I read the article earlier today and I have to say that I was disappointed by the lack of information in it...That was some lazy reporting (and yes, I work in news)!!! Granted, it is written for a different audience, but still. It felt like the guy just did not ask enough questions or ask the right ones.
A lot of it was just describing the offices, PD's private track day at Tsukuba, what the original staff drives compared to the rest of the staff (Ferraris/Astons to RX-7/Evos).
No mention what so ever about Ferrari's inclusion, Indianapolis or any of the stuff that Joypad broke.
Thisis actually indicative of what PD have been doing for the last 6 months or more.
These interviews are held via translators, PDs responses are very limited, or deflecting as in them making out they didnt fully understand the question, but give a response that seems to resemble the question, cant see the journo then turning round to the big KY hey thats not the answer im looking for.
Im sure the time and questions here at these big events are limited and strictly vetted.
Remember PD were also criticised over the lack of anything but new visuals for GTHD as well as the micro transactions, when it was pulled!
That was PDs 2 years of work down the toilet, they only got their dev kits about 9 months prior to PS3 launch, so it is no big surprise to me that all we were going to see was a mainly graphically revamped GT4 at launch, it made perfect business sense, for PD and Sony as a launch platform.
That was all thrown into disarray after the backlash from the media and consumers.
In several interviews and quotes ive seen from KY and PD over the last nine months, i dont think they have any firm idea about where GT5 is going, because first they have to put out the intermediary title, which will give them the time to focus on the real PS3 GT, now theyve had to go back and work on adding content to that, after the much heavy criticism at lack of new content, add the fact that this will be out one year later than the origianl launch title (yet will essentially be the same game) all this is work that PD hadnt added to the equation.
GTHD should have been out at lauch, a showcase peice, that they had been working on since GT4, they should be a solid year into GT5 developement, it isnt, the GTHD/5 prologue (whatever it ends up) stop gap version isnt even out or ready. Confusion looms over content descriptions between GTHD(the revamped GT4) and GT5, because journos were as confused as the rest of us as to what the next gt title will be called, because as yet it has no Official PD title, PD use this to blur the lines about what will appear in the next title very effectively!
The fact that at those interviews they leave all the pretty stuff on workstations, give those journos a sense that what they are seeing is GT5 developement, but again their is no clarification from PD, which as a cynic, i conclude the smoke screens are their to cover all the cracks that are in the strategy and developement on GT.
Very little information is given during these interviews, because GT5 is on hold, until GT???? stop gap is released, they arent going to tell journos that, and they certainly arent going to say GT???? stop gap is just GTHD classic/premium canned PS3 Launch title, slightly reworked, because that would just be a shambollic PR method.
They want you to believe the next title, is new, not based on something that started its developement life over 5 years ago on PS2, its difficult to spin that as a good reason to buy GT???? and a PS3 so far after launch, so the best strategy is to say as little as possible, and take the flak later.