A Grand Update for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

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** UPDATE: More details added

On Friday, August 1st, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue owners will receive a significant update that will take their racing and automotive experience to a new level.

GTTV

The heart of this update is a new line-up of exciting automotive programming for “Gran Turismo TV”, our in-game automotive media channel. Gearheads will enjoy a host of new free and pay-per-view programming, including “Top Gear“, UK’s premier car entertainment program, and Japan’s “Best Motoring” video magazine, dedicated to the pursuit of the pleasure of driving.

Whether you’re in the mood to tour Ferrari’s factory in Italy with Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi, or to be insulted by Jeremy Clarkson talking trash about your favorite cars, or even sitting down to watch some mad Japanese race drivers play ‘car soccer’, there is a variety of choices for all types of car fans. Gran Turismo TV is housed within Gran Turismo 5 Prologue so access and videos is all in-game!

A few other notes about Gran Turismo TV for you to keep in mind:

  • For the first two weeks only, we are providing all pay-per-view content for at a discounted price of $.99! It’s a good way to get a taste Gran Turismo TV. The HD content we shoot for our exclusive stuff looks pretty amazing. Following the initial two-week period, content will start at $1.99. So start downloading away!
  • Be sure to check the full content list for a full content list, as we will be adding new programs on a regular basis.
  • Gran Turismo TV will also include new features that allow viewers to fast forward, rewind, and move between chapters when viewing video content.
  • Viewers can download up to 8 episodes simultaneously and pause individual downloads.

Personally, I would like to find some American content to beef-up the roster. What do you think? We welcome any suggestions you may have.

In addition, other gameplay enhancements come with this update, like fixes in penalty judgments, more tire choices for Time Trial and improved physics during collisions between cars during online races (YES! We’ve been carefully monitoring players behaviors online and all your comments on the forums.)

Stay tuned for more updates on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in the future. See you online!

GTTV GTTV

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186 Comments

8 Author Replies

  • i do agree adding damage on cars. It not a simulator if its not realistic

  • how about trophies for prologue?

  • Good to hear they are working on the collision problems

  • Awesome, cant wait to download it!

  • Online 1 vs 1 racing is more important than a Pay-Per-View Tv service of content.

    I feel completely taken advantage of as a die hard GT5 fan. I’ve bought the G25 steering wheel and Playseat just to show you my level of nerdom.

    Is 1 vs 1 racing even on the radar? Because it seems that priorities clearly aren’t on the actual gameplay elements of this 39.99 beta test that we have all purchased. Its 2008, and I cant even race with JUST friends from my PSN list.

    Come on what is the deal with this? Can you guys not ignore this?

  • Its because they can make extra $$ from downloads.

  • I would like to see trophies for this game, but I understand why that probably won’t happen…

    What I don’t understand, however, is how you can ignore the glaring problems that plague this game. Improved collision detection is nice, and it was sorely needed, but the online matchmaking is severely flawed. Not only that, you can’t race against your friends! And there is no voice chat! In this day and age of online gaming those two flaws are INEXCUSABLE!

    Furthermore, I sincerely hope you are including something to help the download speeds in your update. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay you money for a video then take 3 or 4 hours to download it. What are you all using over there at PD, a 56k modem?

    Damage modeling needs to be added, and those ridiculous penalties need to be done away with. “The Realistic Driving Simulator”, huh? Well all I know is in real life if I run into a wall, my car does no bounce off of it unscathed. In addition, if my tires touch a blade of grass in real life my engine doesn’t suddenly lose 50% of it’s horsepower for 10 seconds or whatever it is.

    Are you beginning to see how stupid this is? Fix these things please instead of finding more ways to squeeze money out of your customers.

  • “Personally, I would like to find some American content to beef-up the roster. What do you think? We welcome any suggestions you may have.”

    The only worthwhile American content would be Speed TV’s coverage of Formula 1.

    Actually come to think about it, races, COMPLETE races from all major racing series would be KICK A$$.

    I would pay money for complete high quality downloads of Formula 1, GP2, ALMS, Speed Touring Car/GT, NASCAR, SCCA etc, PROVIDED they were uploaded in a timely manor (re: within a couple of days of the original air time.)

    Price it right, with the option of a discount for a “season pass” or pay a flat rate/download all you want, and IMO, you guys would have a winner. Plus races would fit into the whole “Grand Turismo” concept better than Pimp my Ride, and other such nonsense.

    ***Gets giddy at the prospect of this potentially turning into the second coming of Speedvision*** :D

    Sony should hire me. :)

  • I love the additons, but come on… Whats the news on 1 vs 1 races guys?

    It really is one of the most basic requests.. it would be nice to hear feedback.

  • BTW, it is a little shady that Sony is charging for this when they originally gave the impression that GTTV would always be free.

