Chatting with US car mag Car and Driver, Kazunori Yamauchi has said he doesn't expect GT5 to be ready until at least Spring 2008. Good news? No. He adds that if the game needs more polish it will get it, and that Sony are willing to push back its release date to the end of 2008 should the need arise. Knowing how obsessive-compulsive Yamauchi is with these games, that's as much confirmation of a Christmas 2008 release date as we're going to need.

He spilled a few additional details, like how it's taking 180 days for an artist to build a GT5 car model and that downloadable cars are a lock. Oh, he also had time to maintain the lie about damage-modelling, claiming they're leaving it out because some car manufacturers don't want to see their cars smashed up. That's funny, I could have sworn that Forza 2 featured nearly every major auto maker under the sun, and their cars get smashed up real good. My mistake!

Gran Turismo 5 could be delayed to late 2008 [Car & Driver, via CVG]

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