While people have vastly varying opinions on the overall quality of Gran Turismo's ability to simulate actual driving, the general opinion around the water cooler is that it's the closet thing you'll ever get to real racing unless you actually participate in some real racing. Its closest competitor in the world of popular racing console games is Forza, and the Forza guys have been talking some smack on GT ever since the recently released Forza III was announced.

Now that Forza III has been released and the competition has been able to check it out, what does legendary GT developer Kazunori Yamauchi think of it? Well, it's not quite a racing simulator, but it ain't bad. A few guys around the GT office, including Yamauchi himself, have played the competing racer and he came away with this, "I was watching the guys at our company trying it out in the office. I tried it a little bit. It's very similar in a lot of aspects to Gran Turismo. Some base components of the game are very different from Gran Turismo. It's a little bit different from what a simulator is. You can feel it when you drive it."

I'd say that he was being viciously backhanded, but there was nothing backhanded about that. He came out and said that Forza III isn't a simulator. Upfront and to the point that Yamauchi is. Nice to see they're checking out the competition, though. Anything in Forza III you wish would show up in GT5 when it lands in March of next year?

[Via CVG]

Typical car porn is real-life, existing automobiles that you'll never get the money or chance to get your hands on. You just look and lust over. Concept car porn is different, in that it's possible that no one would ever get to drive the vehicle. It's like real porn featuring triple-nippled alien girls. Well, not quite, but you know what I mean.

Here we have Gran Turismo 5's Toyota FT-86 in all its shiny concept glory. You won't miss an angle in these 20 screens from the game. Included in the set is a portside truck rollout of the car, all of which look amazing in these stills. The lighting is incredible!

For the car buffs out there, I'd recommend checking out the real FT-86, which could shape up to be an affordable everyman's sportscar. The good thing about this car is that it is supposed to become an actual product, with a selling price that will probably be around $20,000.

Forza Motorsport 3 shipped with two discs. Gran Turismo 5 may ship with three.

In a recent video spotted by GT Planet, game creative director and speed enthusiast Kazunori Yamauchi talks a bit the Mercedes’ 2011 SLS AMG in relation to the game. It’s a natural thing to talk about -- the sleek car might grace the cover of the packaging. But when he whipped the game out during the video, it wasn’t just a lone box -- there were three different cases, none of which we’re familiar with.

As Joystiq notes, signs seem to point towards this being the Collectors or “Special” Edition version of the game. Word on the street is that Blu-rays are pretty big mediums, able to hold significant amounts of data. Surely Polyphony Digital wouldn’t have a problem ramming 87 bajillion cars on a lone disc, right? Hell, Borderlands fit that many guns on a DVD.

Great, dude. How about right now? Or even anytime soon?

Fine, I'm sure he didn't mean it in that way, but we can only hear the old story of how they're taking their time to do a good job so many times. 

Polyphony Digital's Kazunori Yamauchi told Famitsu that they have been tweaking the game, and it's coming along, slowly but surely. He says that he's working right now to get "that classic GT-style," but it could be good to go now, and that they "could release it any time we want." I love one Joystiq commenter's response to Yamauchi's claims: "I can cure cancer any time I want...but I won't."

To be fair, Yamauchi is working to make the game good, saying "I want to go way beyond gamer expectations."

Set to hit December 2045 on the PS9, Gran Turismo 5 is looking great considering how early it is in the game’s development process. Case in point, the screens below.

Earlier this afternoon, publisher Sony released a few new images of the game featuring, shocker, uber-shiny cars driving fast. There’s no much more to these in-game shots -- the backgrounds are blurred and vehicular opponents are all driving similar, snot-covered vehicles. That said, there’s still no way you can walk away from these screens and not think this is the best looking car game ever made.

Well, unless you have car-o-phobia. Then you’re just weird.

Consider it a nice calling out. A polite one. Still, Gran Turismo 5 was called out by Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt.

"I've got huge respect for Yamauchi and what the Polyphony Digital team does, they're a great developer. But do I personally feel confident that it would be difficult for any other racing game to do this," Greenawalt told CVG, speaking on Forza Motorsport 3.

"Gran Turismo is a great game and when it comes out I'll play it. But I think that without the partnerships and without the commitment, it will be very difficult for another team to replicate what we've done."

The "this" Greenawalt is speaking on is the graphics and physics in Forza 3. He says that the game physics run at 360Hz. That's a good thing, I guess. He also says that it looks better than Forza 2, but the physics is where it stands out.

"We still prioritise physics first, not graphics first. That is one of the differences."

Despite the lack of humility, I think Greenawalt is on to something. I need to play a bit more of GT5 to call it, but I think that Forza 3 has superior...everything so far. I've been spending quality time with review code and have basically fallen in love. Forza 3 is f*cking fantastic. 

Last week's debate will hopefully be a wake up call to those responsible for the Mortal Kombat series' future. The numbers from our microcosm debate poll may show that a small group of people are happy with the series overall, but the comments suggest otherwise. I'm not surprised at all by the outcome, but it still needed to be done to shine a spotlight on a series that continues to fall more and more behind its competition in popularity and replayability. Here's the landslide results:

• Street Fighter series (108 votes) -- Winner!
• Mortal Kombat series (22 votes) -- Babality!

However, that's not to say that Street Fighter is near perfect, and you all offered a lot of great insight on what could or should be improved in the series in the future.

