If you’ve been watching the evolution of GT5 at various game shows and events over the past few years, you probably noticed these circular “racing pods” used to show off the game. Made of steel and glass, they’re certainly impressive looking and are now being sold to the public.

For those of you still on the fence about what edition of Gran Turismo 5 you’re going to buy, you might find this sneak peek inside the “Apex” book included in the Collector’s Edition interesting. I can’t read the Japanese, but it looks like it will at least feature a useful overview of the game’s cars, tuning tips. Take a look for yourself below:

If you’re anywhere near Madrid this weekend, head on over to GameFest 2010 where you’ll find a Gran Turismo 5 demo in the game’s massive booth at the show. Although there doesn’t appear to be anything new revealed or announced, Sony’s holding a “Championship” each day, with a voucher for a free copy of the game presumably up for grabs. Details are scarce – check the full schedule of events here.

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With less than 30 days until the release of Gran Turismo 5, Sony is slowly beginning to ramp up their official marketing push. Our next source of official information is expected to hit on Tuesday, October 5th, when the latest episode of Sony’s Qore video magazine hits the PlayStation Store. As confirmed by the latest edition of the PlayStation Official Magazine (thanks to Alex for the picture above), our favorite racing game takes center stage. Let’s hope for new information – I’ll be sure to let you know what happens either way.

YouTuber MixEPsilon managed to get his hands on a French copy of what appears to be the GT5 Kiosk Demo that’s been showing up in stores around the United States. He plugged in his Logitech G27 steering wheel (which appears to be functional with the exception of the clutch pedal) and has been posting high-quality videos like a mad man ever since. Check out 17 of his latest clips below. For more detailed impressions of this demo, don’t miss this in-depth gameplay evaluation by long-time GTPlanet user, JohnBM01.

Check out this 25% off coupon on all Logitech gaming products, including their steering wheels. This drops the price of the G27 wheel from $299.99 to $224.99 ($23.50 less than Amazon), and drops the Driving Force GT from $149.99 to $112.49 ($17.50 less than Amazon) with free shipping. Just apply the coupon code LOGIGAME-910 to your order from the official Logitech online store and you’re good to go.

October is starting off with a bang for fans around the world. Here’s a quick overview of where to get your hands on Gran Turismo 5 this month:

Remember the “GT5 Car Index” we learned about a few days ago? At the time, only two small photographs of the PlayView tech demo were available, but now – thanks to good detective work by our own Marry_Me_GT – we get a much closer look that reveals more cars in the game than ever before! Check out the HD videos below and see what you can find…

Remember the threats Sony and Polyphony Digital received from Siena, Italy? They were none too happy about local flags featured in the Piazza Del Campo karting track revealed at Gamescom 2010, and began taking legal action against the two companies. Thankfully, an obvious and simple resolution was found, but it looks like Sony gets the last laugh.

For those of you in Europe waiting to pick up a PlayStation 3 until you can actually play Gran Turismo 5, you may want to take notice of the new PS3 (320GB)/GT5:CE bundle that’s hitting web retailers in Europe. You can grab it for £284.99 at Amazon in the UK, which represents a savings of £44.99 – considerably less than what you’d pay if you purchased the console (£269.99) and the game (£59.99) separately.

Let’s hope it inspires him to bring a similarly robust track editor to the Gran Turismo series! Thanks to Randy for the early tip.

First, the good news: more than 756 of GT5’s cars were revealed in a recent tech demo of Sony’s PlayView image rendering software. The bad news: we only know that one of them is a Nissan 240ZG.

YouTuber ukoredgar2143 has provided us with some of the most entertaining gameplay videos yet! He’s been camped out at his local Best Buy, playing GT5 Kiosk Demo and putting the game’s new smoke effects to good use. Unfortunately, the demo doesn’t include skidmarks, but these clips still provide a nice preview of what’s to come! Thanks to all who sent these in.

Thanks to all who sent this in!

A few videos and impressions are rolling in from the Honda CR-Z promo event in Times Square today, but the GT5 demo on display is a little underwhelming. With that said, RavenFox of NeoGAF did catch a glimpse of High Speed Ring in the rain in the course selection menu – though it wasn’t actually raining when his race began.

Sony’s teaming up with Honda in a cross-promotion of GT5 and the new CR-Z Sport Hybrid Coupe in New York City’s Times Square this Thursday, September 23rd, from 10am to 6pm. You can read the official announcement for everything Honda has planned at the event, but here’s the most important thing to know: GT5 will be playable in 3D “racing sleds” all day long. The CR-Z will be featured in this demo, obviously, and it will be interesting to see which courses they’ll have available.

The first batch of Kazunori Yamauchi interviews are finally getting published from last week’s Tokyo Game Show 2010! Here’s a translated transcript of GameBlog’s video interview above, kindly provided by our own RoadRunner99: