2011 has been yet another rollercoaster year for Gran Turismo and its fans, and our first full year of GT5. The year has been dominated by game updates, GT Academy successes and significant events affecting the infrastructure of both the PlayStation Network and the people of Japan. Just as with the last two years, GTPlanet is taking a look back over the last 12 months before we head on into 2012…
Photomode image by Rev91.
January
- Sony Germany kicked off the New Year with the release of an official “reality check” video comparing GT5’s Nürburgring to the real thing.
- GTPlanet’s Weekly Race Series GT5 qualifier gets underway for the first time, to bring this long-running series to yet another iteration of the series.
- Kazunori Yamauchi is named by Esquire magazine as one of its ten “Men at the Top 2010”, alongside Tour de France and BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2011 Mark Cavendish and The Dark Knight and Inception director Christopher Nolan.
- The first US iteration of GT Academy gets underway, with 50,000 players registering and 512 progressing through the first round.
- GTPlanet celebrates a huge milestone on January 25th – a decade online! A “Feedback” section is added to the site to provide a more constructive resource for our readers at Sony
February
- Round 2 of GT Academy USA is blighted by corner-cutting, leading to two track resets before the round is eventually cancelled. All players progressed to Round 3 which ended with 32 qualifying for the National Finals.
- Sony announces that GT5 Prologue’s servers are to be closed down in June, bringing an end to online racing for that game.
- The 3rd European GT Academy is announced, to start at the beginning of March.
- GTPlanet’s members launch a free magazine called “GT Life”, featuring in-depth discussions and reviews of all aspects of GT5.
- A controversial update for GT5 is announced which brings to an end the trading of high value cars between players.
March 
- GT Academy’s first winner, Lucas Ordoñez, is announced as a driver for Signatech Nissan in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup including the 24 Heures du Mans.
- Mid-race saves, as requested by the users of the GTPlanet Feedback Forum, are announced for a future GT5 update.
- A massive earthquake and tsunami, followed by a significant nuclear hazard, strikes the east coast of Japan near Sendai. Polyphony Digital’s employees are themselves unharmed, though many have friends and family in the most affected regions.
- The USA GT Academy National Finals get underway, with 16 competitors progressing to the final at Silverstone.
- GTPlanet’s scope is extended somewhat with an official invite to a media event for upcoming Need for Speed game “Shift 2”.
April
- Kazunori Yamauchi states that he would have liked another 2 years to develop GT5 before release.
- 25 track logos are discovered in the Remote Racing section of Polyphony Digital’s GT5 website, pertaining to tracks from GT4 and GTPSP but not yet seen in GT5…
- Sony’s PlayStation Network is crippled by an external intrusion resulting in a prolonged period of downtime for all online services, including GT5’s online modes.
May
- GTPlanet passes another milestone – 5 million messages posted!
- Sony begin to restore PlayStation Network, though the services are reintroduced gradually and regionally.
June 
- Brian Heitkotter wins the first US GT Academy.
- Lucas Ordoñez enjoys class pole position and a class second place finish at the 2011 24 Heures du Mans.
- Jann Mardenborough wins the third European GT Academy.
- Kazunori Yamauchi is announced as a driver at the 2011 Nürburgring 24 Hours. The Schulze Motorsports team of Yamauchi, Tobias Schulze, Michael Schulze, and Opera Performance founder Yasuyoshi Yamamoto eventually score a class victory in their Nissan GT-R.
- GT5 Prologue receives a stay of execution – until September…
July
- Polyphony Digital moves nearly a third of its staff to new offices in Fukuoka, including Kazunori Yamauchi himself, after the events of March.
- Veteran GT Academy participant Marco Calvo is announced as the winner of the GT5 Signature Edition Challenge following a series of challenges at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, winning his own Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG.
- A Platinum Edition of GT5 is announced for Fall 2011.
- Kazunori Yamauchi hints at downloadable content (DLC) for GT5 in an upcoming update.
- The second GT Academy winner, Jordan Tresson, takes a class victory at the Spa 24 Hours.
August
- Mercedes-Benz announces a live race in September between GT5 players and former Formula One driver David Coulthard.
September 
- In a first for Gran Turismo, a live Seasonal Event pits players against both a panel of players at Mercedes-Benz World at Brooklands and David Coulthard around the famous Top Gear Test Track at Dunsfold. In the time permitted, Coulthard beat the best gamer at Brooklands – Jason Birt – by just over half a second! The Seasonal Event leaderboards are later reset following another outbreak of corner-cutting.
