Kazunori Talks About Gran Turismo’s Beginnings in PistonHeads Interview
Automotive news website PistonHeads had a brief chance to talk with Kazunori Yamauchi during his recent visit to the EU GT Academy 2012 finals.
The questions focus on the early days of the Gran Turismo series, and include a few interesting responses from Kazunori about the first game’s development:
“… When I first developed the game, I didn’t even have a chance to look at the European super sports cars. I called directly to the automobile manufacturers, can you meet me, I asked. I would see anyone available.
It was a bit of luck – lucky to get to know that car. No deep meaning, just about getting to know that car. I loved cars. I read lots of car magazines ever since I was at junior school.”
Head on over to PH’s website for the full transcript.
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Newest comments are displayed first.
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September 5th, 2012 at 12:44 pm - #Clutchdj
Good read
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September 6th, 2012 at 3:20 pm - #tpark103
Agreed I enjoyed it very much as well. I can’t imagine that Kaz still gets asked questions about the humble beginnings of the serious anymore and it’s great being and long time fan knowing how it all began. Kodos to all evolved!!!
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September 4th, 2012 at 5:07 am - #TurboProp
Greatest simulated interview ever!!! Thanks for the most awesome translated insight to the best game…I mean Driving Simulator of all time Mr.KY!!! That piece of literature should get a Nobel peace prize or something like that…WOW!!!
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September 3rd, 2012 at 10:10 am - #Weedfried
I regret the time when there were championships qualifying rounds to determine the order on the starting grid instead of the chasing rabbit stuff :-/
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September 3rd, 2012 at 12:56 pm - #tpark103
We could only dream of such a thing.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 7:25 am - #Hetseeker
It is certain that GT from its very beginning started in the ps1, and the years passed by, the game evolved in what we play nowadays, even I didn’t expect that GT5 achieved something nearly impossible but the GT team made it, to be in the Guinness world records
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September 2nd, 2012 at 5:10 pm - #swynder
I would really like to see a Gran Turismo HD Collections, maybe with GT concept tokyo-geneva, GT3 and GT4.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 3:55 pm - #hksteam911
i wish kaz to add more muscle cars
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September 2nd, 2012 at 4:13 pm - #another_jakhole
Me too.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 6:05 pm - #MeanElf
And I would like free beer – but that’s not really relevant to this news item either.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 6:39 am - #SCER
Well said, MeanElf.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 12:57 pm - #tpark103
Yeah like the Hyundai Genesis R-Spec
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September 3rd, 2012 at 1:25 pm - #Pit Crew
Agreed Mean Elf. Every thread Jordan starts shouldn’t be used to ask for Content. Try and atleast have an opinion on the Topic at hand.
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September 4th, 2012 at 3:41 am - #MeanElf
Thanks guys – I’m really fed up of it :)
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September 2nd, 2012 at 3:34 pm - #05XR8
Would be cool if PD rereleased Gran Turismo with the same cars and tracks, customizations and music when it was released. Just make all tracks weather change and time change. It was all so simple and exciting then.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 9:14 am - #Lambob
my uncle allowed me to drive, my first real car, at eight years old, it was a standard shift Plymouth Horizon. naturally, I stalled it probably 6 times before the first corner, but soon after that , I was ready to drive anything I sat into. What does this have to do with this topic? Nothing!
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September 2nd, 2012 at 12:02 pm - #Escort mk1 yum
Lol, I let my son drive my car (manual and he’s only 6 years old ), I bet he would kick most players butts on here on gt5, now he can drive sweet, I can take him to a car park, sit in the passenger seat and read the paper while he just drives around, and he loves it.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 1:26 pm - #tpark103
Haha my 14yr old taught me how to drive a manual with one foot?.!?. That was seven years ago.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 9:02 am - #Progress823
I have been playing the GT series since the beginning; was 17 when the first one came out, starting my first year of college – I remember everyone coming to my dorm just to play after class. From a tuning standpoint, GT1 was the most thorough as you could do more to the cars – some cars even allowed you to increase their displacement, there were more grades of tires, more turbo options, etc.
It would be nice to see return to these features in GT6 – I would rather have this over a livery editor
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September 2nd, 2012 at 6:10 am - #RobDoggy05
“so further GTs were well-balanced between Japan and foreign cars” – 62.22% Japanese = balanced???
“I like the Nissan GT-R consistently” – We know…………
” If you would tune up the Supra [in the game], it would be 1,000hp.” – No, don’t lie..
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September 2nd, 2012 at 6:36 am - #MeanElf
“…62.22% Japanese = balanced???”
