Yamauchi is of course no stranger to racing cars, but still. That's quite an achievement. I get antsy driving for 25 minutes. He of course didn't drive the entire 25 hours all by himself; he was a member of the "Spoon Sports" team, and shared duties with a car journo and two other Japanese race drivers.

"Not having a lot of experience in circuit driving, and not knowing what to expect in a 25-hour race, I was very relieved to find that I was able to reduce the 20-second gap between my laptimes and my teammates' at the beginning of the practice to almost zero at the start of the final race", he said. "It was a great feeling to confirm first hand that "Gran Turismo" has a positive effect in not just learning specific tracks, but also in raising the level of driving technique in the drivers themselves."

Always working, that Yamauchi. Always on the marketing trail. That's his car up top, with some footage of him driving round and round and round below.

When asked by AutoWeek about the game's budget, Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi dropped this price tag: $60 million.

"There are other games that cost more," Yamauchi added. "Considering the size and scale of the game, I think it's probably a fairly small amount."

Other games that cost more? Games like Shenmue or Grand Theft Auto IV?

With Polyphony Digital's know-how and expertise, the game probably cost less that it could have considering the lengthy development cycle. But then again, GT5 is apparently 50 times more than the first Gran Turismo. We're not sure if that amount includes marketing and what not.

If Yamauchi and his team curbed the dev cycle and turned around the game in a more timely fashion, they could has brought down the game's budget even more. Not our money, though! Perhaps the inevitable GT6 won't take as long — or cost as much.

SEMA show: More news on the much-anticipated Gran Turismo 5 video game [AutoWeek Thanks David!]

"The last thirty minutes of the race," Yamauchi told Kotaku at a recent visit to his Polyphony studios, "I didn't even know what I was doing. It was as if my brain was directly connected to my hands. I wasn't thinking."

During the tail end of the four hour race, Yamauchi started experiencing a driving high. While Gran Turismo is renowned for its realistic physics, Yamauchi had never had the first hand experience of the sensation that race car drivers get during extended races. "During that last thirty minutes, I forgot I was driving. It's difficult to put that feeling into words — the way I was handling the vehicle."

The experience was eye-opening for the designer, who hopes to somehow convey that experience in future games. When asked he would go about that, Yamauchi simply replied, "Through a higher level of game making."

As talented as Yamauchi appears to be, the game designer is humble about his future racing prospects. Humble as ever, he calls his first place win an "unexpected result." According to Yamauchi, "What's interesting is that I am a game designer who occasionally races. I don't plan on racing full time or anything."

While at Nurburgring, Yamauchi said he was approached by countless GT fans, who asked him why he was adding damage to the series. "For many fans I spoke with," Yamauchi explained, "one reason they seemed to like Gran Turismo is that you cannot damage cars." The decision to include damage apparently was based on looking at what was missing from the franchise. Currently the development of car damage is at about 50 percent — work on it was begun two months ago.

The increasing number of driving simulators is not a bad thing. "I think it's great that the racing game market is getting bigger," said Yamauchi. "It's like if you are a rock fan, you'd like there to be more rock groups. Same idea. That being said, we don't view Gran Turismo as competing with those other titles. We are competing with ourselves."

[Pic]

At the time, Yamauchi called it "the GT version of iTunes," letting players buy the barebones Gran Turismo HD Classic, the download more than 5,000 pieces of content to expand upon the game. That idea was scrapped in favor of a freely downloadable Gran Turismo HD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

With gamers warming up to the option of downloadable content over the course of the current console generation, we'd think the market might be ready for that kind of model for a Gran Turismo game. But Polyphony Digital went back to the formula of previous entries for its newest, Gran Turismo for the PSP. It packs in 800 cars and over 30 tracks.

I asked Kazunori Yamauchi at E3 what brought about that change in philosophy.

