Gran Turismo 7 Confirmed to also launch on PlayStation 4, is a cross-gen title

[AlexWilmot]

What if… GT Sport gets content update with cars and tracks and continued server support so PS4 users can have the same or similar content as PS5 users but PS5 users get the full feature game, there is no cross play just a happy update to GT Sport to hold people out until the world is a bit more normal and PS5s are more readily available

 

[sesselpupser]

This isn't accurate at all and doesn't make much sense. Baked lighting is inherently cheaper than real-time dynamic lighting. It doesn't matter if you bake in poor lighting data that only took half a second to calculate offline or if you bake in complex ray-traced lighting that took 10 hours to pre-compute offline, that data ultimately is just stored as a texture that is loaded in at runtime and is practically free to use, there's no calculating involved at runtime. Forza has baked their lighting and environment shadow maps for the past 7 games to maintain their framerate target. They didn't choose to use baked data for nothing.

You've misunderstood what I was getting at here, that's probably my fault - I'm not saying pre-rendered lighting is graphically expensive, I'm saying it precludes dynamic transitions from one state to another (GTP did an article on this which is why I chose to not elaborate). PD chose to make the game look better over supporting dynamic lighting and thus dynamic time of day and weather. Dynamic lighting is more costly, but if you scale back the other graphical features it's easily possible on the old hardware because GTA games had been doing that since GTA III on the PS2 - It may mean scaling back more than the casual market would like, but I think most people here would prefer that the graphics take a hit but we get dynamism for more interesting racing, right? It's all about choosing a sensible compromise, as are all things in engineering, software or otherwise, and in my opinion PD chose the wrong compromise, likely because good graphics sells.

And sure, a GPU *can* calculate physics, but *does* it in GTS? I don't actually know if this is known or not to be honest so I was wrong to make that assertion, but an unstable frame rate on its own is still not an indication that the CPU is maxed out or that the GPU calculates all or part of the physics.

And the CPU is still needed to maintain the target framerate. GPU determines how high your framerate can go, CPU determines how long it can stay there.

That isn't how games work, I mean yes they can work that way but it's far from universal, just ask anyone who's ever improved their frame rate in a game by overclocking their CPU like I did in GTA V - the GPU never ran at 100% so was never setting the pace, it was all limited by the CPU. Similarly, VR games that barely tax the CPU but load the GPU to its limit - you could underclock the CPU and it wouldn't affect the game at all. What you're describing is either a perfectly balanced system running software that keeps the two processors very close in utilisation (which is rare) or a GPU-bound game that spikes the CPU utilisation so high that it temporarily becomes the bottleneck.

We don't know enough about GT Sport or the PS4 to be able to make statements like "there isn't enough capability left in reserve to improve the physics".

 

[Klik]

Would be a shame if come 2024 and PD is still stuck doing updates to GT7 PS4.

Holy **** i actually just comprehend that. If GT7 is indeed crosgen, imagine PD doing updates on GT7 for PS4 hilarious and kinda sad

 

[snc]

I don't understand. Why can't features differ between the two versions? Dynamic weather and time of day are no brainers for example, Just leave them out of the PS4 release.

It can differ only if its not crossplay

 

[Klik]

Honestly, in my opinion, this is such a stupid move by Sony. GT7 should have been PS5 exclusive.

What? Their excuse is that PS5 shortages are impacting sales? C'mon they sold same amount as PS4 sold in launch year.

 

[Samus]

I don't understand. Why can't features differ between the two versions? Dynamic weather and time of day are no brainers for example, Just leave them out of the PS4 release.

If they have vastly different features and content it's incredibly misleading and confusing to call them both GT7. They would be two different games.

If they're both GT7, they have to be fundamentally the same.

