Gran Turismo 7's Online Features Will Continue to Evolve, says Kazunori Yamauchi

[Anomalistics]

Well, it'll be interesting to see what we get with the Sophy article. Arguably the most important of them all to be honest.

 

[manofsteel]

To those making insinuating accusations claiming questions asked in a promotional setting didn’t go far enough, I have an honest question:

Are any of you adults with real experience in corporate professional settings in any capacity?


If not as I’m assuming, contrary to your opinions, this wasn’t Reddit ask me anything. It was a promotional press event.

I’m honestly shocked by the lack of real world common sense being displayed… as a contrarian I wish I could join in on the mod bashing but they are totally right on this one and acted professionally, created content for the site being cited in other news sites, and did a generally great job on this.

Maybe one day Kaz will do a Ask Me Anything then you can ask away

Yes, I work in Corporate Marketing and design. And I know first hand the environment.

I have no problem with interviews being structured or advised what is permitted or what isn't.

My issue is that they say the interview wasn't restricted in any way. So if it wasn't, why weren't more questions asked about bigger issues in the game that were more important to players than a pointless GT movie, while they had the main man in front of them.

That may not have been the whole point of the interview, but how many have you seen where the interviewer tries to sneak in extra circular questions?

Case in point - Henry Cavill doing promotional interviews for Enola 2, but faced more questions about reprising his role as Superman and why he quit The Witcher.

And I have not 'bashed' any mod, or shown any aggression whatsoever. I've merely asked questions in a discussion forum, thanks.

Well, it'll be interesting to see what we get with the Sophy article. Arguably the most important of them all to be honest.

To be honest mate, I couldn't care less about SOPHY. It's just too easy to artificially program an intelligence to always find the perfect line round a circuit, and that's all it'll be - a perfect lap every time that virtually impossible by a human being.

It won't be taught to 'race' with strategy and personality. Each driver having different tactics - Defending, blocking, rubbing, risky overtakes, or holding back until the right time etc. It'll just be AI on rails on extreme difficulty.

 

[shenfrey]

So why were, and I quote, "questions about the games' economy and progression off the table" if you weren't told not to ask questions about them. How did you know they were off the table? Because a member of Sony stopped you?

And if they weren't off the table, why didn't you ask about it and the rest of single player mode?

I'm getting nowhere here. You're sidestepping the point as proficiently as Kaz would himself.

I believe PD know exactly how the player base feel about the state of single player, how stale, monotonous and lifeless it is, and they strategically diverted or discouraged you, either before or during, from bringing it up in your questioning, as to avoid answering them. Or else @Tomhlord wouldn't have said what he did.

I'm done.

It's Famine's white knight responses is what I think has caused the friction here. If the guy had just come out and said "we did try, but we were not allowed to ask those questions" that would have been enough, but instead a hole was dug to defend Sonys stance.

 

[JTB10000]

Thanks for the interview btw GTP! I feel like that needs to be said.

 

[Famine]

or during

Glad you now realise that's the other possibility.

So when you’ve got a chink in your armour your go to defence is ‘I don’t know what you’re taking about’?

You just said and I quote “The reason for PR handlers in interviews is, almost always, because they want to talk about and promote the thing everyone's there for, and not have the overexcited interview subject reveal other things ahead of time”

So my question to you put forth was, so were people there for the GT movie and GT7 PC version? Since evidently those questions were permitted to be asked.

People were there for the World Final - which was one of the other questions asked (again, this is article #4 based on an interview question).

I don't really know what it is you're trying to get at though, or what chink in what armour. I was explaining why PR people sit in on interviews, and I've already stated that they shut down one question - meeting the "not have the overexcited interview subject reveal other things ahead of time" part of my post.

Famine's white knight responses ... defend Sonys stance.

Point out where I defended Sony's "stance". Explaining how a thing works is not defending it.


It's so odd that every time we are part of any interview with PD we get people complaining that we didn't ask about the thing they find so very important (and, as we see above, others may not), as if it's just a simple process.

