With the recent official delay of GT5 a few days ago first rumoured by a Russian gaming store on 12th Oct., I have started to wonder if the game will actually release before 2011. Sony has been very tight lipped about the latest delay with only brief statements like "GT5 will be released this holiday season", Sony producer Taku Imasaki said the reason for delay is so series creator Kazunori Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital want to "make certain they are creating the perfect racing experience". Kazunori Yamauchi publicly apologised via his Twitter account and explained that with such a complex game, a lot has to be ironed out. He finished his Tweet with "Wait a little longer".
Back at E3 2009 in an interview with Eurogamer Yamauchi said that "We've actually reached a point where we can probably release [GT5] anytime, except that you can also keep working as long as you want to as well, it's just a matter of timing." This statement is the one which is most worrying for all us GT5 fans across the world. When I first read the interview I wasn't quite sure how I felt about this statement, my immediate thoughts were well if he's able to say this then surely the game can't be that far off, especially since its been shown at every E3 since the PS3 was announced, and made it 5 years in development already. Now since there is no official release date again and its anybody's guess to when it will actually release I want to look at some of the reasons why Yamauchi said that famous statement last year and what might be the cause of the delays so far.
Car Manufacturers
This is purely speculation, but this could be one of the reasons for such a long delay. Now that GT5 has a damage system in place it may be that some of the car manufacturers are not happy about the extent their lovely cars can get trashed up. It is common knowledge if you have been a racing fan over the years that it has always been difficult to obtain real car manufacturer licences and the main reason for this was due to the damage system in games. I know that this has never been an issue for GT before as the damage system is the first, but with Yamauchi going on record stating if he was going to do damage then it would be done properly and in real time. It is possible that Polyphony has shown the final product to the car companys and they were not happy and as a result have had to rework some code to scale the damage back. I do doubt this however with most car manufacturers but now that Ferrari is on board (the most prestige car company ever by their own admission) it is possible that they seen this as bad advertising. Lets hope not though.
Gran Turismo 6
In another interview at the TGS 2010 words of GT6 were spewed across the table with Yamauchi promising fans that GT6 would not take as long as GT5 to release. The main reason being that GT5 was built from the ground up getting the physics engine specifically in place, and GT6 would be a product of this work. However it is now blatently obvious that he is already thinking about GT6, as he has stated himself that the Karts that are now in GT5 were originally planned for GT6 but it was due to a leak in the comapny that word got out to the public and so he decided to include them in GT5. You could say that the person who leaked to the public is to blame for more delays now due to the fact that they are to be included in GT5, or you could say that Yamauchi should not have been planning GT6 considering GT5 isnt out yet, whichever way you look at it Karts are to blame for a delay of some sort. Looking forward to them all the same.
Race Driver
The man himself in question out racing proper race cars around Nurburgring. What is he doing wasting time out there and not building GT5 you ask? Well the man is entitled to life other than making GT games in his defence. It is quite obvious though that Yamauchi is obsessed with cars and getting them to go around a track as fast as possible. I am sure he does all his real life racing on his holidays and weekends but even so how does this cause game delays? As Yamauchi has a serious passion for cars, it also makes him a perfectionist and this shines though on his work in the GT games. If he was not a real life race driver as well as an elite game maker, maybe he would be more inclined to release the games a little faster rather than polishing them to a degree that truely resembles real life. Having this intimate knowledge of feeling a real car right on the edge of loosing grip (and keeping control) is something only the best drivers will experience and this is something Yamauchi feels is paramount as he has stated just before the release of the GT Academey demo last Christmas that he was very proud of the new physics engine and the feeling of the in game cars is very close to the real life counterparts. Perfecting this is no doubt monumentally time consuming considering the amount of cars in GT5 and has no doubt been a factor in the release schedule.
Firmware and Nascar
There are a few other snippets of information I have picked up around the internet that may hold some truth in the delay of the game. One of the the reasons is that Sony have decided to release the game under the firmware of 3.50 rather than the 3.41 of previous. The reason for this is due to the hacking software which was available on the internet via a USB device to your PS3 which allowed you to install pirate games onto the PS3 HDD on Firmware 3.41. Sony obviously do not want the biggest PS3 game ever to be pirated so it may be true. Another reason could be due to the new NASCAR cars having a different nose for the 2011 season. I do have some doubts over this though as a patch could easily be released later down the line upgrading the NASCARS with the new facelift to keep in running with the new season.
Hard to Say
After thinking about all these possibilities it is still hard to come to a conclusion if it will make it out before 2011 or not. Obviously it would make sense to get out there before Christmas as everybody will buy a copy for as a present to others (Santa) and themselves as well as all the people that would have bought it anyway. After Christmas most people are a little short of money and it would be harder for them to purchase unless it was pushed back until March 2011 or so but we do not want to go there. If it is just a little more polish needed then you would think that an extra month or so should do the job, and it is not very wise to already tell us it will be out before Christmas then delay it again. People will only take so much lies before they lose interest and there is a load of top quality games already coming out meaning that only the die hards will hold out for GT5 delay after delay and the rest of the casuals possibily picking it up way later down the line when it becomes on sale or even second hand which is worse for Sony. One thing is for sure, this really has to be the last delay or people just might start turning their noses up. Not me of course but I can fully understand those who would.
The Legend of Gran Turismo 5...
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