited to no more than 20 units, so you’d better get those orders in right away…  Thanks to Alex P. for the tip!

The Guinness World Records releases annual “Gamer’s Edition” books, which rate and document some of the more dramatic feats in the world of video games.  However, Guinness is branching out from the objective realm of records and numbers into the subjective world of opinion and “expert judging panels”.  One of the products of this ideological shift is a ranking of “The Top 50 Console Games of All Time“, and the results are raising a few eyebrows.

The list from the press release is after the jump, but we’ll go ahead and tell you that Gran Turismo scored 19th place.  Yes, it was up against stiff competition like Super Mario Kart (in the top spot), Final Fantasy, and Grand Theft Auto.  They were all impressive sellers, but the games were ranked by their “initial impact and lasting legacy”.  Guinness World Records Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday continues, “We knew this would be a complex task so we invited a crack team of industry experts to form a judging panel – and the result is a ‘top 50′ list of games ranked both on their importance and on how fun they are to play.”

Unfortunately for Kazunori Yamauchi, the panel did not consider achievements outside of the video game industry “important”.  Otherwise, a game which has sold more than 50 million copies, been referred to as the ultimate automotive “brand ambassador” by BusinessWeek magazine, pushed technical boundaries, increased sales of actual vehicles, turned a video gamer into a professional race car driver, and developed real and concept cars would – at the very least – manage into the “top 10″.  But, no, when the competition inspired…other games, such real-world accomplishments just aren’t enough.

(more…)