GT5 B-Spec “Remote Races” Coming Early February

One of the more interesting and unusual GT5 features announced before release was “Remote Races” (also known as “Gran Turismo Anywhere”), enabling you to control your B-Spec races on your PS3 from your PC or mobile device. Obviously, this was missing from the game when it shipped last November, and its future has been uncertain – despite the fact that it remains listed (with this screenshot) on Polyphony Digital’s official GT5 feature list.

Now, however, Kazunori Yamauchi has finally confirmed via Twitter the feature will be available in “early February”. It is unknown if enabling this functionality will require another update of the game, but considering v1.05 is nearly a month old already, this may be the target release date for the next revision. Regardless, though, it looks like this update won’t be coming soon enough for participants of the B-Spec-based Signature Edition Challenge.

Thanks to Rob Groove for the tip!

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Comments (94)

  1. SuperAguri

    Kaz please provide the right to set the password in the Online Louge and add more tracks such as Motegi, Sugo, Okayama and Autopolis please please please !

  2. Shazbot

    And come April, there will be a similar news update … “Kazunori Yamauchi confirms that GT5 B-spec arriving sometime in June.”

  3. Spade

    Well B Spec will still be flawed all together whether you’re using the races via PS3 or the PC! They should focus on adding more things to B Specs such a “Training” option or make more commands for you’re driver and make the AI drivers more improved!

  4. TheProphessional

    Question: I know the PS3/GT5 game have to be on, but can leave home and RESTART races remotely (So, I’d be able to leave the house all day and still grind the American Championship over and over)? Or will you have to manually start a race, B-Spec it remotely until it’s finished, then manually start another race?

    1. Nikez

      I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m pretty sure you can’t do the regular B-Spec races as we know them. The remote races is for putting your own drivers and cars against the drivers and cars of your friends. The drivers will get experience, but I don’t think it will count for B-Spec rank.

      So the way I look at it, it’s gonna be some fun you can do with GT5 when you can’t play the actual game. Just go to gran-turismo.com and chose your language and then search for B-Spec. The B-Spec page from that site is where I got the basis of my information in this post. If I have misunderstood, I appologize.

  5. ripcde

    DAMN YOU Kazunori Yamauchi!!!!!!!! Hasn’t my home life suffered enough? Now you must take over my work as well?
    (Shakes angry fist)

    1. ripcde

      PS I don’t feel all that bad now for the stupid PSN accounts I made to get free birthday cars. Anyone else use Mike Hunt as their name?

  6. Deathsarthe

    Just a terrible idea, IMO.

    I think we can all agree that the B-Spec from GT4 was more of a useful tool more than it should’ve ever been a feature that’s 1/2 of the career portion of GT5. It should’ve stayed that way…

    Though, I am a GT fanatic it doesn’t change the fact that the A-Spec and overall game still feels incredibly rushed, incomplete, and just sub-par – which are things that Polyphony and full GT titles aren’t known for.

  7. Max

    I read on a German site that you can only “remote race” against the Bobs of your friends. You won’t get any Credits or XP for this. There will be no possibility to “remote race” B-Spec events…Where is the sense???

  8. HumanDestroyah

    I work 12 hour shifts behind a computer…… I don’t know about the rest of you but I can’t wait for this.

  9. Waltermydoinhere

    I want more admin controls in ONLINE racing.

    Make driving backwards a PENALTY that AUTO-KICKs the person.
    Like in some 1st person shooters on the PC, if someone amasses too much ‘damage given’ points to other cars, (like Team killing), AUTO-KICK

    Make all tracks “Reversable”. I’d love to give the Ring a go going the OTHER direction…

    More parameters for “RESTRICTIONS” on the multi-player settings. Such as:

    Year limitations. (1965-1969 cars only)
    Country Limitations (German cars only etc…)
    “Race Car Only” or “Street Car Only” settings

    Give US control!! It sucks to have a great server going where everyone is complying with the ‘communicated’ settings and someone comes in and takes a car that falls within the current restrictions but is a total cheater car compared to what everyone else already agreed on. With some of the above restrictions, it would be so much easier to have a successful, on-going online race server.

    Thanks ahead of time for listening..(yeah right)

    As for B-spec. Those of you who say it’s useless obviously haven’t gotten the cool cars it gives out. Either that or you’ve already gotten them through some ‘duplication’ method. Either way, I don’t care but I do think it’s a nice way to earn extra$$. I put “Bob” to work on the lvl 24 “Dream Car Championship” and he earns over $1 million/hour. I just click start and check back every 15 minutes or so whilst watching TV. Easy Money.

  10. Dave-o

    First we had A Spec, where you drive the car. Then we had B spec, where you watch the PS3 drive the car. Now we have remote driving, where you don’t watch the PS3 driving your car for you. What’s next? Imaginary driving, where you don’t even have a PS3.

    BTW, I am unbeatable at imaginary driving.