- Polyphony Digital announce that all players will be awarded a Red Bull X2010 S.Vettel when they log in, as a prize to celebrate Sebastian Vettel winning the Formula One Drivers’ Championship. Vettel duly took the title in October.
October
- GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez becomes a world champion too as his team clinch the LMP2 class championship in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup.
- GT5’s latest and largest update – Spec 2.0 – is announced along with details of forthcoming downloadable content. The DLC itself arrived later in the month and included the legendary Formula One track Spa-Francorchamps – the fans’ most asked-for track.
- Jordan Tresson becomes the second GT Academy winner this month to become a world champion as his RJN Motorsports team Nissan 370Z becomes the GT4 champion in the Blancpain Endurance Series.
November 
- Mary Pozzi’s 1971 Chevrolet Camaro wins the Gran Turismo Award at the 2011 SEMA show and will see inclusion in the series like other SEMA winners before it.
- Also at SEMA, GTPlanet founder and owner Jordan interviews Kazunori Yamauchi in our second face-to-face meeting with the Polyphony Digital head in two years.
- GT5’s downloadable content hits over a million purchases in two weeks, while Sony plan to release new DLC roughly every two months.
- After a successful summer of racing, GT Academy graduates Jann Mardenborough and Brian Heitkotter prepare for the Dubai 24 Hour race in January 2012.
- GT5 celebrates a year since launch, while an update to fix concerns about DLC is announced for late December.
December 
- GT5 Spec II is announced as a standalone title for Japan in February 2012, with no plans for a European release.
- Lucas Ordoñez wins SPEED.com’s “Rookie of the Year” award.
- The second round of GT5 DLC is announced and sees release near Christmas.
- The four GT Academy champions are announced as a single team of drivers for January’s Dubai 24 Hour race.
- Polyphony Digital announce that GT5 sold another 1 million copies between January and September, to bring the total to 7.3 million. GT4 (190,000), GT5 Prologue (130,000) and GTPSP (370,000) all sold more copies during the year with the series now totalling 64.7 million copies.
- GTPlanet hosts our annual philanthropic fundraiser for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, proudly raising $1,000 to help fight this terrible disease. Thank you, everyone, for your help in reaching this milestone!
- Gran Turismo 5 XL edition, including Spec 2.0 update and some paid DLC, is announced for North America in January 2012.
It’s been another bumper year of Gran Turismo news and we can be sure that 2012 will bring updates, tweaks and possibly some more downloadable content. While Gran Turismo 6 may well be in the works, it’s clear that Polyphony are looking to improve GT5 yet further.
Thank you for your support throughout this past year – GTPlanet looks forward to supplying you with the best Gran Turismo news in 2012! Happy New Year!
See more articles on Review and Year in Review.
Great. A successful first full year for the game. :) Here’s to an even better year!
So, about those logos….
Hs anyone even seen any of them that seem to be different then the older ones? If not then I’d say it’s most likely not gonna happen. :(
Amazing commitment to the game over a year on. OK, many of the updates have been fixes for features lacking on release (echoed by Kaz wanting another two years), but there have also been a large number of improvements and content made that PD need not add.
I would be interested to see a list of the updates made to the game in chronological order. The number of small and large updates have impressed me a lot. Was there an update (small or large) in every month of 2011?
I think if PD could expand their staff whilst retaining their high quality, half of PD could be churning out content for GT5 whilst the other half could be working on GT6. I think a lot of ground-work will have been made during GT5’s development.
I haven’t been into the game as much as I’d like (even traded it in to get BF3). I just want a track pack with Costa di Amalfi, El Captain, NY, Seattle and Citta d’Aria. I would definitely play this more… maybe even take BF3 out of the Playstation :p
Happy New Year to all GTPlanet staff! Keep up the good work, bringing us the very best information about GT5 and so much good topics!
Love the game.and love this website.Great work guys!
WE LOVE YOU KAZ and PD!!! Keep up the good work!
Always, Mark
Another year wasted by PD, there’s no challenges at all, everything is watered down for pad users and car mad fans as opposed to driving sim fans which is ironic since its call the real driving simulator. Everytime I turn the game on I’m at a loss as to what to actually do on it that is actually challenging.
What a terrible anti-climax this game has been and its still the best driving sim out there, there’s just nothing worth playing on the market its all meant for mainstream kids. Forza 4 is the worst game I’ve ever played, it might as well be called bowling or tennis because it certainly aint driving.
Bad year indeed, come on driving sim guys get your acts together, make it real, make everyone chase the game not the game chase the clueless massive.