We don't have infinite time. We have 30 minutes at best (usually less). Sometimes it's a round-table, shared with other media, so the time is divided by the number of outlets. And it's in English-Japanese/Japanese-English, halving the time of an English interview.

Even then it's not a simple matter of asking what you want and getting the answers you're looking for. Sure, you can ask, but if the PR team is not allowing it they'll stop the question. If they don’t stop you, it's still dependent on the interviewee answering and how in-depth they answer it.

As a result you have to plan interviews and prioritise questions according to the answers you think you're going to actually get. Go in with six questions you're not going to get any answers from and you waste everyone's time - which will be remembered next time there's an interview opportunity.

And we do still plan some questions that may not get a response. After all, they definitely won't if we don't ask...

It's not a Kaz/Sony/GT thing, it's how interviews work. I used to do this on a more than weekly basis with car industry figures - and I've had some arse-clenching interviews in the motor industry. It's no different.

 

[Nathan88]

If you're sat in front of Kaz for 30 minutes, you don't ask about the minutia of specific events, cars, or tracks. You cover broader subjects like the future of GTWS and online competition, Sophy AI, PSVR2, PC. Maybe the possibilities of a PS5 only GT7 or Spec 2, both of which are probably subjects they can't speak about.

Further details may come out beyond the roundtable if a specific outlet had a sit down interview, ie Eurogamer or Famitsu. But we don't know if that happened. Even then, they may only be published in the coming weeks.

 

[manofsteel]

Glad you now realise that's the other possibility.

How utterly pedantic. You knew the point I've been trying to make all along - that at some point PD actively steered you away or stopped you asking certain questions about certain things. It's completely irrelevant to anyone at what point that happened, but you've obviously been humouring yourself by being adamant that it wasn't before the interview. I couldn't care less when it was. Just that it happened, like I said it did.

All you had to say was, 'we were stopped from asking about the economy and single player when we tried to ask during our chat.' would have saved all this tooing and frowing, trying to prove your point that you weren't told BEFORE the interview not to ask certain questions.

But you had your agenda of dancing round the point for the last few hours, focussing solely on the fact you weren't told before the event, rather than the point at hand. Jesus wept, I certainly hope you entertained yourself.

 

[shenfrey]

Glad you now realise that's the other possibility.

People were there for the World Final - which was one of the other questions asked (again, this is article #4 based on an interview question).

I don't really know what it is you're trying to get at though, or what chink in what armour. I was explaining why PR people sit in on interviews, and I've already stated that they shut down one question - meeting the "not have the overexcited interview subject reveal other things ahead of time" part of my post.

Point out where I defended Sony's "stance". Explaining how a thing works is not defending it.


It's so odd that every time we are part of any interview with PD we get people complaining that we didn't ask about the thing they find so very important (and, as we see above, others may not), as if it's just a simple process.

We don't have infinite time. We have 30 minutes at best (usually less). Sometimes it's a round-table, shared with other media, so the time is divided by the number of outlets. And it's in English-Japanese/Japanese-English, halving the time of an English interview.

Even then it's not a simple matter of asking what you want and getting the answers you're looking for. Sure, you can ask, but if the PR team is not allowing it they'll stop the question. If they don’t stop you, it's still dependent on the interviewee answering and how in-depth they answer it.

As a result you have to plan interviews and prioritise questions according to the answers you think you're going to actually get. Go in with six questions you're not going to get any answers from and you waste everyone's time - which will be remembered next time there's an interview opportunity.

And we do still plan some questions that may not get a response. After all, they definitely won't if we don't ask...

It's not a Kaz/Sony/GT thing, it's how interviews work. I used to do this on a more than weekly basis with car industry figures - and I've had some arse-clenching interviews in the motor industry. It's no different.

Many of us are passionate about the single player content in GT, and lately feels like Kaz and those at PD are not. So when a publication that many of us visit, we hope that they to agree with the passion of a lot of their community and ask where possible questions to get to the bottom of the situation. All we really cared about was that you tried, and didn't just completely ignore the situation. It sounds like you did, you were shut down and that's fair enough and we are grateful for your effort.