  11. Cynical Simon

    I think Sony made PD invent Bspec to increase the wear and tear on the PS system.
    Now my PS3 can be on all day when im at work too.

  12. daics69

    I, and many of my friends have waited years for GT5 to be released. Purchased the original PS3 for almost $1000au the day after it was released in anticipation of GT5. Picked up the signature addition for $300au, purchased a steering wheel for $200au. WHY THE F… WOULD I WANT TO WATCH AN A.I. DRIVER RACING MY CARS!?!?!?! ridiculous!!!

  13. syaieya

    Looking back at that article from September makes me wish they would implement more stuff for point to point racing.

    They have great potential for online rally racing and touge and point to point create a track races

  14. Bearcut

    How about a real online community? Online classifieds? Online events (NOT MORE SINGLE PLAYER EVENTS, BUT ONLINE EVENTS vs OTHER PLAYERS)

    It’s rare to get a decent race going online with this antiquated lobby system, you’d think that PD has been out of the loop for over a decade.

  15. BWX

    A-Spec in GT5 has less than 1/4 of the races that GT4 A-Spec has, and there’s tons of things missing completely that we were told would be in GT5 like marathon race and mid championship saves and poin to point generated rally stages, etc…, yet Kaz and PD spend their resources adding garbage like this that nobody cares about. WTH FIX GT5, then add BS features later.

  16. sinister_300zx

    OMG!kaz you are wasting you time..portable B-spec half the people i know arent even past level 4 on there B-spec and this is gonna be the 1st up date of the year? FAIL!! why not give us a update with some new premium cars or new maps i got 148 cars in my garage and im bored with all of them already we need new cars!! and instead of wasting time on this why not keep workin on that free roam so it can out earlier..5yrs im sorry but 5 yrs doing what? all this could have been done in at least 2 1/2 yrs

    1. mark

      ummm, ya, your not getting free roam. He said he had wanted it, past tense, not that he was doing it for an update. The PS3 has a hard enough time with 12 cars on tracks that are nothing compared to a free roam enviroment. You might see it in GT6, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. Kaz loves to talk about concepts, post release, but that’s often the last time you hear of them has well. At least from PD anyway.

  17. pasigiri

    Well along with this “update” from PD, please fix the fully customizable tranny to be fully customizable, put back in the turning angle setting (it was in GT5P), allow paint colors infinite usage, allow any wheels to be put on any premium car, and include the ability to pause or stop+continue an endurance race.

  18. Strikey182

    I don’t see why people are complaining? Oh no, they are giving us more features! jeez. They are adding more stuff when they didn’t need to so stop complaining!
    Having said that, i would like events with stricter criteria. I.e Front Wheel drive and less than 340bhp, just so you have a reason to buy a wider selection of cars and also they will be closer and tougher races but there is no need to whinge about them giving us other stuff first

    1. Nell

      Ok, so if they add the option for fuzzy dice, rolling down windows, hitchiker pickups, and McDonalds drivethru durring endurance races, over the next six patches, but you never get your race event regs, you’ll be ok with that just because PD didn’t have to add any of it?
      Because I think most people would find the features I have listed to be silly, pointless, and a waste of dev time, and would rather have the event regs.
      Point being this: All the above complaints are from people who find b-spec to be in the silly, pointless, and/or waste of dev time catagory, and would rather the dev time be spent on other things.
      Does that mean I agree with everyone, and think b-spec should be ignored? No, certainly some people play it and would benifit from this feature, but I also think people who don’t care for b-spec have a right to speak out, just has you or I, and are wise to do so given that PD seems to pay attention to the comunity feedback. In the end it’ll lead to a more balanced set of feature upgrades with a higher chance that everyone gets some of what they want.

    2. idlestation

      Well the content is free.. if they were forcing a subscription of dlc charges then I understand but yea people are just complaining

  19. Olegonic

    Instead of waisting time for development of dat B spec mode they’d better off give us drift events and drift tracks like Ebisu Circuit. It a great game but Kaz’s forgotten dat Japan is a homeport of drift and we got nothing from Pd about drift, exluding those boring single drift runs on the track without any heat of battle. WE NEED DRIFT BATTLE and DRIFT GP EVENTS. I’m very surprised dat there is no discussion on forum about willing of having those events. May be Kaz would give’em us in the future updates or DLC

    1. FlareKR

      He does have a point though. I know many would like to have campaign, split-screen (we’re just playing around with regular split-screen giving each other 10-scale points, lol) and online drifting added.
      B-Spec drifting anyone? Bob’s already too damn good at it already.

  20. Evillseed

    This is kind of a meh feature. The biggest story is the fact that it’s a slap in the face to those of us who had to sit at the ps3 and guide Bob while not being able to play ourselves. Now we can have people who spend a few minutes a day (probably while at work) to move through B-Spec and get all the benefits we did but late adopters don’t compromise their own A-Spec/Online race time.

