End of Life for GT5 Prologue, Servers Close June 30th

On their Japanese website, Polyphony Digital has formally announced they’ll be pulling the plug on GT5 Prologue’s servers June 30th of this year. The game had a very good run, selling over 5 million copies since its release in Japan back in December of 2007.

That’s more sales than every other “minor” release in the GT series (including GT PSP) combined – not bad for a title often criticized as a “glorified demo”. Prologue is also distinguished as the first-ever PlayStation 3 title to reach “Platinum” status before its release, racking up over 1 million pre-orders. It remains the second best-selling exclusive PlayStation 3 titles of all time – eclipsed only by its successorGran Turismo 5.

The game will, of course, still be playable offline (so you can take advantage of that super-secret “Special” mode), but online play and the in-game leaderboards will no longer be functional. It is not clear if the “Spec III” update will still be available to download for older copies of the game from Polyphony Digital’s servers.

Thanks to Amar212 for the tip!

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Comments (44)

  1. Tangoprime

    Man… just seeing the picture used for this on the front page made me really sad that they didn’t use the whole active car sitting in the driveway thing, I was really expecting to see that used in GT5. I’d much rather see that in the background on the main GT Life screen, kind of like in GT4 where it showed the current car in the garage facing either to or away based on performance in the last race.

  2. ucwepn

    Wow sad to see it go had fun back before nov 25th 2010, haven’t played it once since of course but still sad to see it go. Maybe PD should give all the Loyal prologue owners a parting gift? hint hint lol

  3. Tonystew42

    *funeral service* We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of Prologue. It was a brave game, going where no one had gone before, and surpassing the limits of any other developer. Although it will be gone from this Earth, it will always live on in our single player hearts.

  4. markyy

    True.. I think it was enough for GT5Prologue players becaue if they had the decision to buy the Prologue, it means they are interested for the Real GranTurismo 5 game :) it’s a good headstart!

  5. xIamRAWR

    oh goody. the only long term benefit prologue gave will be more disk space when i delete it. (and not getting a head start on gt5) =P

  6. NFSCARBON1

    Maybe Prologue’s servers will be put to use in GT5? Could the online leaderboards and pre defined events be re used?

  7. Reverand33

    the hours i spent on prologue completely eclipse what i’ll probably ever put into 5 sadly. the tuner points system kept races from having totally overpowered cars. and the online leaderboards were great. i have a couple months left to play it before it is no more.

    kinda sad they are taking it away. rip prologue.

  8. Craigles

    Although i think now that gt5p is an over priced demo it was a great game but it didnt last long when i played it (got boring)
    The best thing was the online leader boards.
    Only got into the top hundred once (97th) with a controller but. Got dfgt now =>

  9. RADracing

    With GT5p you actually felt like you were enjoying the game rather than grinding laps compared to GT5. Pretty darn good for a demo!

  10. Brandon

    Looks like I will still have a couple top 10s when they retire. Maybe I’ll go back and try to reclaim #1 overall at Daytona again. I wonder if the leaderboard ranks will still display, forever set in stone.

    1. Tvensky

      I hope they will create twice as much servers for GT5. For now sooo much overload and freezes.. online is so far to be completed in GT.. and will play it anyway.. just cant wait PD sort out online..

  11. GrahamTurismo

    Seems a bit late, I figured they’d have cut it off already. Anybody who has that game and hasn’t upgraded to GT5 yet probably doesn’t play it enough anyway, let alone online. We could have used the power of those servers in GT5 when they couldn’t handle the load after launch… I say they should have been switched over immediately upon GT5s release. If you want to keep playing online it’s time to upgrade to the best game!

    1. Tvensky

      Sony just dont do that.. they wait for all people to change on.. and they support games as long as they can.. so far as I can see!

  12. Rikard

    I never bought this demo. If it was free or costed like 1$ when I would accept it but a full price for a demo! I don´t get it.

    1. Corey

      It’s a lot more than a demo (hence why Polyphony Digital released the Gran Turismo Time Trial Challenge as the demo for Gran Turismo 5). Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is practically a full game.

    2. Tvensky

      lol, That “demo” had more cars than in other racing games (70+).. some nice tracks with variatins (10+) and a career with online! LOL some demo.. with more gameplay time than all other racers combined :)) (for me at least)

  13. BWX

    Some parts of GT5p are better than GT5 though, including certain online features. Lets just hope they make some major improvements to GT5 through patches and updates.

  14. Jakemania

    I absolutely cannot believe that this was the 2nd best seller on the PS3. It’s sort of a shame, considering some of the great exclusives like Uncharted 2.
    Not knocking it or anything, but I think that Uncharted 2 is hands down the best title on the PS3. Sorry for getting off topic haha.

    1. Jakemania

      ^Update
      @Jordan, your link is invalid/down where it says “eclipsed only by its successor” (4th link).

      Also, according to VGChartz, Uncharted 2 sold 4.4M copies to GT5P’s 4.05M. Dunno how accurate that is, but that might even be without taking into account Uncharted 2’s GOTY edition.

    2. Jakemania

      No problem. Yeah, I did see that link after I posted it. I wonder which is most accurate. There’s always some sort of discrepancy between sources!

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