GTPlanet

Gran Turismo PSP may be coming out on October 1st, but if you can hold out a few more days (and have some extra cash laying around), you can pick up this “Limited Edition Entertainment Pack” on October 20th.  Here’s what you get for $200 (via press release):

• “Mystic Silver” PSP-3000
• Gran Turismo PSP on UMD
• A “downloadable voucher” for a white Chevrolet Corvette ZR1 – a color which is otherwise not available in the game
• 2GB Memory Stick PRO Duo
• PlayStation Network downloadable “movie voucher”
• Sony Music Pass voucher, good for downloading 10 songs

If we break down the numbers, considering the PSP-3000 “Core Pack” is $169.99, you’re basically getting the game for $30 (it’s regularly $39.99) along with a few extras.  This appears to be North America’s “bundle”, and although they’ve tried to sweeten the deal with a few extras, you could argue that European and Japanese consumers have a stronger incentive to spend more money, and they won’t have to wait until October 20th to do it.  In Japan, of course, they get this black PSP-3000 emblazoned with the GT logo, and in Europe, you’ll get GT PSP for free if you spend $250 on the new PSP Go.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

It’s not unreasonably pessimistic to say that just because a car is in Gran Turismo PSP, it may not be in Gran Turismo 5.  It’s been debated in our forums at length, and we won’t have a definitive answer until we can directly compare the car list from each game.  However, things look a bit brighter when you consider this recent interview with Kazunori Yamauchi by French gaming site JVN.  When asked about the “interactivity” between GT PSP and GT5, he responds:

“If [the user] unlocks a car in Gran Turismo PSP, it will also be available in Gran Turismo 5.”

Unless something has been seriously lost in translation, it can be inferred that all 800 cars in GT PSP must also be in GT5.  Since we already know that NASCARs will not be in the mobile version of the game, GT5’s grand total number must be even larger.

Yamauchi also expanded on the car sharing and exchange features – something new that GT PSP is bringing to the series.  Google’s automated translation is a bit awkward, but to summarize: when you trade a car to someone else, it’s gone, and some cars you won’t be able to trade at all (hmmm, what could they be…?).  Finally, when asked point blank if GT PSP delayed GT5, Yamauchi answered bluntly:

“I will not contradict you, because all versions of GT are developed within the studio Polyphony Digital. If a person works on an item, it necessarily prevents him from doing anything else. So yes, there is some truth in what you say.”

That admission will ruffle feathers with the impatient among us, but using GT PSP to sell hardware of the new PSP Go is undoubtedly something Sony has planned for quite some time.

Since the big announcement at Sony’s E3 press conference, two things have happened: lots of journalists got their hands on the demo at the show, and Kazunori Yamauchi has released more tidbits of information in a flurry of interviews.  It’s difficult to keep up with everything, and all the excitement around the Gran Turismo 5 trailer hasn’t helped, but we should be able to clear up a lot of the confusion by aggregating the pieces of the puzzle right here.  Keep reading to find out what we know, what we don’t know, and what everyone else actually thinks about this long-anticipated title…

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A leaked clip from the upcoming edition of the PlayStation Qore video magazine confirms that Gran Turismo Mobile will be announced at E3 2009!  As you can watch above, the man sitting on the left (who appears to be SCEA Director of Hardware Marketing, John Koller) drops the bombshell while introducing the new PSP Go…

“A lot of people say ‘I just want to buy games’, and there’s games like Gran Turismo which are being announced at E3.”

In addition to this exciting tidbit, the video also reveals a lot of technical information about the new PSP Go, including its “slider” form factor, 16GB of internal memory, Bluetooth, and a currently mysterious memory card slot.  It’s also going to ship this fall, and will co-exist with the PSP-3000 -- for now…  Stay tuned for more details as E3 begins next week!