"It's not so major as to call it a philosophy," Yamauchi said. He indicated it's just simply a change in plans. He said it's not Polyphony Digital's job to dictate business decisions, saying "It's our job to develop great games."

Whether it was cool reception to Gran Turismo becoming some sort of pay to play status symbol or just a preference to stick to the old model of huge fleets of cars and tracks, we don't really know. But it looks like all that obsessive modeling time by rank and file Polyphony gearheads will translate into a Gran Turismo 5 stuffed with cars.

How have your tastes changed? Would you be more willing to download by the car today than three or four years ago? I know I am, probably thanks to Rock Band.

Why the long wait? Kazunori Yamauchi, president of developer Polyphony Digital, says it was just a matter of priorities. Following the Spring 2004 announcement of the game once known as Gran Turismo 4 Mobile, Polyphony shipped four titles, Gran Turismo 4, the "real riding simulator" Tourist Trophy, Gran Turismo HD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Given how long it purportedly takes to render a car model at Polyphony standards—about a month for the PSP version and up to six months for the PlayStation 3 versions—one can see how five years quickly passes.

Yamauchi said that he wasn't interested in outsourcing development on Gran Turismo PSP to another developer. He considered the prospect of handing off the driving sim to someone else "unthinkable."

So Polyphony plowed ahead, creating a fleet of 800 cars for the PSP version, some of which are "reduced and streamlined" from their PS3 versions, with more than 30 real-world tracks on which to race those cars.

According to Yamauchi, the PSP version of Gran Turismo is a "fully specced" entry in the ten-year-old series, telling Kotaku that "no matter who plays it, they'll know immediately that it's a Gran Turismo game."

"I want to stress that it's not a subset to the series," Yamauchi said, despite there being "limitations" to the PSP's hardware specifications. In fact, it one-ups previous Gran Turismo games by letting players trade and share unlocked vehicles with other driving enthusiasts wirelessly over ad hoc mode.

One hurdle that Polyphony Digital is dealing with right now is designing the PSP iteration for two platforms: the original PSP and the recently announced PSPgo. While the internal hardware may be largely identical, the feel of Sony's new, smaller PlayStation Portable is noticeably different. On the PSPgo, the analog nub controller has been relocated and the buttons have been redesigned. The new hardware has a cross-pad controller and face buttons that feel more digital, with a tighter click to them than on the original.

"We're still have some difficulties [with the PSPgo]," Yamauchi said. "It's something we're very focused on, because that's very difficult to get right." The GT creator typically opts for digital, not analog control when playing his own game.

So, why not offer the option to play with a PlayStation 3 controller, I asked, and make use of the "PSP Plus" technology for more accurate control?

"If you want to play on a PS3 controller," Yamauchi responded, "you'll have to play Gran Turismo 5." That also means no support for Logitech's Driving Force GT wheel. It's PSP controls or nothing.

The PSP game will take advantage of the PlayStation 3 in another sense. Gran Turismo PSP one of the titles that will support Ad Hoc Party mode, letting gamers use the PS3 as an ad hoc server, taking the PSP experience online. Ad Hoc Party software is currently only available in Japan, but Sony Computer Entertainment America reps say a domestic release is in the works.

But what Kazunori Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital focused on was welcoming new players to the series—and sticking to a solid 60 frames-per-second presentation.

"We'd really like people to remember how fun it is to drive cars," he said, hoping that Gran Turismo fans will take advantage of the game's local wireless mode to get players together to talk about cars, to let them play whenever and wherever they can.

We sat down with Polyphony president Kazunori Yamauchi at E3 last week to find out more about the PlayStation Portable taking on the Gran Turismo series, who told us that the game is unassumingly titled Gran Turismo for a few reasons.

Yamauchi noted multiple times that the game is partly focused on new Gran Turismo players, the type of gamer who might be more hesitant to dive in to a 10-year-old series that's already four iterations in. He said that Polyphony Digital is hoping new players will be able to experience the thrill of learning how to drive, Gran Turismo style.

