TGS 2004: Gran Turismo 4 Goes Offline
No online, new B-Spec mode. Due out in December.
September 24, 2004 - At a Tokyo Game Show press event today, Sony Computer
Entertainment announced a Japanese release date for Gran Turismo 4. The
title will indeed arrive this year, with a release date planned for December
3. American and European releases will also take place in early December
with America getting a tentative date of December 14.
To make this date, SCE announced that the game would be missing its heavily
touted online mode of play. The company plans on releasing a separate
Online-compatible version of the game in the future.
SCE confirmed some final details on what we can expect from the game. A
total of over 650 cars will be available in the title, far more than the
Gran Turismo 3 count. Commenting on the number of cars, series producer
Kasunori Yamauchi said "The world of cars may appear incredibly large, but
it's actually a collection of small worlds. In order to cover the interests
of all users, we deemed it necessary to include this many cars."
Yamauchi also confirmed that over fifty courses would make it into the game.
These can be played in normal and reverse, making for over 100 varieties.
The courses will include most of the courses that have appeared in the
series so far along with new ones. The inclusion of so many courses is
apparently part of one of the game's concepts of taking players on a journey
through the world.
Also revealed at the press event was the game's new B-Spec mode of play.
This mode focuses on the simulation side of the Gran Turismo series. Players
customize their cars and send them out to the raceway for a hands-off race.
The game automatically controls the car on the track, allowing the player to
view the race in replay form. Players can interrupt the game with breaking
and acceleration instructions if they see fit.
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Sony drops online from Gran Turismo 4
by GamesIndustry.biz
Polyphony Digital's long-awaited PS2 racing title Gran Turismo 4 is on track
to meet worldwide release dates in early December - but at the cost of
online play, which has been removed from the game.
At a press conference at the Tokyo Game Show today, Sony representatives
confirmed that the game will launch in Japan on December 3rd, followed by a
launch in the USA and Europe around December 14th (which probably means
Friday December 17th in Europe).
However, the title will now be an offline game only, in a surprising move
for the company - which had previously vaunted online play as being one of
the key selling points for the new game.
The plan is now to launch Gran Turismo 4 with offline play this year, while
a new Gran Turismo game with online play is provisionally scheduled for 2005
at some point. We don't know much about the new title as yet, although we'd
speculate that it might be a budget-priced release, similar to the post-GT3
Gran Turismo Concept.
Strong rumours from within Sony and Polyphony Digital had suggested that
online problems were the primary cause of the delay to Gran Turismo 4, with
the team encountering serious difficulty in getting the online racing modes
up to scratch.
It seems likely that Sony took a decision to simply drop that functionality
entirely from the game in order to ensure that it hit its Christmas release
date.