Gran Turismo 5: Prologue

A new official competition is afoot in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, and while it may not be quite as good as the ultimate racing cockpit, a trip to the GT Academy, or the Drifting World Championships, you’ve got a much better chance at winning something.  The Logitech Challenge begins tomorrow, and will consist of three week-long events.  The top three finishers from each week will win prizes from – you guessed it – Logitech, including steering wheels, speakers, and more.  Specifics on what cars will be used will only be released at the beginning of each week, but here is what we know so far:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XY0MGB1OO4A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNQJ1T0DJrM

Sony is using Gran Turismo 5 Prologue to power a ‘3D’ tech demo at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.  Apparently, it’s a pretty impressive new display technology, but don’t get too excited – a Sony representative made it clear this television will not be headed for production any time soon.  Regardless, it’s a pretty cool look at what we could see by the time Gran Turismo 6 comes around…  ArsTechnica has first impressions of the display:

5-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb couldn’t match the digital driving skills of GTPlanet commenter Thanos, who bested Loeb by over a second in the GTbyCitroen competition last weekend.  The Citroen WRC drivers and co-drivers went up against 20 gamers who had stopped by Citroen’s C42 Showcase in Paris and set the fastest laps around High Speed Ring in the company’s radical new concept car.  Ultimately, the winner stepped away with an 80GB PlayStation 3, DFP steering wheel, a copy of GT5 Prologue, a Citroen WRC model car, and a GTbyCitroen t-shirt.  Even the second, third, and fourth place finishers won a PSP, game, and other goodies.  Check out these pictures from the event, or visit PlayScope for more.

Visitors from France, votre attention s’il vous plaît!  Citroen launched a new competition yesterday, and it could put you head-to-head with World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb.  Visitors to Citroen’s C42 Showcase on the Champs-Élysées in Paris can hop in to a GT5 Prologue racing pod and set the fastest lap in a GTbyCitroen (of course).  The four fastest drivers get the chance to meet and compete against all of Citroen’s WRC drivers and co-drivers, including Loeb, Daniel Elena, Dani Sordo and Marc Marti in the game.  If you’re interested, though, you’d better act fast – hot laps are accepted until this Thursday, December 18, and the competition itself takes place on December 20, 2008.

We got a pretty big surprise when AutoExpress magazine editors got their hands on the ‘real’ Citroen GT concept and took it for a spin.  They teased us with exciting descriptions of the car’s 580bhp V8 engine sound, but we could only hope for a video – until now!  The guys at a Polish GT fansite managed to capture a segment from a local television show, with a reporter hopping in the passenger seat to for some onboard footage.

Sure, we’ve seen plenty of cars from the real world introduced into the Gran Turismo games – it happens at SEMA each year.  We’ve even got the GTbyCitroen, a real world concept crafted by Polyphony Digital themselves.  What we haven’t seen, until now, is a car coming out of the game into real life.  According to early rumors, that’s exactly what is about to happen with the Tuned Nissan Skyline Coupe (V36) that we all know from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.  The car will apparently be crafted by high-end Japanese tuning shop Zele Performance, to be introduced at the 2009 Tokyo Auto Salon in January.  We’ll keep an eye on this and post more details as they emerge…

When we got our ‘virtual’ hands on the GTbyCitroën last October, most assumed that would be it for the concept supercar.  It should be sitting in a museum or Polyphony Digital’s headquarters by now, right?  Wrong!  Surprisingly, Citroën has handed the keys (or whatever this thing uses…) over to the AutoExpress Magazine editors for some time behind the wheel!  In real life, the car features a 580bhp V8 engine, with an estimated 0-60 time of four seconds and a top speed of 180 MPH.

As we reported a few days ago, a GT5 Prologue “booth” was available in PlayStation Home to Japanese account holders.  Marky264 gave us plenty of great screen shots, but many people have been curious to see how the game “works” from inside the Home environment.  Our own chief online racing organizer, Sphinx, delivered the goods and posted this video that walks through the entire process.  Enjoy!

If you’ve played Gran Turismo 5 Prologue online in the United States recently, you probably remember the Tanner Foust Competition event.  It was a time trial around London in a Nissan 350Z, and the fastest driver as of November 2 won a trip to the Red Bull Drifting World Championship competition with Tanner himself.  The winner turned out to be Gregory Russell of Maryland with a time of 1’00.711.  Check out these pictures from the event, and read Gregory’s write-up of the whole experience right here.  Congratulations!

Those of you who have received invitations to Sony’s PlayStation Home service – listen up!  GTPlanet user Marky264 discovered that if you create a Japanese profile on your PS3 (learn how to do that here), the Tokyo Game Show 2008 “booth” becomes available.  Once inside, you’ll find the Gran Turismo 5 Prologue ‘racing pods’ that we first saw early last month.  Once aquired, they can be placed in your virtual ‘home’, and will surely play an integral role in private online race events in the future.  Learn more about how to find the racing pods and the TGS booth in Marky’s forum thread.

Attendees to last month’s Downshift Session 2008 were treated to a spectacular sight: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue running at 3840 x 2160 pixels (that’s 4 times normal HD resolution) via a Sony SRX-110 projector fed by 4 separate PlayStation 3 consoles!

GTPlanet member Ahmed Al Azmi’s interview with Kazunori Yamauchi has really been making the international press rounds.  Just yesterday, Ahmed was cited in the latest episode of Inside Sim Racing, where they discussed his experience and the important bits of information that were gleamed from his time at Polyphony Digital.  ISR broadcasts weekly shows dealing with the sim racing world, although they typically focus on the PC market.  Regardless, thanks for the shout out, guys, and keep up the good work!  If you want to see more, check out their website at InsideSimRacing.tv.

GTPlanet user seizure originally discovered the official country abbreviations found in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue‘s online mode.  However, they were tucked away in Polyphony Digital’s Japan website and written in Japanese – not very useful to most GTPlanet users.  Now, GTPlanet has translated that official list, and converted it into a printer-friendly PDF file and we’ve made it free to download at the link below.  Print it out, and know in exactly what language to yell when that guy passes you…

GTPlanet member Ahmed Al Azmi got a lot of attention when he won the GT5 Prologue Middle East Challenge and brought home the “ultimate racing cockpit“.  That was just the first part of his prize, though – earlier this month, he was flown to Japan for a trip to the Tokyo Game Show and a chance to take a new Nissan GT-R around Nissan’s Oppama test track.

Professional drifter and rally car driver Tanner Foust announced his involvement with an online Gran Turismo 5 Prologue competition.  It’s pretty straightforward – just set the best time in the new “Tanner Foust Racing Competition” online event, taking place on the London city track in a Nissan 350Z with Professional physics.  The fastest time at midnight on November 2 will win a trip to the Red Bull Drifting World Championship in Long Beach, some head-to-head racing with Tanner in GT5:P, and a few laps around the real course in his car.  Second and third place drivers get an autographed copy of the game and a Gran Turismo T-shirt.  It’s good to see Sony encouraging these competitions, using the game’s online functionality to scout out the best players.  Hopefully, we’ll see a GTPlanet member hanging out with Tanner in a few weeks.  Best of luck to all!

The above image of a damaged Renault Clio in GT5 Prologue has provided a hilarious (and slightly disturbing) look at how quickly misinformation can spread throughout the internet.  Not one popular media article has accurately cited the source of the image, so this post should clear things up once and for all