Just look at the history of GT – it’s as balanced as they can get it for now; plus there will always be a bias. That’s been known since the begining.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:24 am - #Keitaro333
“” If you would tune up the Supra [in the game], it would be 1,000hp.” – No, don’t lie..”
He doesnt lie. He doesnt speak about GT5. In older GTs you could tune some cars to about 1000hp, Supras and GT-R among them.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:34 am - #KiroKai
I am also not sure if that ‘so further GTs were well-balanced’ bit is true. Yes they probably tried to balance the car selection more, but I cannot believe they still have trouble to find cars from all over the world nowadays, after their games have been become that popular and the GT brand overall is that well-known. Of course there are limitations, but saying that further GTs have been well-balanced is exagerrating, excepting GT5 maybe. It still has a Japanese bias, but it’s not as much as in the first four titles.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 11:11 am - #J00N10R
It’s a Japanese game… of course the balance is going to swing toward them. If it was an American or European game it would be expected to be balanced the other way… live with it.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 11:13 am - #J00N10R
It’s a Japanese game. of course the balance is going to swing toward them. If it was an American or European game it would be expected to be balanced the other way live with it.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 12:21 pm - #another_jakhole
With each GT that’s passed, the percentage of total Japanese cars has dropped.
“Just look at the history of GT – it’s as balanced as they can get it for now; plus there will always be a bias. That’s been known since the begining.”
Yuuuup. -
September 2nd, 2012 at 3:13 pm - #Quakebass
@J00N10R:
Even so, 2/3′s is a bit much, even for a bias. especially considering that there are SEVERAL more regions only taking up the other 33% – You don’t see Forza having as big of an American bias, do you?
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September 2nd, 2012 at 3:43 pm - #another_jakhole
Well that’s not great reasoning. Was Forza made in the early ’90s with the majority of its cars (over 100 cars, GT1, for a racing game was unbelievable for its time and still is) aimed to please a small American niche? Percentage-wise since GT1, there have been more new-to-the-series non-JDM’s than there have been new JDM’s.
GT has never been a game about high speeds as the car list has always been about normal street cars. FM has mostly been about fast cars. Just look at each side’s DLC content. Do you really think it would have been plausible to have the majority of the cars in FM1 be full of Camaros, Corvettes, and El Camino’s? Having all the money that Microsoft did and has backed Turn 10 with, coughing up the cash for the Porsche licenses and any hyper car ever imagined NOT from the US doesn’t seem to ever have been a problem.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 12:11 am - #dylansan
It’s just so easy for them to get their hands on Japanese cars. If they want European or American cars not native to Japan, they’ll either have to travel or bring the cars to them. And on a small scale, they do both, but it’s much harder for them to do that than it is to get Japanese cars.
I think they’re doing the best they can to add as much variety as possible, but the only way they could have a truly balanced lineup is if they intentionally avoided adding some Japanese cars. And when that wouldn’t save them much time or space anyway, why would they?
The fact is, if you removed enough Japanese cars from GT5 to make the game as balanced as others, it would still have at least as many cars overall as other games. The lack of balance is completely mitigated by the sheer number of cars overall, so there’s plenty of variety.
So yes, we’d all love to see more American and European cars, but considering how many they already have, it would be hard to argue that they’re not trying.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 6:38 am - #SCER
Excuse my pragmatism, but if I were designing a game, I’d make it in the way that I’d want it to be, not according to the specifications of some people on the internet that know little or nothing about the creation process. It’s not Kazunori’s job to please all of the people that moan endlessly about every element of his games, and tell him to work himself to the bone nearly full time so that they can sit playing GT6 as soon as possible. He has a life people, and I’m pretty sure his goal in life isn’t to please a load of people that sit whining about games he makes for them all the time.
If it’s not for you, look elsewhere.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 12:58 pm - #MuoNiuLa
@SCER: The GT series is open to criticism just like every video game series out there. If you put something out there for the public to see, expect it to be criticised and picked apart.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 4:57 pm - #Quakebass
My point being, @another_jakhole, is why don’t they do some common american and european cars? There are several great new common models from ford, dodge, Audi, Mercedes, chevy, and various other common brands on the market right now. They already KIND OF do this, but most of these cars are standards, and almost NONE of them are modern, anyways. Plus, there’s so many useless duplicates of many cars, which is really supporting the Japanese bias, since there’s nearly no needless duplication of cars from other regions. So doing away with the needless duplications (like that GT-R that’s classified as a whole different car for having a special limited edition paint) and adding normal street cars from other regions would really tone down the bias – and PD already has good standings with Ford and a few other brands I mentioned.
