No new date announced

Jan 14, 2010 11:00 GMT  ·  By

Sony has announced that its long awaited racing title Gran Turismo 5 will be delayed again. The reasons cited by the publisher were unspecified production issues. The company has made it clear that the March release window previously announced for Japan would not be met but refused to say when the game will be coming out. Gran Turismo 5 has suffered from a long list of delays and the most recent date was only announced late last year at the Tokyo Game Show.

After the initial announcement, Sony Europe also said that the European release date was not affected by the delay, which is only applicable to Japan. The irony of this last announcement is that there are yet not clear dates set for the North American and European markets, with Sony suggesting that it could take a few months to port the game after the Japanese launch. Clearly, fans will be happy to know that the delay is not affecting a release date they do not know. Sony has even issued an apology, a rare move for the company.

The interesting aspect of this latest announcement is that it contradicts what Kazunori Yamauchi, who is the leader of the team at Polyphony Digital working on Gran Turismo 5, said in interviews, that the game was basically finished and that he would like to see it released as soon as possible.

Gran Turismo 5 was first unveiled at the 2006 E3 trade show and reportedly cost more than 60 million dollars to make until now. The game promises a more complex racing experience and a demo came out on December 17, which has since been played by more than a million gamers, demonstrating that there is genuine excitement around Gran Turismo 5. Let's hope Sony quickly reveals a new date for the launch and sticks to it.