Considering how much Yamauchi complained about the PS3, GT5/6 were way more ambitious than Sport/GT7.

[SimTourist]

We've all read the interviews where Kaz complained about the difficulties of PS3 development, low memory amount, complicated CELL architecture, unbalanced hardware in general and how the PS3 limited their vision, yet despite all that PD packed a ton of crazy features like Course Maker, B-spec, 3D support, headtracking support, data logger, procedural track generation, 3D modelled photo mode environments, dense city tracks, for a short time a procedural damage model, tesselation, and so on and so forth. I expected them to atleast expand on those features with the added power and simplicity of PS4/5 hardware, but in reality GTS/7 don't even include any of the features I mentioned. Did Kaz and the team lose their ambition somewhere along the way? Perhaps budget cuts by Sony, or perhaps the ambition was only regarding the graphics. GT5 had so much content that we played it for years, it felt like this crazy event in the world of gaming when it released, the anticipation was crazy. Actually looking back we complained that it took 6 years to make, but both GTS and GT7 took 5 years each and are much smaller titles by volume of content. Funny how time perception changes with age.

 

[DJShadesUK]

tesselation [...] GTS/7 don't even include any of the features I mentioned

GT Sport/7 do have tessellation. Except now its generally referred to as "surface subdivision" (or a variation thereof) and there is no fancy morphing between the automatically tessellated (subdivided) high-poly version and the various LOD meshes.

PD did what a lot of companies do and played fast and loose with definitions and allowed misconceptions to flourish particularly if they benefited the company/game image. From what I've seen online a lot of people mistook the fancy morphing between LODs to be "adaptive tessellation" when really thats all it was; fancy morphing between LODs. Actual adaptive tessellation (or surface subdivision) only took place in photomode to bump up the poly count beyond what was actually represented by the highest LOD mesh on disk (and it was these tessellated poly counts where PD derived their headline poly count figures from, not what was actually represented in the files on disk.)

Like 5 and 6, PD does the exact same thing today, albeit without the fancy morphing. Each car model has various LODs, but the highest resolution model you see in photomode doesn't actually exist, its dynamically created from the highest LOD.

This is the actual Mustang model from GTS/7 and represents the highest LOD available on disk. Its typically what you'd see in-game, while playing in realtime whenever the car is closest to the camera (obviously you don't see the poly edge outlines in-game, I've just left them visible for the purpose of this post)...

The following is what you'd get in photomode. Its the exact same model as above except its poly count has been automatically bumped up thanks to the magic of "adaptive tessellation" (surface subdivision)...

EDIT: And while I'm at it, here's a much nicer render of the same Mustang (with surface subdivision) enabled, because, why not?

 

[TJC_69]

Maybe somewhere along the way, making bank overtook the passion of innovation. Gran Turismo 7 could be/could have been the biggest and best GT game ever made. It has a powerful current generation console to push boundaries, yet it feels like an unfulfilled prophecy of semi bare bones content. It's both perplexing and thought provoking.

In this current age of gaming it feels like either games suddenly became too complex to finish before launch, or, like the situation with the staff on Twitter, it had too many people doing barely anything in their 9-5 role.

I don't think GT7 will expand and grow as much as Kazounori alludes to. I think he's overeaching and under delivering. Maybe it's time someone else took over the series, even if it was his own inception.

We/they keep saying or thinking the new game will be the best yet on the more modern hardware, pushing the limits as they truly yearned for.

Instead we get very buggy lobbies, a console freezing feature, random disconnects, features that were available in GT Sport yet nowhere to be seen in 7 almost 9 months later. Generation restricted sport mode per console the user is on, less race c players than the PS4 build of Sport could handle.... And more.

To end this on a positive note, maybe, just maybe.. the next GT will be better...

(Don't hold your breath though).

 

[Magog]

I've given up hope that they will add a track creator unless they drop PS4 support which would inevitably create a backlash. A shame since it's my most wanted feature.