Try to be a little more positive. It isn’t THAT bad. We need more expert seasonals, that ”Driver’s Club” Kaz said was coming soon a year ago, and a massive A-SPEC expansion, but you never know- it could happen. With a sim-rig and G25, on a big TV and 7.1 home theater setup, GT5 is a pretty good and fun driving sim. If PD put their efforts in the right places, 2012 could be a great year for GT5. Just keep thinking those positive thought, take a deep breath, etc.
What are you looking for, davissi? This is a sim, and it’s as good as sims get. It isn’t ‘watered down’, it’s A GAME.
Go spend $5K on an old race car and take it to the track if GT5 isn’t enough for you, dude. See how far you can go with the real thing.
Lighten up, OK? Enjoy GT5 for what it is, and don’t bring it down for what it isn’t!
Gt 5 was good, Forza blows it into the tumble weeds.
My New Year resolution is same as last year, play GT5 all year 2012
Many Happy returns PD , Kaz, and fellow online racers (505 pp street Nurburgring)
Looking forward to retail expansion to this fine game.
Bring on 2012!
Woo hoo!
QUITTERS NEED NOT APPLY
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20 MIN PITSTOP(PARK N PAUSE) BREAK AT 12:00AM..FORMATION LAP RESTART
If you crash a competitor, you must give back the position or pit for tires only with-in 2 laps, THE RACE WILL BE REVIEWED AFTER BEFORE PRIZES ARE GIVEN OR PLACES ARE ANNOUNCED IF YOU DO NOT PIT.. 25 SEC. EACH WILL BE ADDED TO YOUR FINAL LAP
ANY DRIVER INCIDENTS YOU SHOULD MAKE A NOTE OF WHAT LAP # THAT THE INCIDENT OCCURRED..
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1ST ….PLACE ANY LEVEL TICKET OR CAR IN-STOCK 10 RACING GEAR ITEMS, & 2 MATTE PAINTS OF CHIOCE
2ND……CAR TICKET FOR 370Z GT ACAD. CAR & 8 ITEMS OF RACING GEAR OF CHIOCE
3RD…..LEVEL 1000 TICKET & 6 ITEMS OF GEAR OF CHIOCE
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LAST PLACE RECIEVES 2 ITEMS OF GEAR & 2 MATTE COLORS OF CHIOCE FOR FINISHING THE RACE..
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OK, so who won?
It really is amazing what we’ve all been through this year, especially the Japanese. What a resilient country, meeting the challenges of the March disaster head on and overcoming it so bravely. I didn’t expect Kazunori and the team to get back to work on GT5 so soon or do so much. We’re really blessed to have these people seeing to our requests so tirelessly. GT5 isn’t just a monumental game, but a testament to this fantastic family of game makers.
I’m looking forward to an even bigger and better 2012 for GT5, thanks to Kaz and the intrepid team at Polyphony Digital. Happy New Year Kazunori-sensei, Polyphony, and everyone here at GT Planet. Even the knot-heads. ;-)
Very nicely put Tenacious, indeed a very eventful year despite the horrific disaster the Japanese has to face. I’m grateful for the hard work and dedication from the PD team and I think the 7.3 mil. copies sold speaks for itself for their success. Surly PD can expect another 1.5 mil. sales by the end of next year if they keep their reputation up through bug fixes and fun updates.
Also super work by Jordan and all involved in keeping this the most visited site for Gran Turismo fans across the globe and staying on top of the game for 10 years! Happy New Year!!
Haha, I agree. :) Does that make them the legends of GT and us fans? I sure hope so. :) I can’t wait to see everyone and the new comers join the GT5 fun with the new XL Edition of Gran Turismo 5, it’ll be the blast of the life time. *w* Happy new year to youTenacious D, to Famine and this wonderful article you’ve written, to everyone here at GT Planet, to Kazunori Yamauchi and his great team Polyphony Digital. :D
Great write up Femine, enjoyed reading the article!!!
Was a great ride and very glad to have a seat next to so many wonderful, passionate, fast, and helpful members of GTP.
Thank you Jordan and Staff for providing an excellent venue for us fans and racers to unite.
I get my organized racing from GTP. Greatly appreciate that you guys work so hard to provide so much to the members of GTP and fans of GT5.
Jeff
THX PD , i hope they keep supporting the game
thank you guys
megusta.jpg
Great year indeed.
Happy New Year!
