In a series of Tweets this afternoon Polyphony Digital boss Kaz Yamauchi has been answering fan questions on Gran Turismo 5 in a remarkably candid manner.
Picked up and translated over at NeoGAF, the studio head says that, amongst other things, he’d have liked to have a free roam mode where the player would have to stick to the rules of the roads (obeying traffic lights, for example) and get could leave the car and browse the shops.
Yamauchi also says that the reason head tracking doesn’t work outside of Arcade mode is due to memory issues, that renumeration for online play is “under consideration” and that mechanical damage should appear in the next update.
Assuming, of course, that the translations are accurate enough.
AJ
That would be pretty cool… For a little while. I’m glad they spent their time on other things.
GranTurismo-Disciple
Imagine driving down through a city to go to gt auto and browse the tuning shops or even shops for new racing gear, that would be awesome, i hope we have some sort of xp system for online though in a patch and definately hope for a patch to sort the AI out cos its terrible!!.
3shirts
Awesome for 5 minutes but tiresome after much longer.
beeje13
cant help but agree
Pete_UK
What could they add to the experience to make it worthwhile? If it were an instanced state with 16 other players in free-roam, with the usual range of options like challenges and such (think MNR but expanded)? You could still have a menu-based system for offline / SP use, and keep online free-roam an option. Make it a big enough area with a gymkhana and such for practicing driving skills, a skidpan, perhaps a 1/4 mile straight, and I can’t see how it could fail. You could also throw in the long lost test course while we’re at it.
/me is now excited for GT6
Joe
yeah… it’d be like PS Home (boring) but with cars… imagine all the car accidents everywhere!
Beelzie14
Thought there was already mechanical damage? Not that I am far enough into it yet to have unlocked any damage whatsoever!! MUST find more time to immerse myself in the Babylonic car-pornfest that is GT5.
Porcupine_I
i think they are going to unlock damage for the arcade mode.
3shirts
Thing is, the realism of GT is important because I will likely never get to drive super cars round Laguna Seca or LM race cars on Monaco. I can, however, drive to the shops obeying the rules! That’s not fun
Kronik76
Nail – head!
Hoppers77
Jimmy Nail?
Kronik76
No, he was busy filming Top Gun 2.
TSBonyman
Gran Turismo – The real Driving and Shopping simulator? – No thanks! :D
gazzagb
A free roam driving would be pretty cool. That’s probably why in GTA IV I haven’t done a single mission, I just love driving around!
bunimomike
Gran Turismo 5 – coming soon, through a series of updates and patches. 8-)
Finally, Kaz can be put out to pasture.
double-o-dave
Oh dear, wait ’til he finds that the free roam mode has already been done several times whilst he was down in his cave creating his piece. Normally I’d say ‘masterpiece’ but somehow I find adding the ‘master’ is a trifle generous
NotoriousGTT
I’m not even fussy about “renumeration” for online, can we just get a level system like every FPS, points for positions/driving aids/clean racing, overtakes etc so we can see who is at what level.
And free roam sounds awesome, driving to the car showrooms would be epic and test drives on the road with a salesperson screaming “No, No, Please slow down!!!!” would be a huge amount of fun.
cc_star
Love free roam in NfSHP, its great for admiring at the gorgeously detailed scenery, amazing environmental lighting and getting some amazing photos. It should be great if he could implement it in GT5, although as its circuit based maybe not the same.
Free roam generally streams off the disc and everything PD has done has been around install or caching, would probably be another extended dev time to change the way of programming?