A Grand Update for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue

I think everyone can appreciate that when they bought GT5P, they were effectively buying into a beta; what isn’t appreciated is the length of time between updates, and the lack of new content or features in those updates. Most people will have completed GT5P’s events in the first few weeks, leaving only the online mode as the main draw – which, for a lot of people, isn’t enjoyable for a variety of reasons, minor ones being the poor collision detection & penalty system. It seems that this update is entirely about launching the GTTV service, which, while being an innovative feature (insomuch as it’s not been done before, as opposed to adding to the enjoyment of the game itself), seems to be just another way to get you to part with your cash; the updates to the tyre physics and collision detection almost seem like they’ve been thrown in at the last minute, like someone at PD has realised that just releasing GTTV would be too much of an insult for most fans to take.

There are other issues, like the terrible choice of races in the current online mode (on which PD or Sony needs to take urgent action) and the download issues that have plagued the service since the start (to date my friend, who bought the game and a wheel at launch so that we could race online STILL hasn’t been able to update from the original BD release, not for lack of trying), which could be addressed without the need for a client update.

I’m still holding out hope, because we all know just how good this game could be; perhaps if PD focused on bringing the features that have been requested from the initial release (private lobbys and custom races being the primary ones – which really shouldn’t be difficult considering that races are currently hosted by clients and not a server controlled by PD / Sony), and not finding yet another way to get you to part with your cash, we might not feel like we’re being largely ignored. Perhaps a PD / GT-specific blog similar to the current one Valve has for TF2 development might be an idea in this regard?

With this focus on profitability becoming more and more popular, I just hope we’re not forced into paying for custom races & private lobbys. Also, assuming we will at some point have to pay for new tracks and cars, will a discount be given when GT5 is released for those who’ve already paid for most of the content for GT5P?

Regards,

~Pete