Gran Turismo's 25th Anniversary: what are your favorite memories of this franchise?

[Good Day]

What was your first Gran Turismo game? How did you discover it and what attracted you to it?
I liked cars all my life. I collected toy cars of all kinds, but my favorite ones were the cars from the Tomica brand. Their weeks somehow gave a pleasing aesthetic that really struck me. But I did get all the major brands: Hot Wheels, Matchbox, very rarely Maisto.

Then one day, things changed.

It was September 2006. I was six years old. My family and I had left the Philippines for a chance at the American dream. We left Manila aboard a Northwest Airlines 747 to Nagoya, Japan, then onward to Detroit, Michigan, after which we went on another flight to Newark, New Jersey. When we landed, we were brought into a car and we drove along US 1&9 onto the Pulaski Skyway then to Route 440.

We arrived at a townhouse in the Country Village neighborhood of Jersey City, New Jersey to live with my grandparents Fortunato and Natividad and my uncles Cary and Tom. It was so surreal to see how everything was so different in America. It took a while to settle in.

One day, I noticed that they had a PlayStation 2. I think my uncle Cary was playing a racing game, probably Ridge Racer, but I can't say for sure, because it wasn't as memorable as what was to come. But I tried it, and I would like to say that I had some fun. Then I found a copy of Gran Turismo 3 A-Spec in the shelves. I loaded it and soon I was engrossed with it.

I wasn't playing it properly. I was rather confused by things such as races. I was more focused by the idea that I could move my car, so I wandered around the tracks. But I didn't care. The sights and sounds grabbed me from the get-go.

A few months later, my family went to shop at the Target downtown. I saw a copy of Gran Turismo 4 that caught my eye, so I persuaded my dad to buy it. I treated it the same way, but it was there that I was exposed to the Photo Mode feature for the first time. That would go in a big way, but for now, it was just another virtual playground for me.

Then my parents got me a PlayStation 3 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for Christmas 2008. It was that game, with its driving line, that taught me how to race. Sure enough, I was hooked. Then I found this site, keeping track of all the developments of the series. I got a PSP and the Gran Turismo game for it. And I shared in the frustration when I found out that Gran Turismo 5 had been delayed.

So when I got it, I dove right in. I raced and raced with my DualShock 3 controller, but what really dragged me in was the Photo Mode. I was taking pictures of the cars, the environments, the people, everything.

It awakened something else inside me: my creativity.

Sure enough, I got the other games as well. 6,  Sport, 7. I dove right in, racing cars and taking pictures.

So yeah, that's where I am today.

What's your favorite memory playing a Gran Turismo game?
I would say my favorite memory was taking pictures in Photo Mode.

Did Gran Turismo have a significant influence your life? If so, how?
Again, it did: it helped me pursue photography and the arts as a genuine interest of mine. And now I am preparing to exhibit and sell prints of pictures I took in Gran Turismo Sport. It has basically come full circle: fron reality to virtual and back.

What keeps you coming back to Gran Turismo? What makes it special to you?
I guess it would have to be loyalty. Lots of people have opinions about it, not all of it positive. But that's only because they see it as if it was a child they have to take care of, or a friend that's lost its way, or something like that.

What makes it special to me is that it came to me at a pivotal time in my life, where I was in an unfamiliar world and it pulled me into "The Drive of Your Life". And I am still on it.

Why do you think the franchise has been successful over 25 years?
Perhaps it's because of its humanity. It's both perfect and imperfect, perfectly imperfect, and imperfectly perfect. It hooks you in, it gets you frustrated, and you expect disappointment, but you still have a sense of achievement. No wonder car companies are lining up at Polyphony Digital's door.

 

[lqpl]

Well done!

Like+subscriiiiiiiiiiibed! 😎

 

[Tired Tyres]

What was your first Gran Turismo game? How did you discover it and what attracted you to it?

I got a playable demo of GT1 on a magazine cover disc. It was enough to buy the full game.

What's your favorite memory playing a Gran Turismo game?

In GT4. I did the 9 hours of Tsukuba. I ran it in a tuned Toyota MR-S in yellow. The opposition came from a Mazda RX-7. It was faster than me under all equal tyre conditions except when we both had blue tyres. I was faster then. The cat and mouse battle between us lasted the entire 9 hours. I won by 6.9 seconds.

Did Gran Turismo have a significant influence your life? If so, how?

I felt that gaming generally for me was over by the end of the PS2 era. That lasted as long as it took to discover that there was a playable demo of GTHD available and then I was off to the shops to buy a PS3. Gaming has become my main hobby.

