Gran Turismo in 2011: The Year in Review
2011 has been yet another rollercoaster year for Gran Turismo and its fans, and our first full year of GT5. The year has been dominated by game updates, GT Academy successes and significant events affecting the infrastructure of both the PlayStation Network and the people of Japan. Just as with the last two years, GTPlanet is taking a look back over the last 12 months before we head on into 2012…
Photomode image by Rev91.
January
- Sony Germany kicked off the New Year with the release of an official “reality check” video comparing GT5′s Nürburgring to the real thing.
- GTPlanet’s Weekly Race Series GT5 qualifier gets underway for the first time, to bring this long-running series to yet another iteration of the series.
- Kazunori Yamauchi is named by Esquire magazine as one of its ten “Men at the Top 2010”, alongside Tour de France and BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2011 Mark Cavendish and The Dark Knight and Inception director Christopher Nolan.
- The first US iteration of GT Academy gets underway, with 50,000 players registering and 512 progressing through the first round.
- GTPlanet celebrates a huge milestone on January 25th – a decade online! A “Feedback” section is added to the site to provide a more constructive resource for our readers at Sony
February
- Round 2 of GT Academy USA is blighted by corner-cutting, leading to two track resets before the round is eventually cancelled. All players progressed to Round 3 which ended with 32 qualifying for the National Finals.
- Sony announces that GT5 Prologue’s servers are to be closed down in June, bringing an end to online racing for that game.
- The 3rd European GT Academy is announced, to start at the beginning of March.
- GTPlanet’s members launch a free magazine called “GT Life”, featuring in-depth discussions and reviews of all aspects of GT5.
- A controversial update for GT5 is announced which brings to an end the trading of high value cars between players.
March 
- GT Academy’s first winner, Lucas Ordoñez, is announced as a driver for Signatech Nissan in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup including the 24 Heures du Mans.
- Mid-race saves, as requested by the users of the GTPlanet Feedback Forum, are announced for a future GT5 update.
- A massive earthquake and tsunami, followed by a significant nuclear hazard, strikes the east coast of Japan near Sendai. Polyphony Digital’s employees are themselves unharmed, though many have friends and family in the most affected regions.
- The USA GT Academy National Finals get underway, with 16 competitors progressing to the final at Silverstone.
- GTPlanet’s scope is extended somewhat with an official invite to a media event for upcoming Need for Speed game “Shift 2”.
April
- Kazunori Yamauchi states that he would have liked another 2 years to develop GT5 before release.
- 25 track logos are discovered in the Remote Racing section of Polyphony Digital’s GT5 website, pertaining to tracks from GT4 and GTPSP but not yet seen in GT5…
- Sony’s PlayStation Network is crippled by an external intrusion resulting in a prolonged period of downtime for all online services, including GT5′s online modes.
May
- GTPlanet passes another milestone – 5 million messages posted!
- Sony begin to restore PlayStation Network, though the services are reintroduced gradually and regionally.
June 
- Brian Heitkotter wins the first US GT Academy.
- Lucas Ordoñez enjoys class pole position and a class second place finish at the 2011 24 Heures du Mans.
- Jann Mardenborough wins the third European GT Academy.
- Kazunori Yamauchi is announced as a driver at the 2011 Nürburgring 24 Hours. The Schulze Motorsports team of Yamauchi, Tobias Schulze, Michael Schulze, and Opera Performance founder Yasuyoshi Yamamoto eventually score a class victory in their Nissan GT-R.
- GT5 Prologue receives a stay of execution – until September…
July
- Polyphony Digital moves nearly a third of its staff to new offices in Fukuoka, including Kazunori Yamauchi himself, after the events of March.
- Veteran GT Academy participant Marco Calvo is announced as the winner of the GT5 Signature Edition Challenge following a series of challenges at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, winning his own Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.
- A Platinum Edition of GT5 is announced for Fall 2011.
- Kazunori Yamauchi hints at downloadable content (DLC) for GT5 in an upcoming update.
- The second GT Academy winner, Jordan Tresson, takes a class victory at the Spa 24 Hours.
