Why doesn't Polyphony hire more people?

[vandaliser]

You are missing one

One of the worst penalty systems ever on a racing game

The FM series has always had a far superior penalty system than the terrible one we have on this game. As for FM4 I see a lot of GT5 regulars switching to it because they have features that people have been asking for for 7 months, the thing is these features will be in the game upon release, a game that took less than half the time GT5 did to make. Not only this but according to Eurogamer and Inside Sim Racing, FM4 will have the best physics on console (there own words).

As for the subject on PD hiring more people, I can't see it making a difference. They seem clueless as to what is wrong with their product and concentrate on putting stupid things like helmets and suits in the game, when they should be fixing the game breakers first. Turn 10 FTW.

best physics ever? from a preview check? lol seriously i can't take eurogamer or inside sim racing seriously anymore.

 

[GTP_Plato]

best physics ever? from a preview check? lol seriously i can't take eurogamer or inside sim racing seriously anymore.

Hmmm...I don't seem to remember using the word "ever" in my post, thats your own words

 

[Nattefrost]

Wading into this...

Firstly PD's aim is not "The Real Racing Simulator", but the "The Real Driving Simulator. Also Forza 4, does look decent, even as an ardent GT fan I will admit that. But here is a difference:

Forza's emphasis is on racing, GT is on driving. Part of what is good about GT are the touches like custom music, racing suits, changing your car's oil... It's out to provide a representation of the joy of driving. Forza is heavily race-oriented - look at the car listings to prove that.

Another thing I don't get. People say "Forza is going to beat GT hands down etc etc..."... why should microsoft (and PD vice-versa) compete with a game that is not even going on the same system? They are not in direct competition as rivals, but what they do is push the limits of driving games on consoles.


And on the DLC subject, PD has provided with a ton of updates and fixes since GT5 came out, for free! They care about their fans enough to do that. I think it is too late for DLC, and besides, if we got lots of DLC now, people will then complain when GT6 comes around that there is not enough new content!

I think that's part of GT's problem, it could do with a bit more focus on the racing aspect. At the end of the day, for all its other options, racing is where most of us want to spend our time. Either in direct competition or by doing time trials (I'd still class that as a form of racing). Doing 24h endurances, seasonal events, online racing, etc. Racing is at the heart of GT, not just driving.

That's where major improvements could be made, and it doesn't even have to come at great costs. Improving the race day experience by including practice and qualifying sessions and racing rules would do wonders already. It's not even something they'd have to hire more people for. Above all I think GT just needs some fresh creative input.

 

[trk29]

Firstly PD's aim is not "The Real Racing Simulator", but the "The Real Driving Simulator. Also Forza 4, does look decent, even as an ardent GT fan I will admit that. But here is a difference:

👍 This is what most don't understand they are completley different games.

Part of what is good about GT are the touches like custom music, racing suits, changing your car's oil... It's out to provide a representation of the joy of driving. Forza is heavily race-oriented - look at the car listings to prove that.

The music is GT is one thing that I really like and I think they have nailed it with every title. Hell I even bought the GT2's soundtrack.

And on the DLC subject, PD has provided with a ton of updates and fixes since GT5 came out, for free! They care about their fans enough to do that. I think it is too late for DLC, and besides, if we got lots of DLC now, people will then complain when GT6 comes around that there is not enough new content!

Like someone said before the reason for the updates and fixes is because the game is broken in many areas hence the word fix. I do believe that Kaz cares about the game and does want everyone to love it. But giving us those fixes is because the game needed it and if it were left alone GT5 would be a laughing stock. I still can't forget one of my friends, he has GT5 with no internet hooked up, well one thing is for sure is version of GT5 sucks. He is not as hardcore as a lot us and he has quit playing. I told him I would bring my rig over to his house and he was not interested.