This week we have a classic case of fun versus realism by taking a look at one of the most interestingly divided genres in all of gaming. Some prefer only realistic racers, while others prefer realistic graphics with fudged physics to allow for gameplay to be as fast and intense as possible in a variety of real world locations where it would surely be illegal to try in real life. Others desire less serious racing games that focus instead on fictional tracks and circumstances. And then there's the crowd who just wants to blow stuff up . . . while driving.

Which series do you like better as a whole, and why? What aspects or individual games of the series made up your mind? Is your choice mainly due to support for that series, or your dislike of other series? Give it some serious thought, share your thought process with all of us, and then get some racing genre friends to join in on the fun.

Bonus Question: What are you hoping to see in the future from the series you voted for?

Damn. How great do these screens of Ferrari and Lamborghini cars look? Eye-searingly good, I'd say.

I'm not sure why there's a focus on exotics in the screens released from Sony of Gran Turismo 5. Other car games focus on that sports car that is just out of reach for most, toying with that feeling that you could at least drive your dream car in a game. A Ferrari? You're never getting one of those. And they're in all car games anyway - big deal.

But these screens look fantastic. Honestly, these screens look better than any time I've seen Gran Turismo 5 in person.  I'm not trying to call anyone out, though. I'm just saying that I hope the final game looks this good.

Free is good, right? But wait -- not Free free, like how Gran Turismo was free for our European friends that bought the PSPgo. Americans still have to buy the game, but at least there's a free bonus.

Buy the PSP game Gran Turismo on the PlayStation Network as a download, and you'll get a free car, a 2009 Nissan GT-R Spec V in metallic blue added to your car roster. This offer is good starting today, October 1st, and for the next 15 days. 

Bitching about free things aside, Gran Turismo is a pretty solid offering for the PSP. I wish there was more of a racing game there, but as it stands, it is still a pretty good portable experience.

It's been a looooong time coming, but Gran Turismo is finally, finally getting car damage in the game. It was absent from GT5: Prologue, but it's here now. This was confirmed a while back at GamesCon I believe, but not much was seen and details were scarce. Above you'll see IGN's video of car damage from TGS. The guys over there also confirmed that damage will be possible on every car in the game, though street cars may be limited in the amount of damage that can be done to them (no parts flying off, etc.). It had been previously rumored that only racing cars would have damage.

In the video above doors fly open, fenders fall off and hoods get dented. However, in the video below that features a street car that crashes in much the same way the damage is only surface level with no real parts getting torn off. Who knows why this is. Maybe it's just too much work to get the thousands of cars ready to go for full damage or maybe it's the manufacturers of the street cars not wanting the cars to look too bad. Either way, it's nice to see damage at all, right?

[Via gtplanet]

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First off, if you're looking for dirt, you won't find much here. Both upcoming racers Forza Motorsport 3 (Xbox 360) and Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) are sure to be great racing games. That said,  I think there's a clear winner here between the two high-profile racers shown on the floor of Tokyo Game Show this year. As you read on, keep in mind that we're not comparing the games themselves as much as we are the demos shown on the TGS floor.

Both were in pretty nifty setups. Gran Turismo 5 had real-world racing seats built into metal frames. Inside, players sat in front of a high-end Sony display while controlling the game with the GT steering wheel set. Forza 3 was played on a three-screen setup. They too had racing chairs and a steering wheel controller. Putting all of that aside, though, which was the better game? view full story + comments

Well, it's about damn time. Sony revealed during their second press conference of the day that Gran Turismo 5 finally has a solid release date. It will be out in March 2010 in Japan and, well, that's all that was revealed about that.

No word on a American or European release date, pricing, or anything else that I could have used to fill up this post so it doesn't look so small.

Yup. 

We already know that Europe is getting Gran Turismo PSP free with their PSPgo. We'll give that to them, as they always get the shaft. But after seeing the other goodies they're getting, including a Collector's Edition release of the game, and another slick bundle, we're beginning to think that Sony thinks we dislike Gran Turismo.

Remember when we told you about our Limited Edition Gran Turismo PSP Entertainment Pack, set to release on October 20th? It's just a good ol' Silver PSP-3000, the game, and a couple of vouchers. Europe has another pack aside from the PSPgo one. It contains a PSP that features special GT branding and ornaments in a unique Titanium finish. Oh, and they get a leather pouch!

It's not just the bundles that got the hook-up. There's a Collector's Edition release of the game for Europe. This special rainbow silver foil effect Collector’s Edition pack has a voucher for a Bugatti Veyron inside, along with five special art cards based on the vehicle. 

As a bonus kick in the balls, their bundle hits on launch date, October 1st. Ours? Two weeks or more later. You win this one, EU. Sony, what's the deal? Is Europe the new Japan?

Sony has just announced a PSP bundle to follow the Gran Turismo PSP launch, just as we expected. What we did not expect is that a PSPgo is not included in the bundle.

The Limited Edition Gran Turismo PSP Entertainment Pack will launch on October 20th. For the price of $199.99, you'll get Gran Turismo PSP, an exclusive download voucher for a white Chevrolet Corvette ZR1, a download voucher for ten free songs from Sony Music Pass, another voucher for a yet-to-be-announced movie, a 2GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, oh, and a Mystic Silver PSP-3000. Not the PSPgo that launches on October 1st. A PSP-3000.

It's not that it's a bad bundle. In fact, the price is pretty good for what comes with it. It's just that people looking to buy a system that month might be looking to get a PSPgo. Maybe Sony has some excess silver PSP-3000s to get rid of.

Europe, it looks like you win this one.