Revisiting Gran Turismo 6: The End of an Era

Me and my friends all got the game on day 1, we did the Mercedes glitch had all the cars within first few weeks lol
It felt to much like GT5 it came out around the same time as GTA V so we all abandoned ship....

I didn't play it again till September 2016 got myself a G29 wheel finished off my platinum
https://psnprofiles.com/trophies/2305-gran-turismo-6/mrpotsworth

GT Sport looks and feels fresh and new really hope PD give us monthly updates with enough car and track packs Kaz could turn this game into the game it should of been...
 
A really well written article, sums up the game in a very good way...if not a little too negative.

For me its difficult to judge....i´v got multiple perceptions of the game. When i played it the first couple of months (got it for christmas 2013) I was sure that no console game could ever be more realistic, feels like a joke now compared to the Next generation of consoles and games. Looking back on the long run my view is the following:

Inside the GT franchise, it just feels like a very thorough, very distinctive patched version of GT5. There was so much of GT5 still in the game that its hard for me to think of it as a seperate entity. Why didn´t they patch GT5 to the point where it was faultless as well as releasing GT6 as a completely new ground breaker on PS4? I never got that. For the last years, it was a knife in a gun fight.

BUT! As a game in general, it was fantastic. The last, well nearly 4 years have been fantastic fun with this game. The endurance challenges being the best the game had to offer. I never used the online races because the connection here isn´t good enough but it was and is a great game nevertheless...it´s just that with the development duration and my general views on GT5 I was expecting more. I will however keep track of the developments of GT Sport here in the forum. I aam curious how the customers will perceive it. The sad end is, that despite being a very good game, I knew all along that my defense against its competition was crumbling. The competition got so much better and quicker with releases. For the moment I can´t think of going back to GT. And i´v been playing for nearly 16 years.
 
i Don't care about what others may say Thank you GT6!! may not be the best but I played the hell out of it.
Hear hear.

I can't compare it to GT5 or 4 because I never played them, I've played GT6 however for hundreds of hours and I'm not done with it yet. I will most likely put it away once they take the servers down, and not play it again. At the moment though my GT6 disc haven't even been out of the PS3 for over a year. It's been the only game I've played.

I really hope PD will carry over the BMW Z8 to GT Sport at some point. That was my favorite road car in the game if I had to pick just one.
 
Hear hear.

I can't compare it to GT5 or 4 because I never played them, I've played GT6 however for hundreds of hours and I'm not done with it yet. I will most likely put it away once they take the servers down, and not play it again. At the moment though my GT6 disc haven't even been out of the PS3 for over a year. It's been the only game I've played.

I really hope PD will carry over the BMW Z8 to GT Sport at some point. That was my favorite road car in the game if I had to pick just one.
not out for over a year ? Damn bud & i though i burned it lol
 
Good article, well balanced, unbiased & fair. Most of my time in GT6 was initially spent reeling from the lack of Shuffle, & trying to get something similar hosted. Took a while, but lots of Stock/Spec rooms soon started appearing, & I ended up having some good online races. Great to see that the ABS off problem was fixed, & the cars no longer swerved violently out of control whenever your feet got near the brakes! The suspension was great, & I'd stare at the replays & marvel at how realistic it all looked. Bad points for me was more aliasing, & that horrible blurriness in replays. After playing the GT Sport Closed Beta & demo, all I can say is that I think GT6 will probably be my last GT game for the foreseeable future. Oh & HOORAH for the money glitch, which saved me from countless hours of mind-numbingly boring grinding.
 
Thank you GT6 for all the surprises you offered to us, GT Vision cars and content, Senna, Circuito de la Sierra.
Hundreds of hours of fun with the online Hotlaps (even if I begin to hate the GSX-4 !!!)

And also for the quality of the experience with a refined, smooth and coherent physics and smooth FFB, even if Assetto and PCars showed where aereas GT had to improve, I often feel completely connected to the car handling and never felt misleaded with unexpected reactions, unexpected bounces or unexpected spins... I felt that always was my fault when I lost time or crashed.