Now DLC, I forgot we U.S. players got a Camaro if I bought a razor blade. Wooo hooo!
Suits for what reason, we wanted liveries not suits. So you can see my guy in a suit do a pose? Sounds like GT is turning into the "Real Photographer Simulator" You can't even see the driver in I don't know 800 or so cars, that makes sense. And lets not forget that there is over 650 suits, how the hell can someone collect them all without cheating the system and using multiple accounts to aqcuire them, one more flaw. Its not like you can be racing with several people and see through someones door window and say "Oh thats my buddy John, I can tell by the green stripe on his suit." That makes a whole lot more sense then a green stripe down the top of his car. I just don't understand and it frustrates me that Kaz actually paid someone to come up with almost 700 I will say it again almost seven hundred suits. Why not just 100, or 50? Time well spent in my opinion.

/sarcasm
/rant

I do hope they come out with a spec II, and blow me out of the water, but I just don't see that happening anytime soon maybe in a year we will get something like that followed by GT6 a couple of years later. So that would be about have of the development time of GT5.

 

[HKS racer]

I read they only have 2 sound designers. That's absurd if true. It obvious from the game which areas they are weak in, and it would make perfect sense because the sound is horrible in the GT series.

Sound is horrible in dashboard view, "1st person view", and hoodcam but when you choose the cam behind the car most of the times it sounds good. Problem is 90% of users don't like that cam and I'm one of them, in a simulator I want to be inside of the car not outside. PD should take care of dashboard view sound because they all sound the same.

 

[GTP_Plato]

Now DLC I forgot we US players got a Camaro if I bought a razor blade. Wooo hooo!
But to add suits in, for what reason so you can see my guy in a suit do a pose? You can't even see the driver in I don't know 800 or so cars, that makes sense.

This:tup:

I have to go back to a previous statement where I said PD were clueless as to what features should be priority

 

[vandaliser]

Hmmm...I don't seem to remember using the word "ever" in my post, thats your own words

'best physics on consoles' comment strikes me as really arse kissing. You cannot judge a game's physics from playing a preview.

 

[GTP_Plato]

'best physics on consoles' comment strikes me as really arse kissing. You cannot judge a game's physics from playing a preview.

We all learn't that from Prologue

 

[deep_sky]

Firstly PD's aim is not "The Real Racing Simulator", but the "The Real Driving Simulator.

What utter nonsense.

As per the GT5 box:

"...returns the redefine the racing genre"
"...take your place in the racing community"
"...Race over 1000 cars"
"become a racing driver"

So yes, GT is very much a racing game.

 

[FamilyForce5]

maybe off topic,but i just found this....and got sad

This was for GTHD not GT5. Look at the background.

 

[SuperCobraJet]

'best physics on consoles' comment strikes me as really arse kissing. You cannot judge a game's physics from playing a preview.

I must say, under that circumstance, it certainly brings it into question.

 

[Scaff]

Yes, I am stressed, I love the GT series, and I'd like to see the company behind it not go bankrupt. 👍

Given that PD are a fully owned subsidiary of Sony they are highly unlikely to ever go bankrupt.

As long as the products they produce are good marketing tools for Sony (and that one is to be honest quite hard to deny) and they sell well within the market segment they occupy (and that they have always, particularly when you look over the whole life of each GT product) they will remain open.

GT titles could loose money (they never have to date) and as long as they sold consoles and brought the right level of publicity to Sony they would still fund them and allow them to produce GT titles.

Keep in mind that the Veyron and the Ford GT lost significant sums of money on every unit sold, yet VAG and Ford were quite happy to do so as they produced a halo effect for the associated brands.

If you find "every aspect of the game enjoyable" then you haven't experienced how much better some of it could be. Simple as that, and no offense intended.

A rather arrogant way of looking at things given that enjoyment is personal and opinion based. You can disagree with someone's personal opinion but that doesn't make it wrong for them.

Personally I think the GT series has things it does well and things it does poorly and that's most likely the kind of view that the majority share. If you then however try and find a common consensus on what those 'things' are you are very unlikely to find a unified view.

Opinion can't be dismissed quite as easily as you seem to want, nor does it mean that those who disagree with you lack that experience.

