GT5 Demo

British gadget magazine T3 hosted a GT5 competition at the Selfridges department store in London on Thursday, and I’m proud to announce that GTPlanet user Synwraith took top honors (you may remember his interviews with the GT Academy 2010 winners). Check out his extensive write-up from the event for all the details and gameplay impressions from the demo on display. For his efforts, he’s been awarded a voucher for a free copy of GT5, a Logitech Driving Force GT, and has been featured on T3’s website.

The playable GT5 demo which was first spotted last night at a Best Buy in Oregon has now been confirmed by multiple sources. GTPlanet reader Jeramy has also grabbed video of the new demo, walking us through all of the available cars, tracks, and features. Vermontster of the PS Forums has also shared his conversation with the Best Buy employees (thanks, calvins48), which you’ll see below. We do, indeed, owe a lot of thanks to Oldschool27 for his discovery!

UPDATE: This playable demo has since been confirmed. See the new post here for video confirmation and more details.

The free Gran Turismo 5 demo used to host the first round of competition in GT Academy 2010 has been downloaded over 1 million times in Europe within the first three weeks of its release (that’s one download approximately every 2 seconds), according to SCEE. Here’s what Yamauchi had to say about the milestone:

GTPlanet user Snake206 has discovered that GT5 is scheduled to make its next appearance at European Motor Show Brussels, to be held January 14-24. While this is good news by itself, there are some clues we could be in for a few surprises at this show. First, Sony is actually holding a contest to give away two tickets to this auto show to “learn” about Gran Turismo – unusual, to say the least. Also, the show ends on the 24th – a date which just happens to be near the deadline for the GT Academy 2010 demo.

Before the Gran Turismo 5 Time Trial Demo was released to the public, it was open to a few members of the press and special VIPs involved with the GT series. While their hot laps and replays were taken offline when the leader boards were reset, they live on thanks to more videos via TaxiGamer. Below you’ll find clips of Kazunori Yamauchi and the first GT Academy winner, Lucas Ordonez. Six-time WRC champion Sebastian Loeb was also spotted in the rankings, though I can’t find any video footage of his lap at the moment. If you have it, please share the link below!

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGNeHlfJU6I