 

[Matthew_Bogus]

I've given up hope that they will add a track creator unless they drop PS4 support which would inevitably create a backlash. A shame since it's my most wanted feature.

Roll on Gran Turismo 8 without PS4 support, and get us that track editor.

 

[georgetigra]

is more difficult to create a game to run in 3 different hardware and nobody have the advantage from the better hardware..
Way more ambitious..

 

[Dave A]

I've given up hope that they will add a track creator unless they drop PS4 support which would inevitably create a backlash. A shame since it's my most wanted feature.

I don't think PS4 support and a track editor have any correlation together, there's no track editor becuase PD have decided there's no track editor, not because the PS4 is holding that back from being done.

 

[handcuff_]

In case you're new to the series, they've been phoning it in for at least the last 12-15 years.
This game is nothing more than a cash grab that should have simply been an update for GT Sport.

 

[handcuff_]

I don't think PS4 support and a track editor have any correlation together, there's no track editor becuase PD have decided there's no track editor, not because the PS4 is holding that back from being done.

Bingo, that is their entire strategy. They cycle features in and out of the game knowing that the ones who will be pissed and remember the last time it was in the game, are going to buy the game regardless, and those who are new to the game or at least new to the series after the last time a feature was in the game won't know the difference and think it is a cool new idea.

The vehicle customizations really pissed me off this time. Almost none of them are unique to the car. They are a total rehash of the same files from GT4 or whenever they last appeared in the game. The same rear wings, the same Home Depot garden edge trim posing as sideskirts and front splitters...

Another thing they love to do is impose absolutely pointless restrictions. Why can't the wheels be "painted" Carbon Fiber?? Why can't decals use special colors? Why can't carbon fiber be combined with special color paint??

 

[Magog]

I don't think PS4 support and a track editor have any correlation together, there's no track editor becuase PD have decided there's no track editor, not because the PS4 is holding that back from being done.

The memory is extremely limited on the PS4 and loading data from the HDD is very slow. The capabilites to quickly and easily and remove and render sections of track are so disperate that what would be possible on PS5 would be hopelessly broken on PS4.

 

[hyperspeed980]

Sounds like all the innovative and exciting features we're looking for are gonna be held back until GT8, or exclusive to the PS5 version of 7.

 

[Samus]

The memory is extremely limited on the PS4 and loading data from the HDD is very slow. The capabilites to quickly and easily and remove and render sections of track are so disperate that what would be possible on PS5 would be hopelessly broken on PS4.

Which PS4 games have you developed? You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Peter.]

The memory is extremely limited on the PS4 and loading data from the HDD is very slow. The capabilites to quickly and easily and remove and render sections of track are so disperate that what would be possible on PS5 would be hopelessly broken on PS4.

Didn't Gran Turismo 5 and 6 both have a track editor? On the PS3?

 

[Dave A]

The memory is extremely limited on the PS4 and loading data from the HDD is very slow. The capabilites to quickly and easily and remove and render sections of track are so disperate that what would be possible on PS5 would be hopelessly broken on PS4.

None of that makes sense. You're not rendering the track on the fly when you race on it, the track is loaded into the RAM until it's no longer in use and overwritten. The PS4's memory and HDD have nothing to do with it not being possible.

 

[handcuff_]

The memory is extremely limited on the PS4 and loading data from the HDD is very slow. The capabilites to quickly and easily and remove and render sections of track are so disperate that what would be possible on PS5 would be hopelessly broken on PS4.

LOL except the feature was on the PS3 version of the game

 

[Magog]

LOL except the feature was on the PS3 version of the game

I'm not saying a track creator couldn't be done on PS4. Of course it could. But on PS5 it could just be so much better, faster, and more complex that to make a version that could work on both would be a huge compromise.

 

[Samus]

I'm not saying a track creator couldn't be done on PS4. Of course it could. But on PS5 it could just be so much better, faster, and more complex that to make a version that could work on both would be a huge compromise.