A fantastic year, really staggering just reading through all the GT related news in the summary above. The GT5-themed official manufacturer events were simply amazing, a lot of folks did very well out of GT5 this year :)
Please check out my Urban Rally Series thread if you are interested
Yesss !!!
It was a great year for Gran Turismo Fans !!!
I wish everybody a wonderfull 2012 !!!!!
Great first year for GT5!!
And now I know where I got my 6th Red Bull from, thanx Vettel :)
You forgot to put down “Mini-Fam2 born” that’s pretty much a universal milestone there!
:P
Despite Famine trying to sneak to the registry office alone to have her officially named “Gran Turismo” and failing, she still has nothing to do with the game and therefore no place in this article. But thanks for thinking of us :D
I would like to see CHALLENGES, you know, like GT4 or GT5P:
– fixed player’s car (could be two levels, with or without tuning)
– fixed track
– fixed rivals
– fixed time or having to reach 1st place
It would be far more better than de Seasonal Events.
The game has got +1.000 cars and many tracks but need to really use them. With all that elements it’s only a matter of creativity to create really awesome challenges.
Amen to that
Amen
Happy new year GTplanet :3
4 more years!
2011 has been a great year. I’m very thankful for PD supporting their fans as well as they do.
awesome!! all (I) want now is EL CAPITAN and COMPLEX STRING, the vegas strip and grand canyon wouldnt hurt either
Those would be nice, but I want to see ALL the classic tracks from all the previous Gran Turismos at some point.
PD and Kaz should be proud of GT5, it’s really a great driving/racing sim- but there are some omissions in the game that really cut the replay-ability down a great deal.
We need more A-Spec and a higher XP level limit, some other way of progressing in the game other than seasonal races and online racing, and a much higher cr. limit.
I would pay PD for a GT5 A-Spec career extension DLC pack even if it included no extra cars or tracks. This temporary Seasonal Race thing is cool, but it doesn’t replace a large and challenging offline career mode. Kaz said that A-Spec was lacking himself, why not fix it through DLC?
There are a few things that would help expand GT5, and more A-Spec events is one of them. Another is giving us an Event Maker that would work online as well as offline, with enough elements to define and create entire racing seasons, not just single races or so. Hopefully we’ll see something on this from Kaz next year.
I think Seasonal event more than make up for the lack of A-spec events….but i do agree that the xp cap should be a bit higher
With Test Track still nowhere to be found, GT5 is still dramatically ‘down’.
how does not have one test track dramatically lower GT’s overall quality??
test track is coming, its’ gonna be one of the DLCs most likely but it is coming
Because I spent a solid 50% of my time on previous GTs on the Test Track. I modified a broad range of different cars and then saw how they stacked up testing them in said modes.
This was the best year for GT5 ever, well done Kaz and PD. :D Thank you for this wonderful review Famine, love seeing the pictures we’ve seen before again. :) Feels really good. Can’t wait till 2012. Maybe there might a few surprises stored up for us through the months, especially the GT classic tracks. Oh BOY! (*v*)
I can only echo what my friend said a moment ago. But hopefully I’ll come up with something of my own, presently. ;-)
I believe you did my friend. :) It was very wonderful to read aswell. ;)
My review is much simpler- bought it and still playing it everyday plus today I got my T500RS which means at least another year of GT5.
god the RS takes GT5 to a whole new level of realism…you’re in for a treat, so precise
I love my T500RS. A little pricey but worth every penny
epic year for gt5 with the updates and all the improments they made on this game threw the year. I hope in 2012 we will see even better dlc and patches. great year pd
this is one of those years where people can actually say that playing a video game or being part of one help humanity in a positive way….
It’s been a great year of racing, Hope to see you all on the track in 2012
It’s been a long year for us all, can’t wait for the next one! It should get even better! :) Thanks for the review Jordan :D
I mean, famine xD
2011 has been epic! :)
Good year! I hope next year we get showered with even more updates, new cars and tracks. It would be so cool if PD added all the music from the older GT menus. *shrugs* whatever they do next year I’m sure It’ll be awesome!
‘Moon over the Castle’!
Such a good year
What a great year!!!
Tire Wear… *Yao Ming meme*
I’m glad to see all this work being done to fight pancreatic cancer. My uncle died from it a couple of years ago, and I’m very happy to see people fighting against it.
woo!
hell yeah!
Hell yeah is right this game is awesome. i just finally got to 40/40 on both Specs took me an entire year lol. i can’t wait for the next set of dlc to be released.
hoping we get some more cool updates and features.
GranTurismo is lifestyle!
Happy NEW 2012 YEAR to everyone! ;)