 

[GT Sport]

Please don't. No crossplay. No ps4 version.
We are not Rockstar Games here keeping the same game (game type in this situation) for 3 gens.
I don't want to buy a ps5 in the future to play GT7 and feel like I'm playing GTS on ps4 again (without dynamic day/weather and more missing features)...
I accepted the fact that ps4 can't handle much stuff and I am patient for 5 years now (counting 2022 too) until GT7 comes so I enjoy it.
So, no reason for me to buy a ps5 if the game is for ps4, and no reason to buy GT7 on ps4 if I'm about to miss half features.
How can ps4 players be limited without dynamic stuff, adaptive triggers and whatever else?? Aha, once again then not gonna see new features for a 3rd gen.. Alright. Onwards to ps6 and GT8 it seems.... Another 6+ years of wait

P.S. Yeah. I don't own a ps5 yet and ofc I would be happy to keep a spare 500 euros if it was to come on ps4 too. But, better see a complete masterpiece with all the anticipated new features and get my 🤬 hyped jumping on my bed like a 5-year-old, than seeing it on ps4 and getting disappointed day one. Unless PD thinks of something innovative none of us could think and make it happen(?).. Otherwise this can't happen..

 

[Scaff]

I think a lot of people don’t realize that GT needs to be run at 60fps minimum. There’s no such thing as 60fps performance mode lol.

Needs to?

I can think of at least four that don't manage that, two of which never had a chance of hitting 60fps and two that struggled to outside of ideal conditions. To date more GT titles have been sub-60fps that have been locked (or as good as) 60 fps titles.

What? Their excuse is that PS5 shortages are impacting sales? C'mon they sold same amount as PS4 sold in launch year.

Not an excuse, an opportunity to try and sell as many copies as they can. From a purely financial perspective the combined PS4/PS5 audience is a hard one to resist.

 

[Dave A]

You've misunderstood what I was getting at here, that's probably my fault - I'm not saying pre-rendered lighting is graphically expensive, I'm saying it precludes dynamic transitions from one state to another (GTP did an article on this which is why I chose to not elaborate). PD chose to make the game look better over supporting dynamic lighting and thus dynamic time of day and weather. Dynamic lighting is more costly, but if you scale back the other graphical features it's easily possible on the old hardware because GTA games had been doing that since GTA III on the PS2 - It may mean scaling back more than the casual market would like, but I think most people here would prefer that the graphics take a hit but we get dynamism for more interesting racing, right? It's all about choosing a sensible compromise, as are all things in engineering, software or otherwise, and in my opinion PD chose the wrong compromise, likely because good graphics sells.

Yes, if you scale other things back enough then you can make it work on PS4, sure, but are PD likely to scale things back from GT Sport enough to allow for that? No they are not.

And sure, a GPU *can* calculate physics, but *does* it in GTS? I don't actually know if this is known or not to be honest so I was wrong to make that assertion, but an unstable frame rate on its own is still not an indication that the CPU is maxed out or that the GPU calculates all or part of the physics.

An unstable frame rate is an indictaion of a bottleneck somewhere, be that overheating, CPU, GPU etc. There's something causing a bottleneck somewhere. If it were isolated cases you could argue it's isolated issues with certain consoles, but it's not.

That isn't how games work, I mean yes they can work that way but it's far from universal, just ask anyone who's ever improved their frame rate in a game by overclocking their CPU like I did in GTA V - the GPU never ran at 100% so was never setting the pace, it was all limited by the CPU.

That's somewhat true and still is when gaminig at certain resolutions, but try gaming at 4k and it's typically the GPU that causes the bottleneck. The higher the resolution, the more the GPU bottlenecks. It's not all about resolution though, certain things like RTS really strain a GPU.

It depends on the game and which CPU + GPU combination you have. If you have a much more capable GPU than CPU then the CPU will be the bottlneck more often and vice versa. If you have a great CPU but only ever game at 1080p it'll be the CPU bottlenecking more often etc.

The beauty of consoles is everyone with that console has the same CPU + GPU combination, this means optomising games for them is a lot easier (in theory).

We don't know enough about GT Sport or the PS4 to be able to make statements like "there isn't enough capability left in reserve to improve the physics".

It depends on what people mean by "improve". The PS4 certainly can't handle GT Sport plus a load of imporvements to AI, Physics, environments etc. We know the PS4 bottlenecks with GT Sport so we know there's not much headroom left to change things without stripping back things they are already doing in the game.

