Jordan Greer

The Gran Turismo brand once again made a strong showing last weekend at the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans.  Trackside banners could be seen all around Circuit de La Sarthe – most notably at the chicanes down the  Mulsanne straight.  Sony also continued their strong support of the Pescarolo Sport racing team’s Peugeot 908 LMP car, in the quickly-becoming-classic light blue/green/white livery that you probably remember from GT4.  Polyphony Digital’s Citroen GT also made the rounds this year, (supposedly) doing a honorary lap around the circuit (still waiting on pictures of that) and appearing in a local driver’s parade.

If there’s one thing the “general” gaming press knows about Gran Turismo, it’s that big news about the series can drive lots of traffic.  Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening right now in the Internet rumor mill, and it’s getting fans everywhere stirred up for no good reason.  It all started when Play.com – an online games retailer with of no particular authority – listed Gran Turismo 5 as “due for release on 27/11/2009”.  This isn’t anything new or exciting, as pretty much everyone who has waited on a game to be released is well aware how retailers wrecklessly throw release dates around.  Until an official date comes along, it’s little more than someone’s best guess.

If you’ve been holding off on GT5 Prologue because you don’t want to pay for a “demo”, you are quickly running out of excuses – especially if you’re in the United States.  As has been reported around the web, Target has dropped their in-store price on the game to $9.98.  That’s an incredible $30 less than the old MSRP for the game (and what’s still listed on their website), and $20 less than it’s new Greatest Hits price.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZw3ObYN6uE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0vcFE7Ezg

Not long after the dust settled at E3, people started to ask when we could expect the next batch of news from Yamauchi and his team at Polyphony Digital.  It didn’t take much time to find out: the PlayStation Official Magazine is expected to preview Gran Turismo 5 in next month’s issue.  Of course, there are no guarantees as to what this “preview” will contain – indeed, it may simply be a re-hashing of what we already learned at E3.  With that said, it makes sense for Sony to drive “official” magazine sales by using its own media property to announce new information.  Keep a close eye on those newsstands!

Some people were quick to lament that no “hard facts” regarding Gran Turismo 5 were released at last week’s E3 show, but now that we’ve had some time to carefully pick through the HD trailer, you can see we’ve actually learned quite a bit.  Much like we did with Gran Turismo PSP: What You Need to Know, let’s put the pieces of the puzzle together and find out exactly what Kazunori Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital told us…

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…

Thanks to an excellent new interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, we’ve just learned a lot about the progress of Gran Turismo 5 – and it sounds like it is further along than anyone may have imagined.  When asked about “how development’s going”, Yamauchi-san responded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn5rBftQ1b0

We knew it wouldn’t be long before more detailed information begins trickling out of Los Angeles – and sure enough – the first interview with Kazunori Yamauchi from E3 does just that!  He sat down with automotive news site Edmunds.com shortly after Sony’s E3 press conference and shared a few interesting things about GT Mobile and Gran Turismo 5.  Here’s a quick summary of what we learn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2uQ2ayvvWY

Here’s our first “real” look at the Gran Turismo PSP, including gameplay and menu screenshots!

Taken from the first Gran Turismo 5 trailer, just shown at E3!  We’ll have the full video up soon.

Polyphony Digital’s president, Kazunori Yamauchi, just announced Gran Turismo PSP at Sony’s E3 2009 Press Conference.  This “little” game is going to pack quite a punch, including 800 cars and 35 tracks!  It’s also going to let you trade and exchange cars with each other, which Kazunori warned will probably be the only way to acquire them all.  Up to 4 people can also race head-to-head via the PSP’s ad-hoc connectivity.

Welcome to GTPlanet’s live coverage of Sony’s E3 2009 press conference!  After months of anticipation – and complete silence out of Polyphony Digital – expectations are running high for some type of major announcement regarding the Gran Turismo series.  We already know that Gran Turismo Mobile is going to be announced, but questions still remain about Gran Turismo 5.  What’s going to happen?  Watch this box below over the next few hours to find out!

This is it – the day Gran Turismo fans around the world have been waiting for!  At 11:00 AM PST, Sony will announce many of their upcoming games to the world at E3 2009!  GTPlanet will be providing exclusive, live coverage during the event – focusing only on new information regarding the Gran Turismo series. Watch our home page for a continually updated blog post, providing up-to-the-minute announcements as they hit the showroom floor.  Of course, our forums are sure to be quite busy throughout all of this – pay special attention to our dedicated Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo Mobile sections!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkHRiWpV_68

Just when we thought this roller coaster ride was about to come to an end, we find there’s one more scary drop: Sony is reportedly telling everyone interviewing Kazunori Yamauchi “to not mention Gran Turismo 5“.  So…what does this mean?  Obviously, it’s not good – presuming that Gran Turismo 5 is announced at Sony’s big press conference tomorrow, why couldn’t he talk about it?  It may, ultimately, come down to Sony not wanting any GT5 announcements to dwarf GT Mobile and the new PSP Go hardware, in which case, we may be waiting several more months for news about the big game.

After years of waiting, we’re about to get a deluge of Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo Mobile news from E3 2009. To help you keep up with it all, I’m happy to announce GTPlanetNews on Twitter – featuring breaking GT-series news from the E3 show floor.  Start following us now!