@dylansan: They don’t have to go out of their way to avoid adding/removing Japanese cars, they just need to leave out the unnecessary cars and maybe not even bother modeling some of the old ones that don’t differ much to either more common or better models.
But you really can’t say that supercars aren’t necessary and shouldn’t be included because GT isn’t about that – there a big part of car culture, and I believe GT is more about car culture than affordability. And it’s a driving/racing sim game! Shouldn’t you want something that you likely wouldn’t ever to be able to do in real life? Sure, you may be able to rent a supercar at a track for a few laps, but that’s NOTHING compared to owning most supercars on the market already, and having a massive amount of tracks and people to race against at your disposal, plus all sorts of tuning.
And yes, T10 MAY have more money, but this hasn’t stopped PD from getting several other cars in the game, has it? They should go for the cars Forza doesn’t have yet, and are also very grabbing to pull in more people and give more reasons to buy GT over Forza. It’s just good business. And it’s not like I want the common street cars to go, I’d just like a few more supercars – I mean, really, who DOESN’T like new, fast, or simply pleasurable or fun-to-drive cars? There’s SO many out there that PD hasn’t added, and most seem easy enough to get, but hey, I don’t know what the licensing is like, so I could be wrong.
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September 3rd, 2012 at 4:58 pm - #Quakebass
^ Oh, and don’t forget Australia – they’re already being left out – they should really be a prime focus for now, in my opinion.
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September 4th, 2012 at 3:36 am - #MeanElf
@MuoNiuLa – agreed that people should have the right to criticise, although that only seems to be something trendwise from the past ten years. However, it isn’t a valid argument when someone hasn’t done any research before buying a game, then blames the game in public for not being what they expected.
So I’m in agreement with SCER here, it is a valid response – there are too many hit-and-run style posts that have nothing to do with discussion all across the news aricle responses. Granted there are a few who return to their comments to explain further and such, but so many who don’t – it’s just cheap character assassination.
I really think some people must have a sperate account just to spout off and such…
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September 2nd, 2012 at 2:04 am - #Crooooooow
This is probably the first Kaz interview that focused on the dawn of Gran Turismo, instead of future plans. I bet Kaz was relieved to answer a different question.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 1:16 am - #Quakebass
Just wondering… Why IS everybody telling their GT and car history stories? I don’t really see where people are getting the inspiration to do so…
But I don’t mind, nonetheless.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:07 am - #XXI
It sure is better than reading the normal.
Will Porshe be in GT6?
My GT6 wishlist:
This is why GT6 is on the PS4, and nobody better argue with me. I got connections. -
September 2nd, 2012 at 7:39 am - #KiroKai
I love how you misspelled Porsche. Makes it more authentic to the actual posts.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:54 am - #XXI
Glad you caught that;)
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September 2nd, 2012 at 12:48 am - #ENFORCER 98
I never knew R34 GT-Rs were MR… lol it looks terribly weighed down in the rear.
but my story starts about 12yrs ago when i was a kid. i was bought up in mid north NSW and over here in Oz you are always a Ford or Holden, Red or Blue i watched my 1st V8 supercars race which was Bathurst and loved ‘em ever since i got my PS1 and Gran Turismo and started gaming… 10yrs later rather ironically i own a Nissan…
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September 2nd, 2012 at 1:08 am - #eminembeastfan2
You do know what MR means right? Mid RWD= Mid Rear Wheel Drive= engine in middle and is rwd. The GTR is not a RWD or a Mid Engined car. Its a AWD= All Wheel Drive.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 3:10 am - #ENFORCER 98
im aware of that i was being sarcastic because of the terrible photoshopping…
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September 1st, 2012 at 11:33 pm - #Amac500
I always loved cars growing up in metro Detroit. Alot of my family member worked at GM and are still involved. My one grandpa worked at Crysler back in the day and he came up with the colapsable steering column, a big safety advancement in crashes. He presented this to his boss(es) [not sure if there was 1 or more] but was, as commonly occured back then, his boss(es) presented it to the head of the company and took all the credit for it, my grandpa did not get his due. This really upset him and totally turned him off from the industry, so he quit and became an auto shop teacher at a high school.
