
Formula GT Championship GT5 Seasonal Event Now Live
The latest Gran Turismo 5 Seasonal Events are a special bunch, featuring five expert level events challenges all behind the wheel of the Formula Gran Turismo. Cars are limited to a maximum of 950PP and Racing/Hard tires or less. The challenges are as follows:

Gran Turismo 6, Silverstone Teased in GT 15th Anniversary Event Trailer, GT Academy 2013 Confirmed
Sony has just published a video officially announcing the 15 Years of Gran Turismo event, to be held at Silverstone on May 15th.

Gran Turismo Series’ Future to be Revealed at Special Media Event on May 15th
Information has leaked on the NeoGAF forums by user “-BLITZ-” about a special “15 Years of Gran Turismo” event to be held at Silverstone Circuit on May 15, 2013.

Official Gran Turismo Website Update Coming May 8th As Sony Hints at “Game Announcements”
The official Gran Turismo websites for Europe and North American regions will be getting a major overhaul on Wednesday, May 8th.

Bryan Heitkotter Featured in Polygon’s “Human Angle”
2011 U.S. GT Academy champion Bryan Heitkotter has been featured in a short documentary as part of Polygon’s “Human Angle”, a web series which highlights important and unusual people in the video gaming industry.

GTPlanet Weekly Rewind: Heroes, There Is No Such Thing
The Marvel Cinematic Universe, MCU for short, struck gold once again with the release of Iron Man 3. I won’t delve too much into details despite my utter excitement but it was a fantastic effort for the third entry in the series, and RDJ plays the role brilliantly yet again so there’s not going to be any surprises there, and if you’re a War Machine fan you’ll be pleased to know that Don Cheadle/James Rhodes has his fair share of screen time.

Misleading GT6 Release Date, Box Art Floods the Web
Beware, GT fans – the Internet has been overflowing with inaccurate information on Gran Turismo 6’s release date and box art this week.

Dodge Challenger SRT8 TC Featured in Latest GT5 Time & Drift Trial Events
The latest Seasonal Events are now available in GT5, featuring a variety of high performance, V8-powered rear-wheel-drive fun. There are no restrictions on the tuning used in this week’s time and drift events, and no vehicle or tuning restrictions in the Chamonix Mini drift event.

Sony Promotes Gran Turismo 5 in New PS3 “Legacy Bundle”
While Gran Turismo 6 is just about to appear over the horizon on a still-unknown platform, Sony appears committed to promoting Gran Turismo 5 on the PlayStation 3 in the immediate future.

GT Academy Set to Return in 2013, Sources Say
Since the Middle Eastern and South African regions of GT Academy concluded last month, Sony and Nissan have kept quiet regarding plans for the competition this year, but that could be about to change.

GTPlanet Weekly Rewind: I’m Still in a Dream
Snake Eater! Oh I can see I may have already confused some of you, sorry about that. This week’s title is a direct reference to the song “Snake Eater” from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. That worked out flawlessly, wouldn’t you say? I’ve been a fan of the series since an old acquaintance of mine introduced me to it a long time ago, yet Snake Eater remains as the only major console release I’ve yet to play for reasons I don’t quite understand to this very day. Alas, all of this will be rectified soon enough as I’ve been on quite the MGS binge as of late and yes that definitely includes Revengeance.

“Japanese 90’s Challenge” GT5 Seasonal Event Now Live
The latest Seasonal Events are now available in GT5, featuring Japanese cars built in the 1990’s. Five expert level races touring some of the most scenic locations available in the game, and the rewards are just as high as they’ve come to be in these expert level challenges.

Free Download: Gran Turismo Track Directory
A special addendum to our book, GTPEDIA: GTPlanet’s Guide to the World of Gran Turismo, is now available.

Gran Turismo 5 Update 2.12 Removes “Hacked” Cars
A new update to Gran Turismo 5 is now available, version 2.12. At just 24MB in size, the update appears to primarily address the “hacked” or “hybrid” cars in the game.

GT5 Online Service Maintenance Coming April 23rd & 25th
Late last week, Polyphony Digital announced two upcoming maintenance periods for Gran Turismo 5’s online services, each of which will last for approximately two hours:

GTPlanet Weekly Rewind: For Hope Burns Bright
This has been an eventful week for me if I do say so myself: picked up a new keyboard (more on that later) and I’m on the cusp of upgrading, or should I say, overhauling my current PC rig. In what way you ask? Well that’s the quandary in itself because I don’t know what I’m going to upgrade, or when for that matter. I’ll be keeping my usual close eye on things as they develop over the next couple of weeks and judge from there when the time is indeed necessary. Although I will say that I’ve been eyeing the GeForce GTX 690 since it was launched last year, and with plans having fallen through to obtain one I’d almost regret not getting something I had my sights on for close to a year now.

H.E. Performance G37 Featured in Latest GT5 Time & Drift Trial Events
The latest Seasonal Events are now available in GT5, featuring a variety of high performance, rear-wheel drive fun. There are no restrictions on the tuning used in this week’s time and drift events, and no vehicle or tuning restrictions in the Spa Francorchamps drift event. However, tires are limited to Sports/Hard and Comfort/Soft compounds or less, respectively.

Official Gran Turismo Website Gets New Look in Asian Regions
Polyphony Digital launched a new look for the official Gran Turismo website today in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan.

NewEgg Lists Gran Turismo 6 for PS3, Begins Pre-Orders
NewEgg, one of the largest electronics retailers, has made the jump as the first major online store to add Gran Turismo 6 to their catalog. As first picked up by PlayStation Lifestyle, they have listed the game as a PlayStation 3 title with an estimated release date of November 2013.

Academy Winners & Kazunori Yamauchi Back On Track
Images courtesy of Nissan & European F3.