  21. Brandon

    I hope they raise the level cap. It has taken me almost 2 months to get to level 40. So I will have absolutely no use for this feature. I don’t have many complaints about this game, but this advertised feature coming out after 2 months of b spec grinding is kinda ridiculous.

  22. beepbeep

    This seems like a terrible idea. at first, I thought it would be useful if you needed credits, but B-spec, let’s admit it, is not fun at all and we only do it because cars and cash is hard to maintain.

    A better fix is to have lots more tracks and events.

    I’m pretty happy with what cars we have now, so I think the future strategy for GT5 improvements should be (in this order)

    — More tracks, optionally track packs as DLC, but keep things high quality
    — New premium cars, if they are DLC, then they should not cost in game credits. This should not include things like “More skylines”, but instead cars that are very fun and unique to drive.

    If all GT5 folks did was produce more tracks, I’d be in love with them. B-spec seems like they don’t know their fans.

  23. Pesico

    I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m pretty sure you can’t do the regular B-Spec races as we know them. The remote races is for putting your own drivers and cars against the drivers and cars of your friends. The drivers will get experience, but I don’t think it will count for B-Spec rank.

    So the way I look at it, it’s gonna be some fun you can do with GT5 when you can’t play the actual game. Just go to gran-turismo.com and chose your language and then search for B-Spec. The B-Spec page from that site is where I got the basis of my information in this post. If I have misunderstood, I appologize.

    1. Schmo

      You are correct. I posted that in the forums before. What you stated is how its on their website and I interpenetrated it the same as you. Remote Races will only be good for leveling your (and your friends) drivers and maybe make some extra cash.

    1. JasonMann

      Really? Awesome! I was shocked when i bought the so called ‘fully customizable transmission’ and couldn’t change individual gears.

  24. Tim

    about time , at leas now i can control the action without being tied to the ps3 , as it is quite boring to watch a b-spec race which you know you can win easily. i’d rather watch tv

  25. kalakanto

    Great. Do we really need this? It’s nice to hear they are focusing to this kind of bs. And ofcourse support for every kind of tikitalks what ever made.

  26. Craigles

    One more thing is this thing going to be an app of some sort you could buy for ipod or iphone and if it is does it require wi-fi

  27. Craigles

    Great news. I feel like such a downer when i do B-spec just watching them race and pressing the same buttons over and over. (alough ive only done 2 sunday cup races and then i got bored => )

    What i think is a good idea is speech recognition. If you have a ps eye or headset you could talk to the driver eg overtake, increase pace or just somthing like xbox kinect voice recognition.

    Mind you if this was in it i still wouldnt really like B-spec tehe

    1. JasonMann

      good idea, but still though i prefer driving myself… i think b spec is for people who dont want to drive themselves, or who are not good at driving.or maybe they just want good cars… who knows…

    2. samdu

      B-Spec is nice in that you can run races when you don’t have the time to sit and actually drive yourself. Like while I’m doing work on my computer in front of the TV, for instance. It lets you earn cars, money and XP while doing something else.

  28. Sele1981

    We have get an beta version thats a bit annoying…

    I think most of you guys have already finished B-Spec and there is no need for this anymore…

    I haven´t touched the B-Spec and I think I will never touch that BS…

  29. RegalFunk

    While I’m glad to see this is getting released, one thing on Kaz’s twitter that caught my eye was a message reading “I will have a real bike game to the company”. Could be that he’s ruled out bikes in any incarnation of GT, dreaming of a new TT maybe?

  30. x666Kris666xx

    I reckon the AMG Comp is exactly the reason this hasn’t been added yet personally…just my 2 cents…

  31. priesty

    Cool, hope it come to iPhone at release, not sure my bss will appreciate me doing this all day using works PC lol

    1. TheMasfer

      It won’t be available on iPhone by mobile device it means psp’s and sone ericson phones it will all be done through remote play

    2. Mr_Hansen

      @ TheMasfer

      That is not what has been said. From what I understand, you just need to have your PS3 on and log unto your PSN account via the internet. Therefore I can’t see why you shouldn’t be able to use any smartphone (unless you have to have a program/application installed first..).

    3. FlareKR

      Yes! Finaly my PSP can do something else the IPhone can’t do! I guess I know what I’ll be doing during lunch now.

    1. ichiyamamoto

      @Andy
      Really?
      Aw, that’s too bad.
      I always figured it’d be like racing
      ghosts of other players, or their b-spec racers.
      This way it’d have no need for me to still sit and watch.

      In other news, I’m still waiting to see if he
      was serious about that “Free Roam” mode or something.

    2. Demolisher_1

      This is fine with me because I can run it with my Playstation on while my brother is using the TV for his Xbox and I can still earn money. I’m happy.

    1. Eric

      Great, PD is finally making this available just as I’m completing my B-spec Endurance Series. Two 24hrs races to go.

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