Your Gran Turismo Origin Story

[rheinaoi]

What year was it? Where were you? What made you gravitate towards Gran Turismo?

I’ll go first. It was 2001 and I was sitting at my middle school lunch table when my friend said “GT3 is the most realistic racing game available.” Naturally I had to check it out and I got hooked immediately.

That was 21 years ago.

What is your Gran Turismo origin story?

I was a massive fan of Sega's arcade racing games - Daytona USA 2, Sega Rally, Sega Super GT / S.C.U.D, Race. I only had Sega consoles then -- I knew of GT1 and GT2 and admired them from afar. I sampled GT1-3 at friends' houses. Always, I was frustrated that I couldn't give the game the time it deserved. GT3 on an old Logitech wheel was my first experience with a home forcefeedback wheel. It was the best driving experience outside the arcades.

A dear aunt bought my cousins and I a PS2 around 2002. I got GT3 immediately and dug into the licenses; refusing to move into the rest of the game until I golded everything. I even did a presentation for a university speech class on how to gold GT3's final Super License (Toyota GT1 around Monaco).

I've been a GT enthusiast ever since. I bought GT5 Prologue and stared at the box for a week to convince myself to get a PS3 GT7 and a dead PS4 Pro also dragged me into a PS5 upgrade.

Over 20 years later, I still have the PS2 that my aunt gave my cousins and me.

 

[savior972]

Hello,

At the end of 1999, I saw the GT 1 demos running in the shop window of a video game shop and was completely blown away by the graphics. A while later, I borrowed my brother’s PS1 along with a huge stack of demo CDs that were still included with PlayStation magazine back then. Among them was a GT 1 demo, which I played until I dropped. That was my introduction to Gran Turismo. I went and bought a PS1 back then – I had to drive all over the place just to get hold of one. Gran Turismo was, of course, included. I then played every GT game until I more or less turned my back on the PlayStation in 2006.

In 2022, I searched for GT info on YouTube, mainly because I just wanted to know how the series had developed. I watched quite a few GT7 videos and was completely hooked again.

In the summer of 2023, I bought the PS5 and since then I’ve been right back in my element. I love it.

I’ve also bought a PS2 with GT 3 and 4 and a PS3 with GT 5 and 6 as collector’s items.

I now have a steering wheel, a rig and VR, and I’m enjoying every minute of GT 7.




Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

 

[Jflijohn]

I’ll be 65 this year (available for Medicare 🤬), I’ve been playing computer games since the late ‘70s. In the ‘90s, I began building my own PCs or at least upgrading PCs, always gamers with the best video cards I could get… Frame-rate is Life!

I’ve played games like Missile Command, Half-Life and LOTS of Counterstrike around 2000-2005. My love has always been sims though, most of my time went to the Jane’s Sims Like F-15, F-18 and of course, my favorite, Falcon 4.0 (F-16 sim). As the Flight Sim manuals became too thick and realistic, the general public’s interest waned…I moved on to racing sims. Early titles like Grand Prix Circuit, NASCAR (papyrus had some pretty good games). Early 2000ish I got my first wheel (pictured is my now 32 year old daughter).
Iva also, always been a racing fan, beginning with Hot Wheels, (Snake and Mongoose, Dragsters, lots of F1 and Indy Car and NASCAR in the Rusty Wallace days.
At some point I got busy with life, work brought more responsibilities and I got tired of chasing video cards.
Always a race fan though, although my interests moved away from F1 and NASCAR to more of the IMSA/ Indy Car scene, my guys were Max Papis, Alex Zanardi Jacque Villeneuve Penske-Unser but the best was when Nigel Mansel came to Indy car.
In 2018 I retired and jumped right into consoles with Gran Turismo. I’ve also broadened out to Assetto Corsa Competizoni.
My results now are way beyond anything I ever accomplished when I was younger, Between work and family obligations, I never had enough time to devote to the craft. Now, I have nothing but time, as well as a great Fanatec 8nm FF rig and I’ve never enjoyed it more.
Last weekend I attended Le Mans and, damn right I was up all night! I did the track walk and recognized every turn like I’d been driving that circuit for years.
And now I’m looking to build a new gamer PC to allow me to run Assetto Corsa Evo and maybe some iRacing.
The outcome though is that sim racing really enhances the love of watching live racing, the Le Mans race last week was epic for me.

 

[PowerJunkie]

Hmmm, for me, it was late 1998 I was 29 and rebuilding my life after my first divorce, so I was hanging out at all the weekend parties and running around in general. Anyways, was at a weekend bash and walked into the house I was at and there was like 8-10 people all huddled around the TV and they were playing GT1, just watching them play grabbed me so of course I got in queue to play. OMG, it was awesome! and the replays!!! I was on High Speed Ring in a Corvette and by complete accident did a drift through one on the high banks and the replay was the coolest thing I had ever seen in a video game. Next day, went and bought the PS1 and GT1 and have been hooked ever since.

 

[Voodoovaj]

It was early 1998 and we watched the trailers. I was stoked, but the programmers in the office believed it was faked. In May, on day one of release, I picked up my copy of Gran Turismo 1 and brought it to the office.

We were all very impressed.

nearly 30 years later, I'm still impressed (even through I complain from time to time )