sounds about right.
I really do think it was a case of Sony forcing this game out before it was ready.
I'm not complaining though. I love it, flaws and all.
I don't mind incremental updates. atleast I have the game in hand.
honestly, 90% is great. best driving experience ever on a console.
I think Sony have been the real problem with the title for some time.
First they are the reason its been delayed so often and that is not ecxlusively to do with delivering GT for the PSP in order to relaunch the new updated handeld.
The Game was done to 90% a couple of years ago according to Kaz at the time, then Sony came along and wanted 3D, because 3D is going to be massive!

and they have been investing heavily in all the developement of technology, ranging from helping create new Camera technology for movie makers right down to the home cinema/tv equipment for us all to view 3D Blue rays.
GT5 was almost ready again, Kaz comes with the, 'I can release it at almost anytime' quotes and first we expect an xmas 09 release then first quarter 10, then bam nothing.
Of course 3D home tech is still relatively new at the time, and isnt really ready for a full on home market launch especially in the global economic conditions, so a delay to the winter holiday season seems reasonable for a bigger push toward 3D and this makes more financial sense to Sony exec's who have adopted it as there baby to make Sony's 3D tech in the first part of the 21st century as succesfull as Playstaion 1 and whom, wholly intend to make their own mark and name in the world of high tech.
(Sony have had many such doomed schemes over ther years, when larger financial consequences may have been easier to write off)
The trouble is in the current world economic climate, they can not see beyond their own bulky cumbersome 3D 'Active Shutter Technology' glasses that the never ending novelty that 3D has always been, continues to be a bit of a old dog to Sony, home uptake is not nearly boyant enough to recoup investment at this time.
Kaz and his team had spent a year having to incorporate 3D tech into GT5at the expense of having to remove some of the coded routines of features we had expected and heard about for years previously, as im sure implementing 3D tech in the finished title has culminated in a lot of the elements of GT5 that we have either seen or heard Kaz talking about so positively over the past few years suddenly vanishing and turning into, by anyones standards, let alones Kaz's perfectionist standards, poor and shodily implemented features.
PD were still not free to release the product, as Sony continued to hold it back looking to maximise its potential usefulness.
In the mean Time Kinect is due, and Sony have Move and Eye toy on the way to compete, Sony in their urgency to use their most succesfull franchise try to get Move and Eye toy somehow implemented into GT5 too, something which PD failed massively to pull off in the time given, without compromising the title even further.
Shambolic is a word that comes to my mind for the whole process, even the last minute delays, pushing back the title beyond the announced release date.
In the end Marketing would appear to have been extremely limited for such a hugely influential title, reviews are somewhat mixed and the product is clearly somewhat short of Kazonuri's true vision and most worryingly for some, Sony's (internal) own expectation and needs.
3D is still proving to be the white elephant in the room, and its inclusion is pushing the now aging PS3 tech to beyond the initial boundaries that Kaz and his team were already determined to stretch the technology to the borders of its limits some 5 years earlier in the initial game design, this has cost gamers a truly genre defining title at its first full outing on PS3.
The Patches are coming quite fast, and its quite clear that a lot of the content that was initially cut to the production room floor is available, its just a question of whether it can actually be crammed into GT life, or just tacked onto Arcade or Online modes, where system resources seem slightly more free for PD to work with.
Who knows Kaz may in fact be able to raise the phoenix from the ashes after all, or we may have to wait another console generation to get closer to what we had been expecting over the past few years.
This is just a small take on why i feel we have what was finally delivered.
There are rational business explanations why things in GT5 have turned into a hashed up effort of a final product, the very fact that Kaz has often been upbeat and ready to release several times over the last couple of years, clearly shows that it is not time alone that brought the quality of the final product to its knees.
Now come on Kaz patch in a descent set of Leaderboards for now and ill be somewhat happier, while i wait