Great memories with GT6.
 
They have a lot of assets in GT6 that can be polished a bit and added to GTS. Why they didn’t ship with the game is mind blowing.

100% agreed !!! It was a no-brainer.

With many friends sat on fence regarding GTS/deciding not to buy, it looks like that choice is one Polyphony could pay a huge price for.

I don't follow why Kaz built assets for 4K+, when it doesn't run at native 4K. PS4 Pro runs 1800p checkerboarded, then stretches it to 4K. It's why it doesn't look sharp. Replays run 1800p at 30FPS, that's not huge progress from 4 years. The limiting factor of 4K, is so debilitating on hardware, that native 4K would require a PS5 to be 400% more powerful than a PS4 Pro. Ain't gonna happen.

Had Kaz used the Premium models, with some polish, there could have been enough power in reserve to say catch up with the other couple of key players in the genre, and add weather/night. It would have given standard PS4 owners, a smoother experience too. He could have used better assets "track-side" to make things more believable too. Some of the trees look like they're grabbed from a title 10 years old.

The pic below, shows how cool GT6 assets still look. Plus, with the new gfx engine in GTS, they'd be incredible. Plus, still scaled to 1800p. Let's be honest, in the main, in most replay shots from a driving game, only 2, 3 or 4 cars are in focus. Why does over-designing for 4K+ now, even matter. Apart from reusing them 3 years time for PS5? #makeslittlesense

maxresdefault.jpg


VBR
I think GT6 will probably be my last GT game for the foreseeable future.


So sad that many are having these same thoughts
 
Last edited by a moderator:
First off, an excellent article, @glassjaw! :D

GT6 was a strange one for me. I, like others, was confused by the choice to release on PS3. The initial announcement at Silverstone didn't wow me, but getting to try the game in September 2013 in NYC got me back on board. It was a refinement of GT5, and that was alright: that's what GT2 and GT4 did over their predecessors, and those were far from bad games.

I think those Standards brought the package down. No, I'm not even talking from a visual perspective — though yes, that — but that aim for a giant car list in GT5 had a strange effect on GT6. When GT1 and GT3 launched, both had from-the-ground-up assets. GT2 and GT4 massively expanded on the roster, and they felt huge because of it. But with GT6, the car list grew only about 20% compared to the previous game. Had the game been Premiums only, it would've felt like a much bigger expansion, IMO.

That said, what I loved about the new-to-series additions were that they followed the traditional GT approach: historic, slightly unexpected stuff alongside the standard fare. A Fisker Karma? Yes please! That awesome Plymouth XNR? That one too! :D

The physics were a solid evolution over GT5's. The tire model still felt a little simple, but everything was more than realistic enough for all but the most hardened sim racer. Cars responded consistently, and I think that's important. I've never played GT games solely because "MOST REALISTIC PHYSICS EVAR", so I'm nonplussed.

The track list was great. This was pre-PCARS, and with FM5 launching on the XB1 a month before with so few tracks (though more variations than GTS has), it was hard not to see why PD had stuck with PS3. Yes, some of the PS2-era tracks were looking quite rough, but track count (and variety) arguably matters more than car count, and sticking on the Three meant a large selection of tracks.

It's a shame racing was so hard to come by without finding people online. The AI braking to give you the win was such a disappointing discovery. The threadbare career mode was also a far cry from the glory days of the PS2 era. On the plus side, at least the awful level system of GT5 was binned.

The paint chip system was also mercifully updated. It still wasn't perfect (and the game was still lagging behind the competition in terms of customization), but it was a big step forward.

I've no shame in admitting I did the Merc VGT glitch. For me, GT has always been a digital automotive sandbox, and I simply didn't have the time I used to have to grind away for credits. I don't regret it — of my time playing, which was admittedly less than any other GT, a huge chunk of it was spent with cars I wanted to drive. Like the Z8...

