https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ynF7LneELo

This week’s garage update for Forza Horizon 3 takes on a bit of a different tone from the past 2 weeks. Showcase cars in previous weeks include some modern-era powerhouses and historic sports cars. This week however — the game is changed forever. Ferraris are lovely, and Aston Martins are prestigious, but this week a new entry into the garage roster makes all other competitors in the Horizon festival null and void. Say hello to the…

With only two race weekends left on the calendar, the 2016 season of the All-Japan Formula 3 open-wheel series is slowly coming to a close. Normally, this puts enormous pressure on drivers whose  overall standing depends on a point or two. Jann Mardenborough has managed to avoid this unpleasant position by winning the last two races at Motegi. This perfect weekend brought Jann a comfortable advantage over his rivals, and brings him one step closer to claiming the championship title.

In case you’ve been living under a particularly large rock, a little thing known as the Olympics just wrapped up in Rio on Sunday. A testament to the capabilities of the human body, the best technology available, and the relentlessness of VISA advertising, it offers a global stage for the absolute best to compete against one another.

Sony has announced that subscription prices for PlayStation Plus will be increasing to $59.99 USD/$69.99 CAD for 12 months and $24.99 USD/$29.99 CAD for 3 months. The monthly price plan, while remaining the same $9.99 in the US, will increase to $11.99 in Canada.

Former GT Academy graduate Lucas Ordoñez is auctioning one of his racing suits for a great cause. Lucia Gil Alvaro is an 11-year-old girl who suffers from the rare disease ‘Leber congenital amaurosis’, which causes the person affected to become blind. However, this illness can be treated but must be done so in the USA. For the past 8 years, Lucia has been treated in Philadelphia as explained below in the video introducing the auction:

High-technology racing simulators are the offspring of modern computing, allowing professional drivers to practice abundantly before facing the real thing. For that reason, it’s not unusual that Formula One teams invests plenty of money to make the simulators highly accurate. For many of the drivers competing in this world there’s sometimes no better way of polishing their driving skills in the hopes of getting one step closer to success. Not all drivers agree, however: Lewis Hamilton thinks differently about simulators.

Every year at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Polyphony Digital award the Gran Turismo Trophy; a token of intent to bring the chosen winner into the Gran Turismo series. The official description of the trophy states the following:

What a year this has been for both games and hardware. Sony finally acknowledged the development and existence of the forthcoming PlayStation 4 ‘NEO’, otherwise referred to as “PlayStation 4.5” and “PlayStation 4K”. This left a number of interested parties wondering whether the original model would be downsized to compete with the newly-released Xbox One S.

With Driveclub VR officially being announced earlier last week after a strange sequence of ‘will they/won’t they’ events, it was revealed as being a standalone title and not an upgrade to the existing game.

Arguably the biggest reveal at Gamescom in terms of GT Sport, Fishermans Ranch offers our first real look at rallying in the game. With the event now over, numerous videos have popped up, giving us a better idea of what this new track will provide players with come November.

With no delays in sight, only days remain until the console version of Assetto Corsa is available to the public. PS4 and Xbox versions of the game are scheduled to see daylight on August 26 in Europe and August 30 in North America. To further increase anticipation, Kunos Simulazioni has launched a sheet listing all the supported driving accessories you’ll be able to use in the game:

The first week of the Forza Racing Championship wrapped up last Sunday. Players that participated in either the Elite or Open divisions were gifted prize cars, regardless of placement: the 1973 Ford Escort RS1600 and 1971 Ford Falcon XY GTHO Phase III, respectively.

Gamers heading to Gamescom in Cologne this week are amongst the first of the public to sample Playground Games’ latest Forza title, Horizon 3. The show-floor demo is the same one we witnessed during the game’s E3 debut in June though, leaving fans eager to see more of the game before its launch in five weeks’ time. Interviews and accompanying play-throughs have been happening behind closed doors however, and Xbox On has exclusive footage from one of these meetings.

The wait is over. F1 2016 is now available on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC platforms, releasing just in time to perfectly align with the sport returning to Spa-Francorchamps for the Belgian Grand Prix in one week’s time. Of course, should players choose to do so, the timely release allows the remainder of this year’s season to be raced using the same event schedule.

Despite an apparent no-filming policy, short clips of GT Sport are slowly emerging from Gamescom 2016. Eagle-eyed GTPlanet member aceboy127 has spotted what appears to be a slight upgrade to the replay mode of the game.

Sony finally stopped the mystery act about Driveclub VR earlier this week when it had its official reveal on the Sony blog. The game will arrive in players’ hands before the end of 2016, with new modes and features. Naturally the new driving experience will be one of the main draws, and a new video from PlayStation Access shows off just that.

With the retail release of this year’s title merely hours away, InsideSimRacing’s hands-on impressions of the pre-release build of F1 2016 comes to a close with a 5-lap race at Sochi Autodrom, home of the Russian Grand Prix.

F1 2016 is a mere day away from launch. Codemasters’ latest iteration in their long-running franchise promises the return of features in previous games, whilst bringing in some new additions. Here at GTPlanet, Micheal Leary (you’ll probably know him as Terronium-12) and I have bashed our heads together and listed the top 5 features we can’t wait to try out when the game releases. These are listed in no particular order.

https://youtu.be/jE7Ni_p1k-Q