Kazunori Yamauchi

As you’ve probably heard by now, Japan was rocked by a large earthquake and tsunami early this morning. Understandably, I’ve received questions from many other fans concerned about the safety of Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital. Fortunately, Kazunori tweeted not long after the event to report no major damage or significant injuries at either of the company’s studios.

Kazunori Yamauchi confirmed via Twitter early this morning that “game saves during endurance races” are currently “under development” for Gran Turismo 5. Here’s a translation of the tweet kindly provided by our own Shirakawa Akira:

GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi gave an interesting speech at D.I.C.E. 2011 yesterday, titled “On Gran Turismo and I”. Hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit is designed to “bring together the top video game designers and developers from around the world and business leaders from all major publishers to discuss the state of the industry, its trends and the future.”

One of the more interesting and unusual GT5 features announced before release was “Remote Races” (also known as “Gran Turismo Anywhere”), enabling you to control your B-Spec races on your PS3 from your PC or mobile device. Obviously, this was missing from the game when it shipped last November, and its future has been uncertain – despite the fact that it remains listed (with this screenshot) on Polyphony Digital’s official GT5 feature list.

Kazunori Yamauchi has been honored in UK Esquire magazine’s “Man at the Top 2010” awards for his work on GT5 and the GT series. Esquire recognized ten men who “rewrote the future through their works in the past year”, placing Yamauchi alongside some big names, including actor Russell Crowe, “Inception” director Christopher Nolan, Twitter CEO Evan Willams,  Tour de France star Mark Cavendish, and others.

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Kazunori Yamauchi has been fielding questions from fans on Twitter over the past few hours. The tweets are in Japanese, but with a little help from Google and medhi_san, we can get a pretty good idea of what he’s talking about. Here’s the highlights:

First, the good news:  Yamauchi announced at yesterday’s press Q&A session that many updates and patches will be issued at the “first of December” (though it wasn’t entirely clear to me if that literally meant December 1st or early within the month). Polyphony Digital has also posted this notice on their website to reassure us that the game’s online services will continue to be optimized and upgraded to handle the additional load generated by players around the world.

I just got in from the Gran Turismo 5 launch party here in Madrid – packed with media representatives from around the world, it was a fitting way to celebrate the end of GT5’s long and dramatic development. Here’s what I learned:

I’m very excited to announce that I will be personally attending the Gran Turismo 5 Launch Party in Madrid, Spain, this Wednesday, November 24th! Sony has been keeping very close wraps on what’s in store for the event, but it’s definitely going to be very big, and very special… It’s more than just a party, and should be a real treat for all automotive enthusiasts and the general public – be sure and stop by if you’re in the area.

The 8th annual GT Awards were held in Las Vegas last night, and Kazunori Yamauchi gave top honors to Mark Stielow for his custom 1969 Chevrolet Camaro. Check out the complete press release and the first pictures from the event below. Expect a lot more media, video, and interviews to start popping up from SEMA in the next few days.

While speaking with Jalopnik today at SEMA, Kazunori Yamauchi stopped short of providing a new release date, but was able to confirm the game discs are being stamped (produced) right now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvxMEOO4a_E

The Paris Games Week is about to kick off on October 27th, and according to these renderings, plenty of space has been set aside in “PlayStation City” for Gran Turismo 5. Seven-time WRC champion and GT fan Sebastien Loeb will be on-hand at the event, competing head-to-head with the public in the game. (He’d better start practicing, though – at his last event, he fell to a GTPlanet user!)

Car Magazine has just posted a new interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, as part of their big feature on the Red Bull X1 Prototype. It’s a good read (keep in mind it was conducted before the delay), but the most interesting revelation actually comes from a small new screenshot included in the article, taken from inside the X1’s cockpit at the Monaco F1 circuit.

The no-holds-barred prototype developed by Polyphony Digital and Red Bull has been revealed in the latest issue of Car magazine in the UK! As you may recall, the X1 is the answer to Kazunori Yamauchi’s question: “If you built the fastest racing car on land, one that throws aside all rules and regulations, what would that car look like, how would it perform, and how would it feel to drive?”

Let’s hope it inspires him to bring a similarly robust track editor to the Gran Turismo series! Thanks to Randy for the early tip.

The first batch of Kazunori Yamauchi interviews are finally getting published from last week’s Tokyo Game Show 2010! Here’s a translated transcript of GameBlog’s video interview above, kindly provided by our own RoadRunner99:

When Joey Logano went up against Kazunori Yamauchi in GT5 at the private GameStop manager convention, everyone in attendance won a free copy of the game. While Sony (obviously) wasn’t able to just hand it over yet, they did provide attendees with empty Blu-Ray cases sporting special-edition box art for Logano and Yamauchi to sign. This has, interestingly, provided us with the first look at the back of the game’s case, which showcases 2005 Gran Turismo Award winner Stephen Papadakis’ Honda S2000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k270m7ezQw