The car enthusiast also said that he'd considered naming the game Gran Turismo Portable or Gran Turismo Spyder, but didn't want to give the impression that the PSP entry was anything less than a "fully-specced Gran Turismo."

Shame, really. Gran Turismo Spyder is a pretty cool name. And Sony's already got rights to use spidery fonts.

We'll have more from our one-on-one interview with Kazunori Yamauchi tomorrow.

According to Gran Turismo honcho Kazunori Yamauchi, "I want to release it as fast as I can, but GT5 for us, when you talk about its status, it's at a point we can release it any time we want, but we can always keep working on it. It's very important for us to make sure everything is done perfectly and everything is done in detail."

No doubt that they're making everything just so. But still, the gestation period for this title has been on the long side. Then again, pumping out high quality driving simulators is hard.

The game was first shown at E3 2006, and Yamauchi and his team at Polyphony Digital have apparently been working on the game since then or before then. And now it's E3 2009. Time flies!

E3: Gran Turismo PSP Hands On [Eurogamer]

In an interview with an official Audi promo piece on the Audi R8 from earlier in the year (February), Yamauchi says that GT fans can not only expect to see in-race weather changes in the future, but "we will soon be able to simulate damage to the cars" as well.

Course, this was meant to happen in Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. Then didn't. Then it was meant to be released later, via a patch for the title. Hasn't happened. Which leads us to think he probably means it'll be introduced in Gran Turismo 5 proper. Whenever that turns up.

FÜNF FRAGEN AN KAZUNORI YAMAUCHI [Audi, via VG247]

INFINITI G37 Wins the GRAN Prize [PlayStation.Blog]

Gran Turismo Creator [Auoblog]

Real-time computer graphics are about 10 years behind non-real-time computer graphics like you see in movies. I think that gap is what we'll be trying to fill in the years to come.

According to an interview with IGN, it may still be en route, via a software update. And it may be coming as soon as this fall. We will, of course, believe it when we see it.

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue gets Smashed [IGN]

"Best European Import" - Marcel Horn; 2007 Audi TT
"Best Domestic Automobile" - Gary Cheney; 2007 Factory Five GTM
"Best Hot Rod" - Jim and Mike Ring; 1967 Ford Mustang Fastback
"Best Japanese Import" - Michael Chung; 2007 Nissan 350Z
"Best Truck / SUV" - Mike DeFord; 2007 Dodge Ram

We spent a good portion of our session going through Prologue's "My Page" features. Most of it is rather self explanatory—Options, Home integration, Garage—but Polyphony touched briefly on the TV functions. The developers plans to show videos of non-game content, including (potentially) real life races, television shows, and "how to" clips created by Polyphony themselves. The My Page Profile aspect was pitched as very straightforward, containing information about the user's personality, but we weren't shown what it actually looks like.

Kaz seemed pretty proud of his latest car museum disguised as a PlayStation game, giving us ample eyeball time with the lovingly crafted car models. He showed us details on a 2006 Ferrari F430, making sure we didn't miss the stitched leather details to our left. Yes, Kaz, very pretty. Players will be able to inspect Polyphony's hard work even during races, as the GT driving wheel will let drivers pan left and right, an option supposedly not available with the SIXAXIS controller.

We also got a bird's eye view of the Lotus Elise convertible from the same model year which he took out for a spin on the familiar Suzuka Circuit. This probably won't come as a surprise, but Kaz was pretty good at playing Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The one curiosity I noticed was that he steered with the D-pad, not the analog stick. He told me to chalk it up to habit, having learned how to play his own game on the original PlayStation, before the controller became the analog stick-equipped DualShock.

Hardcore racer fans will be pleased to learn that GT5 Prologue will also add a new level of mastery for expert drivers, with a Professional driving physics option. Apparently, fan requests for a more intense driving experience led to the change.