FYI, how many cars were licensed for GT5? (Not 1,000, not even 200)

Having worked in the motor industry and been involved in product licensing I can assure you that every individual car needs to be agreed, right down to the variant and trim levels

So yes all 1,000 cars in GT5 would have required licence agreements, and those agreements would need to detail exactly how those products would be used and portrayed.

Don't agree the licence for them and use them and you are open to legal action of a massive nature, and one you would not start a hope of winning.


Scaff

 

[iamjajo]

Every business balances cost vs delivery (time to market, or service capacity) and demand.

PDI has figured out what they want and have sized their workforce accordingly.

I doubt if the numbers on the different sites indicate how much work PDI outsources to other development companies--a very common practice in this industry.

 

[Tireseas]

Are you seriously trying to equate PS1 game development time/complexity with PS3 game development time/complexity?

Not to mention the fact GT1 was started in 1992, for the math impaired that's 5-6 years of dev time depending on region.

GT2 was basically a car list expansion with a slightly tweaked graphics engine and more bugs along with a few missing features that were advertised.

GT3 if memory serves was mostly an update to the GT1/GT2 engine for the new PS2 architecture with much higher quality models (which accounted for a large portion of the dev time and the scaled back car list). I recall interviews at the time it was being built with Kaz talking about how easy it was to port PS1 code to the PS2.

That would make GT4 the first full on, top down rewrite of the codebase since the first game. Anyone got a solid figure on when PD started working on it? Would not surprise me in the least if it were parallel with the end stages of GT3. My money is on the total time being on par with GT1 and GT5.

Then you've got GT5, which was a colossal charlie foxtrot of poorly thought out marketing promises early in the cycle, changing targets mid cycle, and the distraction of GTSP thrown into the mix for seasoning. I'm amazed it came out as well as it did to be honest.

 

[Spagetti69]

So yes all 1,000 cars in GT5 would have required licence agreements, and those agreements would need to detail exactly how those products would be used and portrayed.

Scaff

Picking up on that I'm amazed that PD got some of the most poorly moddled last gen efforts past the manufacturers QC.

They surely couldn't have shown them up against premium competitors models.

I would imagine if they were hoodwinked into thinking all the cars would be the same then PR between them might be damaged.

 

[trk29]

Picking up on that I'm amazed that PD got some of the most poorly moddled last gen efforts past the manufacturers QC.

They surely couldn't have shown them up against premium competitors models.

I would imagine if they were hoodwinked into thinking all the cars would be the same then PR between them might be damaged.

Never thought of that.

Imagine what Bugatti must be thinking.

 

[Scaff]

Picking up on that I'm amazed that PD got some of the most poorly moddled last gen efforts past the manufacturers QC.

They surely couldn't have shown them up against premium competitors models.

I would imagine if they were hoodwinked into thinking all the cars would be the same then PR between them might be damaged.

Never thought of that.

Imagine what Bugatti must be thinking.

Again it depends on exactly what the manufacturers want to push and what focus they are after.

The Veyron is a good example, first what Bugatti think doesn't count for a thing, its what VAG want than counts. Now they managed to get a rather large focus placed on three historic products in terms of both premium models and Top Gear events. Then look at the number of VAG products that are premium models (around 15 if I recall or around 7.5% of all the premium models).

That's not a bad showing, particularly given the focus the historic models got in the Top Gear events.

Was that worth the trade off for a standard Veyron, I guess VAG thought so, after all its still in the game and they got a rather large product focus without it being premium.

With anything to do with marketing you have to think past the obvious and always keep in mind the size of the groups that own brands.


Regards

Scaff

 

[trk29]

Again it depends on exactly what the manufacturers want to push and what focus they are after.

Very good point. 👍

But why did there have to be a trade off and why couldn't PD give people a cockpit in one of the most ground breaking cars in the game? We could hypothesize all day but the fact is it should have been in there.

