GT6 "80% finished", GT7 expected in "a year or two" + other info

[Kino321-X]

Originally from Famitsu: http://www.polygon.com/2013/9/11/47...-talks-physics-engines-smartphone-linkups-and

Gran Turismo 6 is hitting the PlayStation 3 worldwide on December 6, although (as Sony announced at a press conference Monday) it'll be reaching stores a day earlier in Japan. When Famitsu asked producer Kazunori Yamauchi how far along the game was at this point, he couldn't help but laugh a bit in response.

"It's something that I get asked in every interview," he replied. "It's really hard to give an accurate answer to that. The basic components are already complete, so overall I'd have to say about 80 percent. The physics engine, the steering controls; those parts of the user interface are things that we fine tune-right up to the very end. Things like the game modes; I can say that those are complete."

Among the more interesting recent GT6 announcements: The game will link up with smartphones. "We can have a forum system in the game and have gamers use that to communicate each other," Yamauchi explained, "but unless you go back home and turn on your PS3, you have no idea what's going on. That's a pointless time lag to have, isn't it? It'd be better if you could use your mobile device to see what's happening with your friends and community. Someday I'd like to try making the game playable on mobile devices, but we're starting out just with community tools for now. Technically it's possible, but it'll be a gradual sort of thing."

Most gamers last saw GT6 in action as part of the GT Academy demo released by Sony last July. Yamauchi told Famitsu that the game's physics engine has already been upgraded from that demo, and that this engine is inside the playable version Sony plans to show at the Tokyo Game Show floor starting September 19.

Yamauchi also addressed the idea that Gran Turismo often "feels" a lot different from other driving sims in action, pointing out that the physics engine could have a lot to do with that impression. "We develop our physics engine based on the results of all the test measurements that we make," he said, "but it's not necessarily the case that these measurement results are always going to be the same as actual driving conditions. What's more, even now there are still a lot of things that happen to a car in motion that we don't fully understand. In other words, there's room for imagination in this genre, and I think the part of any game's physics engine that's more 'imagination' is what makes one sim feel different from each other."

Is this physics engine going to be shared with the Gran Turismo 7 that Yamauchi's team at Polyphony Digital are presumably working on now for the PlayStation 4? Yamauchi said that would be the case, going on to suggest that to him, at this point, hardware platforms don't matter quite as much as they used to. "The PlayStation 4's large memory size is a unique trait," he said, "but in terms of CPU performance, the PS3's Cell chip, while difficult to handle, is really capable. They both have different advantages. Besides, I think the online community aspect, one of the most fun parts of GT, doesn't have anything to do with the platform. The PlayStation 4 game which we'll likely call GT7 will be done in about a year or two, I think, and I think the community aspect's going to be vital there as well."

The TGS event next week will be GT6's final major public showing until the December 6 release date. "We're devoting ourselves to two forces in GT6," Yamauchi said. "One is honing the internal mechanics of the game, the physics engine and user interface and so on. Another is pushing the title's external energies, trying to help it break out of the shell of the video-game industry. I'm hoping that everyone is looking forward to seeing what efforts we're making on both fronts."

 

[Imari]

80%?

Welcome to GT5, round 2. I expect a lot of patches adding features post-release. For me, I don't find this to be a positive thing.

 

[Snaeper]

Good stuff! I wonder what a mobile GT would look like...

 

[TokoTurismo]

That's great to hear! Alright!

 

[SlipZtrEm]

80%?

Welcome to GT5, round 2. I expect a lot of patches adding features post-release. For me, I don't find this to be a positive thing.

Shades of the "we can release whenever we want" line from GT5, perhaps? I'm hopeful Kaz has learned to not give these percentages unless he's sure the deadline will be met, though.

I'm curious if these new physics will be at the JFF next week, seeing as how it's pretty much the same time as TGS...

 

[SolidSnakex]

80% doesn't really tell you anything since we don't know exactly what he's including in that. For example, the game could be content complete at the moment and the last 20% is just for polishing. And 3 months of polish time is more than enough.