August
- Mercedes-Benz announces a live race in September between GT5 players and former Formula One driver David Coulthard.
September 
- In a first for Gran Turismo, a live Seasonal Event pits players against both a panel of players at Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands and David Coulthard around the famous Top Gear Test Track at Dunsfold. In the time permitted, Coulthard beat the best gamer at Brooklands – Jason Birt – by just over half a second! The Seasonal Event leaderboards are later reset following another outbreak of corner-cutting.
- Polyphony Digital announce that all players will be awarded a Red Bull X2010 S.Vettel when they log in, as a prize to celebrate Sebastian Vettel winning the Formula One Drivers’ Championship. Vettel duly took the title in October.
October
- GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez becomes a world champion too as his team clinch the LMP2 class championship in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup.
- GT5′s latest and largest update – Spec 2.0 – is announced along with details of forthcoming downloadable content. The DLC itself arrived later in the month and included the legendary Formula One track Spa-Francorchamps – the fans’ most asked-for track.
- Jordan Tresson becomes the second GT Academy winner this month to become a world champion as his RJN Motorsports team Nissan 370Z becomes the GT4 champion in the Blancpain Endurance Series.
November 
- Mary Pozzi’s 1971 Chevrolet Camaro wins the Gran Turismo Award at the 2011 SEMA show and will see inclusion in the series like other SEMA winners before it.
- Also at SEMA, GTPlanet founder and owner Jordan interviews Kazunori Yamauchi in our second face-to-face meeting with the Polyphony Digital head in two years.
- GT5′s downloadable content hits over a million purchases in two weeks, while Sony plan to release new DLC roughly every two months.
- After a successful summer of racing, GT Academy graduates Jann Mardenborough and Brian Heitkotter prepare for the Dubai 24 Hour race in January 2012.
- GT5 celebrates a year since launch, while an update to fix concerns about DLC is announced for late December.
December 
- GT5 Spec II is announced as a standalone title for Japan in February 2012, with no plans for a European release.
- Lucas Ordoñez wins SPEED.com’s “Rookie of the Year” award.
- The second round of GT5 DLC is announced and sees release near Christmas.
- The four GT Academy champions are announced as a single team of drivers for January’s Dubai 24 Hour race.
- Polyphony Digital announce that GT5 sold another 1 million copies between January and September, to bring the total to 7.3 million. GT4 (190,000), GT5 Prologue (130,000) and GTPSP (370,000) all sold more copies during the year with the series now totalling 64.7 million copies.
- GTPlanet hosts our annual philanthropic fundraiser for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, proudly raising $1,000 to help fight this terrible disease. Thank you, everyone, for your help in reaching this milestone!
- Gran Turismo 5 XL edition, including Spec 2.0 update and some paid DLC, is announced for North America in January 2012.
It’s been another bumper year of Gran Turismo news and we can be sure that 2012 will bring updates, tweaks and possibly some more downloadable content. While Gran Turismo 6 may well be in the works, it’s clear that Polyphony are looking to improve GT5 yet further.
Thank you for your support throughout this past year – GTPlanet looks forward to supplying you with the best Gran Turismo news in 2012! Happy New Year!
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Newest comments are displayed first.
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December 31st, 2011 at 5:05 am - #VR6syncro
Amen to that
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December 31st, 2011 at 5:04 am - #VR6syncro
Amen
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December 31st, 2011 at 3:48 am - #Freezer445
Happy new year GTplanet :3
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December 31st, 2011 at 3:35 am - #furiosomarron
4 more years!
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December 31st, 2011 at 3:18 am - #dmz_bean
2011 has been a great year. I’m very thankful for PD supporting their fans as well as they do.
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December 31st, 2011 at 2:47 am - #SaintSaiya
awesome!! all (I) want now is EL CAPITAN and COMPLEX STRING, the vegas strip and grand canyon wouldnt hurt either
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December 31st, 2011 at 12:24 pm - #Tenacious D
Those would be nice, but I want to see ALL the classic tracks from all the previous Gran Turismos at some point.
