Gran Turismo Series

The Gran Turismo series has been honoured with a spot in the ‘GAME ON’ exhibit within the Japan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. In this event, which showcases the history of video games, a fully functioning GT cabinet running Gran Turismo 6 can be played with a Thrustmaster T300RS steering wheel (pedals from the T500RS are used, however).

We asked, and you answered. Last week, Track of the Week was opened to community suggestions, and the response was better than we could’ve even hoped. There are sixteen ribbons of tarmac waiting for players to enjoy, all plucked from the GTPlanet Track Database. You can drive any or all of them, but only one will get the TOTW title this weekend.

Week 20, here we are! For this, the final staff-selected TOTW (read up here on how you can help choose next week’s track), we’re moving away from the Death Valley setting of last week’s track to the woods of Vienna. Welcome to Wiener Höhenstraße. At least, the first part of it…

You may have noted a distinct lack of Track of the Week this… week. While #20 is indeed incoming – it will be live later today – we’re changing things up after that. That’s right: starting with TOTW21, each week’s track will be picked by you, dear readers.

New seasonal events are now available in Gran Turismo 6. This week’s events are the usual fare, a combination of super lap and drift trial challenges featuring rear-wheel drive non-race cars, 4WD rally cars, and non-race cars.

Have you ever entered a racing series, only to lament your initial car selection? Sure, Car X looked so appealing during pre-season testing, but a few races in, you had eyes only for Car Y. It’s the classic green-grass scenario, really. The boys over at GTPlanet’s Weekly Race Series have solved the problem with Special Event XVI: why pick one of three cars, when you can just drive all of them instead?

Silicon giant NVIDIA Corporation have revealed that their concerted efforts of developing self-driving cars has been aided by ‘The Real Driving Simulator’ itself, Gran Turismo.

Death Valley isn’t the most popular environment amongst the track-making community. The unforgiving track barriers don’t help, and the desert setting doesn’t offer the elevation changes that Eifel and Andalusia can. But climbing and diving alone don’t make a track great: look at Sebring (our first TOTW recepient, actually). For the 19th week of this feature, we’ve got a relatively flat Death Valley track that nonetheless offers up plenty of fast-paced racing under the sun’s glare: Desert Valley Raceway.

A fresh batch of seasonal events are now available in Gran Turismo 6. This week’s events are a trio of challenge events featuring the familiar non-race car and race car fare.

Remember Nimble Beat Circuit? That Week 16 selection kicked off a renewed interest in smaller tracks here in the office, and the cars that feel at home on them. There’s something immensely satisfying about the speed-conservation approach little cars offer, knowing that any velocity scrubbed away will be all the more difficult to recover from. Smörgåsbord is just that sort of circuit, and its my selection for this week’s Track of the Week.

Rumble strips. They come in a variety of shapes and shades – most common is red and white, like a barber pole, or a candy cane – and tend to act as targets for racers committed to shaving every last hundredth off their lap times. For this, the seventeenth TOTW here at GTPlanet, we’ve picked a track without any.

Remember gaming magazines? Of course you do: unlike floppy disks or cassette tapes, you can still find them new on store shelves. But remember the golden age of magazines? When a 56k modem would beep-static-boop its way to a Geocities page of cheats in an eternity, magazines just made more sense.

As Gran Turismo fans clamour for the latest bits of news on 2016’s Gran Turismo Sport, the drag nets are cast ever wider, and the search can yield some unexpected results. Case in point: a mysterious Gran Turismo connection to an Acura ILX race car was found at last month’s Montreal Auto Salon, thanks to forum member @Zlork (Edit: the original image was posted by @Zalex on Facebook).

On January 23rd Gran Turismo was presented with the Golden Marker Special Award at this year’s Japan Car Design Awards ceremony being held at The Gallery Too in the Minato district of Tokyo, Japan.

Taken from the cluster of ingenious Fantasy tracks, the Nimble Beat Circuit made by GTP member watermelon punch occupied our attention this week, by offering its entertaining flow of blind and variously elevated S-turns. If you’ve recently considered taking out some of your favourite hot-hatches or Kei micro-machines for a spin, this could be a reason to do it.

New seasonal events are now available in Gran Turismo 6. This week’s events are an ensemble of challenge events featuring NASCAR stock cars, race cars, tuner cars, and non-race cars.

Earlier this month, we reported on a certain upcoming Hot Wheels set, that could possibly shed some light on GT Sport’s roster of vehicles. Today we have more information on the pack, including a surprise addition.

In December 2015, Polyphony updated their website, including profiles on some of the personnel. These interviews shed some light on the people behind the scenes that make Gran Turismo what it is. We offer them here in translated form, which wouldn’t be possible without the generous efforts of community member Imari.

Earlier this week, Team Redline talked with us about the exciting future of eSports and sim racing. The team has countless achievements to their name, stretching as far back as Grand Prix Legends, right up to present day iRacing championships. Today, we’re happy to be a part of the unveiling of their dedicated Gran Turismo team. Team principle Dom Duhan starts things off, while the new lineup collectively answered the rest of our questions.