 

[manofsteel]

If you're sat in front of Kaz for 30 minutes, you don't ask about the minutia of specific events, cars, or tracks. You cover broader subjects like the future of GTWS and online competition, Sophy AI, PSVR2, PC. Maybe the possibilities of a PS5 only GT7 or Spec 2, both of which are probably subjects they can't speak about.

Further details may come out beyond the roundtable if a specific outlet had a sit down interview, ie Eurogamer or Famitsu. But we don't know if that happened. Even then, they may only be published in the coming weeks.

No you don't. You ask about issues the vast majority of the player bases has issue with, not the the minority who are interested in the GTWS, and whether you like it or not, it is a minority.

I'm not speaking for everyone, I guarantee you most people play single player, followed by online, followed by the elite who are the top tier in the GTWS, and the few that watch it.

So concentrating on the elements of the game such as the format, the economy that are either broken or severely suck, are the point 'most' people want to know about.

 

[Famine]

How utterly pedantic. You knew the point I've been trying to make all along

Yes, I do:

they wouldn't have included that caveat in the briefing.

What caveat - and what briefing?

The fact you were advised what questions were on and off the table prior to the interview. Sorry if 'briefing' and 'caveat' wasn't the correct terminology, but surely my post wasn't that difficult to get the gist of?

 

[Nathan88]

No you don't. You ask about issues the vast majority of the player bases has issue with, not the the minority who are interested in the GTWS, and whether you like it or not, it is a minority.

I'm not speaking for everyone, I guarantee you most people play single player, followed by online, followed by the elite who are the top tier in the GTWS, and the few that watch it.

So concentrating on the elements of the game such as the format, the economy that are either broken or severely suck, are the point 'most' people want to know about.

You know their answer. They will add further events & features over the lifespan of the game and will point to the 25th Anniversary update as an example of that. Unless there are any further revelations, the biggest news to come out of this roundtable will be the 'consideration' of a PC release. Which fundamentally changes the scope and potential player base of GT7. Hopefully there are more solid details about PSVR2 beyond, "We're looking into it".

 

[shadow0460]

What about the "return to roots" singleplayer mode? Is that just going to remain stagnant and bare bones?

The dude is a hack. A typical salesman saying anything just to get your money.

The emphasis is mine. That's ultimately what almost any game developer is hired to do. Funny that someone bashed Activision, they really do deserve it these days. It's never been the same since Jim Levy left it and you can see this with the formation of Absolute Entertainment and Audacity Games. The core Activision staff from 1981 to 1983 own Audacity and the games have crossed classic style with modern technology. They run on an Atari 2600.

I still play daily, helped me pass time recovering from surgery.

That's one of the ideal purposes if a video game. After a crash that left me permanently disabled, I spent some of the initial recovery time with wip3out and reading hype for a PS1 racing sim to be released later that year. Grand ... grand something...

More like a bunch of Debbie downers.....or Karen's perhaps.....I really have doubts some of you ever played a GT game at all....

GT2 to GT4 veteran here. I initially skipped GT Mobile and Tourist Trophy due to the lack of tuning, and flat missed Omega Boost.
Tuning was what made Gran Turismo what it was. Then they threatened a DL only release of Mobile. I want a physical disc, but I also want to be able to play from installed storage. If that involves ripping the UMD I paid for and still have on my shelf, so be it. If it involves inserting that disc as a "key" to unlock the ripped game, I'm down for it.
Overall, this game as a service is absolute crap. There are some high quality elements in GT7, but the entire point of dropping $550 on a PS5 and $60 on a game is so that I can play without ever having to put quarters in again. If I wanted to pay for bleeding edge video games, I'd go to Tilt or Aladdin's Castle. Same if I wanted to play arcade only releases like SCUD Race or Space Duel with tethered ships. Not on a home console, especially on a game that wants to rush me to binge play, then cheat, and finally rip me off of 3x the amount I put in for an MTX.
I'm not leaving Gran Turismo, Gran Turismo has left me.
It's also time for some diversity from Polyphony Digital. How about a sequel to Omega Boost...without MTX's? How about a role playing game, possibly that of a sports reporter moving through his career covering auto racing or maybe the story of a time travelling mech warrior pilot?