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December 31st, 2011 at 1:41 am - #BWX
PD and Kaz should be proud of GT5, it’s really a great driving/racing sim- but there are some omissions in the game that really cut the replay-ability down a great deal.
We need more A-Spec and a higher XP level limit, some other way of progressing in the game other than seasonal races and online racing, and a much higher cr. limit.
I would pay PD for a GT5 A-Spec career extension DLC pack even if it included no extra cars or tracks. This temporary Seasonal Race thing is cool, but it doesn’t replace a large and challenging offline career mode. Kaz said that A-Spec was lacking himself, why not fix it through DLC?
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December 31st, 2011 at 12:22 pm - #Tenacious D
There are a few things that would help expand GT5, and more A-Spec events is one of them. Another is giving us an Event Maker that would work online as well as offline, with enough elements to define and create entire racing seasons, not just single races or so. Hopefully we’ll see something on this from Kaz next year.
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January 1st, 2012 at 3:03 pm - #MyFavoriteGame
I think Seasonal event more than make up for the lack of A-spec events….but i do agree that the xp cap should be a bit higher
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December 31st, 2011 at 1:15 am - #GT Pro
With Test Track still nowhere to be found, GT5 is still dramatically ‘down’.
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December 31st, 2011 at 3:27 am - #recca
how does not have one test track dramatically lower GT’s overall quality??
test track is coming, its’ gonna be one of the DLCs most likely but it is coming
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January 1st, 2012 at 5:26 pm - #GT Pro
Because I spent a solid 50% of my time on previous GTs on the Test Track. I modified a broad range of different cars and then saw how they stacked up testing them in said modes.
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December 31st, 2011 at 12:24 am - #TokoTurismo
This was the best year for GT5 ever, well done Kaz and PD. :D Thank you for this wonderful review Famine, love seeing the pictures we’ve seen before again. :) Feels really good. Can’t wait till 2012. Maybe there might a few surprises stored up for us through the months, especially the GT classic tracks. Oh BOY! (*v*)
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December 30th, 2011 at 11:42 pm - #mykem
My review is much simpler- bought it and still playing it everyday plus today I got my T500RS which means at least another year of GT5.
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December 30th, 2011 at 10:48 pm - #Elitekilla29
epic year for gt5 with the updates and all the improments they made on this game threw the year. I hope in 2012 we will see even better dlc and patches. great year pd
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December 30th, 2011 at 10:23 pm - #armydude
this is one of those years where people can actually say that playing a video game or being part of one help humanity in a positive way….
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December 30th, 2011 at 10:21 pm - #MOTORTRENDmitch
It’s been a great year of racing, Hope to see you all on the track in 2012
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December 30th, 2011 at 9:25 pm - #MoLiEG
It’s been a long year for us all, can’t wait for the next one! It should get even better! :) Thanks for the review Jordan :D
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December 30th, 2011 at 9:25 pm - #MoLiEG
I mean, famine xD
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December 30th, 2011 at 9:14 pm - #JimmyJames10
2011 has been epic! :)
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December 30th, 2011 at 9:11 pm - #HKSBro92
Good year! I hope next year we get showered with even more updates, new cars and tracks. It would be so cool if PD added all the music from the older GT menus. *shrugs* whatever they do next year I’m sure It’ll be awesome!
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December 30th, 2011 at 10:47 pm - #GT HP Nut
‘Moon over the Castle’!
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December 30th, 2011 at 9:05 pm - #spikeyhairdude
Such a good year
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December 30th, 2011 at 9:02 pm - #Amphibious82
What a great year!!!
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December 30th, 2011 at 8:18 pm - #NaganoRN
Tire Wear… *Yao Ming meme*
GTPlanet on Google+
I would like to see CHALLENGES, you know, like GT4 or GT5P:
- fixed player’s car (could be two levels, with or without tuning)
- fixed track
- fixed rivals
- fixed time or having to reach 1st place
It would be far more better than de Seasonal Events.
The game has got +1.000 cars and many tracks but need to really use them. With all that elements it’s only a matter of creativity to create really awesome challenges.