Kazunori Yamauchi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og3uRCwHPMA

Few franchises in the gaming world can trigger such heated debate as Forza and Gran Turismo. The reason for the rivalry is obvious, with each high-profile game competing for hearts and minds on the front lines of the “console wars”. Up until this year, however, Microsoft’s Turn 10 Studios and Kazunori Yamauchi’s Polyphony Digital worked quietly on their respective titles and delivered driving games of excellent quality for each console. As the online rhetoric of fans begins to heat up, however, that code of silence is beginning to melt away. Here’s what Yamauchi had to say about the competition while speaking with NowGamer just last week:

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

Japanese gaming mag Famitsu hit news stands this week featuring a fresh interview with Kazunori Yamauchi. He used the opportunity to reiterate GT5’s progress while emphasizing the scale of the game:

Unfortunately, most “journalists” who get the chance to interview Kazunori Yamauchi are largely clueless about the current state of the franchise. As a result, they ask the same questions to which the answers don’t really matter, delivered with the same rabid, impatient schoolboy mentality that seems to plague many people on the Internet these days. Needless to say, while this interview method can provide some sensational headlines, it does nothing to connect with the man or the company behind Gran Turismo. That’s what makes this interview with Xavier Ocampo, Japanese correspondent at MeriStation, so incredibly refreshing and insightful.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year (or just not reading the car magazines/blogs…), you probably know about the new Mercedes SLS AMG – the company’s replacement for the SLR McLaren and the spiritual successor to the classic 300SL Gullwing. It was only recently announced by Mercedes, but that didn’t stop Kazunori Yamauchi from getting the chance to slip behind the wheel. As you can see in these two apparently leaked videos (see the other one here), Yamauchi-san saw the car both with and without camouflage, outside and in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjUXYtjht0k

While most of us are still getting over the shock of seeing a damaged car in Gran Turismo, many others criticized Polyphony Digital’s work for not showing over-the-top destruction found in other, often more “arcade” racing games. Apparently, Kazunori Yamauchi himself responded to critics in his latest French interview with GamesBlog.fr, but we missed it the first time around without a full English transcript.

It’s not unreasonably pessimistic to say that just because a car is in Gran Turismo PSP, it may not be in Gran Turismo 5.  It’s been debated in our forums at length, and we won’t have a definitive answer until we can directly compare the car list from each game.  However, things look a bit brighter when you consider this recent interview with Kazunori Yamauchi by French gaming site JVN.  When asked about the “interactivity” between GT PSP and GT5, he responds:

Here it is, folks: your first look at the official box art for Gran Turismo PSP.  As you can see, it features Chevrolet’s hottest Corvette ever, the ZR1.  Kazunori Yamauchi himself selects the car to appear on each game’s cover – what made him pick the ZR1 to receive such prestigious recognition?  As it turns out, he’s spent quite a bit of time hanging around the ‘Big 3’ in Detroit, taking a particular fondness for American muscle cars in the process.  His latest interview with Motor Trend revealed his new-found fascination with the culture of the U.S. automotive industry:

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