Just one more thing that makes no sense, if it were true that it was a trade off that is rediculous, this is a "car" racing game not a VAG tram game.

 

[Saidur_Ali]

Given that PD are a fully owned subsidiary of Sony they are highly unlikely to ever go bankrupt.

As long as the products they produce are good marketing tools for Sony (and that one is to be honest quite hard to deny) and they sell well within the market segment they occupy (and that they have always, particularly when you look over the whole life of each GT product) they will remain open.

GT titles could loose money (they never have to date) and as long as they sold consoles and brought the right level of publicity to Sony they would still fund them and allow them to produce GT titles.

Keep in mind that the Veyron and the Ford GT lost significant sums of money on every unit sold, yet VAG and Ford were quite happy to do so as they produced a halo effect for the associated brands.



A rather arrogant way of looking at things given that enjoyment is personal and opinion based. You can disagree with someone's personal opinion but that doesn't make it wrong for them.

Personally I think the GT series has things it does well and things it does poorly and that's most likely the kind of view that the majority share. If you then however try and find a common consensus on what those 'things' are you are very unlikely to find a unified view.

Opinion can't be dismissed quite as easily as you seem to want, nor does it mean that those who disagree with you lack that experience.



Having worked in the motor industry and been involved in product licensing I can assure you that every individual car needs to be agreed, right down to the variant and trim levels

So yes all 1,000 cars in GT5 would have required licence agreements, and those agreements would need to detail exactly how those products would be used and portrayed.

Don't agree the licence for them and use them and you are open to legal action of a massive nature, and one you would not start a hope of winning.


Scaff

I agree that PD are unlikely to go bankrupt, they are after all the biggest selling PlayStation exclusive on PS1, PS2 and now PS3 as far as I know. Did I really see you spell 'lose' like that, must be my eyes .

I think as far as product licensing is concerned, they probably just give the list of cars to the manufacturer and they agree that they can include them as long as they meet certain criteria, such as the levels of damage allowed.

Back to the thread title question, I think PD need to outsource or hire more people as I think they are overloaded. Kaz says it takes them 2 years to model a track and 6 months per car for an individual modeller. I think that is too long personally for a development team the size of PD to do it all in-house. I think Turn 10 have more outsourced modellers working on the cars and tracks, than PD have in total working on the entire game. Also PD unlike a lot of other PlayStation developers developed the PSP title of their game themselves which must have been a further strain of resources, but helped out with the ability to use the resources of GT5 for the cars and tracks. Some strange design issues with GT5 but I think all they need is more man power to make the game better in shorter time or a lot more time and I personally think the GT series will bloom back into life on the PS4 when they have the hardware to really make the game look good at 1080p at 60FPS. No more shadow complaints and only Premium cars for selection as well as 3D trees.

Also what I really wonder is will the next-generation consoles cut off SD support as I noticed that GT5 has a zoom function in SD mode when I used an SD capture device. Maybe that will give better possibilities for UI. I see the PS3 generation as a transition period to be honest like PS1 was for gaming and PS4 will be like what PS2 was for SD gaming from PS1.

Anyway, I have a previous post on employee numbers and development times. I think they did a reasonable job given the fact they are probably one of the few developers that do everything in-house and the size of the team is not huge.
https://www.gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?p=4574937#post4574937

We could say this is a big flaw in the way PD is being managed and they should get others to help them out on say models and they could personally polish the models themselves to their liking with most of the content done. I think they really need to increase the amount of people working on the game and just outsource the modelling and cut the numbers back in-house while increasing on other departments such as the AI and sound of the game as well as maybe game events. We have seen with Turn 10 what man power can do in Forza 3, they managed to get all the Forza 2 cars to be remodelled with cockpits and that is largely due to it being outsourced to two modelling companies probably larger in size than the whole of PD’s team. This allows Turn 10 to be more of a game developer, unlike PD who have a big in-house modelling team and have to be overstretched in all departments relating to developing the game further. It does not help that numbers of staff in all departments seem a lot less than half the number of their rivals on the other platform employ and I hope they address that. I think PD staff must work a lot longer hours, maybe that is why they can sleep where they work.

