Kazunori Yamauchi

When Kazunori Yamauchi accepted the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge from Forza Motorsport’s Dan Greenawalt last week, he took the opportunity to pass along the challenge to two more people: Lucas Ordoñez, original GT Academy champion, and Ken Kutaragi, the “Father of PlayStation” who was instrumental in the design and development of the original console.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kY4YXl_YZd8&feature=youtu.be

As you probably know, the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” has taken the world (and social media) by storm over the past few weeks. It’s resulted in a lot of fun videos of people getting cold water poured over their head, and it’s raised more than $88.5 million dollars to help victims of ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease) and help fund a global team of researchers looking for a cure.

Each year at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance – the world’s most famous and prestigious car show – Kazunori Yamauchi selects a car to be awarded the “Gran Turismo Trophy”, after which it will be digitized and immortalized in the Gran Turismo series.

Italian website Quattroruote recently participated in an interview session with Kazunori Yamauchi, and – as is often the case when journalists get to spend time with him these days – they were eager to ask about the future with Gran Turismo 7.

Schulze Motorsport has published a video which documents the team’s dramatic experience at this year’s Nurburgring 24 Hours.

Kazunori Yamauchi has published the third post in his series discussing the engine sounds of Gran Turismo on Polyphony Digital’s “PitStop” blog.

EuroGamer has published an extensive article covering this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, which had a strong Gran Turismo presence and was attended by Kazunori Yamauchi himself.

The all-new Track Maker (or “Course Maker”) has been one of the most highly anticipated features in Gran Turismo 6 since it was first officially announced back in November, but there’s been no word on its status since the game’s release.

Kazunori Yamauchi is the latest person to host a session of Reddit’s IAmA (I Am A, Ask me Anything), and is accompanied by Nissan’s chief designer, Shiro Nakamura, as both unveiled the Nissan 2020 Concept Vision Gran Turismo at the Goodwood Festival of Speed.

Kazunori Yamauchi has made two interesting comments at the Goodwood Festival of Speed regarding one of the more controversial aspects of Gran Turismo: engine sounds.

Yesterday’s announcement of Gran Turismo’s partnership with the FIA has made shockwaves around the Internet and right here at home on GTPlanet, and now we have a few early details about the FIA Online Championship – the first virtual race event to be organized and sanctioned by the world’s governing body of motorsport.

As confirmed in a major announcement from Polyphony Digital and the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), Gran Turismo 6 has become the first-ever video game to feature FIA-certified content, with four of the game’s real-world tracks receiving approval from the governing body of world motorsport.

It’s not even been a week since the highs and lows of the Le Mans 24 Hours and the GT Academy team are in action again, this time at the fearsome Nürburgring 24 Hours.

Polyphony Digital has launched a new blog called the “PitStop” as a place to provide more frequent and informal communications with the public. A “variety of authors” from around the world will be contributing to PitStop, and comments can be posted via Facebook.

The Volkswagen Vision GT car was formally unveiled in the “real world” at the Wörthersee GTI Meeting in Austria today, and Kazunori Yamauchi himself was on hand to launch the car with the executives and designers from VW. The car will be playable in GT6 “mid-June”.

After working closely with Polyphony Digital over the past few weeks, I am excited to announce that Kazunori Yamauchi will be answering a selection of the most popular questions posted in a special forum here on GTPlanet.

Nissan today announced that it is bringing back the Nissan GT-R to the Nordschleife with an assault on the 2014 Nurburgring 24 Hours. The event, held on 21-22 June, is one of the toughest endurance races in the world, providing the ultimate test of man and machine as they compete on the daunting Nurburgring Nordschleife.

Tamir Moscovici’s documentary about Kazunori Yamauchi and the Gran Turismo series has now been released on YouTube, via PlayStation’s official channel.