 

[Nielsen]

Last year I said I’d buy GT7 for PS4 if possible, and that’s still how I feel. PS5 currently doesn’t interest me.

 

[synon]

We don't know enough about GT Sport or the PS4 to be able to make statements like "there isn't enough capability left in reserve to improve the physics".

Yes, and as has been mentioned, AC has the same physics on the PS4 as on PC, and runs its physics engine at 333Hz, so the cpu doesn't appear to be much of a limit for physics calculations.

 

[Dave A]

Yes, and as has been mentioned, AC has the same physics on the PS4 as on PC, and runs its physics engine at 333Hz, so the cpu doesn't appear to be much of a limit for physics calculations.

Just because one game is more of a sim than another it doesn't mean the phsyical calcualtions going on in the other are any less complex. Don't mistake a game being a sim for automatically equating to the physics engine being more complex. The decision to balance the physics on that line a bit away fromtitles like ACC is a design one, not by itself a limitation of hardware.

Where the hardware becomes a limitation is the number of variables and frequency of calcaulations per second. Remember, the game has to do this not just for the player, but for ever car on track all at once. So if you doubt the number of variables and also double the number of cars on track at once, this is not doubling the complexity of the physics it is quadroupling them. So unfortuantely it isn't as striaght forward as this game is more of a hardcore sim than this other one.

Everything is a tradeoff in order to reach the maximum of what you want to acheive. When you reach a maximum you hit a bottleneck where going further creates issues such as instability such as inconsistent frame rates, artifacts, thermal throttling etc. The design direction you take will influece how much of A you can have at the expense of B and so on. The way they can make one area of GT7 better thna GT Sport on PS4 is to make other things worse than GT Sport and the design decisions made to accommodate GT7 on PS4 will impact the PS5 version too.

Remember, hardcore sims have existed for decades, but modern hardocre sims are a lot more realistic and complex physics wise than they were 10 years ago. Likewise, Gran Turismo has always operated in that more accessible sim space, but like the hardcore sims it has also become far more complex over the years. The modern and more complex games are simply not possible on older hardware, for example the PS2 could not run GT5's engine, likewise the PS3 couldn't run GT Sports.

 

[Famine]

I don't understand. Why can't features differ between the two versions? Dynamic weather and time of day are no brainers for example, Just leave them out of the PS4 release.

I'm not sure that's possible.

Thus far we've not seen a single cross-gen game where a fundamental, gameplay-changing mechanism is in one version but not the other. It's only been changes to the graphics, grid sizes (in racing games and in theme parks), audio, and DualSense support.

Dynamic TOD/weather is such a mechanism. It doesn't just look nicer, it changes how the game plays. Imagine playing an FIA race (or any Sport Mode race) where the sun sets for half of the grid but not the other half, or where two thirds of drivers aren't dealing with a spell of rain halfway through the race - and a drying line. You'd literally be looking at a PS5 being a disadvantage; hardly a console seller is it?

Of course it doesn't have to be in Sport Mode at all, and Sport Mode might not even be cross-gen play (though if the game is, it should be; how are you supporting those 110m PS4 players if they can't play it? Also PD doesn't exclude players from Sport Mode for not having a T-GT, so why would it exclude players for not having a PS5?), but it affects single player too.

On PS5 you might have the 24hr of Le Mans (or not, if Motorsport Network plays an exclusivity card) in your career mode, with full day-night transitions and weather, just like you had in GT5, in 4K60. But on PS4 you get 24 hours of racing in whatever preset conditions and you race for 1,440 minutes with the sun up (or down), just like you had in GT4, only with 20 cars instead of 6...

You don't even have to imagine that hard to see how it'd create two completely different single-player games. No proper endurance racing (yet again), no day-night events (or dry-wet events) anywhere in the ladder, no challenges like that Special Event in GT6 for B-Spec Bob where it started to rain 7 laps into a 10 lap race, any plans for licence tests/missions involving TOD/weather.