There's that whole sales figure discussion. In hindsight, it's both entirely understandable, and yet simultaneously bewildering, that GT6 sold so little compared to other mainline games. Was it a sign that people were done with the sandbox-style CARPG? Was the post-PS4 release to blame? Maybe just the racing genre as a whole on the decline? Less than half as many people bought GT6 as they did GT5, and even with my reservations about the former, I didn't really expect such a drastic change. It also makes predicting Sport's sales figures all the more foggy, since it's such a huge departure from the franchise norm.
 
I certainly enjoyed GT6. 100% and platinum'd it. Something I've only ever done with.. 2 other games? A key point that's mentioned here is how the physics made even the slow cars fun to drive. And these so called slow, boring, who-cares-cars for other people are what makes Gran Turismo unique in the world of racing games. These lower tier vehicles have character and are tied in with a lot of people's personal lives. They are real, tangible vehicles that you could potentially buy one day (like I did), instead of these tube chassis special race cars that for the most part just drive on rails.

So, unlike the article seems to suggest, I believe the second iteration of these games in their respective console generation is the more complete, fully featured, and fun. The first games (GT1/3/5) just felt like proof of concepts. A "Hey, this is what sort of graphics we can do with this hardware" pitch. And thus, I don't understand the love for GT3, but if I were to guess, it's because it was a lot of peoples first GT game and it was on PS2. Otherwise, the game has a small amount of content, bland menus etc where as GT4 just took it and brought it back to GT2 levels of.. everything good.

Sport is only a couple days away. I've played the Closed and Open Betas. They've pretty much made iRacing on consoles, and while I can respect the fact that they seem to have reached the goal they've set out to achieve, super competitive racing isn't necessarily why I play Gran Turismo. I could play iRacing if I wanted that in my life. But as I in part mentioned earlier, the reasons I come to the Gran Turismo series is because I appreciate it's unique visual and audio style. I enjoy its attention to detail in terms of car quantity. Yes, I do want a C10, R30, R31, R32, R33, R34 GTR, not because I'm a particular fan of all these cars, but having them makes for great variety and doesn't undermine the historical significance of the brand and model. Same for the Corvette, or the Mustang, or BMW 3 series. I want to learn about cars I wouldn't normally be interested in. I learned so much of what I know today because of Gran Turismo 2 feeding my curiosity. So that is one of the biggest draw backs for me with Sport: It lost a core piece of it's identity to me. Not only does it have mostly model year 2011+ cars, it isn't even complete in that regard. They have the Camaro SS, so where is the 1LE and ZL1 trims? Where is the Corvette Z06? Where is the Mustang GT350? The Challenger Hellcat and Demon? Shouldn't these manufacturers be demanding that at least all their current models are available?

Anyway, that went off on a tangent. GT6 could certainly be the end of the series as we knew it and Sports' failure or success will likely determine the road it takes. I know my friend, after playing the demo, is still hoping they make a GT7. In this day and age though, with loot boxes, micro transactions, and "games as a service" running rampant, I'm not sure I see that happening.

And yes, I am buying GT Sport. I've just had to adjust my expectations for it ever since Polyphony announced it essentially describing it as an esport platform. Oh well.

Here's to Gran Turismo before online-everything /raisesglass

(A shot I took in GT5 so many years ago)

HighSpeedRing.JPG
 
Last edited:
I spent a lot of time in this game. Between playing online on random lobbies or leagues, taking thousands of pictures and tunning cars ,i had a terrific amount of fun.

I met some great racers, made good friends, and the best part is that i have exactly 400 online races saved, to watch again and remember the good moments.
 
I have decided to move to Forza Motorsport 7.

It is really sad considering I have been a massive fan of Gran Turismo since the beginning...
During this time I have collected a bunch of GT T-Shirts, Coffee Mugs, Posters and much more...

GT6 was the last true Gran Turismo.


I understand that the future of gaming will be mostly online and GT Sport will be a great game to play,
but living in Australia with poor internet speeds and frequent drop outs, the experience will be mostly frustrating...
 