It is clear to see PD have talent as they have managed to get an amazing lighting system so early in GT, a weather system running on a game engine at a high frame rate, day to night cycles and 16 cars on track with very good detail in-game, not just in photo mode for premium cars and I think a lot of that is done to the talent at PD. I think with a bit more man power their potential could be realised, you only have to look at the trailers that PD put out to see they have the vision but not the hardware and maybe the resources to execute it fully and that will come with time and maybe with bolstering up their team.

I can understand for older people, they would be more disappointed about the way GT5 turned out but as I’m younger I can wait a good few years yet for me to get the ideal GT game I want without making a big fuss about it. I personally hope Sony wait until the CPU and GPU they will be using for PS4 will be at least at the 22nm manufacturing process as that will give many developers less headaches for making games run at 1080P and at 60FPS with high levels of detail. The load times will most likely be a lot less as the main reason why PS3 is so slow is due to how limited the RAM it has, I mean the amount of RAM is less than the amount in the cheapest netbook you can buy.

Finally about people on about standard cars quality, well car manufacturers licence their cars for mobile games and Nintendo Wii platforms, so I see no problem in car manufacturers wanting their cars in the game, even at standard quality in GT which is the level of most of the cars in the game. I think their fear is more towards car destruction, more than anything else hence why none of the cars can't fully stop in-game.

 

[TenEightyOne]

I think as far as product licensing is concerned, they probably just give the list of cars to the manufacturer and they agree that they can include them as long as they meet certain criteria, such as the levels of damage allowed.

That's not the case - the examination of the image, purpose and context is much more in depth than that.

Once the relevant criteria are met and an agreement-in-principle has been formed the paperwork then has to be generated... for every single territory. That's a lot of paperwork.

I bet that programmers form about 20% of the total PD staff! Making a game involves a lot more than just stacking the ones and zeroes the right way around

 

[trk29]

Back to the thread title question, I think PD need to outsource or hire more people as I think they are overloaded. Kaz says it takes them 2 years to model a track and 6 months per car for an individual modeller. I think that is too long personally for a development team the size of PD to do it all in-house. I think Turn 10 have more outsourced modellers working on the cars and tracks, than PD have in total working on the entire game. Also PD unlike a lot of other PlayStation developers developed the PSP title of their game themselves which must have been a further strain of resources, but helped out with the ability to use the resources of GT5 for the cars and tracks. Some strange design issues with GT5 but I think all they need is more man power to make the game better in shorter time or a lot more time and I personally think the GT series will bloom back into life on the PS4 when they have the hardware to really make the game look good at 1080p at 60FPS. No more shadow complaints and only Premium cars for selection as well as 3D trees.

The OP could have linked this picture and then the thread could have been closed.

Well I guess it doesn't answer the question but it shows the need to.

 

[CSLACR]

Given that PD are a fully owned subsidiary of Sony they are highly unlikely to ever go bankrupt.
As long as the products they produce are good marketing tools for Sony (and that one is to be honest quite hard to deny) and they sell well within the market segment they occupy (and that they have always, particularly when you look over the whole life of each GT product) they will remain open.
GT titles could loose money (they never have to date) and as long as they sold consoles and brought the right level of publicity to Sony they would still fund them and allow them to produce GT titles.

Keep in mind that the Veyron and the Ford GT lost significant sums of money on every unit sold, yet VAG and Ford were quite happy to do so as they produced a halo effect for the associated brands.

A rather arrogant way of looking at things given that enjoyment is personal and opinion based. You can disagree with someone's personal opinion but that doesn't make it wrong for them.

Arrogant? If you say so.
Online play with NFS Shift was far more enjoyable than GT5's, in every way, aside from driving physics.... but... Even GT5's physics are different online, so, what does that leave?
NFS was faster, cars didn't jump around the track looking as though they'd just crashed for no reason, it took less than an hour (exaggeration) to find decent lobby, etc.
Between the two, it's not a matter of opinion, the NFS online setup was better overall, features for either aside, it worked properly.