Also at the behest of fans is a working damage model, one of unspecified depth. We didn't see Kaz run into anything during our session, so it was hard to tell if the game features the system already in place. When asked about the new built-from-the-ground-up AI code and the option for car damage, Yamauchi indicated that CPU controlled drivers are aware of the new penalties for playing "bumper cars." With up to sixteen cars on the track, they need to be aware of each and the danger of spinning out when one comes in contact with another.

Yamauchi says these changes will lead to fewer cars lining up as they had in previous Gran Turismo games.

Apparently, with GT5 Prologue being built on a car and component basis, virtual racers will be given a better perspective on how their changes in hardware will affect cars from a performance basis and how they'll look when decked out. After learning this, I asked Yamauchi if the new guys at PD are stuck building just components, like aftermarket wheels and bonnets. No, he said, but that is one of the tests when someone comes on at the developer. Get your tire models right, then you can move on to cars.

Yamauchi also confirmed, via his translator Tsubasa Inaba, that a new force feedback wheel is being developed specifically for the release of the game. The Polyphony Digital staff declined to give us additional details on what changes we could expect, but I think we can safely assume that they're not adding motion control.

The bad news? A North American release has not yet been confirmed. The Europeans and Japanese will get their driving gloves on the game this year, but Yamauchi asked us to solicit fan feedback. They said they'll be evaluating fan interest to see if a US and Canada version makes sense.

You know what to do. If you want it, say so.

1UP's report of the Famitsu interview also gives us a hazy vision of what that mysterious PlayStation Home integration would be like, indicating that a "Gran Turismo World" game space will be included, giving players the ability to switch from Home to GT5 Prologue and vice-versa.

No mention of hovercar support, Yamauchi? No sale!

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue Online Details [1UP]

Kazunori's going on about the suite of online features: online garage, head to head racing, drift contests, team and club builders, voice chat. It's a lot to shoot for. They admit that not all of this stuff might not be available day one, but expect it to come "soon".

Kaz is pushing the user creation features of GT:HD. Talking about the differences betweek GT:HD Premium and GT:HD Classic. "Over the years we:ve collected massive assets and we've rebuilt those assets in HD".

Why can:t you combine the assets, the features of Classic and Premium and put them into the same game? They did a quick simulation based on that request. Basically, it's a factor of time and that that would take upwards of three years.

"We've finally reached the stage where the car modeling is up to speed with the power of the PS3." He's talking about the features of GT:HD Premium which is the GT5 sneak preview with "full PS3 spec qualities".

"Due to the fact that this is an online game, there will be regular system updates of new content, cars, tracks, what have you."

Now we're talking about the Classic version. "Its very important to have assets to support the online depth we have".

GT:HD Classic content will feature 770 cars, 51 tracks, 4500 items - all downloadable.

We hope to add car parts, visual parts, things people can download to make modifications. This is being shown on the screen with the shop front image on the network platform. "We can't go public in saying this, but this is the GT version of iTunes." They haven't yet decided on pricing for any of these items.

"Gran Turismo HD is the bridge to GT5, there would be no GT5 without this game."

Kaz talks about how they want to make items in the game as desirable, more like enviable, and that not every item or car will be available to every person. You have to be able to "afford" it. He wants to create that ownership lust that exists in the offline world.

Jean asks if we'll be able to resell rare items to other users. If we'll be able to command an inflated price. "Technically, anything is possible".

GT:HD is also designed to be more casual, more accessible. It's intended for smaller bites, gaming sessions of 30 minutes. Kaz thinks that there will always be a market for the hardcore GT player, but this is the focus for now.

Someone asks about PSP integration. Will we be able to buy things via GT:HD and use items on the PSP? Kaz says thats an "interesting question" and that we should talk about it later.

After we get the PS3 version up and running, then we'll go back to the PSP version. He hints that that level of interaction asked about just now between GT:HD and the PSP version was very accurate.

