http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/01/talking-gran-turismo-5/1
Kazunori Yamauchi is admiring his handiwork. He has just finished maneuvered a Ferrari 458 Italia sports car through the streets of a virtual Tokyo in a trade show build of the still in-development Gran Turismo 5."On this track the hardest thing was just making the scenery of Tokyo," he says, standing beside the sports car cockpit/HDTV arcade setup where he took the Ferrari for a spin during last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He's watching the replay of his trial. "It took about a year to complete one track."
The plan is to have about 70 tracks and close to 1,000 cars. Work continues on the game at Polyphony Digital after Sony on Wednesday announced that it would be postponed. The U.S. launch had been planned for sometime after the March release in Japan. For now, the game has an undetermined launch date. (You can test drive the game currently in a demo available on the PlayStation Network.)
During an interview at CES with Yamauchi he talked about his plans for the game. "Games have kind of branched out into very detailed genres since 15 years ago when I first started developing games. And because they have branched out into these categories they have started to lose their individuality. It's hard to differentiate between one game and another. I want Gran Turismo 5 to be something really special so we are doing something to really revolutionize car games and racing games in Gran Turismo 5.
More from the interview with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi:
What stage is the game at?
About 90% of the game is done. We are just working on the last 10% and polishing up everything.
Talk a bit about what players will experience when they get to play the game.
I created the first Gran Tursimo back in 1997 (for the original PlayStation). Back then, it kind of set a new standard for the style for car racing games. This Gran Turismo 5 is going to change all that now. It will change the style of car games in the future. It will be creating a new standard for the genre.
In what manner?
The entire game design and you might be able to say the functionality of the game. I think it would be expressed better if you just say the entire game design.
How are you doing this and is this to allow players to go deeper into the car driving experience?
I think the background behind it is the advancements in technology. But the driving force and necessity for that change is really the times we live in and that the lifestyles of the people playing games have changed over the years.
What is it about cars and racing that led you to create the Gran Turismo games?
Out of all the industrial products out there, cars are very special. One, because you control the car and it allows you to travel at amazing speeds, basically enhancing what you do. And as an object, a car is beautiful in design.
The other thing is that cars are something that let you cross the bounds of society. For example, I drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for this trip and as long as you are driving under 65 miles an hour you are within the bounds of society. Once you go a little bit over you are kind of crossing those bounds and I can't think of anything else in the world that lets you do something like that.
For example, like knives or guns, if you make the wrong decisions they will take you out of the bounds. But it's not like cars where before you realize it, wait, I am out of the bounds.
For all those types of meanings, cars are special, I think. Because cars have that attraction is what drove me to make a video game out of them.
How old were you when you know you had an interest in cars?
Three.
What happened?
My father used to load his wares onto his car and take me around while he drove around for business. Just driving around, I learned the shapes and names of all the cars that were on the road back then. It was something that I enjoyed. I think when I was three, I could probably name every car on the road. That's around when it started.
Here at CES there is a lot of talk about 3D games and motion control for video games. What are your thoughts on those technologies?
For 3D, I think our level of expression in that technology is not really complete yet. We still have a lot of work in development that has to poured into that field.
As for motion control it is a brand new user interface. It really has infinite possibilities, of course, for the game industry and other industries. There is still a lot more development that needs to go into it but it's a major possibility right now.
Are you looking at using motion control in Gran Turismo 5?
It might be used to maybe control the user interface like you would a mouse, but that the extent we would use it for.
The plan is to have about 70 tracks and close to 1,000 cars. Work continues on the game at Polyphony Digital after Sony on Wednesday announced that it would be postponed. The U.S. launch had been planned for sometime after the March release in Japan. For now, the game has an undetermined launch date. (You can test drive the game currently in a demo available on the PlayStation Network.)
During an interview at CES with Yamauchi he talked about his plans for the game. "Games have kind of branched out into very detailed genres since 15 years ago when I first started developing games. And because they have branched out into these categories they have started to lose their individuality. It's hard to differentiate between one game and another. I want Gran Turismo 5 to be something really special so we are doing something to really revolutionize car games and racing games in Gran Turismo 5.
More from the interview with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi:
What stage is the game at?
About 90% of the game is done. We are just working on the last 10% and polishing up everything.
Talk a bit about what players will experience when they get to play the game.
I created the first Gran Tursimo back in 1997 (for the original PlayStation). Back then, it kind of set a new standard for the style for car racing games. This Gran Turismo 5 is going to change all that now. It will change the style of car games in the future. It will be creating a new standard for the genre.
In what manner?
The entire game design and you might be able to say the functionality of the game. I think it would be expressed better if you just say the entire game design.
How are you doing this and is this to allow players to go deeper into the car driving experience?
I think the background behind it is the advancements in technology. But the driving force and necessity for that change is really the times we live in and that the lifestyles of the people playing games have changed over the years.
What is it about cars and racing that led you to create the Gran Turismo games?
Out of all the industrial products out there, cars are very special. One, because you control the car and it allows you to travel at amazing speeds, basically enhancing what you do. And as an object, a car is beautiful in design.
The other thing is that cars are something that let you cross the bounds of society. For example, I drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for this trip and as long as you are driving under 65 miles an hour you are within the bounds of society. Once you go a little bit over you are kind of crossing those bounds and I can't think of anything else in the world that lets you do something like that.
For example, like knives or guns, if you make the wrong decisions they will take you out of the bounds. But it's not like cars where before you realize it, wait, I am out of the bounds.
For all those types of meanings, cars are special, I think. Because cars have that attraction is what drove me to make a video game out of them.
How old were you when you know you had an interest in cars?
Three.
What happened?
My father used to load his wares onto his car and take me around while he drove around for business. Just driving around, I learned the shapes and names of all the cars that were on the road back then. It was something that I enjoyed. I think when I was three, I could probably name every car on the road. That's around when it started.
Here at CES there is a lot of talk about 3D games and motion control for video games. What are your thoughts on those technologies?
For 3D, I think our level of expression in that technology is not really complete yet. We still have a lot of work in development that has to poured into that field.
As for motion control it is a brand new user interface. It really has infinite possibilities, of course, for the game industry and other industries. There is still a lot more development that needs to go into it but it's a major possibility right now.
Are you looking at using motion control in Gran Turismo 5?
It might be used to maybe control the user interface like you would a mouse, but that the extent we would use it for.
