At a recent PSN event, we were able to talk to the producers of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue about their upcoming title and get a few more details on the anticipated racer. While we've known for a while that the Blu-ray version of the game would exclusively have the Beyond the Apex feature, we were told that the disc version of the game would also have a lot more cinematics included, such as video course guides of the real-life tracks, as well as the opening and ending movie. Many of these elements won't be included within the initial download of the game from the PSN, although we were told that some of these items would eventually find their way onto Gran Turismo TV, the racing specific channel that will be included within the game.
Much more than a simple news feed updating players on races that are online, GT TV will host lots of licensed television footage, such as episodes of Top Gear and Best Motoring (a popular Japanese drift series). It may also be a showcase for car manufacturers to highlight their upcoming product lines, highlighting a specific vehicle from its R&D phase to its release. GT TV could even potentially become a place for car fans to upload video of their own tuned and modified cars, highlighting their vehicles for other racing fans to see. Since much of it is still up for discussion, much of the online space for the game is still being decided by Polyphony Digital.
In fact, we were told that GT5 Prologue will initially launch with a rather basic online service that will allow up to 16 players to get on and play, but not much more than that. As time goes on, however, players will receive updates that could include new features, racetracks and even gameplay modes. While there is no specific schedule planned for the updates, Polyphony Digital is planning on making sure that all regions will receive practically all of the same content at the same time. There will be some minor elements that will be regionally exclusive (such as music tracks), but for the most part, Europe and Japan will receive an update to match the most recent version of the game that will be released in North America on April 15th.
We were also told that Polyphony is still looking at GT5 Prologue as an experimental testbed for features that will eventually make their way into Gran Turismo 5, which we were told would probably be released in Summer 2009. While they don't know exactly how they plan on using the game to experiment in this manner, they are definitely planning on transferring a player's progress and hard work in Prologue to GT5 when it's eventually released. However, at this time, they're not sure if it will be a save file, credit or car transfer to the final title. We'll have more on Gran Turismo 5 and GT5 Prologue as soon as it becomes available.
source : www.ign.com