A very well written article indeed, and great synopsis of how it's been really 👍.

However I do differ from what the article mentioned, in that I actually feel as though GT6 was a downgrade on GT5 in many aspects, with the career mode perhaps being the biggest. GT6's career mode; whilst completed fairly easily, just felt a bit lacking in many an area, though a lot of that was down to the AI being fairly lackluster. The lack of proper Endurance races, as voiced by many, was a big mistake I think, especially for someone like myself who thoroughly enjoys the fun of multiple hour race.

Aside from that, 6 just felt like a bit bland compared to 5, whether it was the menu's being fairly boring (if easy to navigate), or the OST not being quite as good as it's predecessors (though still v. good in it's own right). The ditching of the good 'ol used car dealerships was another blow, as that has always been one aspect of the GT series that I've loved; trawling through them to find any hidden gems, or looking for the perfect starter car; something GT6 messed up a bit too. Generally I think GT5 felt more...finished perhaps than 6, though the steady trickle of DLC for GT6 did improve things, especially with the brilliant VGT program.

However, whilst GT5 may have been the better product, for all it's foibles GT6 was still/is very much a cracking game to play. Yes it may not be the best GT (subjectively the worst even), but that didn't mean it was instantly a worse game for it. Heck, I've still plunged over 1200 hours into it and collected well over 400 cars; the most of any of the GT's I've played. And let's not forget the online aspect, as that's where I've had the majority of my fun, whether it's been the hundreds of races I've had with mates, or many hundreds more I've had with new folk. The latter of which led me to discovering some great crowds of people who organised (and still do sometimes) rooms provided some fantastic PP/class specific races, so I'm definitely grateful for that.

Overall GT6 has been a fairly solid game, right from the start when I received it the first day after pre-ordering, up to now. Yes it may not be the best product in the GT franchise, but it's still been a great racing game outright nonetheless.

And whilst one chapter closes, another potentially opens with GTS. I've remained relatively coy about GTS since it's announcement 2 years ago, trying not to get ahead of myself in that regard. Though I must admit, I too was somewhat disappointing by the initial announcement of GTS' new direction for the series, however, after looking at it more closely I've eventually warmed to the idea, as it could spice things up. Least not because of the new features introduced (scapes and livery editor for e.g.), or the vast improvement in other areas e.g. sound and visuals etc, but generally I think it could be a great package. The downgrade in the car roster is not big issue for me, if not a good thing really (though more cars via DLC wouldn't go amiss), as I see a GT3-esque, quality over quantity type vibe coming through.

Plus I don't think PD will just ditch the classic GT CaRPG style for good. As I for one believe a return to that format will occur later down the line; whether it's in the form of a full blown GT7/8 or part of a DLC program, who knows.

Either way, enough of my jabbering, I'm excited for GTS, but very much grateful for what GT6 has given.
 
Last edited:
GT6 will always have a spot in my heart for two reasons: lifetime first for getting all gold licenses, and having the entire car roster unlocked from the get go. Oh and the stockyard, it's the little things.
 
They have a lot of assets in GT6 that can be polished a bit and added to GTS. Why they didn’t ship with the game is mind blowing.
This. They forced the awful PS2 models on us until GT6, yet the superbly detailed Premiums from GT5/6 have been purged. Insane - especially in light of the fact that PD claimed those Premium models were built to "next-gen" spec.
 
GT6 is a great game, yes it should have been released on the PS4 but It pushes the PS3 to its limits and still looks great on the old system. It has a lacking career mode but there is still so much content in that game for the $$ that even after 4 years I still haven't completed it. Like the car tuning aspect of the game it's one of the best in the series and couple that with just the 300 premium cars and you have years of work to be done. Then the track creator is another part to keep you busy for years. Let's not forget you can also race online with many different ways to customize your race lobby. Sure GT6 had its faults as did every GT before it and every car game known to exist. Nothing is 100% perfect to everyone.

