The latest issue of the "Car and Drive" magazine has revealed some new details about Gran Turismo 5 and its development.
First of all, Kazunori Yaumachi, the director of the series, stated that it takes up to 180 days for one man to create a car for Gran Turismo 5, whilst it only took one man one day back in the days of Gran Turismo 1. That essentially confirms that GT5 won’t feature 700 cars when the game releases, but more cars will be available for download afterwards.
Which nicely brings us to downloadable content, and according to this magazine, could include improved crash damage and other game updates, such as tracks.
The reason given for why the game won’t have car damage as standard for all vehicles is that it would need an updated physics engine, and that some car companies don’t want to have their cars crashed in the game.
Furthermore, Yaumachi doesn’t want to have unrealistic car damages in his game, so he prefers to release the car damage system when it’s "perfect". For the perfect car damage system, each body panel of every car would have to be modeled separately.
Gran Turismo 5 is scheduled for Spring 2008, but it could be pushed back to late 2008 since Sony is willing to give Yaumachi all the time he needs to make the best GT to date.
Source: Gamers-Creed