Personally I think the GT series has things it does well and things it does poorly and that's most likely the kind of view that the majority share. If you then however try and find a common consensus on what those 'things' are you are very unlikely to find a unified view.

Depends. How many people think there's enough A-Spec events? How many people think the A-Spec points system is well implemented? How many people like the paint system?
So I'd say it depends on if you're looking to have a majority ruling on every detail, or just obvious ones.
Maybe the 13 year old tuning setup?

Opinion can't be dismissed quite as easily as you seem to want, nor does it mean that those who disagree with you lack that experience.

That depends on what the opinion is based on.

Having worked in the motor industry and been involved in product licensing I can assure you that every individual car needs to be agreed, right down to the variant and trim levels

So yes all 1,000 cars in GT5 would have required licence agreements, and those agreements would need to detail exactly how those products would be used and portrayed.

Don't agree the licence for them and use them and you are open to legal action of a massive nature, and one you would not start a hope of winning.


Scaff

So they didn't already have license's for the 700+ cars in GT4 banked already? And the cars from GT5P, and GT PSP? Do you know this for a fact?

These were used as excuses for the game taking so long, and possibly why they can't take advantage of a larger staff..

So do you have any thoughts on whether or not PD should increase staff size to regain their status as the elite console driving game? If so, what does any of this have to do with it?

 

[MikeTheHockeyFan]

Arrogant? If you say so.
Online play with NFS Shift was far more enjoyable than GT5's, in every way, aside from driving physics....

[...]

NFS was faster, cars didn't jump around the track looking as though they'd just crashed for no reason, it took less than an hour (exaggeration) to find decent lobby, etc.
Between the two, it's not a matter of opinion, the NFS online setup was better overall, features for either aside, it worked properly.

You're holding NFS: Shift's multiplayer experience up as something to emulate? Jesus Christ.

You know the entire Online Racing forum section would not exist if GT had the limited, console-esque setup that NFS has?

I can understand many people are bitter because at this point there is no matchmaking system for a quick race online, but to think that the game's very detailed, PC sim racer style multiplayer lobby needs to be crippled is really misguided. The online lobby infrastructure enables the kind of variety of racing series we take for granted as being GTP members.

 

[CSLACR]

You're holding NFS: Shift's multiplayer experience up as something to emulate? Jesus Christ.

You know the entire Online Racing forum section would not exist if GT had the limited, console-esque setup that NFS has?

I can understand many people are bitter because at this point there is no matchmaking system for a quick race online, but to think that the game's very detailed, PC sim racer style multiplayer lobby needs to be crippled is really misguided. The online lobby infrastructure enables the kind of variety of racing series we take for granted as being GTP members.

No, I like the customization.
I don't like being booted from rooms because people are to lazy to type "members only" which wastes 5 minutes of my life.
I don't like not being able to see restrictions without entering and wasting 5 minutes of my life.
I don't like having no clue where the car actually is in front of me, as opposed to the tire-smoking bandit car crashing... WHOOOP! there he is!..oh, crashing, WHOOP!..........

SO...

Features Aside

NFS Shift 1 had better online play...

Because it worked properly

Edit: I also don't like being booted all the way home whether I leave an online race, get disconnected (something that almost never happened in NFS) or get booted, wasting even more of my time.

 

[kimi123]

Did I equate them?
Or did I say 7 people made the most significant GT game to date, in less time than the current, possibly least significant advancement?

What did GT5 bring to the table that no other racing has ever brought? PS3 eye compatibility? 3D TV compatibility?

No, seriously. The GT series was a front runner in originality, creativity, and features unheard of. While they continued adding "features" that are new, such as listed above, nobody has 3D TV's, and only a handful have and use the Eye.