What keeps you coming back to Gran Turismo? What makes it special to you?

The never ending hope that the new game will be as good as GT2, 3 or 4. Sadly the internet connection consoles mean the focus on GT-Mode gets neglected.

Why do you think the franchise has been successful over 25 years?

Kaz has maintained his love of the car through the game. Long may it continue.

 

[ICEYOU3]

Hmm my greatest Gran Turismo memory? Hmm... Oh I know! Getting Gran Turismo 3 as a 6 year-old and hating it! Guess it was too advance for me at the time lol Came back to the franchise years after with Gran Turismo 4 and remember loving that. Personally Gran Turismo 5 was the real starting point for me.

Through the years of playing Gran Turismo the series has increased my passion for cars, opened me up to new genres of music, helped improved my sense of aesthetic and inspired me to become a car designer. Say what you want about him, but Kazunori Yamauchi is the GOAT! And one of my heroes in automotive industry!

 

[Seikenfreak]

Been a long time. Gran Turismo has undoubtedly had an affect on my interests, tastes, and maybe even my personality.

I do believe GT1 was the first one I owned and played. I do still have my original copy but it's hard for me to recall any specific memories (it was a turbulent point in my young life) except for one: I remember going to a neighbors house for some reason and seeing the father, who I believe was a professional football player (for the Eagles maybe?), was playing GT1 or 2 and had a ton of credits and so many cars. He let me sit down and play it for a bit. I think it blew me away because I never saw adults playing or into video games, let alone this racing one that I enjoyed.

It's much easier for me to reflect on how it's had an affect on what I appreciate about a car and having an open mind about where things originate and how products are made. The classic GT experience of seeing some obscure car, or even a car you see everyday but appeared to have a different name, only to dig into the "Info" text and learn that the vehicle is essentially living a double life, often a better one, on the other side of the world. That governments don't always necessarily have the peoples best interests in mind. To learn that the world isn't all equal and fair

I think GT was a valid teaching tool. Simply through the available player choice of a lower powered yet smaller, lighter, and better engineered vehicle, you're taught that it's not all about big horsepower and displacement-- an idea that runs rampant in the US. The License Tests were probably where I was introduced to the fundamentals of driving and racing now that I think about it. "The Line" is as basic or complex as it needs to be and, even just as a video game player, can be somewhat universally applied to anything from Mario Kart to Need for Speed, Wipeout, Rollcage, up to Simbin's GTR or iRacing or any other racing game you can think of. And yet none of those games attempt to explain it, let alone teach it to the player. The basics of vehicle control and weight management begin to introduce a young mind to the concept of physics and, by extension, how it affects and might be applied to all things in they're life. I most definitely took that knowledge and translated it to my real world track use. When you're young, long before you can drive, and you don't know anything, the game doesn't need to be the most accurate sim ever and it can still teach you concepts.

I can even say messing with the livery editor has helped me explore and learn tools like Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. Scouring the web for company logos. Trying to replicate a real world race car leading down a rabbit hole of discovery and history related to people, cars, and companies I wouldn't have otherwise been aware of.

Another memory I have is leading up to GT4s release. Back then, Japan would typically get games earlier. I was crazy enough to import a new NTSC-J PS2 and a copy of GT4 just so I could play it a few months early. I don't think I was yet aware of PS2 modding or swap discs etc back then. I still have that system and the game, among a bunch of other Japanese GT copies, to this day. GT is the only game series that I've spent that much money to import a console and game just to play it earlier Oh! And I remember getting Bleemcast just to play GT2 on my Dreamcast. It looked awesome for the time. Similar to the very cool "Hi-Res" bonus race thing in GT1.

GT Sport was certainly a unique chapter in my history with the series. I'm not much of an online player, particularly later in life, but this is what Polyphony put out and I gave it a shot. Online was really all there was to do at launch so I gave it an honest go. Once I was able to reach the S+/S tier of racing, it really came alive for me. It was no longer carnival bumper cars and the actual Nations/Manufacturers events had good servers and latency that allowed for close racing. Then you start to become familiar with and see a segment of "regulars" you race with which gave it a bit more of a real or personal experience. It was a lot of fun in the beginning during the "Test Phase" of GT Sport. I recorded and uploaded a number of races but I think my proudest moment or most exciting was partaking in the first Top 24 Super Stars Nations Cup Race. The adrenaline rush was so real and terrifying. At the time, I knew I was racing against some of the fastest people in the community. Some of which were former GT Academy participants and more would later go on to actually compete in the current GT e-sports series. I was able to qualify around mid-pack and unfortunately my recorded footage doesn't show a lot of who was in the race. I believe Igor and Snow were up front 🤔 Really annoyed at myself that I don't have a list of all the participants. It was a super fun race though. Not long after that, having already spent months playing it on a daily basis (which is very unlike me), I fell off of Sport mode. And once I got off the competitive wagon, it was not worth it for me to get back on. I'd just get obliterated in Sport mode races, so I effectively retired from playing GT online even to this day lol



