GTPlanet member Abraxas went on a trip to Austria and Italy last year, with a special goal: to visit and photograph some of Gran Turismo 5’s most impressive Photomode locations in the real-world, then compare them to Polyphony Digital’s work.

The WRS Turns 9!

As previously announced by Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo 5 version 2.05 is now available. It weighs in at 25MB, and apparently brings with it only one publicly documented change, according to Polyphony Digital’s website:

Announced today on the official Gran Turismo website (and through the in-game news function) is a new feature to appeal to all the Gran Turismo shutterbugs, named “Photo Stream”. In essence this feature allows you to share your finest images, anonymously, with the entire Gran Turismo community through an as-yet unpublished URL:

Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Kazunori Yamauchi shows some love for Gran Turismo fans by sharing news about the game’s 2.05 update. A rough translation of Kazunori’s tweet via Yahoo! Babel Fish confirms the release dates:

Following on from the earlier videos in the Road to Dubai series, Sony/Nissan GT Academy have now released a sixteenth episode, chronicling the progress of the drivers through the race itself.

More Time and Drift trials have been added to Gran Turismo 5‘s Seasonal Event lists and fans of the game’s US road cars will be pleased. Each of the two events features a trial involving American non-race cars – limited by PP in the Time Trial and by tyres in the Drift Trial – along with two further open-to-all challenges. Here’s the numbers you’ll need to know:

The latest version of Gran Turismo 5, version 2.04, is now available. Weighing in at 79MB in size, the update focuses on fixing a wide range of software issues and bugs. Here’s the complete list of changes as announced by Polyphony Digital:

Sim-racing continues to grow as a hobby world-wide, and more companies than ever before are introducing high-quality racing seats at increasingly affordable price points. One of the latest products on the market is the rSeat RS EVO V3, and they’ve sent me a complementary unit to take a look at for myself.

Kazunori Yamauchi has just confirmed, via Twitter, the release date of Gran Turismo 5’s next update, presumably version 2.04.

The latest Seasonal Events have just gone live in Gran Turismo 5, and they’ll be putting your fastest B-Spec drivers to work! Here’s a closer look at the new races:

US automotive giant Ford is the latest car manufacturer to acknowledge the effect that video games have on brand recognition and vehicle sales, particularly in the 20-30 demographic.

Nissan Europe has today issued a press release detailing the campaigns their three GT Academy graduates will be driving in the 2012 season.

WRS Week 51 is Posted!

In an unusual twist following on from yesterday’s news that GT Academy is rumoured to be returning to Europe this March, German website Speedmaniacs reports that Germany is to get its own GT Academy for 2012 rather than being part of the European GT Academy. This rather unique situation is corroborated by an article posted on the German PlayStation Blog site.

The latest Time and Drift trials have just become available in Gran Turismo 5’s Seasonal Events, both of which feature the new Toyota 86 that was added to the game last month – for free – in update 2.02. Here’s a closer look at what’s new:

Kazunori Yamauchi has recently  revealed via Twitter that the inspiration for the location of the latest GT5 track “Route X” was the port of Hakata, near the new Polyphony Digital offices in Fukuoka.