Gran Turismo 5, the racing car game developed by Polyphony Digital and published exclusively on the PlayStation 3 by Sony, is starting to look more and more like vaporware, a product destined never to be actually released to the public. But Sony is again naming timeframes for a release date, although they should be taken with a pinch of salt.

James Armstrong, who is the leader of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in Portugal, talked to the Spanish site Canarias Al Dia and said that Gran Turismo 5 was set to be launched, presumably on the European market, sometime “this fall, before Christmas.” He also freely admitted that a clear release date was “not yet decided” and urged fans of the racing series to stay tuned for more information.

The problem with these comments is that Sony previously said that Gran Turismo 5 was set to be launched in time for the Christmas shopping season of 2009 and continued to maintain that line, even in the face of reality, up until the Tokyo Games Show, when a release date of March was named for the Japanese market, with the expectation that the game would also arrive in North America and Europe a few months later. Since then, the Japanese date has been pushed back again and Sony is not talking about Gran Turismo 5 and its arrival in North America and in Europe.

Kazunori Yamauchi, the main developer behind Gran Turismo 5, has been quoted as saying that the development process for the game has been about 60 million dollars over the five years it has been worked on. And as more and more delays are announced for the racing title, which was set to show off the capabilities of the PlayStation 3, the fan base willing to wait and believe in Sony is ever smaller.