But yeah, what really got me into cars was that I was raised in a NASCAR house, so I liked NASCAR. When I was a kid I had all the little diecasts and stuff, I was so into it. Of course I always watched other races, like the Indy 500 every year. The summer before high school was when I really branched out into other forms of racing and liked it all, Indycar being my favorite now, but of course love all forms, Le Mans, any GT racing, not to in to F1 because I hate the corrupt managment, team orders, all that. And of course I like to watch Grand-Am and ALMS (which is merging in 2014, that’s hot new off the truck, ya hear that? Under Grand-Am sanction). But the love of racing really does translate directly to cars in general. So ya, big car guy. And for what it’s worth, first car: 1980 Ford Fiesta Mark 1
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September 1st, 2012 at 10:52 pm - #Quakebass
Funny how everyone’s getting their car history and car stories… So to fit in, here’s mine: (well the basics of it)
When I was two, one of my aunts got me a Hotwheels car… Which led to car obsession. From then to now, I now have likely over 600 HotWheels, MatchBox, Maisto, etc. die-casts, several (15+) larger-scale die-casts and models, and recently a large slot car track. I got into Top Gear and started to learn about more about car culture and various other racing tactics, (this was when I was around 12 or so) but then I was mainly more into arcady (crash-y-explod-y) games. Then I found GT5, and BAM! Car obsession is brought to an all-time high. It made me learn just about EVERYTHING about cars, from handling aspects, to driving strategies, to advanced tuning.
Long story short, in the span of a year, Gran Turismo taught me more about cars than likely anything else could have. And I’m 15 now, hoping to start drivers ed soon, and to get a good first car.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 1:42 pm - #starwars22
Same story here bro. I grew up just bout the same way but im 16 and learned from Ryan Newman on how to race
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September 2nd, 2012 at 3:17 pm - #alexlam24
Same here. Hopefully my first car will be a fr or something good
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September 3rd, 2012 at 1:40 pm - #Pit Crew
My Dad had Mopar Blood while mom was an Oldsmobile fan. Dads best buddy had a 389 71 RoadRunner (bee beep) with a blower and hood pins. I usually rode on the roomy back seat floor for fear the engine would blow hood up into window and kill us lol.
Uncle retired from GM 4 years back while garnering 3 Vettes (1 limited edition Lemans inspired paint Z06 C5) which had me weak in the knees after a high speed sprint down the local expressway.
Good Times.
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September 1st, 2012 at 8:10 pm - #HuskyGT
On anther note,
Great selection of cars for that pic. It almost looks intentional. I mean, the R35 is comprehensable. But did they have to put another GTR next to him? LOL!
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:27 am - #Keitaro333
What? I doubt its NOT intentional.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:43 am - #KiroKai
^ Yup.
Also, why shouldn’t they put another Skyline there. Nissan, Gran Turismo and Kazuori Yamauchi just belong together. I’m only wondering why they chose a stock R34 instead of a R35, nonetheless, awesome cars in that photo. -
September 2nd, 2012 at 5:15 pm - #Amac500
Bro that is to GT-R’s
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September 2nd, 2012 at 5:15 pm - #Amac500
2*** not to
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September 3rd, 2012 at 1:43 pm - #Pit Crew
Amac 500 R34 is a Skyline GT-R. I like that color though, looks Gangsta.
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September 1st, 2012 at 8:06 pm - #HuskyGT
Kaz was not actually a real car enthusiast until he got to work in Gran Turismo. He was actually a computer programer. He just thought that it would be amazing to have an accurate car game like nothing else out there. His idea was actually rejected back then. Thank god that Sony actually decided to give him a chance. He proved that his idea worked.
Being involved in Gran Turismo is what actually made him lean towards the car industry and leave his dream of being a programer. Though he actually did since he made a game.
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September 2nd, 2012 at 5:49 am - #KiroKai
“I read lots of car magazines ever since I was at junior school.” – Kazunori Yamauchi in the interview
I’m wondering what source you get that ‘knowledge’ you claim to have about his history from. Is it just what you assume?
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September 2nd, 2012 at 12:15 pm - #another_jakhole
His dream was to direct movies. You see the replay camera angles? That’s Kaz’s work.
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September 1st, 2012 at 5:20 pm - #XXI
Lots of conversation here about his personal cars.
If memory serves me correctly, his favorite is the Ford GT and he has two.-
September 1st, 2012 at 8:00 pm - #HuskyGT
He does. He also has (or had) a silver Evo. Not sure what gen.
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September 1st, 2012 at 5:12 pm - #Rushton1996
errr, I dont think you can get the supra to 100bhp, can you?
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September 1st, 2012 at 7:29 pm - #R34EVO9
no 725 is max
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September 1st, 2012 at 8:30 pm - #uMadson?
no, 64 bhp
*trollface*
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September 2nd, 2012 at 7:31 am - #Keitaro333
You can. Of course, he didnt say he meant GT5, he clearly meant some older GT which makes sense since that inverview is about the history of GT.
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