That's their choice. Sony is not a poor company, and the budget for GT5 was MASSIVE. PD could have more people, hire outside sources, whatever they want.
They chose, and continue to choose, not to.
This is actually not true. Sure, money is flowing around through SONY like crazy, but I'm not sure they're going to post a profit this year. I'm not even sure they did last year. I googled some articles but it's a very confused picture.
SONY is basically three companies in one: a constellation of movie and music studios, SONY Computer Entertainment and SONY Electronics. Because of the worldwide depression, the electronics side is suffering a lot. Microsoft is making out like the Mafia because they mostly produce software, very expensive software. SONY actually makes stuff, and those production costs are having to be written off by the other two branches. That $80 million-plus investment in GT5? - and who knows how big it really is now - wasn't a huge gamble by SONY, but it seriously hurt them to have to write those checks for five years.
SONY made that all back and much more in just a few months, and from Polyphony's website, they are looking for more talent for the group. But the size they get to is entirely dependent on SONY to fund that. I'm hopeful that they do, and the modeling and art staff get beefed up by a few dozen, and some online specialists wouldn't hurt either. But we'll just have to hope SONY sees the benefit of a big Polyphony Digital, and Kaz can find those dozens of dedicated, trustworthy people he can rely on to join the family.
surely you must look at what Forza 4 is doing and think, in regards to the previous discussion about staff numbers and outsourcing, that it could be even better if they made some similar decisions?
Excuse me if I open up a big can of "Oh hell no."
When I was playing Forza 4 still, I decided to do the livery thing and paint up some cars. This is the one thing that Forza does exceptionally well in my eyes, and making race cars is what I enjoy doing most in the game.
Except that right off the bat, problems with the vinyls misbehaving on some of the car's surfaces happened. Microsoft just doesn't ooze class and quality like Polyphony does, and outsourcing causes issues like these that you have to iron out.
Now sure, you can scream bloody murder about the Standard cars and tracks in GT5 - like I really care, or the particle effects and shadows, which I'll grant you. We all expected GT5 to look better than Prologue, not be a little bit worse. But unfortunately, between Kaz's ambitions to do all he could and SONY meddling to squeeze in support for the 3D Bravias, the GT5 Engine has been pushed pretty hard with a lot of processor-expensive demands. If he had taken his two years to perfect GT5 and released it in 2012, I'm sure that many of us would have jumped ship by now out of exasperation. I know some of you snicker about GT5 being unfinished, but unless you have severe memory lapses or are new around here, that's
exactly what the mobs demanded: release GT5 NAOW and patch it up later!
Well, so now some of you don't like the fact that we got our game rushed out the door, and you're blaming
who? 
Hey, I finally gave into the screaming mobs myself, and I'm VERY happy with what we got. Yes, it still needs some tweaking, but I'm not sure how far that can go on PS3 without PD doing a tear down of the engine to the core to see if there are a few thousand cycles of hidden resources they can tap. I mentioned several things they could do to scavenge horsepower in the dead GT6 thread, but that's another subject. On the DLC thing, I'm content to buy whatever they can put together for us, because this is the one racing game which rules them all. To me. I'm just not a big sim fan. I like owning cars, not loaners. I like medium powered hatchbacks as much or more than supercars and race cars. And the physics and A.I. of GT5 are very close to what I get in GTR. Sure, the new generation of racing games are finally here, and GTR 3, rFactor 2 and C.A.R.S. look decent. But that style of racing has never been a huge sell. Forza 4 would be that game, and it's selling about as well as Forza ever has, so I don't expect these games to do more than set the same old sim crowd on fire.
You can call me a blind fanboy all you want, but if GT5 had been produced as a GTR game by SIMBIN on PC back in 2007, I'd have waved goodbye to the boards and raced my brains out on this game while I waited for GT5 to finally get here in three years. And if that GTR had been better? I'd buy Gran Turismo games for nostalgia's sake, but most of my racing would be in this new breed of sim which is actually COOL! I just can't see any of those sims having the flavor, the panache or class of what Kazunori and his superb team bring to the table.
If you disagree, awesome. Merry Christmas!
LOL, this is starting to get ridiculous. GT6 should be changed to "Gran Nismo"