The production cars is what GT was all about to me and GT6 has a ton of them. If GT would have been just another racing game back in the beginning I would not still be playing it today nor do I believe it would still be around. There's just something about those replicas of everyday cars that you and me can own or do own and fitting them with race parts then learning to set them up to handle those parts.
I wanted and still want a GT game that's main focus is on production cars and not on pure race cars and fantasy race cars. I know I'm not alone on this or in a small percentage of people who feel that way. So I will continue to play GT6 along with many others until they shut down the servers.
 
Good article, and agree with most of it.

To me (having bought GT3, 4, 5 and 6 all on their respective release days), I'll be giving GTS a miss (at least for now). I really do think the series is a little tired and needs to be re-invented. Maybe Kaz needs to hand over control to someone else!

There were always little things that would tick me off in GT (referring mostly to GT6 here, as it was the last one, and until recently, still playing it 4 years later):

  1. My biggest Gripe... STANDARD CARS! Why the Heck!!!!! They looked far worse on a PS3 running 1080p then on a PS2 running SD. What a waste, and honestly, an embarrassment. Every time I won a Std car, I would sell it. Clearly someone was after quantity, not quality with GT5 and GT6
  2. Removing things we enjoyed! Why did GT6 drop the Top Gear Test Track? Why were speed tests (i.e. 0-400m and 0-1000m runs) dropped from GT5 (and then returned as DLC), then dropped from GT6 and never made a come back? How awesome would it have been to not only have the drag strip in GT6, but to also allow it in Multiplayer / Split Screen racing!
  3. All the niggly issues with premium cars. Yes I'm nitpicking, but, for a game where each car supposedly took 3-6 months to create, why were there so many inconsistencies? Some premium cars were clearly better than other in terms of quality - i.e. working fuel / oil pressure gauges, speedometers that were accurately calibrated in the cockpit (mph speedos showing km/h figures, e.g. Mustang GT500, Lotus Exige), ability to actually see the dash in certain lighting of the game. Then there were the cars with incorrect gear ratios (e.g Focus ST, Ferrari F40). Come on, get it right fellas! Then the issues with the SSX course, the aero never got fixed there, each car was running in a vacuum
  4. False promises. Vision GT Cars (which I wasn't really fond of anyway), still not completely released. Then being promised by Kaz himself 'DLC on a monthly basis.' pffft, yeah right.
  5. DLC (or lack of it). GT6 had some of the most recent cars upon release, but now, the newest of cars are 4 years old. PD had so much market share, that even if only 10% of GT6 owners paid for the DLC, they would still make a killing $$$$
  6. A career system that got boring and real quick. It was actually a chore sometimes, and other times, it just wasn't enough. Why did GT6 drop the endurance races (24 minutes is not endurance!). And why wasn't fuel use / tyre wear standard across all races all the time (Real Driving Simulator, remember). To their credit, they did release new challenges on a regular basis, which kind of kept me occupied.
  7. Oh those sounds! Yes, they were crap on GT6, and GT5. You could (almost) forgive the previous GT's, but they were definitely sub-par too. All you had to do was fire up NFS Shift 2 and hear what cars should sound like. Now I'm enjoying PC2, and like it or not Kaz, the sounds really do add to a game's immersion level. Maybe PD need to spend a couple of hours playing other games to see where they should be in this area.
 
GT6 leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. The physics are the best offering available in "series 1" of the franchise, but the structure of the gameplay feels inconsistent. One race you're driving the Sunday cup in a MX-5 and the next you've apparently gathered enough attention from NASA and are being invited to replicate the moon landing?

Unlike in GT5, I never felt there was a sense of progression in GT6. I also felt the ambiance, or "vibe" of GT6 doesn't quite capture Gran Turismo like the 5th did. I liked those spinning cars in the new car dealer and that god-awfully beautiful Jazz music that was specifically unqiue to those menus, and I very much liked the menu design in 5 better despite it's unresponsiveness. GT6 just feels depressing to play in comparison with it's general blue tones and simplified layout and lack of menu-specific music.