Why could it? Give us the technical possiblities in a track creator on PS5 that wouldn't work on PS4. Your comment about "quickly removing and rendering sections of tracks" was already nonsense, I'd like to hear more. It's like you've never heard of scaling in software. The whole game is based on scaling.

 

[Dave A]

I'm not saying a track creator couldn't be done on PS4. Of course it could. But on PS5 it could just be so much better, faster, and more complex that to make a version that could work on both would be a huge compromise.

The limitations would be pretty similar to what we already see in the game, lower resolution running at a lower framerate on PS4 over PS5. The biggest difference is the higher fidelity assets on PS5 which use a different form of compression so take up less space on the HDD but uncompressed on RAM take up more space.

There's little reason to expect any significant differences beyond fidelity though. There could be an argument that on PS5 you can have a larger area to create a track in, but I think the area would be more than large enough on both.

 

[Peter.]

The limitations would be pretty similar to what we already see in the game, lower resolution running at a lower framerate on PS4 over PS5. The biggest difference is the higher fidelity assets on PS5 which use a different form of compression so take up less space on the HDD but uncompressed on RAM take up more space.

There's little reason to expect any significant differences beyond fidelity though. There could be an argument that on PS5 you can have a larger area to create a track in, but I think the area would be more than large enough on both.

Agreed. There are plenty of other reasons to critique PD's decisions in terms of development, but one that sticks for some reason is that the game is being killed by the decision to be cross platform. Every supposedly missing feature, it's blamed on this. Apart from the technical reasons why that is wrong, it's also a bit inconsiderate because a lot of people still are not even sure if the PS5 exists.
Maybe only the graphics can said to be a direct consequence of this decision, but it's not like it doesn't look among the best in the racing game genre anyway, PS4 or PS5.

Anyway, the only reason the game doesn't have a track editor is that PD don't want to include one. I don't really mind, and I wouldn't want to police how others would enjoy the game because the track editor used to be a lot of fun for a lot of people, but it was very rudimentary and I don't really miss that version of it. If they are ever going to decide between bringing back modernized versions of original tracks and new real world courses, or a more detailed track editor, I prefer the former every time.

 

[DuckworthDFV]

I've given up hope that they will add a track creator unless they drop PS4 support which would inevitably create a backlash. A shame since it's my most wanted feature.

Agreed, that was a really cool feature to scratch the itch of road racing. In general I wonder how much limiting features to support old gen is affecting the game mid/long term. I'm sure it's happening to a degree. Looking at other companies like Rockstar that has split versions to evolve their game, and despite not releasing everything for old gen this split is affecting game performance with screen freeze on PS4. My opinion is that developers have to move on, but it's a selfish opinion...

 

[MagpieRacer]

Let's flip it round a bit, GT5 and 6 were more ambitious yes, but also the worst received of the main series games by critics and the most criticised among fans. Typically in the industry you wouldn't want to build upon multiple perceived failures.

 

[Dave A]

Let's flip it round a bit, GT5 and 6 were more ambitious yes, but also the worst received of the main series games by critics and the most criticised among fans. Typically jn the industry you wouldn't rry to build upon multiple perceived failures.

Indeed and that's a really good way to flip it. IMO what they should have done is gone back to look at what made GT3 and GT4 great, arguably the peak of the series, and then spent some time to think how they could use that from a game design point of view as a base and innovate from there, combining the Sport mode etc.

They didn't use GT5 and 6 as a base from a game design perspective, which in itself is fair enough, you could easilly combine those two games and end up with something worse than both, but still they've ended up with a game that has glaring issues and omissions in it's design.

 

[Pizzicato1985]

Let's flip it round a bit, GT5 and 6 were more ambitious yes, but also the worst received of the main series games by critics and the most criticised among fans. Typically in the industry you wouldn't want to build upon multiple perceived failures.

I think there's a very good argument to be made that the only reason 5/6 received more criticism from fans was there was more people playing/engaged in the games to complain in the first place. That was still in the GT console domination era, GT7 is not.