 

[Imari]

Shades of the "we can release whenever we want" line from GT5, perhaps? I'm hopeful Kaz has learned to not give these percentages unless he's sure the deadline will be met, though.

I'm curious if these new physics will be at the JFF next week, seeing as how it's pretty much the same time as TGS...

I'm hoping that he's underestimating rather than overestimating this time. There's no way 80% of a game takes two and a half years (plus whatever carries over from GT5) and the last 20% takes two months.

The new physics will be very interesting to see though. I hope someone asks him exactly what has changed between the Academy demo to the current build.

 

[jagenigma]

wait is it on ps4 or ps3?

 

[TokoTurismo]

wait is it on ps4 or ps3?

GT6 is on PS[3]. That was just a typo it seems.

 

[PletdeKoe]

Kaz always uses 80% when askes how far he is. Even when asked how many of his ideas are in the game he says 80%. Don't read anything in it.

 

[HarVee]

80% complete isn't exactly a promising number. Either he is miscalculating, or they had some major issue arise during development that made progress slower.

 

[amar212]

80% doesn't really tell you anything since we don't know exactly what he's including in that. For example, the game could be content complete at the moment and the last 20% is just for polishing. And 3 months of polish time is more than enough.

Exactly.

 

[05XR8]

I suspect newer cars to the game are being finished. Could be Super GT cars being polished. Or V8 Supercars. Or maybe it's just my "imagination" running away with me.

 

[Nurburgthing.]

80% doesn't really tell you anything since we don't know exactly what he's including in that. For example, the game could be content complete at the moment and the last 20% is just for polishing. And 3 months of polish time is more than enough.

[/that conversation]

I suspect newer cars to the game are being finished. Could be Super GT cars being polished. Or V8 Supercars. Or maybe it's just my "imagination" running away with me.

Running? More like sprinting .

 

[another_jakhole]

[/that conversation]

Word.

a year or two

Now that's interesting.

 

[ShiftingGears]

80%? That is an alarming statement.

I'm hoping that he's underestimating rather than overestimating this time. There's no way 80% of a game takes two and a half years (plus whatever carries over from GT5) and the last 20% takes two months.

Absolutely. If GT6 is actually only 80% complete then PD are not going to release a complete game this year.

 

[sk8er913]

Now that's interesting.

Not really, it's just a GT6 copy with all of the DLC packs included and higher res graphics. (lol)

 

[Shirrako]

This pretty confirms that GT6 will never have it's own PS3 version, seeing how PD will release GT7 on PS4 in 2years (deffo not one year) they won't have time for a GT6 PS4 version, only available through Gaikai i would say.

GT6 being 80% is actually good news, game developement speeds up after 50% since they finish off the graphics engine and know the layout of everything, it's a smooth ride from there, i'm almost sure they have everything ready except the GT Mode races and dealership, which is pretty simple to make, don't worry people, GT6 will not be delayed, only thing we should worry about is if the engine sounds make it to GT6 on launch.

 

[Imari]

GT6 being 80% is actually good news, game developement speeds up after 50%...

I'm pretty sure that if he had said 50% or less, some rabid fan would have flown to Japan and thrown a pie in his face. It was always going to be above 50%.

As far as numbers go, with three months to go it's about the lowest number possible that wouldn't totally freak people out. Had he said 70% that would have been pretty bad news. 60%? Don't even think about it.

There's two ways it goes. First, the 80% is a meaningless number (a placeholder if you will...thanks, I'll be here all evening) and we can't read anything into it. No discussion to be had there. Second, it's an accurate representation of the current state of the project, which is slightly alarming but not the end of the world.

Day one patches probably make it possible to do 20% of the work in 8% of the time if Sony waive some of the QA on it and PD pull a few all-nighters.

 

[another_jakhole]

Not really, it's just a GT6 copy with all of the DLC packs included and higher res graphics. (lol)

Confirm that? ha haaa You can't.



But I get what your point is.

 

[snowgt]

...game developement speeds up after 50%...