As far as we're aware, that can't happen; the gameplay itself must be the same between both versions. That means you can't leave it out from one version but not the other, so it's either cut entirely, running at lower resolution/fps on PS4 (unlikely), or PD makes it work at 1080p60 on PS4 (very unlikely or a console-killer).


Imagine though that it is possible and take it a step further. What happens when you have people who aren't like us and don't sit on racing game forums all the time who stumble across GT7 and think "hey, GT used to be cool back in 2004, let's give it a bash". Dynamic weather, dynamic TOD, new in-depth physics engine, awesome. So they pick up their PS4 copy from the PS Store, download it, and get into a game with literally none of that.

Now we're into PCARS3 territory where they feel absolutely ripped off, because it turns out that GT7 doesn't mean GT7 if it's PS4 GT7. Every single piece of advertising they've seen is from the PS5 version (because why wouldn't you promote it with the best version) and the asterisks all over the box/store page haven't hit a relevant part of their brain. "What, so I have to throw £400 at a console and THEN another £10 to upgrade the game to get it to do the things it was advertised to do?" - and no refunds, because it's a first party game and they played it for a fraction of a second. Cue the forum threads full of people accusing Sony/PD of being scammers, and GTP too (because we are Sony/PD to a lot of people for some reason, and also we'd be pointing out they got the PS4 version).

And then there's the other side of the coin. Promote the game with the PS4 version at all and you'll have PC4/FMnot8 fans and forums bringing up how terrible it looks for a 2022 game. People are still posting the Standard model Suzuki Alto Works from GT5 to show how crap Gran Turismo is, and that was eleven - count 'em - years ago, not to mention GT6's ropey alpha effects from 2013. Do you think full daylight 24h races, or 30fps rain/fog/night with jaggy shadows, will get any less or die down sooner?

 

[snc]

Yes, and as has been mentioned, AC has the same physics on the PS4 as on PC, and runs its physics engine at 333Hz, so the cpu doesn't appear to be much of a limit for physics calculations.

No it doesnt has same physics as pc setups doesnt works on ps4

 

[Strittan]

I’ve always hated cross-gen, but I hate it more now than ever.

 

[RacingFan1]

Man you really are moving goal posts now bro. Those comparisons aren't fake (prove it if you can), they're from Digital Foundry analyzing the XBO/PS4 versions of the game compared to PC max settings. Previously I even posted another video comparing ultra settings to ps4. If you wanna prove me wrong and that they're fake, post your own comparison image proving this massive difference you're talking about.

As stated earlier, Witcher 3 on PC Ultra Settings allows for an increase in image resolution, increase in draw distance for shadows and assets, and those are the biggest graphical differences. It's not some massive generational difference. The game's assets and visuals were designed for PS4/XBO consoles, then they just scaled up resolution and draw distance for the PC release.

Those screen captures are in 1080. Seriously?
Witcher can actually run up to 8k.

Look at the PC they used to run this, it's in the description

Even if you ignore 8k and set it to 4k the difference is still enormous

 

[IXON009]

My gut is telling me that GT7 will start out as a PS4 and PS5 title (Maybe they'll put PS4 PRO's on sale at a massive discount to double dip with console's too). But GT7.....through updates, will end up requiring a PS5 to access all of the content and features.

Exactly what I was thinking! Thank you!

 

[Scaff]

Those screen captures are in 1080. Seriously?
Witcher can actually run up to 8k.

Look at the PC they used to run this, it's in the description

Even if you ignore 8k and set it to 4k the difference is still enormous

No one is disputing that it can be run at higher resolutions on PC, all that needs is higher resolution assists loaded and away you go. The point is (and this is key) is that's all that is being changed, the graphical quality via higher res assets!

The core mechanics and gameplay are not changing at all, and that makes a comparison to GT7 on PS4 vs PS5 with W3 and higher res assets an utterly irrelevant.

What many have been expecting with GT7 is that we would be getting dynamic weather and ToD back, and unless they are going to walk back performance in other areas from GTS that's simply not going to happen on a PS4.

