At the E3 trade show that took place in Los Angeles last week, Sony unveiled one of the launch titles for the new and improved PlayStation Portable Go! - a Gran Turismo game. So, fans of the series were quickly up in arms saying that the publisher should be more interested in getting the proper Gran Turismo 5 out for the PlayStation 3 rather than creating a new game in the series for the Sony handheld.

But Kazunori Yamauchi, who is leading the development effort on both titles, has said that the teams working on the games are not influencing each other and that the schedule for the main title will not be affected in any way by the development and the release of the game for the PSP Go!.

Still, has stated that “I don't think there was a direct effect, but I do believe that the development team really gained experience in streamlining displaying graphics on a very small space and also how to manage memory when the amount of memory available is very small. That sort of experience is something that was gained by the team.”

According to Kazunori, the recent Microsoft announcement related to a new Forza title is not seen by his team as a threat, because games like Forza are aimed at a different market segment than the Gran Turismo series. He also thinks that the current shift towards racing titles that dabble in fantasy settings and in the use of power ups does not mean that realistic racing games will no longer find gamers who are interested in them.

The development team is said not to think of delivering any downloadable content for the PSP version of Gran Turismo but there are some plans related to the PlayStation 3 version, which is said to share a garage with the handheld game, meaning that if you unlock any cool cars, you will be able to use them on the PS3. With both titles set to arrive in 2009, it will be interesting to see which one gamers will choose.