At its traditional year-end party held at its Tokyo headquarters, the Polyphony Digital team has delivered a special message of thanks to Gran Turismo’s fans, in musical form.
We’ve seen the musical talent at PD frequently in the past. The crew performed an authentic rendition of the famous Moon Over the Castle theme song (including a nod to the original with an EWI part) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of PlayStation last year, while by Kazunori Yamauchi himself put in an impromptu performance of the same track on piano ahead of the GT World Tour Sydney event in 2020.
This year’s auditory treat appears to be an original composition — and there’s no word on whether Pharrell Williams or Lil Yachty were involved — simply titled “Arigato”, and you don’t need to know too much Japanese to know this means “Thank you”.
The intriguing lyrics to the song essentially thank fans of all kinds — the strong and the weak, the liked and disliked — for contributing to the success of Gran Turismo, having sold over 100,000,000 copies since the first title launched exactly 28 years earlier.
The team performed the song at last week’s year-end party, which was attended by some legendary names in the gaming and automotive spheres, as well as the best of the best Gran Turismo players. And Astrobot.
Invitation to the annual event is extended only to the world champion players, although the proximity of this year’s party to both the World Final before it and Christmas after it meant that we saw fewer champions than usual. Nonetheless, 2025 double-champ Jose Serrano was in attendance, cutting both cakes and accompanied by team-mate Angel Inostroza for the Manufacturers Cup confection.
A third cake celebrated the 100 million milestone, with that item carved by GT series creator Yamauchi and PlayStation founder Ken Kutaragi. Former SIE president, and executive producer on the first Gran Turismo, Shuhei Yoshida was also in attendance.
Several of the designers behind some of the game’s “Vision Gran Turismo” concept cars also attended — including the Bulgari VGT’s designer Fabio Filippini — contributing their drawings to a special board that’s previously seen Giorgetto Giugiaro leave his mark.
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