 

[alucard0712]

“You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, right? I think that’d be bad news for fans of PS4, and frankly not very good business."

I do not understand the logic here. Why you need to just walk away from installed base? Just continue to support GTS (keep online servers alive) and players. If I have PS5 and want to play online with GTS community I just buy and play GTS on PS5, while PS4 owners will continue to play with both PS4 and PS5 players. By the time passes GTS online community will slowly transition to the new game and hardware. What's the problem here?

What I really want is the full non-compromised GT title on new hardware. GT was always about that. Or they planning TWO games in PS5 generation to make even more money?

Edit:
“You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it."
How about to ask the community first, then decide?

There is so much wrong with that...

 

[IXON009]

For the ppl looking for some positivity:

Back to 2015 I sold my PS3 with hella lot of AAA games (including 2 GTAs and GT6) in a hope of a new GT (7) to be released. And then I received one of the biggest slap in my life so far... GTS... I still bought it but it was nowhere close to the fun GT6 gave me... 2nd slap came at the summer of 2020 with the Sony live video that stated GT7 will be a PS5 exclusive title. Since then I spent hours and days thinking how will I get the most out of my PS4 and later sell it to get a PS5+GT7 bundle... and a few days ago I received not a huge 3rd slap but a quite welcomed one (the news came in just before selling my PS4). This means, my plan from 2015, after 7 years in 2022 will be solved by GT7 coming to PS4 after all lol.

So I'm happy now and that's a positivity.

 

[Ryan81]

Blame it on Corona easiest way to do it.

 

[Scaff]

“You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, right? I think that’d be bad news for fans of PS4, and frankly not very good business."

I do not understand the logic here. Why you need to just walk away from installed base? Just continue to support GTS (keep online servers alive) and players.

Because those existing GTS players are not bringing in any direct revenue, which Sony clearly believes they can get from them by selling them GT7.

 

[alucard0712]

Because those existing GTS players are not bringing in any direct revenue, which Sony clearly believes they can get from them by selling them GT7.

And let other games sell PS5? Weird. I really understand the business here but it feels very bad, like missing opportunity. And a fans of GT are not someone who got their game every year or two. ****.

 

[RacingFan1]

I'd say GT7 will be a PS5 seller regardless of this. Players will know the real deal will be GT7 in PS5 and the PS4 one will be a low quality "port". But still there may be so many people happy that it can also be played on PS4... Not mutually exclusive

 

[Ramosis]

The possibility of GT7 having greatly improved physics, AI, and model/crash damage practically disappears when it comes to a PS4 version. This is really what worries me. For me, that would change the game more than ray-tracing or TOD and dynamic weather. I really hope GT7 will remain PS5 exclusive.

 

[Famine]

Players will know the real deal will be GT7 in PS5 and the PS4 one will be a low quality "port".

Which means the PS4 version is either visually worse than GTS, or the PS5 version is not able to be as good as it should have been - and perhaps even both. And that's been the point all along.


Also "players will know" is a bit of a stretch. A lot of players with a particular interest in GT might know, but the majority won't; we still field questions about literal basic functions in GT Sport today, including where the career mode from GT6 has gone.

If I close my eyes I can see the forum threads from players who bought PS4 GT7 raging about how Sony ripped them off.

 

[RichiPuppy]

Boy was that article full of assumptions and you know what they say about assumptions... Everything seemed to revolve around other cross gen games that were designed on an old console and updates for a newer one. All signs on this being cross gen point to the opposite, designed for PS5 and down graded for PS4, so all info based on past experiences should be thrown out the window.

Which means the PS4 version is either visually worse than GTS, or the PS5 version is not able to be as good as it should have been - and perhaps even both. And that's been the point all along.


Also "players will know" is a bit of a stretch. A lot of players with a particular interest in GT might know, but the majority won't; we still field questions about literal basic functions in GT Sport today, including where the career mode from GT6 has gone.

If I close my eyes I can see the forum threads from players who bought PS4 GT7 raging about how Sony ripped them off.