That's a bold statement.

Usually, you would measure progress by the amount of (planned) man-days going into the project. So, in that sense, the "development speed" never varies, except for when you need more (or less) time than expected. And exactly because such an event is not expected, you cannot know, if it will speed up or slow down.

 

[Cosbuster]

Is the last 20% the sound breakthrough they are still waiting for?

 

[another_jakhole]

Is the last 20% the sound breakthrough they are still waiting for?

Sounds account for 20% of the game? Explain your logic, please. Please please please do.


We all know (from the GT Academy demo) that the physics aren't updated from TGS?, the frame rate is inconsistent, the GT6 car list isn't known (just like the rest of everything else) and how much has the 3D improved ? Yeahhhh.

Does the sound "breakthrough" mean that Kaz thinks sounds are the last 20% of the game's development when we ALL know that he couldn't care less about the sounds, and Porsche,...and quality over quality, and variety?..

Stop screwing around.

and

 

[amar212]

We know more than 80% of GT6 car list Jak

 

[Grand Prix]

80% seems to be plucked out of thin air to me. This bit tells us more:

"The physics engine, the steering controls; those parts of the user interface are things that we fine tune-right up to the very end. Things like the game modes; I can say that those are complete."

It sounds to me that the work on the actual game content and game modes is complete, they are just fine-tuning, tinkering and polishing until the deadline. As well as quality assurance, game testing, and bug fixes of course. That takes up fair chunk of time I imagine, and GT games are normally quite large. Hopefully this is more polishing-up than GT5 received before release.

 

[another_jakhole]

We know more than 80% of GT6 car list Jak

NO no!

We don't know how many of them have been updated to A Premium caliber. Ehh, ehhhhhh?

 

[wowbaggerBR]

Exactly.

Not really. There is only two months to do this 20% because the game must be ready to be put on discs sometime in the begining of november, otherwise they cannot honor the pre-ordered copies.

 

[another_jakhole]

80% seems to be plucked out of thin air to me. This bit tells us more:

"The physics engine, the steering controls; those parts of the user interface are things that we fine tune-right up to the very end. Things like the game modes; I can say that those are complete."

It sounds to me that the work on the actual game content and game modes are complete, they are just fine-tuning, tinkering and polishing until the deadline. As well as quality assurance, game testing, and bug fixes of course. That takes up fair chunk of time I imagine, and GT games are normally quite large. Hopefully this is more polishing-up than GT5 received before release.

Someone mentioned that it could mean that it includes the cars that haven't been Premiumized. So something like what the Veyron or Jaguar XFR was to GT5. They were both new to the series and pretty new to the automotive industry when GT5 released, but they weren't Premium cars.

“Things like game modes are complete” now we’re just waiting for the latest renderings of cars to be finished. I think that’s why it’s 80% complete.

Found it.

Not really. There is only two months to do this 20% because the game must be ready to be put on discs sometime in the begining of november, otherwise they cannot honor the pre-ordered copies.

It simply doesn't work that way and I won't explain it, and can't explain it the way others can. Was GT5 Prologue "complete" even though they updated it? GT5? A whole lot of other games this generation that were given updates and DLC? Nothing is ever complete seeing as how improvements can be made ALL OF THE TIME.

 

[Jawehawk]

NO no!

We don't know how many of them have been updated to A Premium caliber. Ehh, ehhhhhh?

And why should we? Some of you people really expect to be spoonfed every single Little detail. We've gotten a ton of info on GT6 is a relatively short amount of time.

 

[another_jakhole]

And why should we? Some of you people really expect to be spoonfed every single Little detail. We've gotten a ton of info on GT6 is a relatively short amount of time.

👍 It looks like you think I'm one to expect that sort of "privilege." I agree with you, except we should be given a lot more information about the "Course Maker" and Ronda, since with GT5, it was a bit of a surprise to find out what we could or couldn't do with it (even though it's one of my favorite aspects about GT5.) I would love to be able to carry over any of my Course Maker tracks from GT5 to future GT titles.