On the subject of GT3's competition versus GT Sport's: apologies, but I'm quoting
@trustjab's post from a page ago as it seemed most relevant:
No competition? What about Ridge Racer V, Project Gotham Racing, Tokyo extreme racer, Burnout 2, Midnight Club, NFS Hot Pursuit 2, Auto Modelista (really cool game), Total Immersion racing (one my favs with those lmps), F1 2001/2002, Sega GT etc.? I think GT had more competition back then than it does now. I bet you could find games with more content than GT3 and ones with less but probably with better physics or this or that. I said it before (don't criticize on me on this) but GT doesn't need to be the best at everything. It never was.
A good chunk of those games were only competition to GT in the sense that they had cars. Sega GT is — unsurprisingly — the closest in spirit, but it had its own sets of issues (shameless plug: read
@glassjaw's
retrospective on it). PGR did pretty well back in the day, but it was more in the style of NFS (or Horizon/Driveclub these days).
But nothing on consoles really hit the mix of content/realism that GT did. SGT almost had the car count (and it got closest), but the physics were cack. TXR appealed to the folks obsessed with JDM stuff, but was a very different racing experience. F1 is F1.
You could make the argument that Grand Theft Auto is now more competition for GT than it was back then, too.
Now, there are plenty of realistic options. The first PCARS introduced a variety of motorsports features GT didn't have, but it suffered from a messy launch. Assetto Corsa moved the physics/feedback game on, but it can't match the graphics (and is a little light on content too). Forza has staked out the same ground between simulation and accessibility as GT over on Xbox (and now on PC).
GT Sport has a lower car count than either PCARS2 and FM7 — slightly and massively, respectively. It has far less tracks than either. GT3 was a small game in terms of car/track count in comparison to the rest of the franchise, but it was still a huge game when stacked against its contemporaries. It also featured variety in its car list that GT Sport doesn't.
It was also sixteen years ago. A lot has changed. With the announcement of this new GT Sport PS4, Sony has likely cemented GT Sport's sales victory in the genre this autumn. Depending on how limited this Limited Edition actually is, that could represent a bump of a few million sales.
