Polyphony Digital

Long-time Gran Turismo collaborator Daiki Kasho returned to the recording studio recently. It sounds like it was for new work for the franchise, too.

Technical presentations recently published by Polyphony Digital engineers have given us a fascinating look at the work that goes on behind the scenes at the secretive development studio.

Even though the GT Academy’s days may be over (Lucas Ordoñez, the original winner, officially parted ways with Nissan earlier this month), Nissan remains heavily involved with Polyphony Digital and the Gran Turismo franchise.

Over the past few months, Polyphony Digital observers have enjoyed a few peaks behind the curtain of the traditionally secretive software company. Back in September, Polyphony engineers published technical presentations that offered a look into how Gran Turismo Sport was built and other experimental projects they are working on.

Gran Turismo Sport will be the platform for another esport series in 2019. No, not the FIA-certified GT Championship, but Porsche’s own digital series in Japan.

Gran Turismo Sport has received the title of “Best Audio Design” from the 2018 TIGA Games Industry Awards panel. It wasn’t up against the usual collection of racing games, however: this was across all genres.

Even after a week, I have to convince myself that it all really did happen.

What a difference a year makes.

Before we completely close the page on last week’s FIA-certified GT Championship EMEA Regional Finals and prepare for this week’s American Regional Finals in Las Vegas (which we’ll also be covering in full), we need to stop and take a moment to reflect on one of the best Gran Turismo events, ever.

If you’ve been following GTPlanet and the world of sim-racing for a while, you have seen your fair share of competitive racing esports events.

As we recently reported, Polyphony Digital has published slides from two presentations given by employees at CEDEC 2018 in Tokyo. The first covered “Iris”, the ray-tracing lighting system developed in-house exclusively for Gran Turismo Sport.

The July update brought an unusually diverse mix of new cars to GT Sport.

It’s the end of an era. After just shy of 52 months, Polyphony Digital has flipped the switch on Gran Turismo 6’s online servers.

It’s official: Gran Turismo 6’s days are numbered, at least in terms of online play. Polyphony Digital has pencilled in the PS3 title’s server shutdown for Spring 2018.

I was never a coffee drinker.

With the next update for GT Sport due any day now, players might have something else to look forward to as we approach 2018. If you guessed more cars, you could be onto something.

The 2017 PlayStation Experience was held in Anaheim, California over the weekend. Gran Turismo Sport was on full display at a massive booth of its own, which hosted races for attendees complete with live commentary from GTPlanet’s own Tom Brooks.

In the days following the launch party for Gran Turismo Sport in Modena, Italy, one of the country’s top engineering schools awarded GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi with an honorary doctorate.

Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of the Gran Turismo series and Senior Vice President of Sony Interactive Entertainment, received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia (UNIMORE).

As the only media representative from the United States, I arrived a day early. Outside the hotel, workers replaced the hotel sign with the Gran Turismo logo, indicating I was in the right place. Until then, the location of the event had been a well-kept secret. I smiled as I watched a few teenage boys recognize the logo and try to figure out what was going on.