Kazunori Yamauchi

They say good news comes in threes. You’ve already read the headline, so here it is: a GT Sport beta is in fact coming, and soon too.

After many teases, F1 legend and former Indy 500 champion Emerson Fittipaldi has pulled back the sheets on the latest entry in the Vision Gran Turismo roster on the ground in Geneva: the Fittipaldi EF7 Vision GT.

One of the most well-received driving games ever — Gran Turismo 4 — was supposed to bring with it a fully functional online feature. Unfortunately, due to certain technical problems and a shortage of time, the feature was dropped from the game prior to its release. Instead, Polyphony Digital quietly released Gran Turismo 4 Online Test Version in June 2006, providing authentic online racing to a limited group of 5,000 lucky players.

It was 2002 when Ted and Sue Richardson decided to take an ordinary 1962 Buick Special and convert it from top to bottom into a spectacular 550 bhp machine. Today we recall what we love about this car as it appears on sale for $150,000 at the Barrett-Jackson Collection Showroom.

Ah the festive period — is there a better time to be merry for days on end? We sincerely doubt it. With parties left, right and center, one may expect that big organizations also get in on the fun. It seems Polyphony Digital is no exception, based on tweets by original GT Academy winner Lucas Ordóñez and Super GT driver Satoshi Motoyama. Both racers attended the annual party, held at the Japan offices of the Gran Turismo creators.

It’s the end of an era. For almost as long as we’ve been a website, it’s been understood that Porsche, that most desirable of German marques, was the (more-or-less) exclusive domain of Electronic Arts. Sure, earlier Forza titles had them — and later ones did too, if you paid the extra asking price for DLC — but outside of that, you pretty much had to play a Need For Speed title to drive a car from Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG (to give it its full name).

HDR, or High Dynamic Range, has been a hot topic within the gaming community in recent months. With compatible hardware, video games, and video content on the rise, it is quickly becoming the de facto standard for high-definition viewing and perhaps rightfully so.

During day two of the 2016 PlayStation Experience held last Sunday, president of Polyphony Digital Kazunori Yamauchi held an interview, focusing on virtual reality and achievements so far accomplished within the game.

Yesterday gave a lot of PlayStation gamers plenty to add to their wishlists for 2017. Not only did the opening day of the PS Experience reveal new installments in much-loved franchises like The Last of Us and Marvel vs Capcom, it also represented another step forward for GT Sport.

Last week offered quite an explosion of information on not just the PS4 Pro, but GT Sport. For the first time since the delay announcement at the end of summer, Polyphony was on hand at a demonstration of its upcoming game, sharing details on what’s achievable on the new, more powerful hardware. Chief amongst these revelations was our first look at VR in GT Sport, tempered by the news it would be limited to a dedicated “VR Tour Mode“.

While Gran Turismo Sport may no longer be scheduled for release this month, that hasn’t prevented the veritable explosion of news coming out of the PS4 Pro event in London which came to an end this past Thursday.

Last month, the GTPlanet community was quick to take note of what sounded like an improvement in Gran Turismo Sport’s vehicle audio design. Sure enough, amidst all the latest conversation about image resolution, HDR, and PSVR capability, a report from Sony’s PS4 Pro event in London seemingly confirms Polyphony Digital’s progress in the audio department.

With all the new information coming straight from the PS4 Pro Event in Big Ben’s hometown, we’re getting our first real view of GT Sport post-delay announcement. As we learned yesterday, the game will support 4K resolution and HDR via PS4 Pro. Now, some more light has been shone on the exact nature of these specifications.

The news keeps on rolling out of London. We’ve already seen the first footage of GT Sport utilizing both PS4 Pro and PSVR, and heard the revelation that Kazunori Yamauchi at one point considered outsourcing to speed up franchise development. The latter tidbit came care of Videogamer.com, the same source for the latest news: PlayStation VR support will only feature in a dedicated ‘VR Tour’ mode.

As the launch of the PlayStation 4 Pro beckons, Sony and many developers have taken to London for a launch event showing off the console and the type of improvements existing and upcoming games will host on the super-powered PS4. Kazunori Yamauchi was in attendance to show off what GT Sport will be capable of (check out the first footage of the game running on the system as well as using PSVR) and discuss the nuances of developing the newest title.

More details are quickly leaking out of the dedicated PS4 Pro event, held yesterday and today in London, England. For GT Sport, we’ve already heard confirmation that the game will support both 4K (through upscaling) and HDR, as well as the PlayStation VR peripheral. Today, we’ve got our first glimpse at all of the above, coming to us care of Adam ‘Grizwords’ Mathew, Editor of Official PlayStation Magazine Australia.

Well that didn’t take long. Sony’s dedicated PS4 Pro event got underway earlier today in London — after news of it broke earlier this week — and details are already starting to leak out. Most pertinent to sim-racing fans is the news that GT Sport will be taking full advantage of Sony’s new powerhouse, as confirmed by Kazunori Yamauchi himself.

Senna TV, a channel dedicated to all things Ayrton-related, was in Japan recently to interview Polyphony head Kazunori Yamauchi. While talk naturally revolves around the legendary F1 driver, eagle-eyed Gran Turismo fans are treated to a few brief glimpses into Gran Turismo Sport, including our first look at future hardware in action.

Paris Games Week 2016 got underway yesterday. For Gran Turismo fans, the event holds significance, for it was at last year’s expo that the latest chapter in Polyphony’s racing franchise was first introduced. With 366 days since that initial reveal, we’re looking back to get an idea of what’s changed since then, and — thanks to a delay pushing the title into 2017 — where GT Sport is heading.

It’s hard to believe, but SEMA has been holding the ceremony of the annual “Gran Turismo Awards” for more than a decade now. What car is going to claim the “Best in Show” at the largest automotive exhibition in Las Vegas this year? We’re going to find out next week — Wednesday, to be precise — when the 14th iteration takes place in Sin City.