They survived the global winter caused by the asteroid and went on to populate the planet with the precursors of all modern animal life.

Which all sounds rather positive. Though your post seems to suggest it isn't.

Video or it didn't happen. 🤪

 

[Nightwing24]

Yes, I work in Corporate Marketing and design. And I know first hand the environment.

I have no problem with interviews being structured or advised what is permitted or what isn't.

My issue is that they say the interview wasn't restricted in any way. So if it wasn't, why weren't more questions asked about bigger issues in the game that were more important to players than a pointless GT movie, while they had the main man in front of them.

That may not have been the whole point of the interview, but how many have you seen where the interviewer tries to sneak in extra circular questions?

Case in point - Henry Cavill doing promotional interviews for Enola 2, but faced more questions about reprising his role as Superman and why he quit The Witcher.

And I have not 'bashed' any mod, or shown any aggression whatsoever. I've merely asked questions in a discussion forum, thanks.

You say you work in corporate marketing but display via your argument you have no concept of what acting professionally and maintaining professional relationships are.

In the Henry Cavil example, if the interviewers asking said questions out of promotional context of the event, they will not be in the industry much longer unless they provide some unrelated content other than gotcha questions at press events.

And you are welcome. Have a great day 😃

 

[Anomalistics]

You say you work in corporate marketing but display via your argument you have no concept of what acting professionally and maintaining professional relationships are.

In the Henry Cavil example, if the interviewers asking said questions out of promotional context of the event, they will not be in the industry much longer unless they provide some unrelated content other than gotcha questions at press events.

And you are welcome. Have a great day 😃

Asking very easy questions for the sake of maintaining a healthy relationship is not right, but I do understand why it is done. Having said that, GT Planet are fairly well respected, and are moderately large too, so they have the prerequisites to press for more. It's whether they actually do or not, and based on the context of the recent replies, and I suspect it is the latter most of the time.

I also realise that they're probably not as invested as us players, so it does not make sense to push for these types of questions but at the same time, the topic of AI is one that is generally widely agreed upon in the gt games. It has always been exceptionally poor and not up to standard, and that applies to GT7 yet again... even in 2022.

 

[manofsteel]

You say you work in corporate marketing but display via your argument you have no concept of what acting professionally and maintaining professional relationships are.

In the Henry Cavil example, if the interviewers asking said questions out of promotional context of the event, they will not be in the industry much longer unless they provide some unrelated content other than gotcha questions at press events.

And you are welcome. Have a great day 😃

I’m welcome for what? You’ve done absolutely nothing to enlighten, enhance or enrich my life whatsoever.

You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, in either of your paragraphs.

Have yourself a great day too.

 

[Boltar]

and trying to get a photo with Famine

For that, I'd come over too. I heard hes 7 ft.

 

[RacinLei]

Only questions about Gtws!!
Good…
Why Gtws looks and runs better in the streams then Gt7 on Ps5? 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Dave A]

To those making insinuating accusations claiming questions asked in a promotional setting didn’t go far enough, I have an honest question:

Are any of you adults with real experience in corporate professional settings in any capacity?


If not as I’m assuming, contrary to your opinions, this wasn’t Reddit ask me anything. It was a promotional press event.

I’m honestly shocked by the lack of real world common sense being displayed… as a contrarian I wish I could join in on the mod bashing but they are totally right on this one and acted professionally, created content for the site being cited in other news sites, and did a generally great job on this.

Maybe one day Kaz will do a Ask Me Anything then you can ask away

No, they probably don't. But you don't get to hijack a setting, get the answers you want and then get invited to the next one all that easilly.

