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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.

A “Nurburgring Special Edition” of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is on display at the 24-hour endurance race of the Nurburgring Nordschleife. As one of the most popular circuits in Gran Turismo 4, there is perhaps no other track that Prologue owners want more. Here’s a few shots of Nurburgring Special Edition in action (taken by Oliver Wegen of ringfotograf.de), along with video of a complete lap. Check out the rest of the images here.

Sony Computer Entertainment has announced the cumulative worldwide shipment of 50 million Gran Turismo games worldwide.  This milestone was achieved thanks to the international release of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, after selling 2.2 million copies after just a few weeks on store shelves in Europe, North America, and Asia.  Here’s what series creator Kazunori Yamauchi had to say about the event:

Business Week recently posted an article discussing the influence that the Gran Turismo series had on the development and eventual release of the Nissan GT-R in the United States.  While most of us are aware of the intimate relationship between the series and the GT-R, it’s both interesting and good news to see the major business media outlets take notice and recognize the influence of this little thing we call Gran Turismo.  To quote a senior Nissan executive:

Gran Turismo series creator Kazunori Yamauchi has announced during an interview with CVG that a “major update” is in the works for GT5: Prologue, and is going to include the highly anticipated vehicular damage!  Other updates will include enhanced online functionality and “community building features.”  We have known for some time now that private races and in-game chat have been in the works, with a realistic release date sometime this summer.  However, damage may be a bit further off in the fuall of this, as cited by IGN.  Stay tuned for the full interview, released tomorrow, where Yamauchi is expected to comment on the possibility of developing a complete Formula 1 title in the future.

The latest European sales numbers at VGChartz for “the week ending March 29, 2008” show that exactly 374,607 Blu-Ray copies of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue have been sold.  Considering that the game was released in Europe on March 28, those sales numbers could only apply to the two single days that it was available on store shelves.  This, of course, is in addition to the one million European pre-orders and does not include the number of times the game has been purchased via PSN.

As GTPlanet has posted over the past few days, Polyphony has finally released the Spec II update for the Japanese game.  While we’ve been throwing around the highlights in this new update (like the inclusion of High Speed Ring, Ferrari F40, F2007, QTS, etc.), the game’s official Japanese site has carefully outlined all of the new features.  Check out the complete list after the jump…

GTPlanet user dark_ruffo has created two excellent videos of the F2007 in action on the full Suzuka Circuit.  Both are of the same lap, inside the car and out.  It’s one of the first complete replays that we’ve seen on the full circuit, and it is nothing short of fantastic.  To put things in perspective, I’ve also included an onboard lap of Suzuka with Michael Schumacher in the F2006.  Play both on-board videos at the same time to see how they compare!

Despite some very serious problems actually getting the latest Japanese GT5 Prologue update to finish downloading, users who did manage to get the file are happily reporting that all of the vehicles in the U.S. and PAL versions of the game made it into the Japanese Spec II update.  So, if you’ve imported your own copy of the game, wait a few hours until the Internet tubes unclog and grab hold of your own F2007!  Granted, the IT staff in charge of managing the actual hosting of the file may not take international traffic into account when planning to release these updates.  However, unless certain technological infrastructure improvements are made, April 17 could become one very long day for fans here in North America.

Since we first learned of all the exciting new changes and content to the PAL and U.S. editions of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, there has been one dominant question on our forums: will the Japanese edition of the game be updated accordingly?  It’s a legitimate question for many of the hard-core fans on GTPlanet, who imported the region free game back in January.  Until now, Polyphony and Sony had remained mum on the subject, but today the official Japanese site posted the following news release: