Jordan Greer

Now that the GT Academy competition is officially over, GTPlanet user Timppaq has taken on the task of organizing and sorting the international results to see just how close the drivers really are.  A special congratulations go to Timppaq of Finland and spyrrari of the Netherlands, who used their registered GTPlanet names to enter the competition.  Thanks to you guys for supporting our site, I know you will represent us well!  Check out Timppaq’s list of all the times along with a breakdown by country right here in his thread.  Of course, if you are also a finalist, be sure to stop by our forums and make yourself known!

Congratulations to Ahmad El Azmi of Kuwait, the fastest driver of more than 10,000 participants in the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Middle East Challenge 2008.  Preliminary rounds took place in nine regional cities across the Middle East in June and July 2008, with the finalists invited to Dubai for the Grand Final this past weekend.  Ahmed walked away with a trip to Japan to test drive a Nissan GT-R, a “GT Racing Pod”, 40” Bravia LCD TV, and a new PS3.  If you’re reading this,  Ahmad, be sure to stop by our forums and say hello.

As you may or may not be aware, the August 1st update to GT5 Prologue will wipe all of your “Quick Tune” settings.  This is obviously a big problem, but an understandably necessary side affect from updating the game’s physics engine.  The solution, of course, is to “back up” your settings by writing them down, and GTPlanet user MeWhiteNoise makes the task even easier with his professionally crafted “Quick Tune Record Sheets”.  Available in a high-quality PDF file, these Record Sheets can be easily sorted, stored, or filed away however you prefer.  Be sure to stop by his thread on our forums and thank MeWhiteNoise for his contribution to the community!

In a very interesting statement at E3 today, GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi brought us both good and bad news.  The good news is that he confirmed that the Polyphony Digital team was focusing nearly all of their efforts on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, working hard to bring us features like vehicular damage, private online races, new tracks, and more cars.  Of course, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, and he added that these updates could push the full version of Gran Turismo 5 back into 2010.  He also confirmed that Gran Turismo Mobile, for the PSP, is still in “active development” but probably not be released until after Gran Turismo 5 (in other words, 2011).

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Since the release of Gran Turismo 1 in 1998, one feature has been on the wishlists of GTPlanet members everywhere: the ability to load your own music into the game.  With the release of the new PlayStation 3 firmware update 2.4, those dreams will finally come true.  The 2.4 firmware allows you to access the XMB PS3 menu while you are actually playing a game on the system, including all of the music that you’ve loaded onto your PlayStation’s hard drive.  As you can see from the video below, you simply turn down the in-game tunes (so they won’t interfere with your own, obviously), fire up the XMB, find your song, and hit the play button**.  Also, because the PlayStation 3 is backward-compatible with both PS1 and PS2 games, you’ll be able to take advantage of this new feature in every single Gran Turismo game released in the series.  Many of you don’t listen to music while you’re driving, but this is a very welcome addition to the games for those who do!  The new firmware will be available to download via your PS3 on July 2, 2008.

A bit of information has popped up in the Gran Turismo 5: Prologue news section about the first international online race event.  Beginning on Thursday, June 26, you will be able to race up to 12 other players from anywhere in the world on the High Speed Ring circuit.  This represents, finally, a step forward in the development of the online racing environment.  All of the current online events limit you to competitors from your local region/continent, and it is good to see that Polyphony are ready to push the boundaries of the functionality of their software.  Also, it brings hope that when we are able to create private races, we won’t have any limitations on who we choose to compete with.  This international event trial will end on July 3rd, so don’t waste any time if you want to try it out – head over to our Gran Turismo 5 Prologue forum to meet up with the best racers every country has to offer.

A “Nurburgring Special Edition” of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is on display at the 24-hour endurance race of the Nurburgring Nordschleife. As one of the most popular circuits in Gran Turismo 4, there is perhaps no other track that Prologue owners want more. Here’s a few shots of Nurburgring Special Edition in action (taken by Oliver Wegen of ringfotograf.de), along with video of a complete lap. Check out the rest of the images here.

Sony Computer Entertainment has announced the cumulative worldwide shipment of 50 million Gran Turismo games worldwide.  This milestone was achieved thanks to the international release of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, after selling 2.2 million copies after just a few weeks on store shelves in Europe, North America, and Asia.  Here’s what series creator Kazunori Yamauchi had to say about the event:

Business Week recently posted an article discussing the influence that the Gran Turismo series had on the development and eventual release of the Nissan GT-R in the United States.  While most of us are aware of the intimate relationship between the series and the GT-R, it’s both interesting and good news to see the major business media outlets take notice and recognize the influence of this little thing we call Gran Turismo.  To quote a senior Nissan executive:

Gran Turismo series creator Kazunori Yamauchi has announced during an interview with CVG that a “major update” is in the works for GT5: Prologue, and is going to include the highly anticipated vehicular damage!  Other updates will include enhanced online functionality and “community building features.”  We have known for some time now that private races and in-game chat have been in the works, with a realistic release date sometime this summer.  However, damage may be a bit further off in the fuall of this, as cited by IGN.  Stay tuned for the full interview, released tomorrow, where Yamauchi is expected to comment on the possibility of developing a complete Formula 1 title in the future.

The latest European sales numbers at VGChartz for “the week ending March 29, 2008” show that exactly 374,607 Blu-Ray copies of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue have been sold.  Considering that the game was released in Europe on March 28, those sales numbers could only apply to the two single days that it was available on store shelves.  This, of course, is in addition to the one million European pre-orders and does not include the number of times the game has been purchased via PSN.