This. They forced the awful PS2 models on us until GT6, yet the superbly detailed Premiums from GT5/6 have been purged. Insane - especially in light of the fact that PD claimed those Premium models were built to "next-gen" spec.

Sad truth is most of those Premium models could be ported over to PS4 with an average amount of effort. They really only need to improve the textures and smooth out some of the vertices on the older GTHD/GT5Prologue meshes. They did these very same changes to the few GT6 premium cars that appear in GTS.

A part of me thinks the real reason why they didn't port them over is in partially because of the Std. car debacle. (Licensing could also be a reason for it) I don't think PDI understands that people were not complaining about seeing the same cars from previous games, but were rather complaining about them re-using the same PS2-quality meshes and textures without any real noticeable improvement to them. Which ultimately brought inconsistency to the game. However, things have changed in recent times and computing power available now on the market has made it so polygon count is less of a concern. Any car with 80k+ polys and 1k textures can fit in both current-gen and last-gen without much noticeable inconsistency. Where as cars with 5,000 polys and 256 textures simply don't.

To me (having bought GT3, 4, 5 and 6 all on their respective release days), I'll be giving GTS a miss (at least for now). I really do think the series is a little tired and needs to be re-invented. Maybe Kaz needs to hand over control to someone else!

Well, that's what Sport is suppose to be to an extent. A re-imagining of the series. Unfortunately, they've decided to take the series into a direction which many are not entirely happy about. There are many people whom don't have an interest in E-Sports or online racing at all. While others that may enjoy online racing may not have stable internet connections in their respective regions, and PDI's and Sony's servers also have a reputation for being notoriously unreliable.

Gran Turismo always appealed to a wide audience in part due to its mass car selection and track selection, not entirely because of its racing-gameplay or even "simulation" features. Limiting the scope of the game, and drastically reducing the content has made many potential buyers snub at the game and move to other offerings that sate their desires. The E-Sports market simply isn't the right market for Gran Turismo. It may work for Assetto Corsa or Project Cars, but Gran Turismo has a long reputation for being a jack-of-all-trades racing game.

All the niggly issues with premium cars. Yes I'm nitpicking, but, for a game where each car supposedly took 3-6 months to create, why were there so many inconsistencies? Some premium cars were clearly better than other in terms of quality - i.e. working fuel / oil pressure gauges, speedometers that were accurately calibrated in the cockpit (mph speedos showing km/h figures, e.g. Mustang GT500, Lotus Exige), ability to actually see the dash in certain lighting of the game. Then there were the cars with incorrect gear ratios (e.g Focus ST, Ferrari F40). Come on, get it right fellas! Then the issues with the SSX course, the aero never got fixed there, each car was running in a vacuum

These inconsistencies such as Kh/m speedometers are likely due to PDI's reference material. It has been claimed that PDI laser-scan and take actual photographs of the cars. If this is true (and there is much evidence to indicate that it is), then they likely used Europe and Asia models for many of the cars. Ford does sell the Mustang in Europe afterall.
 
Last edited:
I thoroughly enjoyed GT6. Its still one of my only four PS3 games with GT5, Driver SF and Twisted Metal. But I can’t help but be bothered on how much potential GT6 still has with what it is. So many “if only” moments. The AI is there. But only used to potential on Expert Seasanal events. The large grids with close quarter starts are there. But only used on GT3 and Super GT races. If all races were set up with large grids, difficult AI, and close quarter starts, the life of GT6 would go on looonger.
 
Overall I think I enjoyed GT6 as I managed to platinum the game itself (although not the DLC at time of writing). All that despite the chase-the-rabbit, staying mainly offline and those damn karts! I did like the seasonals which gave an interesting spin on things, even if I did have to resort to tunes from these forums to get anywhere. And I still liked my little money-making scheme where one of the shorter NASCAR races with the 200% login bonus got you ~170000c in just under five minutes...
IMG_0369.JPG
 
Back