Part 2 of the Kazunori Yamauchi interview that we posted yesterday has been uploaded by GTChannel. There isn’t many interesting questions for this second part of the interview, but he did mention an interesting aspect of the online Gran Turismo 5 experience that we haven’t heard before: “users can also create an online community – for example, fans or owners of the GT-R can create a community or team of their own…” It will certainly be interesting to see if this new feature is mentioned down the road as it has a lot of potential to expand on the game’s online arena.

A new interview with Kazunori Yamauchi was just released by GTChannel, where he discusses some interesting things about his own history and projects that he has worked on in the past. His own personal garage consists of a heavily modified Nissan 350Z, a Honda S2000, a Porsche GT3, and a Mercedes-Benz SL55 AMG which he uses as his daily driver. He also owns two Ford GT’s: one white, and one in gunmetal gray.

As you may have heard, Sony has recently launched their new “official” website for the North American version of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Although we have already reported that there will be more than 60 cars in the U.S. version of the game, the number of tracks mentioned on the site has been raising a few eyebrows. To quote from the new site:

Those of you who have already purchased the Japanese version of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue probably made a good decision. In its latest press release and PS Blog update, the North American release date has been set at April 17 for the new game. Pricing will be set at $39.99 and it will be available as a Blu-Ray disc or as a download from the PlayStation Store. The most interesting thing about the new press release was noticed by resident GT guru amar212 – there will be more than 60 cars for North America. This is a significant increase from the 37 vehicles currently available in the Japanese version of the game. Perhaps they will be available for download in a future update? It’s impossible to say for now, but good news nonetheless.

A well-written article about the level of realism found in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue has been posted over at Kombo. If you don’t have any experience pushing a real race car to the limits, Brian Alexander has done a good job of explaining what that feels like – and how no game will ever be able to compete with it.

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Since IGN posted an article about U.S. games retailer GameStop canceling pre-orders for Gran Turismo 4 Mobile for the PSP, rumors have been flying around the internet that the highly anticipated title is no more. While I can certainly understand why anyone would think that, most of the reports do seem to be jumping the gun just a bit, and most reporters have completely forgotten about a recent interview with Kazunori Yamauchi less than a month ago. He clearly states that Gran Turismo Mobile will be released after Gran Turismo 5, which would put this mobile version quite far off into the future. With the additional workload of Tourist Trophy, Gran Turismo HD, and now Gran Turismo 5: Prologue, I am certainly not surprised that it has been pushed to the back burners. Perhaps it’s just me, but this new game would appear to be an excellent launch title for the PSP2. A spring 2009 release would provide the development team with just enough time, and would be an excellent way to keep the momentum of the series going strong after GT5 has been on store shelves for a few months. What do you think?

After years of waiting, all of you lucky enough to own a Japanese copy of Gran Turismo 5: Prologue can download the latest update to the game and race head-to-head with one another! The only downside at the moment is the fact that your competitors are chosen at random and you can only choose from a pre-set list of live competitions. We can only hope that Polyphony Digital quickly looks at offering “private” races, preferably password-protected, that will allow serious racers to stick together in this new online environment. Please, Polyphony, please!

This past Thursday, Gran Turismo 5: Prologue was released to the Japanese public! We now have all the details of the new game, and many of GTPlanet’s own members have already gotten their hands on a copy. Click here to get the game for yourself, no matter where you live! The game is available both as a Blu-Ray disc and as a download from the Japanese PlayStation Store, but for now you must have access to a Japanese credit card and address before you’ll be able to buy a copy (the game is expected to release in the United States and Europe Stores in March 2008). GT5 Prologue contains 5 courses, available in 10 different layouts:

For years, I’ve always had a hard time updating the main page of the site. Our previous software was clunky and out of date, and posting new articles was a real pain – definitely not something that is fun to do by any measure. Now, however, we’re using WordPress, and I look forward to easily adding new content on a frequent basis. WordPress will also allow others to contribute articles here on the main site, which is a feature I look forward to taking advantage of. Feel free to use this post as a test of the comments system. Remember, you will need to create a new account to post comments as this section of the site is not connected with our forum database.