We're taking the example of the beta test we tried months ago, that there is a range of drivers that are just average and super good. We've come to a stage where we need to categorize the physics models to best suit their driving skills.

Damage? "Another piece of homework that we've always forgotten to submit". The crowd laughs, but Kaz says the hope to support damage models at the start of next year.

This damage model will, in theory, affect the visuals, the physics, the drivability, the integrity of the car.

"Implementing damage, the biggest hurdle was obviously dealing with auto manufacturers. The philosophies from manufacturers is starting to gradually change. The best compromise at this point is to model damage to racing cars and not yet to consumer level cars."

Now they're talking about the improved calculation power of the PS3 and how the AI will improve.

Now, we move onto new car manufacturers, including Scott's favorite, Ferrari. He seriously just did a little giddy golf clap.

Ferrari's chief engineer has said that the GT:HD model was the best CGI model of their cars that they've ever seen.

They hope to add more cars from the Ferrari line up, including older models, but won't be including Formula 1 models.

Now, they're showing the GT:HD box art. It just happens to be Ferrari red. What a coincidence.

They plan to ship the title in Japan and Asia during winter 2006-07 and North America and Europe in 2007. We'll not hold our breath, no offense.

Now, we're moving on to some Q&A.

The crowd is asking about the length of time and difficulty involved in modeling such finely detailed cars for the next generation console. How will it affect the output of downloadable content for GT:HD Premium?

Kaz: It is problematic. The range of cars in previous version was very rich, now we may have to focus on the more popular cars that users want. We have to find the right balance. The whole team is bigger, we have more artists, but they have so much we need to do, it keeps us from developing everything.

What's the purpose of creating a GT5 if you can just download new content to GT:HD Premium?

Kaz: We sell Gran Turismo in over a hundred countries and there will be territories that have not adapted as quickly as the US and Japan to internet service. For that reason we have to have a packaged product.

Have you found any pushback from the Blu Ray engineers to have a disk that can hold all that data as opposed to having it available online for download?

Kaz: The product that we just communicated to you will start with a disk based solution, and we hope to aim for a low price point. The reason why we think of doing a disk based system and pushing 10 to 20 GB of data we need a disk and Blu Ray is the solution. In the future, that could probably change. It could end up that its cheaper to do it via download.

Your products tend to be compared to other games as more voluminous. Are you making a game anymore as opposed to an obsession?

Kaz: Precisely so. (It's an obsession)

Is there really room to improve or have you reached your goal?

Kaz: The example of the modeling, its to a point where I'm saying this is good enough. The physics and simulation aspects have room to improve. There is obviously lots of room for improvement in the online aspect.

What are you doing to make Gran Turismo fun for the casual audience? Are you looking at aspects of other games and including those in GT?

Kaz: One of the examples of our target features, there was one called Track Date, you're with your friends, with your favorite car for the weekend. You're in Leguna Seca, you're just kicking back, you're not worrying about time. You're having fun, not burning rubber.

If everything is available simply through commerce, what will be available for gamers who want to unlock content through skill?

Kaz: There is a special car that is not available via commerce. Perhaps there is an online race and the car is only available to the winner. We hope to add that kind of content. Going back to the online community, there are the players who are participating and helping us build, there are manufacturers, but naturally as the community is formed, there will always be star players. There will be some guy in LA (Scott raises his hand) who will be the best in his area (raises it further). There will be car clubs, there will be mean guys that people are afraid to race, there are many angles to this where gamers will still be motivated to be better than others.

Given your role as a hardware contributor at Sony, have you considered moving into another position? What's after Gran Turismo if it's becoming closer to your ultimate vision?

Kaz: Its true I have two hats, one as Gran Turismo creator, one as executive director, but let me ask you this, would you rather be president of Columbia Pictures or would you rather be Steven Spielberg?

We're done! Time to bug Yamauchi, play some GT and snack.