Latest Gran Turismo HD News
Gran Turismo HD Release Details
Posted on Thursday, September 21st, 2006 @ 13:48 GMT by ChrisJP :: Comments: 0
Famitsu reports that Sony Computer Entertainment will be releasing Gran Turismo HD to the PlayStation 3 for Japanese release in December.
Gran Turismo HD will have two modes of play. In GTHD Premium, players are able to sample a portion of Gran Turismo 5, with two brand new courses and 30 cars that fully make use of the PS3's capabilities.
This mode will offer arcade style races, but will not have any elements of the "Gran Turismo mode" we're used to, where you earn new cars and courses by winning various events. All cars and courses will be available from the start.
Famitsu shows first screens from The Eiger Nordwand course, and a Toyota Celica and Subaru Impreza rally car. While on the subject of courses, Polyphony is looking into adding weather changes to the courses in Premium mode, making it so that rain will stop midway through a race.
The cars will be fully modeled not just on the outside, but the inside too.
The second mode of play is GTHD Classic, an online racing mode that's based off both the Gran Turismo HD demo from E3 and the PlayStation 2 beta test that Polyphony conducted a few months back in Japan. The development staff has fixed up the problems with the beta version and is even working on adding new elements.
In Classic mode, you start off with no cars or courses. The only way you can obtain these is via downloads. The game will offer over 750 cars and 50 courses.
SCE will be charging players for these downloads. While pricing hasn't been finalized, we can expect each car to cost between 50 and 100 yen (50 cents to 1 dollar). Polyhpony plans on adding more cars and courses on a weekly or monthly basis, with some cars available in limited quantities. Concerns over players using real money to trade vehicles may keep car trading functionality out, although Polyphony is currently looking into the matter.
Courses will cost between 200 and 500 yen. According to Yamauchi, the difference in cost is due to the amount of work that goes into the course. The Nuremburg course will likely cost more, Yamauchi noted.
Polyphony is looking into other types of downloads. Yamauchi mentioned the photo mode as a new mode of play that players might be able to download. The team is even looking into making new parts downloadable.
Premium mode will also offer download elements. Polyphony plans on making 30 cars downloadable via the PlayStation network platform. New courses will also become available in time. It's unclear if these will be available for free, or if we will have to fork over our yen.
Gran Turismo HD seems to be positioned somewhat like Gran Turimso 4 Prologue, a Japan-only release that offered a sampling of Gran Turismo 4 well before the final game's release. Polyphony is aiming to finish up work on the true Gran Turismo 5 in 2008. But prior to that, they wanted to both show a sampling of what Gran Turismo would look like running on new hardware, and build up a full network service in time for GT5. Premium mode takes care of the former, with the latter filled up by Classic.
SCE has not commented on a US release for the game, but Yamauchi did reveal to the magazine that we can expect an overseas release at around the same time as the Japanese version.
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Source: IGN
On a sidenote, the Tokyo Game Show starts tomorrow running for a total of 3 days. We can expect more from GTHD there. We'll bring you the latest news as soon as we have it.
Gran Turismo HD will have two modes of play. In GTHD Premium, players are able to sample a portion of Gran Turismo 5, with two brand new courses and 30 cars that fully make use of the PS3's capabilities.
This mode will offer arcade style races, but will not have any elements of the "Gran Turismo mode" we're used to, where you earn new cars and courses by winning various events. All cars and courses will be available from the start.
Famitsu shows first screens from The Eiger Nordwand course, and a Toyota Celica and Subaru Impreza rally car. While on the subject of courses, Polyphony is looking into adding weather changes to the courses in Premium mode, making it so that rain will stop midway through a race.
The cars will be fully modeled not just on the outside, but the inside too.
The second mode of play is GTHD Classic, an online racing mode that's based off both the Gran Turismo HD demo from E3 and the PlayStation 2 beta test that Polyphony conducted a few months back in Japan. The development staff has fixed up the problems with the beta version and is even working on adding new elements.
In Classic mode, you start off with no cars or courses. The only way you can obtain these is via downloads. The game will offer over 750 cars and 50 courses.
SCE will be charging players for these downloads. While pricing hasn't been finalized, we can expect each car to cost between 50 and 100 yen (50 cents to 1 dollar). Polyhpony plans on adding more cars and courses on a weekly or monthly basis, with some cars available in limited quantities. Concerns over players using real money to trade vehicles may keep car trading functionality out, although Polyphony is currently looking into the matter.
Courses will cost between 200 and 500 yen. According to Yamauchi, the difference in cost is due to the amount of work that goes into the course. The Nuremburg course will likely cost more, Yamauchi noted.
Polyphony is looking into other types of downloads. Yamauchi mentioned the photo mode as a new mode of play that players might be able to download. The team is even looking into making new parts downloadable.
Premium mode will also offer download elements. Polyphony plans on making 30 cars downloadable via the PlayStation network platform. New courses will also become available in time. It's unclear if these will be available for free, or if we will have to fork over our yen.
Gran Turismo HD seems to be positioned somewhat like Gran Turimso 4 Prologue, a Japan-only release that offered a sampling of Gran Turismo 4 well before the final game's release. Polyphony is aiming to finish up work on the true Gran Turismo 5 in 2008. But prior to that, they wanted to both show a sampling of what Gran Turismo would look like running on new hardware, and build up a full network service in time for GT5. Premium mode takes care of the former, with the latter filled up by Classic.
SCE has not commented on a US release for the game, but Yamauchi did reveal to the magazine that we can expect an overseas release at around the same time as the Japanese version.
-----
Source: IGN
On a sidenote, the Tokyo Game Show starts tomorrow running for a total of 3 days. We can expect more from GTHD there. We'll bring you the latest news as soon as we have it.
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