Nissan is hosting a special online contest with an awesome prize: a trip for two to the 2011 New York International Auto Show! To win, you’ll need to make a video of yourself describing your favorite, most innovative features of your Nissan vehicle, and upload it here to Nissan’s Facebook page. (Note that you’ll need to be at least 18 years of age and a U.S. resident to be eligible for the contest, per Nissan’s legal constraints. Read the official rules for more.)

If you missed out on the first-ever GT Academy 2011 “wild card” competition in London last weekend, listen up! There’s now one more direct ticket to the UK national finals up for grabs, and this time, the time trial competition is being held at GAME retailers across the country over the course of the next week:

The latest update for Gran Turismo 5 just went live. As expected, given the continued turmoil in Japan, it does not bring any new content or features. Thankfully, however, it does clean up bugs and glitches which were allowing players to “break out” of tracks and exploit the lap counter to quickly acquire cash. The game’s Online Car Dealership also appears to have been updated with fresh inventory.

This week we see a return of the Photomode Tournament – a very popular format from our GT4 days, the Tournament starts this week with a qualification round – any interested entrants send their entry in through a Private Message to Nicknamealguem instead of in a thread, and all the entries are compiled into a poll next week. All forum members are then able to cast their votes on however many shots they think deserve to make it to the knockout portion of the tournament – the top 32 progress to said rounds, battling in head-to-head matches each week.

I’m very excited to announce that GTPlanet has partnered with GT Academy and the Gran Turismo Boutique to run two special challenges alongside this year’s GT Academy 2011! Here’s an overview of how each works:

If you’ve ever taken a look at photos of Gran Turismo 5’s real-world locations, you were surely impressed by the accuracy of the game’s city environments. When Russian ad agency SmartNewSolutions was tasked by Sony to create a banner ad for GT5, they wisely chose to highlight this trait in a 300×600 banner ad using Google Street View.

While many complain about the shortcomings of modern games, it’s way too easy to forget just how good we have it. For some perspective – and a good laugh – check out this video trailer for an 8-bit version of Gran Turismo 5, created by 797Productions and uncovered by GTOne2Three.

A new Seasonal Event went live in GT5 late last night, highlighting the game’s “raging bulls” in races at five different circuits. Here’s an overview of the events (and their respective prize winnings) compiled for us by MarsSpork:

It’s been a few weeks (actually, nearly two months), but we’re back on the front page for the weekly coverage of GTP’s Photomode competitions. Using GT5’s mode, and varying levels of post-game work (ranging from none in “PMC”, all the way to the Photoshop free-for-all of the aptly-named Photomode/Photoshop comp), many of our users post amazing shots on a weekly basis, and every registered forum member has the chance to cast their vote to determine each week’s winner, as well as enter if they so desire. Let’s see what’s going on this week:

GT Academy EU 2011 is in full swing, but this year, Sony and Nissan have revealed an interesting new twist for players in the UK. A live “wild card” time trial event will be held April 1st, 2nd, and 3rd at the Nissan Innovation Center inside London’s O2.

As I announced a few weeks ago, Electronic Arts invited GTPlanet to a “community day” event for their latest driving game, Shift 2: Unleashed. I took them up on the offer, and I’m eager to share my impressions of the game. There’s a lot of eyes on Shift 2 after the series’ first title, billed as a realistic simulator, was highly criticized by “sim racers” for its too-friendly physics. According to EA’s marketing, these issues have been addressed, going so far as to call it “the most realistic racer ever”.

In a somewhat surprising update to GT5’s “Seasonal Events” given the continued disruption of life in Tokyo, Polyphony Digital has introduced five new races in the game and extended the deadline for existing events. Here’s a closer look at what’s new along with the potential earnings from each (thanks for the stats, MarsSpork):

The top 16 drivers among the 50,000 participants in GT Academy USA 2011 have now earned their place in the Silverstone boot camp! The last few rounds of heated competition went down in Orlando on Wednesday, and GTPlanet correspondent grafpt was on hand for all the action. Here’s the finalists, grouped by region:

Holy cow, where to begin! Well first and foremost I must send my biggest thanks to Jordan(GTP) and Alex and Claudine(Sony). Without them this day would never have occurred and many great things would never have been sparked.

GTPlanet is very excited to team up with Nissan to co-host a live Twitter question & answer session with Lucas Ordonez, the real-world racing star that’s emerged from the first GT Academy competition! As you know, Lucas and his Signatech Nissan team just finished second-in-class at the 12 Hours of Sebring, the first race in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup calendar. They’ll be participating in all the events around the world this year, including the ultimate endurance race – the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez and his Signatech Nissan team finished second in class during their first race: the challenging 12 Hours of Sebring. After starting on pole, the team was forced to battle with gearbox and electrical issues, but still managed to bring the car home in one piece with a very respectable finish. Check the official race report for a complete overview of all the results.

As you know, GT Academy winner Lucas Ordonez has made huge strides in his racing career and is now competing in the 2011 International Le Mans Cup. The series kicks off today with the legendary 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida, and Lucas’ team, Signatech Nissan, are already off to a great start scoring class pole in the LMP2 category!

The European round of GT Academy 2011 has had a bit of trouble getting started in Italy. As you may recall, the rules officially stated the competition wouldn’t kick off in the country until today, March 18th, at 8 AM GMT. However, the launch date has passed and, as of writing, there’s still no sign of the Academy there yet. Italy also appears to have been removed from the list of eligible countries on the official website.

If you’ve spent much time online in GT5 or our forums recently, you may have seen one of the latest “glitches” discovered in the game (there’s more on YouTube). With a little help from a friend, you can “break out” of the Nurburgring using a high-powered car (usually the X2010) to explore or – unfortunately – acquire a lot of money very quickly. The glitch appears to work just as the one discovered at SSR7, which was just patched last week in GT5 v1.08. Watch the the video above to see how it’s done – hopefully this is an issue that can be resolved soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnn41vo7A9k