This maybe the most ridiculous news you've ever heard of. But it seems that Polyphony Digital's driving simulation might be releasing a game without any cars or race tracks for the PlayStation 3.
No cars or circuits? That's the most important element in a racing game. What's the logic in creating a game without any vehicles to drive and race on?
It could be a rumour and I really hope it's not true. But according to an interview with Kazunori Yamauchi in Famitsu - the leading Japanese video game magazine - he has big plans involving micro transactions.
Gran Turismo HD will apparently be release in two different version. The first entitled 'Gran Turismo HD: Premium' appears to be nothing more than a demo of the proper game for the PS3, Gran Turismo 5. Thirty cars and two exciting tracks are rendered beautifully on the PlayStation 3 and this gives the impression of what the new Gran Turismo will be from Yamauchi - when the final version is release in 2008. Think of it as the Gran Turismo 4: Prologue. A sneak preview of the full game.
The second game is entitled 'Gran Turismo HD: Classic' and this is simply a High Resolution version of the PlayStation 2 game. The original feature hundreds and hundreds of cars to drive but with Classic, there is a difference…
Every car and every track will have to be purchased and downloaded from Sony's online network in order to play. The interview in Famitsu mentions a price of 50-100 yen per vehicle (or $0.43 - $0.85 in US Dollars) and 200 - 500 yen per track ($1.71 - $4.26 USD).
If you want to buy all the cars (around 750) and tracks (50), you will have to spend around $408! That's nearly the same price as the console you are playing it on!
Simply ridiculous in my opinion. Bad move by Sony and Polyphony Digital if this was the case. But is this all true?
A quote from Sony's Phil Harrison seems to match up with this story: "Imagine Gran Turismo shipping on a disc with one car and one track. And then you can browse, online, a dynamic circuit of vehicles that's growing every day because either the car manufacturers are adding new vehicles or we're adding new vehicles. And you can see a specific-type car that's being called up and say, 'I think I'll play with that one. Let me download and play it.'"
I reckon this quote was taken out of context and became the main focus of the story. Let's see if Sony confirms (seems unlikely) or denies it during the Toyko Game Show this week and consider if this has become the future of gaming with micro transaction.
Read the report here
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Yas says:
bollocks to that, think i’ll stick to gt1 on ps1.
Sep 21, 2006, 5:23 am