14 DAY TRIAL // Polyphony Digital, the developer, and publisher Sony have announced that all the three racing courses at the iconic German circuit Nurburgring will be included in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5, the racing simulation which will arrive exclusively on the PlayStation 3. This weekend will see the annual running of the 24 Hours race at Nurburgring and Sony has set up special demo stations for Gran Turismo 5, where fans can come up and see how the three tracks are recreated in the new racing game.
The three courses that are included in the title are: the Gran Prix course, the 24 Hours course and the Nordschleife. Despite all of them existing physically at Nurburgring the three circuits are pretty different. The Gran Prix course is the newest and most adapted to modern racing while the Nordschleife is longer and more treacherous, frequently leading to spectacular high speed crashes for those who attempt to complete it in modern supercars.
The announcement made by Sony and Polyphony Digital could indicate that the two companies are ready to actually commit to a new launch date for Gran Turismo 5. The game was initially expected to come out at some point during last year, but Sony made several delay announcements. Now Kazunori Yamauchi, the man leading the development project, has told racing site Inside Line that “About 90 per cent of the game is done. We are just working on the last 10 per cent and polishing up everything.” This could mean that the game will be out before the end of this year.
The big problem is that pretty similar statements were made by Yamauchi late in 2009 and earlier in 2010, at the Consumer Electronic Show. With Gran Turismo 5 not out, Microsoft is scoring quite a lot of points in the console war with its Forza Motorsport 3, which recently received a new downloadable car pack.