    Gotta focus on profitability though! :D

  • This game is actually one of the worst racing series I have ever played.. No damage on cars and it’s way to much time to spend trying to get better cars.

    I traded it in the 1st week after I bought it. I will never buy another GT series game.

    *rant over*

  • I have been looking forward to this update for a couple of weeks. It is all sounding good. Thank you very much.

    AS FOR DAMAGE. Though for me it’s not needed, it would be nice. I like a bit of “realism” in my games. Even if the game is a simulator.

    VOICE CHAT. I personally wouldn’t want it when racing against strangers. I suppose i can mute them. Basically, I don’t want to hear racers call other racers names while i am racing.

    VOICE CHAT. I would like to see TEAM RACING implemented. It is here that voice chat can become an important racing tool.

    TROPHIES. Not really a requirement. However, I see trophies as a way of free advertising for video games that offer it. Say someone has been playing Call of Duty. They decide to look at the list of players they have met. Say a bunch of those players have trophies from Gran Turismo. This player has never played it, but now might be interested since he/she has seen that many people are into it. You can see where I’m going here, right?

    That’s it for now. Thanks for the update. Gave you a five rating. Hope it all goes smoothly! Ciao!

  • “Will GT5: Prologue ever have trophies or are they completely ruled out?

    Will the online component ever have a more simplified and stream-lined race finder? At the moment it is hard to race in the car you want on the track you want, and there is no way to invite your friends for a quick lap round your favourite track.

    Will a friend invite system ever be introduced or some party system perhaps?

    Will GT5: Prologue ever support Custom Soundtracks?”

    I’m wondering these same questions myself.

  • Taku any news on a updated online mutliplayer experience with private rooms and damage?

    I guess we will have to wait until TGS 08(oct) for Kazunori to announce anything.

  • How about adding trophy support, damage, and custom soundtracks? All the extra stuff like GTTV can wait.

  • Another idea about the COMPLETE RACES thing.

    Make them free to download but have Sony/Double Fusion advertising inserted in place of the original TV commercial breaks.

    If people don’t want the ads, make it to where they could pay $1.99/etc to have them removed, retroactively.

    Either way, Sony makes money.

    ^Yet even more proof illustrating why Sony should hire me. :D

  • Will we see Night-time racing and weather effects?? keep those updates coming

  • And what about trophies?

  • One last comment/suggestion: If voice chat and “customized music” are added, I hope that the music will shut off or the volume drops to a whisper once a race starts. As in rude and mean chatter when racing, I don’t want to hear other people’s music. Especially music with obscene lyrics. I will mute if I must, but if the music track can automatically cut off or quiet itself, that would be acceptable to me. Thanks again!

  • Still no private online rooms + Friend invites?

    Guess GT5P wont be put back in my ps3 for a while..

  • We had television before we had PS3… how about we stop focusing on stuff like this and start focusing on the actual GAME. But this is typical of Sony as of late — focusing less on what made the PS2 such a success (i.e. an enormous, diverse and excellent game library) and more on what made the PSP useless (i.e. media functionality that most gamers don’t give a rat’s ass about).

  • “Top Gear” is way better than anything U.S. automotive television has to offer. If anything, Sony should add some automotive TV from Japan.

  • “Top Gear” is awesome and way better than any American automotive T.V. show.

    Sony should also add more automotive shows from Japan.

  • @ 71 -> jqtaxpayer

    You’re absolutely right about the psp useless thing.

  • Cool stuff. Still one of the best looking games out there. Take your time on GT5 and hone it’s edge to slice through all competitors. :D

  • PLEASE!! CAR DAMAGE!! AND WEATHER EFFECTS FIRST!!!

    Why add secondary things when the primary things are not there!!!

    GT5 MOST have car damage and weather effects for ME to BUY IT!

  • Sorry but this update sucks! Where is friend invites for online? Where is clan support? Where is private rooms?

  • there have been a lot of good ideas by the posters here today, i hope Taku is listening to what his fans want.

    Oh yeah, and don’t forget to include spinners on the 30ft. Weinermobile.

  • Thanks for the update….but, when you’ll add chat in the online races?

  • Thansk for the update, but when you’ll add chat in online races?

  • To everyone who is complaining about car damage, I hope you aren’t just talking about physical damage that still allows you to drive. If they are going to add in damage to the “simulator” then if you get damaged enough your car should break down. Then you are out of the race, period.

  • In the same way that Warhawk is regularly updated with useful features and keeps gamers coming back to play, GT5:P requires three key features *urgently*. With that in mind, Sony & Polyphony really need to have that discussion and make an announcement on:

    1. The ability to host other gamers *and* play against friends (in the friends list), such that the host may kick + ban.

    2. The ability to chat over an open mic connection – as per Warhawk.

    3. The ability to use the XMB custom soundtrack function that was introduced in v2.40.

    Sony has done well to deflect attention from these 3 *key* requests with “trophy support” in the v2.4x firmware update, however trophy support is in no way a good substitute for these features.