The criticism that 6 received was almost entirely that it was a PS3 exclusive launched at the console's life, that it seemed like somewhat of an asset-flip, and the standard cars. There were complaints of the AI, but that's an omnipresent complaint in the series. All issues that deserve criticism, but the core of the game, ie the content, didn't get a lot of hate from players that I can remember from my old GTP account. GT7 seems to have the opposite issue: it's cross-gen so many more people can take part, the cars that we do have are mostly well done, but there is a gaping hole where the core of the game SHOULD be. People will play a game with issues if the content is decent and plentiful, (Dragon's Dogma, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, all of the Gothic series, etc, etc) but they completely walk away from a polished game with nothing to do after 30hr. (The latest Battlefield, GT7, MMO's like New World, etc) It's not until you get into Cyberpunk: 2077 levels of jank will people abandon it in spite of the content on offer.

GT7 sold well, but if my calculations are correct only around 400k took part in the Time Trial, in a game that's less than a year old where there were 10 days to submit a run. I don't see a way to quantify the participants in the race at Spa/Willow, etc, so the Willow TT is imperfect but all I can find. So if one had any interest in engaging with the Anniversary content there was more than enough time. How many copies were sold? 6-7mil? Thought I'd seen that somewhere but maybe it was just unconfirmed speculation.
Even if its 4mil, PD's only retained 1/10th of the player base, and I'm sure a great many of them came back after a long hiatus like myself (I strongly believe its much higher than that given it was keeping pace with Elden Ring in March/April/May, which sold 16+ million to date, so I'd guess around 5-6mil if one wants to assume each of the three major platforms gets equal shares of sales)

As for critic scores, well, who cares... This game received glowing reviews at launch, then a massive backlash from many of the YT/alt-media critics once people got deep enough into the game to see it was a Potemkin Village seemingly designed to get high critic scores. So I wouldn't weight critic scores very heavily given all the content was front-loaded in a way that would make critics think everything is polished and intact.

I'm not saying you're wrong about not building off of the GT5/6 template due to the issues they had, just playing devil's advocate as to why the amount of player criticism and quality of said criticism may be an "apples to oranges" comparison.

 

[Donnced]

We've all read the interviews where Kaz complained about the difficulties of PS3 development, low memory amount, complicated CELL architecture, unbalanced hardware in general and how the PS3 limited their vision, yet despite all that PD packed a ton of crazy features like Course Maker, B-spec, 3D support, headtracking support, data logger, procedural track generation, 3D modelled photo mode environments, dense city tracks, for a short time a procedural damage model, tesselation, and so on and so forth. I expected them to atleast expand on those features with the added power and simplicity of PS4/5 hardware, but in reality GTS/7 don't even include any of the features I mentioned. Did Kaz and the team lose their ambition somewhere along the way? Perhaps budget cuts by Sony, or perhaps the ambition was only regarding the graphics. GT5 had so much content that we played it for years, it felt like this crazy event in the world of gaming when it released, the anticipation was crazy. Actually looking back we complained that it took 6 years to make, but both GTS and GT7 took 5 years each and are much smaller titles by volume of content. Funny how time perception changes with age.

Yes GTS and surly GT7 use tesselation, the photo mode (scapes ) are a great work to include in a dynamic way how everything interacts on the car and in the Scape, the date is sent,so people is able to make motion rig and UDP app for GT7 , they added VR , which is very demanding and global performance, physics, 3D environments , details are way above what is seen on GT5/6 .

For the rest, licenses aren't cheap and sure they are now more expensive than in the PS3 era when online playing exploded on consoles.

Here some GIFs from GTS that shows tesselation;

GT6 Vs GT7 face to face


And a head to head of GT7 between PS4 and PS5, which shows that there's more difference than only loading times



We don't have to forget either that GT5 and 6 were running at max 1080p aiming 60fps, now we are talking of 1800p checkerboard on PS4 Pro and native 4K on PS5.

Console tech also changed, the cell was powerful but a pain in the ass for the game developers to devlop and optimise games on PS3 hardware, now on a "PC " based hardware consoles has become easier to devlop and optimise on them.

