The problem is you kinda have to enter a race to know whether the servers work or not...
I just got D/C from the first Manu race, but someone else reported it was fine. There's just no way to know atm.
It's so painful seeing how far Kaz/PD has fallen with GT7. It's like they can't be bothered anymore with the franchise and just doing the absolute minimum to keep it running. I wouldn't be surprised if they cut costs and moved the servers to a cheaper location somewhere.
I'm a hard-core Gran Turismo fanboy, was lucky enough to meet Kaz in Sydney 2020 (Shout out to Tidgney for getting me backstage for the whole weekend!).
We were both chain smokers, & I got to chat with him a few times thanks to my broken N5 level Japanese.
Back then he was super passionate both about the game, players and the Esports series (though he did complain about how much money they lose for each live event).
I'd like to believe he still is.
I know this much: GT Sport was budgeted to cost $50 million US, but ended up blowing out to about $80 million.
Can you imagine how much GT7 cost to develop? My guess would start at easily twice that, probably more.
A lot of people seem to think Kaz has free reign regarding the development of Gran Turismo, but Polyphony Digital is 100% owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Kaz is just the CEO of PD.
Everyone knows the head of SIE, Jim Ryan is all about $ & the bottom line. Kaz & PD don't seem to have the autonomy they used to have.
Herman Hulst, SIE 2IC, seems to be very active in the games development going by his Twitter feed. Plus you've got the Movie coming up as well.
The saddest part is during GT Sport & the GT Academy days, Kaz & PD communicated frequently with the players, especially the finalist regulars. Ever since GT7 was released, Kaz has basically ghosted the whole community. The very few people who do know anything don't say anything (I'm assuming NDA'S).
This total lack of communication between the playerbase and PD is ridiculous.
But because no one is talking, we don't know what the real deal is. I can imagine Kaz being the typical Japanese businessman & letting all the blame fall on him. But we just don't know... no one, Kaz, Jim or Herman are saying anything, so we don't know who to really blame or what's going on.
Everyone is in the dark, and the silence simply isn't good enough imo.
Sorry for the long rant. I'm just really disappointed to see the current state of a franchise I'm super passionate about. Even with all the improvements & updates since release, if I summed up my personal experience of GT7 in one word from release until now, it's this: Disappointment.