What keeps me coming back to Gran Turismo? The presentation. The level of care and detail. The music. GT has a unique, cool yet classy vibe and style. Even with all of it's flaws, no other series gives cars the level of reverence and love that we feel they deserve. Sure, some other series are released more frequently, but as a result they feel like soulless, half-assed cash grabs. They feel like a softcover, overly colorful childrens book when GT feels like a heavy, high quality, leatherbound, rich in information coffee table book. Or a piece of Ikea furniture vs a seasoned carpenter's hand made piece. I still go back and enjoy playing older GT entries where as I almost never go back and play, let's say ahem Forza for example. I think what GT is and how it carries itself is something mature I imagine will resonate even more with the player as they get older.

So all that being said; what is the most direct affect it has had in my real life? The purchase and import of an R32 GTR seems most obvious. Gran Turismo informed me of it's existence and Best Motoring showed me what it could do. I distinctly remember my friend and I, learning about the arbitrary 25 year rule we have in the US while absolutely salivating over all of these cool cars that were never available in the US. It was, and is, upsetting. This was likely before I could even drive. Thinking to ourselves.. 25 years man. That is so far away that it feels like it'll never happen. Time flies as it is known to do and when that time finally came, at a completely different stage of my life of course, I remember playing Shutokō Battle 2: Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya & Masaaki Bandoh on my Super Nintendo one late January night in 2015. I was doing endless laps in the the R32 just chilling and the idea crept back into my mind.. Is it time? Do I do it? A seemingly monumental undertaking and risk. Two months later, I sold my heavily modified 2005 Impreza STI and went on the hunt for an R32 GTR. Finding one didn't take long; getting it did. 5 months later on August 24th 2015, the day after my 28th birthday, it arrived at my door. It took another 3 months of frustrating legal BS before I was able to drive it on the road. I wouldn't have even known this car existed if it wasn't for playing Gran Turismo as a kid. I've had it for 7 years now and I've decided to sell it. Not because I don't like the car, but because there are so many other cars that I'm aware of and that I have such broad taste, all thanks to GT of course, that there are so many other cars I still want to try.

Even beyond that, it's indirectly affected where I am living: My living situation was forced to change in the last year or two and I needed to figure out where to go. I now reside in Tennessee about 20 mins away from the Tail of the Dragon, one of the most popular and amazing areas for any car or motorcycle enthusiast in the United States. I've since met far too many people and made plenty of friends.

Gran Turismo exists in the exact cross section of my two biggest passions: Video Games and Cars. I learned how to do all my own repair and service work on my own cars (and most of my working life as operated in the automotive space.) And I love tinkering with video games. I love playing them. I love fixing/restoring/repairing the hardware. I've got a decent collection that I've amassed over my 30 year gaming life. And I've also had a variety of very cool and fun cars. I absolutely play the GT games like a sales brochure when I'm thinking about owning a certain car. Are the dynamics 1:1? No, but the visuals often are in the newer games. I can read details about it in game. I can look at paint color options. It helps me mentally exploring the idea of owning that car. It's a supplemental tool to all the online car reviews or forums.

Most would agree that the Gran Turismo series is not living up to it's potential, but that is often decided by budgets and time, things that we the consumer can only guess at. Even still, it is and continues to be one of the best experiences available and I look forward to seeing how far they take it.

** Okay, need to post this already because the dang power keeps going out.

 

[GT5 Level 41]

I'll give you three.

1) Playing the PS1 Demo disk 1000 times.
2) Beating the X2014 Redbull Suzuka event.
3) Trading paint, horns and other items in GT5? (4?)

Bonus. Waiting in line at Gamestop for a midnight release.

