GT HD roars at TGS

Gran Turismo HD - previously thought to be merely a technology demo - is coming to the PlayStation 3 as a game in its own right. Indeed, it will be on sale in Japan before Christmas, and in the US and Europe in 2007 - it could even be a European launch title for the PS3.

Polyphony Digital president Kazunori Yamauchi gave a talk about and demonstration of GT HD at the Tokyo Games Show. He revealed that the game will comprise two parts, entitled GT HD Premium and GT HD Classic. He said: "The idea of GT HD Premium is that it will give a sneak preview of Gran Turismo 5. It will be a cutting-edge game, maximising the power available from the PS3." GT HD Premium will not have an online component, but will boast 30 cars and two (as yet unspecified) tracks; Yamauchi's TGS demo showed a public-roads track in the shadow of The Eiger mountain in Switzerland.

Yamauchi explained the thinking behind GT HD Classic: "We wanted to pursue the possibilities behind network gaming offered by the PS3. We took the Gran Turismo assets and recreated them in full HD, then focused on the online aspect of the HD experience." Essentially, GT HD Classic imports most of the assets from Gran Turismos from the past, and assembles them into an online game which, among other things, will allow players to create their own track days and have drifting competitions. GT HD Classic will have 770 cars, 51 tracks and over 4,500 items in all -- as Yamauchi explained: "All downloadable. This is where the PlayStation Store comes into play. Prices for the downloads have not yet been decided, or the structures of the business models."

Yamauchi added: "We are coming to a transition in gaming style. In 1997, Gran Turismo offered over 100 hours of condensed gameplay, and you needed to play it to the full extent to get all the items in the game. With GT HD, we thought we would take a different approach. We would give it casual gaming-style accessibility, so players can maybe play for 10 to 30 minutes, every day. That is one of the reasons why we decided not to call it Gran Turismo 5".