GTPlanet user Rated-M3 came home from his local Best Buy store after playing the Gran Turismo 5 kiosk demo and was kind enough to share his detailed impressions for those of you who may not be able to check it out for yourself. From his forum post:

The playable Gran Turismo 5 demo that first appeared in Best Buy has now begun to appear at Target stores, according to early reports from GTPlanet readers Ryan of Denver, Colorado and Stefan of Brooklyn, New York. Check out their pictures below for confirmation, and take a look at a few more videos from Jeramy back in Oregon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyBL1gqmPvk&feature=player_embedded

The new Gran Turismo 5 damage system first spotted by GTPlanet users in the Best Buy demo continues to make waves throughout our community, as more pictures (and now videos) keep coming in. Here’s the latest batch of higher-quality photos from Asane and tyv2448, along with a YouTube clip courtesy of StedySniper (thanks to Volcao for the tip!). Asane also provided me with a few more details on his observations so far:

At first glance, it appeared the GT5 demo popping up in Best Buy stores around the United States – while certainly exciting – did not reveal any new features or content. Now that more users in our forums are getting their hands on it, however, it seems that is definitely not the case. Collisions reveal dramatic and impressive new car damage modeling – I’ll let these screenshots by GTPlanet user Asane and gamer28 speak for themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8bjWG-bRmc

Those of us here on GTPlanet aren’t the only ones who like the Gran Turismo series – it’s a pretty big deal for Sony, too. While speaking in an interview with MCV UK, Sony Worldwide Studios’ European VP, Michael Denny, confirmed GT’s importance to the company while defending the its lengthy development cycle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k270m7ezQw

The playable GT5 demo which was first spotted last night at a Best Buy in Oregon has now been confirmed by multiple sources. GTPlanet reader Jeramy has also grabbed video of the new demo, walking us through all of the available cars, tracks, and features. Vermontster of the PS Forums has also shared his conversation with the Best Buy employees (thanks, calvins48), which you’ll see below. We do, indeed, owe a lot of thanks to Oldschool27 for his discovery!

UPDATE: This playable demo has since been confirmed. See the new post here for video confirmation and more details.

Our friends down under finally have an official release date for Gran Turismo 5: November 4, 2010, as confirmed by this press release from Sony. If you know you want the Signature Edition, be sure and reserve your copy now at a local retailer such as GAME Australia or EBGames.

InsideSimRacing has just published their Gran Turismo 5 Special, dedicating almost the entire 38-minute episode to video reports from Gamescom 2010 by our cooperative team of Andreas (from InsideSimRacing), Famine, and Venari. They discuss everything that we learned from the show, and go into more detail about the private breakout session, the Yamauchi interview, and how the latest GT5 demo compares to previous games from the series. It’s divided into three different segments, so be sure to watch through the full episode to make sure you catch everything. The guys at ISR have even more GT5 material from the show coming, so stay tuned.

Remember the outraged city of Siena, which was preparing legal action against Sony because the city’s Contrade flags appeared around GT5’s karting track, Piazza del Campo? There was some concern and confusion regarding what the eventual outcome would be, but the solution fortunately turned out to be quite simple: the offensive flags were removed and Siena’s cultural heritage “protected”…  As reported by Corriere Fiorentino:

Videos from the most recent build of the game shown at Gamescom 2010.

Kazunori Yamauchi has given us a heads-up regarding what to expect from GT5 in terms of hard drive installation size via Twitter (human translation thanks to our own SHIRAKAWA Akira):

As I mentioned earlier, GTPlanet teamed up with InsideSimRacing to provide comprehensive coverage of GT5 at Gamescom 2010 (which turned out to be quite a job!). We covered the announcements as they happened – now the ISR team is sorting through over 80GB of material to include for their upcoming GT5 and Gamescom special features. Watch for a quick preview in the latest episode (posted above) around the 28:00 mark, or take a look at a few of these screenshots from their footage below.