Welcome to GTPlanet’s live coverage of Sony’s E3 2009 press conference!  After months of anticipation – and complete silence out of Polyphony Digital – expectations are running high for some type of major announcement regarding the Gran Turismo series.  We already know that Gran Turismo Mobile is going to be announced, but questions still remain about Gran Turismo 5.  What’s going to happen?  Watch this box below over the next few hours to find out!

This is it – the day Gran Turismo fans around the world have been waiting for!  At 11:00 AM PST, Sony will announce many of their upcoming games to the world at E3 2009!  GTPlanet will be providing exclusive, live coverage during the event – focusing only on new information regarding the Gran Turismo series. Watch our home page for a continually updated blog post, providing up-to-the-minute announcements as they hit the showroom floor.  Of course, our forums are sure to be quite busy throughout all of this – pay special attention to our dedicated Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo Mobile sections!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkHRiWpV_68

Just when we thought this roller coaster ride was about to come to an end, we find there’s one more scary drop: Sony is reportedly telling everyone interviewing Kazunori Yamauchi “to not mention Gran Turismo 5“.  So…what does this mean?  Obviously, it’s not good – presuming that Gran Turismo 5 is announced at Sony’s big press conference tomorrow, why couldn’t he talk about it?  It may, ultimately, come down to Sony not wanting any GT5 announcements to dwarf GT Mobile and the new PSP Go hardware, in which case, we may be waiting several more months for news about the big game.

After years of waiting, we’re about to get a deluge of Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo Mobile news from E3 2009. To help you keep up with it all, I’m happy to announce GTPlanetNews on Twitter – featuring breaking GT-series news from the E3 show floor.  Start following us now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1FF8_0mAOA

A “demo” that has sold more than 3.3 million copies will be added to the PlayStation 3’s “Greatest Hits” library on June 16, along with several other popular titles which have “reached a significant sales threshold”.  Thus, GT5 Prologue continues the decorated history of the franchise, with each worldwide release attaining “Greatest Hits” status.

It’s been quite a roller coaster as we wait for confirmation regarding Gran Turismo 5‘s appearance at next week’s E3 2009.  Things started out good, when our own Amar212 shared some cryptically optimistic information regarding an E3 announcement, but hopes were dashed when Sony’s biggest franchise was missing from their lineup for the show.  Today, we’re back up again, with encouraging words from an apparently reputable French PlayStation magazine, PSM3.

Citroen continues to promote their popular Citroen GT with increasingly high-profile events.  Just last weekend, Polyphony Digital’s real-life concept car helped kick off the infamous 24 Hours of the Nurburgring, and was on public display during the entire event.  This is the first of several appearances for the car across Europe – coming up next, it will take part in the driver’s parade of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and will attend the UK’s Goodwood Festival of Speed in July.

If you’ve lamented about missing the GT Academy, relax – you could be the next Lucas Ordoñez!  A new article in Top Gear explains the competition, and if you’re a regular reader of GTPlanet, it won’t tell you anything you don’t already know.  However, in the last paragraph, the author mentions an exciting bit of information from Nissan’s own Darren Cox:

You don’t have to decrypt any secret messages for this tidbit of news!  Coming straight from Kazunori Yamauchi himself, weather changes and night racing can be expected soon.  GTPlanet user MGR managed to dig up the following interview with Yamauchi-san, conducted by Audi.  It’s part of the Audi R8 Meets Gran Turismo 5 mini-site and documentary, which gives two professional drivers the opportunity to compare the R8 in both the real and virtual world (also check out the video – including footage of the Nurburgring Nordschleife running in GT5: Prologue – on GTPlanet’s YouTube Channel).  Unfortunately, the video is in German, but Yamauchi’s interview is in print and can easily be translated.  In addition to dynamic weather and lighting, he also reiterates the inclusion of damage.  Here’s what he had to say…

A rumored list Sony’s list of games to be presented at E3 2009 has popped up, and it has a lot of people talking – not for the games that are on the list, but for the game that is not: Gran Turismo 5.  We have anxiously been waiting for what Sony has called one of their “biggest events in the past 11 years“, and many legitimiate sources have hinted that GT5 and Gran Turismo Mobile for the PSP would both be making an appearance at the show.  Of course, it makes sense, given the fact that it has been so long since we’ve heard any news about the development from Kazunori Yamauchi, and the next big game show (Tokyo Game Show) doesn’t hit until September.

A new study by CIS Insurance and endorsed by the British government has uncovered a remarkable link – people interested in automotive video games and television shows like Gran Turismo and Top Gear are much more likely to break the speed limit.  It accuses such media of creating a “cachet of excitement and glamour around speeding”,  which presumably translates into death and destruction:

Congratulations to GT Academy winner Lucas Ordoñez!  After competing in the 24 Hours of Dubai, the gamer-turned-racer is back in action for the first race of the GT4 European Cup at Silverstone, where he and teammate Alex Buncombe scored a podium finish in their RJN Motorsport Nissan 350Z.

The pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place!  Heavy rumors about the PSP2 were just released today by gaming site 1UP, and Gran Turismo Mobile popped up on their radar.   Hardware details will remain sketchy until the system is announced at E3, but we do know that the original PSP’s UMD media format will be dropped in favor of software downloads.  From 1UP’s article:

Since steering wheels first became popular accessories for racing games, the search to find the best way to use them has been ongoing.  Over the years, we’ve seen lots of creative solutions from just about everyone (including Sony!), and lots of different products have attempted to fill this niche market with varying degrees of success.  While everyone else was making noise, though, one company has spent the last 5 years quietly developing and refining their own high-end racing seat.  So, does the VisionRacer VR3 take the lead?  Read our full review to find out…

Alba, a long-time creative character in the GTPlanet community, has maintained a slick, free GT5 Prologue PS3 theme for the past few years.  The latest version was just released, and it’s looking better than ever!  All you need is a USB drive and 60 seconds to get this running on your own console – grab both red and blue versions of Alba’s theme via our download mirror below or directly from his website, follow the installation instructions, then head on over to his forum thread and say thanks!

Earlier today, Amar212 dropped an odd bombshell on the GTPlanet Forums, posting a cryptic message full of hidden details about Gran Turismo 5.  Before you continue, have a look at Amar’s post for yourself.  It’s an exciting, well-crafted read that you are sure to enjoy.  If you’re still lost, keep reading for our careful analysis of each main point – and why you should believe them…

The engineers at Digital Foundry have used GT5 Prologue to demonstrate one of their new video performance analysis tools.  As you can see in the clip above, their software graphs the frame rate at a given point in time while marking each torn frame.  They cite all of the criticism that the game has received for “tearing”, yet their objective results show the game performs exceptionally well.  Another revelation: frame rate is cut down to 30 FPS during the “pre-race drive-by”, with lots of torn frames.  Once the player gets control of the car, the game rockets up to 60 FPS, with no obvious explanation.  Watch how the FPS is, otherwise, only really affected when  other cars are in very close proximity.

This head-to-head shootout between GT5 Prologue and Forza 2 by the Inside Sim Racing guys caused quite a stir in our forums last week, and it’s worth posting here for those of you who missed it.  Needless to say, the latest GT game didn’t fare quite so well, partly due to the fact that it wasn’t able to provide the features, size, or scale of a complete title.  This has put some GT fans up in arms, and you can argue that some of the evaluated criteria wasn’t appropriate.  That aside, their critiques are honest.  More than anything, though, the review spotlights what features Gran Turismo 5 needs the most in order to stay competitive.