In yet another confirmation of the Top Gear test track appearing in Gran Turismo 5, the show has launched a contest giving away 5 free copies of GT5 Prologue.  It’s easy enough to enter – just answer 9 automotive news and Top Gear questions correctly before September 1.  As you might expect, however, only UK residents are eligible, but it’s exciting to see the BBC acknowledge the GT series once again.  See Top Gear’s website for all the questions, terms, and conditions.

The GTPlanet PSN Registry has quickly grown to be the largest organized group of racers in the online world of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue with more than 412 members.  More importantly, it’s going to be the most important set of credentials that you can have when private race rooms come along this fall, as a requirement to compete in officially-sanctioned GTPlanet online events.  In anticipation of this, the Registry’s organizer, Sphinx, is dividing members into separate divisions based upon their performance in an official qualifying time trial.  The new divisions will allow online racers to enjoy much more competitive races with each other this fall, and will give you a good idea of where you stand with the rest of the world (or would that be…the ‘Planet?).

The August 1st update to Gran Turismo 5: Prologue brought quite a few changes.  Although there were many undocumented features, the new peer-to-peer downloading option for Gran Turismo TV is the one with the broadest implications.  Basically, it allows others to download programs directly from your PS3, using your internet connection’s upload bandwidth.  This can help downloaders, as it eliminates the bottleneck generated by the traditional client/server network architecture while alleviating some of the distribution and hosting costs for Sony and Polyphony Digital.  Here’s the official description from GT5 Prologue’s Network Options page:

The big August 1st update has been live for more than 24 hours in most of the world now, and although the download was rocky for some, most everyone has their hands on the latest iteration of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue.  Now, we’re discovering quite a few tweaks and bug fixes that weren’t documented in the press release.  For example, in-game sounds have improved, there’s a lot of new music tracks, Logitech’s G25 handling characteristics have changed dramatically, and online race hosts can no longer leave an online race and disconnect the other players.  Threshold has a very hot thread in our forums right now, as everyone tries to document a full list of changes as they are discovered.  Join the rest of GTPlanet in our GT5 Prologue Forum and share your opinion on all the changes!

When we first learned that the in-game GTTV feature was going pay-per-view, prices were still up in the air.  Today, Sony announced that all content would be available for just 99 cents during the two weeks starting August 1st.  Presumably, programs will be priced differently once this introductory promotion is over, but it will encourage people to at least try out the service.  What do you plan on watching, if anything?  Head on over to our Gran Turismo 5 Prologue forums and join the conversation!

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue has played a prominent role at the 2008 British Motor Show, with rumored circuits like the Nurburgring Nordschliefe and Le Sarthe both making appearances.  The most exciting news coming out of the show, however, is the Lotus Evora.  Shortly after its debut, Lotus allowed show goers to “drive” the new car in – you guess it – GT5 Prologue.  Obviously, the Evora isn’t in the current version of the game, and rumors are flying that it’s coming via a future update.  Here’s the first batch of official screenshots, including a rare look at the new car’s interior.

Now that the GT Academy competition is officially over, GTPlanet user Timppaq has taken on the task of organizing and sorting the international results to see just how close the drivers really are.  A special congratulations go to Timppaq of Finland and spyrrari of the Netherlands, who used their registered GTPlanet names to enter the competition.  Thanks to you guys for supporting our site, I know you will represent us well!  Check out Timppaq’s list of all the times along with a breakdown by country right here in his thread.  Of course, if you are also a finalist, be sure to stop by our forums and make yourself known!

Congratulations to Ahmad El Azmi of Kuwait, the fastest driver of more than 10,000 participants in the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Middle East Challenge 2008.  Preliminary rounds took place in nine regional cities across the Middle East in June and July 2008, with the finalists invited to Dubai for the Grand Final this past weekend.  Ahmed walked away with a trip to Japan to test drive a Nissan GT-R, a “GT Racing Pod”, 40” Bravia LCD TV, and a new PS3.  If you’re reading this,  Ahmad, be sure to stop by our forums and say hello.

As you may or may not be aware, the August 1st update to GT5 Prologue will wipe all of your “Quick Tune” settings.  This is obviously a big problem, but an understandably necessary side affect from updating the game’s physics engine.  The solution, of course, is to “back up” your settings by writing them down, and GTPlanet user MeWhiteNoise makes the task even easier with his professionally crafted “Quick Tune Record Sheets”.  Available in a high-quality PDF file, these Record Sheets can be easily sorted, stored, or filed away however you prefer.  Be sure to stop by his thread on our forums and thank MeWhiteNoise for his contribution to the community!

In a very interesting statement at E3 today, GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi brought us both good and bad news.  The good news is that he confirmed that the Polyphony Digital team was focusing nearly all of their efforts on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, working hard to bring us features like vehicular damage, private online races, new tracks, and more cars.  Of course, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, and he added that these updates could push the full version of Gran Turismo 5 back into 2010.  He also confirmed that Gran Turismo Mobile, for the PSP, is still in “active development” but probably not be released until after Gran Turismo 5 (in other words, 2011).

[HTML1]

[HTML1]

Since the release of Gran Turismo 1 in 1998, one feature has been on the wishlists of GTPlanet members everywhere: the ability to load your own music into the game.  With the release of the new PlayStation 3 firmware update 2.4, those dreams will finally come true.  The 2.4 firmware allows you to access the XMB PS3 menu while you are actually playing a game on the system, including all of the music that you’ve loaded onto your PlayStation’s hard drive.  As you can see from the video below, you simply turn down the in-game tunes (so they won’t interfere with your own, obviously), fire up the XMB, find your song, and hit the play button**.  Also, because the PlayStation 3 is backward-compatible with both PS1 and PS2 games, you’ll be able to take advantage of this new feature in every single Gran Turismo game released in the series.  Many of you don’t listen to music while you’re driving, but this is a very welcome addition to the games for those who do!  The new firmware will be available to download via your PS3 on July 2, 2008.

A bit of information has popped up in the Gran Turismo 5: Prologue news section about the first international online race event.  Beginning on Thursday, June 26, you will be able to race up to 12 other players from anywhere in the world on the High Speed Ring circuit.  This represents, finally, a step forward in the development of the online racing environment.  All of the current online events limit you to competitors from your local region/continent, and it is good to see that Polyphony are ready to push the boundaries of the functionality of their software.  Also, it brings hope that when we are able to create private races, we won’t have any limitations on who we choose to compete with.  This international event trial will end on July 3rd, so don’t waste any time if you want to try it out – head over to our Gran Turismo 5 Prologue forum to meet up with the best racers every country has to offer.