    Sony should be reminded that the XBox 360 crowd are still laughing – in spite of all that was expected in v2.40+, while your loyal PS3 customers – are not.

    Whatever ball has been dropped here, that isn’t important. What is important is that someone needs to pick it up and lead the way.

    Thanks.

    • LordVonPastor,

      Good points. We are working hard on updates. All I\’m allowed to say right now is \”stay tuned\”.

    • LordVonPastor,

      Good points. We are working hard on updates. All I can say right now is \”Stay tuned\” :)

  • Is there any truth to Motorcycles being added to the game. I heard some time ago that and car damage were being looked at.

  • Hopefully the penalties are better with this update!! My game is collecting dust and I dont plan on buying the full version if it isnt fixed…

  • What we really want is for you guys to finish Gran Turismo 5. What else would be nice if you guys were to add online rankings otherwise it makes racing online kinda pointless after a certain point. The penalty adjustments is nice though as some of the penalties are just ridiculous, like the shortcut penalty I mean come on guys.

  • Great update, thanks!

    Im glad to hear you also worked on the penalty system issues (they drove me NUTS sometimes, literally) and online races with this update as well.

  • Also I know it has been said but it’s like this game is stuck in the stone age where is online voice chat?

  • I am not paying for anything that can be found on the internet for free. I will not pay for season 5 episodes of TG. Kaz needs to focus more on having this game on shelves by Christmas, than producing GT-TV videos.

    Do the REALLY think we are going to pay for the 3 episodes of the GTR Story? NOPE. I have them for free and I’d be irate if I had to pay to see them. “HD Quality”, not quite. Motion blur is horrid.

    I really like the GT series, but using GT-TV as a revenue builder is the wrong direction to be going.

  • It’s about time, thanks! Any news about the nurburgring track for GT5P? Can’t wait to race there.

  • There should be a requirement if a game is going to get a patch they have to add trophy support :P

  • lots of japanese and euro content plz.

    WRC!!!?
    D1+
    SuperGT+

  • Any idea how much Top Gear is going to cost if it does have a cost?

    This is the deciding factor on whether I’m going to buy GT:Prologue or not.

  • Can I please just race against my friends??? I would ask for voice chat but where do I think I am? In the NEXT GEN?

  • One thing I can say about GT4 is that it had a GREAT single player campaign. The AI was decent, and curtious, and the replayablity kept you coming back for months.. IT WAS RACING THE WAY RACING WAS MEANT TO BE. IT WAS FUN.

    As for GT5P, other than a few car class challenges, theres not much of a single campaign at all. GT5P mainly focuses on the online racing experience. And this is where the game fails miserably, BECAUSE GT5P ONLINE RACING EXPERIENCE IS HORRIBLE. Seems like PD threw together something just to shut everyone up that was begging for the next-gen GT title. PD never took into account all the immature drivers that would flood the GT5P online races. And the cheesy ‘ Penalty System ‘ hardly does anything to regulate races and force drivers to be mature racers, instead of high-speed bumper-car warriors. Too many times have I been driving, following my race-line, and some jerk pulls up beside me and knocks me off the track. On top of that, I GET STUCK with the ‘ramming penalty’ AND a ‘short-cut penalty’, thus taking me completely out the race.

    Screw the GT-TV Download service, it takes FOREVER to download anyway. And dump the bug-infested ‘penalty system’ while your at it. The only two solutions that will make these people stop crashing, cheating, and actually start RACING is:

    1. Make every car in an online race a ‘Ghost-Shadow’ that cannot be interfered with.

    2. Add Car Damage- NOW!

  • I am an avid Top Gear fan and have been following the series since I could use the internet. For those that do not know there will be an American version of the British show airing on NBC this fall. Since Sony is now friends with Universal, I think this would be a great addition to the American content. Taku I suggest you keep this in mind and forward this to the higher ups as they may not be aware.

  • Please for god sakes just let us play music on our HDD in game ENABLE CUSTOM SOUNDTRACKS already

    or were probably going to have to wait til actual GT5.

    Even then it will still be missing.

  • @ everyone asking about life with playstation… please post in the appropriate topic. it becomes difficult to sort the garbage from the on topic posts. thanks!

    OT: i still need to get this game and hopefully we’ll see it in one of those red cases soon.

    peace,
    Lh

  • are we ever gonna get nurburing in gt5p???

  • I was hoping for news on Nürburgring track….

    I saw some screenshots, and was hoping to race it soon. It’s a great circuit, and the reason GT4 still gets loaded on my PS3..

  • Will Gran Turismo TV be available for its Canadian gamers, or is this just strictly for the United States?

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