They focused to much on having these new features, as was just said, likely being pushed by Sony, meanwhile, Kaz had his own vision, and between the two there wasn't nearly the manpower resource to complete anything in the time frame it should have taken.

If you would like to say it's not a manpower issue, feel free to give a reason. But as we already know the rivals of the series are using more people, and getting the job done.
GT5 was great because I bought the PS3 strictly for it, and never considered an XBOX. Now I'm considering an XBOX just for Forza 4.
(My main interference is having to buy another wheel that I can't use for GT5, on a limited budget.)

GT5 has more features, content than any video game. What innovation can a racing game or rather sim need. More cars, tracks, realistic graphics, physics are most important things. GT has sold more than 60millions which is more than any other racing franchise.
http://www.polyphony.co.jp/english/list.html


Probably NFS series has more but including on all platform as they are making 2 games a year these days but different team is doing that.

If they want more guys to make more games I think they will do it. I don't think it is a problem.

 

[deep_sky]

GT5 has more features, content than any video game.

GT5 does indeed have a lot of features...most of them pointless.

B-Spec, Remote Racing, Museum, 3D, GT TV...who in their right mind would rather have those set of features in place of a Livery Editor, an online feature-set that isn't something out of the dark ages, better support for the online community and more in-depth car customisation?

You'd have to insane to pick GT's set of features over that of the competition. Yeah, it's great GT5 has those features, but they should absolutely not have taken precedent over features like car personalisation and online, certainly not when competition is already miles ahead, and just going to continue pushing even further ahead.

 

[CSLACR]

GT5 has more features, content than any video game. What innovation can a racing game or rather sim need. More cars, tracks, realistic graphics, physics are most important things. GT has sold more than 60millions which is more than any other racing franchise.
http://www.polyphony.co.jp/english/list.html


Probably NFS series has more but including on all platform as they are making 2 games a year these days but different team is doing that.

If they want more guys to make more games I think they will do it. I don't think it is a problem.

No, I don't think NFS does sell more total.
NFS Shift has far more real world tracks.
So because GT has had past success, nothing should ever change?

And please describe all these awesome features GT5 has no other game currently out has.

GT5 does indeed have a lot of features...most of them pointless.

B-Spec, Remote Racing, Museum, 3D, GT TV...who in their right mind would rather have those set of features in place of a Livery Editor, an online feature-set that isn't something out of the dark ages, better support for the online community and more in-depth car customization?

You'd have to be insane to pick GT's set of features over that of the competition. Yeah, it's great GT5 has those features, but they should absolutely not have taken precedent over features like car personalisation and online, certainly not when competition is already miles ahead, and just going to continue pushing even further ahead.

How about the same physics online as the rest of the game, coupled with being able to see other cars online, and what they're really doing, instead of crashing?
Just adding to your list.

Kimi - FYI, the series has sold roughly 63 million, GT5 makes up 6.3 of that, out of essentially 6 games, 1/10th of the sales. True, it will continue to sell some copies, but it'll be the lowest in the series, undoubtedly.

 

[shurnster]

I think Turn 10 have more outsourced modellers working on the cars and tracks, than PD have in total working on the entire game.

Actually Turn 10 had a different company to model some of the cars, parts, kit, wheels and tracks for forza 3.

 

[CSLACR]

Actually Turn 10 had a different company to model some of the cars, parts, kit, wheels and tracks for forza 3.

See - "outsourced" (outside source)

 

[Nattefrost]

Kimi - FYI, the series has sold roughly 63 million, GT5 makes up 6.3 of that, out of essentially 6 games, 1/10th of the sales. True, it will continue to sell some copies, but it'll be the lowest in the series, undoubtedly.

I wouldn't be so sure of the last bit. It can easily sell another few million copies over the years. If it sells 3M more, it's on par with GT2. Another way to look at it is by adding the Prologue and final release sales. GT4 + GT4P stands at 12.46M in that case, while GT5 + GT5P hits 11.32M. Admittedly GT4P and GT5P are different beasts, but the numbers show the GT brand is still as strong as ever.