 

[dfrog]

I have just read these 141 posts, and because I consider myself unqualified to intervene, I've been waiting for someone more knowledgeable to ask " which questions, by anyone, were closed down by any or all of the 'closer downers' ? " Some will have a list of all these questions
Common sense though, suggests to me that any such 'list holders' may well be honour bound not to share them

 

[Yard_Sale]

In the end, does it really matter what questions weren’t allowed to be asked? PD has no doubt already mapped out the rest of their plans for GT7. There’s very little that will change their trajectory now.


On the other hand, I gotta give it to GTP on creating a new thread for each question that was asked during the interview - farming posts and hits all along the way. It’s like watching Kireth Kart videos on YouTube.com!

 

[A_Higher_Place]

I am curious what they will do with meeting places. Right now they seem a bit redundant. There are lots of people hosting "Free Run" lobbies or "Just chill" lobbies which serve the same purpose as Meeting Places.

I think shuffle races would be fun to bring back - the community here is onto something regarding those. They felt like a fair way of dividing up the grid. If PD is hosting a Gr.3 and Gr.4 event every week, it would be fun if those were shuffle races within those classes from time to time.

 

[dfrog]

In the end, does it really matter what questions weren’t allowed to be asked? PD has no doubt already mapped out the rest of their plans for GT7. There’s very little that will change their trajectory now.


On the other hand, I gotta give it to GTP for creating a new thread for each question that was asked during the interview - farming posts and hits all along the way. It’s like watching Kireth Kart videos on YouTube.com!

Of course, it doesn't matter 'which' questions were asked, then shut down - but it may well confirm that the developers and Sony are aware of 'known issues' that aren't listed in their multiple 'known issues' listings, and that indeed these 'unacknowledged known issues' will remain unacknowledged because they can't be fixed, or, it would be an uncommercial exercise to do so - and so for me, it would be as a matter of interest
I acknowledge that some fans will not care about this issue
I also agree with you that GTP people do a fine job here trying to satisfy so many members coming from so many different directions, with so many different manners

 

[Vandelay]

Admittedly, I'm curious as well which questions from GTP got bounced by Sony, though I'm not interested in making a huge fuss about it like some people.

I don't really get why Sony would have a handler there either. If it was a lower-level employee that was being interviewed, one of the coders or modeling people then yeah, but Kaz runs the show at PD.

 

[Imari]

In the end, does it really matter what questions weren’t allowed to be asked? PD has no doubt already mapped out the rest of their plans for GT7. There’s very little that will change their trajectory now.

It'd be interesting to know. It's not going to change things, but it does potentially give you some forward insight into what they're doing and how they think about their own game. Or it could tell us nothing.

It's probably not in GTPlanet's interest to publicise that information either way. If Polyphony/Sony didn't want the question asked, then they probably don't want it brought up that they didn't want it asked either. It's not worth damaging the relationship between GTP/PD/Sony over a question that probably isn't that important.

I don't really get why Sony would have a handler there either. If it was a lower-level employee that was being interviewed, one of the coders or modeling people then yeah, but Kaz runs the show at PD.

He does, and there were instances particularly surrounding GT5 and GT6 where he said far more than he probably should have. That's where the "everything Kaz says is a lie" trope mostly comes from. As the head of PD he has a lot of freedom, but historically he's shown that he finds it difficult to play the marketing game and stick to publicising only the things that he should. It makes for interesting interviews, but a lot of difficulty down the track when the company has to start walking back things that he's said.

He seems to have gotten better over the years, but that's probably a combination of him wising up/getting media training and Sony providing a handler to shut down questions where he's liable to go off script and start saying things he shouldn't. I imagine he has a handler because Sony thinks he needs one, and it's not hard to see why they might think that.

 

[Tornado]

Realistically we're about a decade past when you could expect any developer interview to actually provide anything but free, carefully controlled positive PR for the game. Anyone berating Famine for getting the information that was given to him should consider why they didn't keep buying game magazines in the late 2000s when they had enough clout to actually take publishers to task for the stuff PD has been pulling instead of grouching about it in 2022.