New to video games I take it? When games come out later in a consoles life cycle like comparing now to when GT Sport came out, lots of leaps in programming have occurred and I would highly doubt that it would look worse than GT Sport even with having to do more.

 

[Famine]

Everything seemed to revolve around other cross gen games that were designed on an old console and updates for a newer one.

Nope. It revolves around the fact that all cross-gen games appear to be locked to each other for all gameplay fundamentals bar audiovisual upgrades, and DualSense support.

At no point do I mention games designed for PS4/XB1 being upgraded - or for PS5/XBS being ported down - just the fact they are seemingly bound to one another.

All signs on this being cross gen point to the opposite, designed for PS5 and down graded for PS4

How so? We don't even know it's even a PS4 game yet for any signs to point to anything.

New to video games I take it?

*laughs in ZX Spectrum*

When games come out later in a consoles life cycle like comparing now to when GT Sport came out, lots of leaps in programming have occurred and I would highly doubt that it would look worse than GT Sport even with having to do more.

And I've stated throughout that PD might find a way to make dynamic TOD/weather work on PS4 despite having to cut it from GT Sport through four years of development because it simply couldn't deal with PD's lighting model at the targeted 60fps, and despite the fact that GTS already comes closer to overwhelming the PS4's dreadful cooling system than anything else on my console (I hear RDR2 is also bad)...

We know PD cut dynamic conditions from GTS in favour of the baked lighting because it couldn't run the environmental lighting model at 60fps. That leaves three options for GT7 PS4:

* It's included, but looks worse than GTS on PS4, runs at 30fps
* They found a way since 2017 to make it work on PS4 at 60fps
* It's cut

The middle option is always a possibility, but I'd suggest that it's remote and if it happens expect your PS4 fan to collapse into a singularity and start sucking in the universe. The first option flies in the face of everything we know and expect from Gran Turismo; a GT game that looks worse than its predecessor?

That leaves option C, and I don't like that at all.

That still leaves only three possibilities. Either PD has found a way to make it work in the last four years (and the console already makes a racket without it), or it'll do something it has never done before and downgrade GT7 to 1080p30 on PS4 and make it look worse than GTS, or it simply won't appear in the game at all - it is a gameplay changing mechanic and everything we've seen of cross-gen games says that the games must play in an identical manner.

That means you can't leave it out from one version but not the other, so it's either cut entirely, running at lower resolution/fps on PS4 (unlikely), or PD makes it work at 1080p60 on PS4 (very unlikely or a console-killer).

... but it's not the likeliest of possibilities. More likely is it's not possible without a visual downgrade (which is not something I see PD being likely to accept readily after committing to 60fps on PS4, and targeting 240fps at some point in the future), or it's cut.

 

[jmmarques]

As person who is looking forward to play GT7 and who doesn't own a PS5 this is pretty bad (I own a PS4 since 2014 and loved every single second I played in it), I was pretty hyped for GT7 on the PS5 even though I didn't have one, I would potentially buy one just to play GT7 but if it really comes out to PS4 I will think it will a little bit disappointing since it would not be any different from GTS, and I really liked GTS, I was expecting something big and different since it would come out only for PS5, apparently I was wrong...

 

[RacingFan1]

Which means the PS4 version is either visually worse than GTS, or the PS5 version is not able to be as good as it should have been - and perhaps even both. And that's been the point all along.


Also "players will know" is a bit of a stretch. A lot of players with a particular interest in GT might know, but the majority won't; we still field questions about literal basic functions in GT Sport today, including where the career mode from GT6 has gone.

If I close my eyes I can see the forum threads from players who bought PS4 GT7 raging about how Sony ripped them off.

I bet it will look worse than GTS, but it's not such a big drama, GTS looks very good for PS4... Assetto or PCars for PS4 look worse.
We live in the age of information, gamers nodaways are very well informed about hardware and what they will get. They have youtube to see gameplays and reviews... Or else they have friends or even physical game shop dependents to inform you. If anyone rages about "being ripped off" for getting PS4 GT7 then I'd say its their fault for not knowing what they're getting.