 

[smoothbore12]

To cut a long story short.
Since i was a fan of F1 from teen age ,i was playing only that type of games in my pc ( the era that one megabyte was huge amount of space ) and hit the limit with the microprose one , updating always my pc etc.
When GT hit the road .....that was it.
The pluralism,the sounds , the tracks the whatever it was just kept me as a " prisoner" to the series.
But also and prisoner of Sony of course.
Best memories, how difficult i felt when i was trying a license with a Viper ...... Couldn't even straight this thing ( lovely thing ) .
But after practicing day by day it becomes very easy to gold it again and again .
Many hours ,every day and causei was working i made my first seat ( like f1 nose ) adding a Logitech wheel and was easy since i am a carpenter.
I was in great respect in a very wide area in my town back then for my skills in GT and if someone wanted an advice or something about the game , always waiting for me to show up in the store ( was common back then ) that people rent video movies and games to talk about it .
Meanwhile the internet start spreading and don't know exactly when,but i did my first account in gt planet .
I think was at gt3 era before the game show up with some promotion copies like Tokyo Geneva or something like that .
I had a long brake after gt3 and the reason was that i was spending all my attention to F1 and saving money to visit once in a year the real thing.
First time was Hungary and after that 8 times follow ( almost every year from 2002 ) to go to my favourite track .....Monaco .
The time pass ,ps3 was ridiculous expensive just to play only one game and i skip gt5 and come back on gt6 on a second hand ps3 3 years ago.
The hidden passion comes alive , GT sport never attract me and i skip also ps4 .
My financial condition isn't the way it was due to crisis we faced in my country and am quite pissed with Sony with the availability of ps5 and price politics from every seller in nowadays but am patient enough not to bite the " hook" .
My relationship with gt7 is on a small guy's ps4 pro which i bought him as a present the gt7 and we play it together sometimes .
Someday ill get back but in my terms.

GT series affected my life as it change and open " wide" the world of cars especially the sports and super cars , supercars that i saw and hear moving visiting Monaco for the F1 races.
As a driver in real life am quite common and ordinary , i treat my car as a " fridge" rather than a car .
Just working properly,safe and most important? Always working..
Thats it from me guys ,goin at 58 in a few and counting.
Very interesting stories here ,hope to read them all.

As about the success all these years i can say that is different things every period, at first was the game itself, no internet and media,just the game .
Now is way different than the past , its easy to promote a game and gt7 is sold almost with every console as a part of a bundle which isn't really a bundle and sales look good but in fact there's no way a kid smaller than the age of 10-12 to stick on it as was happening at the past .
I doubt that any other gt since gt5 and back will make so many new fans .
Now things are more " professional " and must be profitable also and the Fun factor is not as high they use to be.
Different times anyway .

 

[John Smith UK]

For me it was the wow factor of that first game, nothing else on any platform played as good or looked as good

 

[turk1993]

First time that i played a car game with real world cars. I was hyped when i saw my uncles Audi in the game, he was blown away how good it looked lol.

 

[Nowax]

Nice musical taste!

 

[Monkdapunk]

Having fun for hours in GT 5 doing shuffle races with this group that would always be doing it. That's the best memory out of many great ones. I think it was a British guy hosting it all the time. The races were always different results so everyone had a good time depending on the car they ended up with. I recall the RUF Yellowbird and the Shelby Cobra were the ones that you didn't want. We would joke around and make fun of each other. Good times.

 

[danimac]

My first experience was GT1 and GT2 at a school friends birthday party only played like 10 minutes of each game on PS1 but didn’t know much about Gran Turismo. But knew it was the talk of the town. This is the new popular racing game everyone was talking about. That kinda thing. (He’s like yeah it’s fun I got part 2 for my birthday) I was so happy to finally have a go at them back then.

When the PS2 was a year or two old my dad got me a second hand one from a guy who was selling it, it was in very good condition he wanted an N64 instead. So we got the PS2 it came with Tokyo Geneva. That was my real first GT game and long term experience playing GT. Then I borrowed my friends GT3 A spec for a few days and then once GT4 came out I was a fully fledged Gran Turismo fan.

I am ashamed to admit that my dumb 13 year old self asked my friends if they wanted Tokyo Geneva to the reply of no. And I said okay I’m gonna throw it in the garbage. My friends dared me to snap the disc so I did.

Once I was an adult and into PS3 games I realised how dumb I was to do that. I collect all my old games now and I still can’t believe I didn’t keep Geneva. I’m gonna buy it one day to add back to my GT collection. I have also owned and played GT5 prologue, GT5, GT6, Sport and GT7. I have played the GTHD concept and the PSP in a store once.

I actually played some GT4 on the PC with my old PS2 disc a few months ago and it was still fun after all these years.