 

[Imari]

Realistically we're about a decade past when you could expect any developer interview to actually provide anything but free, carefully controlled positive PR for the game. Anyone berating Famine for getting the information that was given to him should consider why they didn't keep buying game magazines in the late 2000s when they had enough clout to actually take publishers to task for the stuff PD has been pulling instead of grouching about it in 2022.

I feel like the people baying for hard-hitting interview questions have been watching too many movies. Interviews between consenting adults simply do not work the way they want them to work.

 

[OverTheTop983]

"Online Features Will Continue to Evolve"​

Thats nice. So when will the start to evolve, to be able to evolve at some later point?

"Now we have clean code that we can expand upon and add more features”

Uh, sorry boss, we dont have clean code. Its a mess. Aiuki wanted to send you an updated memo before this interview. But you were busy talking to the young hollywood actress and telling her, how you always were a great racing driver, even before she was born.

“We already have events like [the World Series] but I think there are more things that we can do on the code side to make it even better”.

Yea, the world series no one really cared about is a great example for the things you can do.

My goodness, this dude needs a reality check. His product is crap. Whos gonna break it to him?

You forgot to mention that FOR YOU it is crap.

Mmm, wouldn't it have been nice to hear about this months ago without the need for an interview this far down the line. "Sorry everyone, we know the online racing isn't working as we would like, but we have had to totally re-write the code for online racing in this game, and are working to make it better as fast as we can." That was all it would have taken, you know, interacting with the people who buy and play your games, being honest, rather that appear as incompetent and ignorant.

Now if only more questions could have been asked about peoples problems with the game so far, and maybe gotten some honest answers in return, that could have cleared the air, and given reasons for the routes they have taken. Whether they consider people issues to be problems, and if so, what they plan to do in the future.

But, they may or may not be incompetent (imho before the defenders chime in 🙄), but they are definitely ignorant, and after so many years, it doesn't seem like that would be changing any time soon. 🙄

You should work in a software house before saying ignorant to others.

 

[Monkdapunk]

I dont know Famine. I think you guys will have to get together and do a shot for shot re-enactment to convince people you weren't "simping" for Sony. You can be Kaz if ya want. 😄

I get what they did and why they do it. It would be like if you showed up to someone's birthday party and kept talking about the time they killed someone driving drunk.

Even if those questions where answered/asked do you all really think Kaz would have given a straight answer? Would you want to hear the answer if he basically said "it is what it is"? How would that change the way you feel about the game? I hold onto a bit of hope for improvement but the reality is the game has been out for 8 months now and they have made their money.

In the back off my head I wonder if a forum exists for Nascar Heat with members who are so passionate. 😄

 

[Yard_Sale]

If this whole GT7-PC thing comes to fruition…


I’d be curious if PD re-wrote the code in part because they were already planning a PC port, and wanted to make it easier on themselves down the line. Then a 10th hour order came down the pipe from Sony to make GT7 crossplay between PS4 and PS5…. And that’s what made everything fubar.

I’m not at all privy to the nerd stuff when it comes to code; maybe someone could speculate to this?

 

[Nenkai]

If this whole GT7-PC thing comes to fruition…


I’d be curious if PD re-wrote the code in part because they were already planning a PC port, and wanted to make it easier on themselves down the line. Then a 10th hour order came down the pipe from Sony to make GT7 crossplay between PS4 and PS5…. And that’s what made everything fubar.

I’m not at all privy to the nerd stuff when it comes to code; maybe someone could speculate to this?

They rewrote the script side entirely (proprietary Javascript/Python-like language into Swift of all things which implies a custom compiler, for the curious), which is responsible for basically all game logic, which is why many lobby features weren't yet there at launch. What has changed/been rewritten online wise is not related to the multiplayer but more about how the APIs (website, etc) operates.

Engine is mostly unchanged.