 

[Imari]

Let's flip it round a bit, GT5 and 6 were more ambitious yes, but also the worst received of the main series games by critics and the most criticised among fans. Typically in the industry you wouldn't want to build upon multiple perceived failures.

It depends what the failures were. The stuff that people were most critical about with regards to GT5 and 6 were the performance and the asset quality. Those are two things that have pretty straightforward solutions, especially when you're going up a generation in hardware.

Yes, you don't want to be keeping on working on a fundamentally flawed game, but at the same time you don't want to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

 

[handcuff_]

You folks give PD WAYYYYY too much credit.
These are the people who decided to waste time and resources on the MUSIC RALLY.
Kazu-whats-his-face...just needs to go LARP as a racecar driver full-time and let someone who knows how to make games fun takeover GT going forward. The online racing has not changed at all since being introduced however many releases ago, and it is no less garbage than it was then. It is disgraceful.

Grand Theft Auto has better online racing design/architecture than Gran Turismo...let that sink in...

 

[r2dz]

You folks give PD WAYYYYY too much credit.
These are the people who decided to waste time and resources on the MUSIC RALLY.
Kazu-whats-his-face...just needs to go LARP as a racecar driver full-time and let someone who knows how to make games fun takeover GT going forward. The online racing has not changed at all since being introduced however many releases ago, and it is no less garbage than it was then. It is disgraceful.

Grand Theft Auto has better online racing design/architecture than Gran Turismo...let that sink in...

amen. 25 whole years. 30 years since the start.

 

[RobertHammer]

You folks give PD WAYYYYY too much credit.
These are the people who decided to waste time and resources on the MUSIC RALLY.
Kazu-whats-his-face...just needs to go LARP as a racecar driver full-time and let someone who knows how to make games fun takeover GT going forward. The online racing has not changed at all since being introduced however many releases ago, and it is no less garbage than it was then. It is disgraceful.
Grand Theft Auto has better online racing design/architecture than Gran Turismo...let that sink in...

only since GTA 5 which is decades old now , plus they wasted bilions into GTA online cough shark cards cough
people forgot how GTA 4 had pretty lacklaster mp so theres that

but i still agree that they have to make the MP better than in GT Sport

 

[Magog]

Let's flip it round a bit, GT5 and 6 were more ambitious yes, but also the worst received of the main series games by critics and the most criticised among fans. Typically in the industry you wouldn't want to build upon multiple perceived failures.

To ambitious for old hardware. The loading times made everything excruciating. With the massive hardware improvements of the PS5 they could add features without sacrificing the user experience.

 

[wheelhp]

We've all read the interviews where Kaz complained about the difficulties of PS3 development, low memory amount, complicated CELL architecture, unbalanced hardware in general and how the PS3 limited their vision, yet despite all that PD packed a ton of crazy features like Course Maker, B-spec, 3D support, headtracking support, data logger, procedural track generation, 3D modelled photo mode environments, dense city tracks, for a short time a procedural damage model, tesselation, and so on and so forth. I expected them to atleast expand on those features with the added power and simplicity of PS4/5 hardware, but in reality GTS/7 don't even include any of the features I mentioned. Did Kaz and the team lose their ambition somewhere along the way? Perhaps budget cuts by Sony, or perhaps the ambition was only regarding the graphics. GT5 had so much content that we played it for years, it felt like this crazy event in the world of gaming when it released, the anticipation was crazy. Actually looking back we complained that it took 6 years to make, but both GTS and GT7 took 5 years each and are much smaller titles by volume of content. Funny how time perception changes with age.

Kaz has definetly mixed up his priority list since the PS3 days. He's learned that putting all his eggs into the physics basket didn't help, but delayed the game, so he changed his focus... but it comes at the cost of fanbase expectations.
When GT Sport came with Scapes as the biggest feature, next to Esports is when he changed the direction of the series. GT7 is iterative on that change, but it's great we finally got full car customization in a GT game.