Congratulations on 25 years Polyphony Digital, Kaz, Sony, PlayStation and Gran Turismo. It’s fair to say that Gran Turismo has been apart of my childhood for many years and I’m still enjoying the game franchise after 25 years. I’m so grateful Gran Turismo was created. Thank you PD and Kaz.

 

[KaiB]

Good memorys, when the first GT game came out i already had 15 years old and played many racing games before, on consoles and also on PC and even spectrum...

But the only thing i have to mention its GT3, yes the firsts will always be memorable but GT3 its in my opinion the best GT and probably the best racing game ever launched, best in terms of evolution and the biggest leap i ever saw in any racing game both in terms of visuals and gameplay using a gamepad.
Was that so that i totally lost interest in next releases on Ps3 i skept gt5 and 6, played them cause a friend of mine had the game but didnt buy any of those.

I got GT sport cause of online and better physics and my life got settled had more time to invest.

I think Gt3 was the pinacle of GT games..., since then GT got stucked in the same formula, similar cameras same vibes no inovation.

Still a great game GT7 its very fun and physics are the best of the series but still something feels wrong, i cant ignore the fact im still stucked to the classic camera view and no options like a modern racing game should have.

But still its my most played game on PS5 and still getting fun, but the devs could do a little bit more, such basic stuff missing, GT should be a reference now i feel its just a very good racing game just like many other good racing games out there but with less immersion/fov options.

 

[chebuzdatel]

I don't remember my first time in GT, but it was GT2 and around 2000-2002. I remember the crazy soundtrack of "The Cardigans" in the intro video of the game. I remember how I put racing modifications on the Peugeot 406, and how I broke the analogue of the gamepad by endlessly playing GT2. I remember buying a racing Dodge Viper and couldn't understand why it started to go slower when I put other tires on it.)) All these are priceless memories for me as a car and racing lover who now writes articles on Super GT and F1 racing, thanks Kaz Yamauchi for my childhood.

 

[Sonic939]

Well, here goes my honest opinion, for me this saga until the fourth installment was my driving video game saga, then after 5 it was no longer what it ended up being, and what to say about the last 2, with that DRM it made I forgot about them

 

[gtrotary]

Kaz and Polyphony have carried Sony first party since day 1.

 

[Lambob]

I played the very first Test Drive on Commodore Amiga (and Coleco Turbo prior to that) , then stopped at Indy Car Racing by Papyrus on the PC. I never had a console after that, but I was impressed by the hardware that was the PS3, and got intrigued with discovering about GT5 to come, albeit close to 3 years later. I never heard of Gran Turismo prior, my bad. I had my nose deep in RTS games and such. When I bought GT5p , I had to show all my friends and family, got a Wheel and all. upon showing the intro, POOF went my PS3 to black screen. aw well, Sony had an amazing advance swap policy, and sent me another to POOF went again to black screen. I learned about cleaning and repasting the Cell CPU that can cook an egg still inside its shell, and got a 3rd market cooler for that PS3 FAT edition. It's been Nurburgring Nordschleife and other great world circuit training ever since. Thank you to PD & Sony, for converting me ever since. looking forward to VR2 experience with Gran Turismo 7 on the PS5. Right? Right! (no, your other right..) Long live PD, Sony , Japan, & GTPlanet & fans.

 

[UndeniablyTre]

My best friend and I tuning cars to go against each other (split screen) on Complex String!

He is a huge american fan so would always tune the ACR Viper and I would go against him in the Castrol Supra. The Turbo kick on that was amazing!

 

[sonnyboychris]

• What was your first Gran Turismo game? How did you discover it and what attracted you to it?
  
  • The original PS1 game and my love of cars.
    
• What's your favorite memory playing a Gran Turismo game?
  
  • 2 player co-op with my neighborhood friend.
    
• What keeps you coming back to Gran Turismo? What makes it special to you?
  
  • GT Sport rekindled my love for the game and sim/sim-ish racing in general. However, it was the PSVR1 integration that really hooked me.

 

[shadow0460]

The red Impreza in the GT1 demo.
Winning at Grand Valley in the Dodge Concept Car.
Winning time trials at Seattle in GT2.
Running Tokyo 246 in GT3.
Winning a formula car at the Apricot Hill Enduro in GT3.
PANAMA! PANAMA AH AH AH!
Building the Love Bug in GT7. If it ever becomes possible I'll build cars from other movies and TV shows, including the Dukes of Hazzard.