Great interview, I really liked what he's trying to do with GT Café, I know a lot of hardcore fans won't care like he noted but I love all the little GT touches in that sense and trying to add more emotional attachments to the cars and their history.
I know this is the time, as usual, for GT Planet to fall into lamentations. But I expect GT7 to still be a heck of a racing experience, and I'm counting on alba's quote to be true for many of us.
Classic Gran Turismo games always had you starting with a limited budget of around 10,000 Cr to buy a car, which for most of us meant a used car from the marketplace. That bad boy would take us through many of our earliest races, which we would upgrade as we racked up wins, or at least prize money, to ever more challenging competitions. Some of us would stick to that car as far as we could go, until finally it couldn't compete, or the requirements excluded it.
Even with a garage of 2000-ish cars in GT5, I had the sense that they were my cars, particularly my favorite rides. With GT Sport it was more so, thanks to the Livery Editor, which enabled me to personalize my racers. I'm expecting this sense to be prominent in GT7.
What I hope to have is the same sense of awe I had with GT4 when I finally got it, and that was a rather amusing ordeal involving rushing home with an empty plastic case - sealed, no less. For some reason, that game struck a chord in my soul which hasn't been equaled in subsequent Gran Turismos yet, though Sport was close. There was so much to gawk at on that map when the game opened up, all those unvisited locations with their own racing types and challenges. I played it exclusively for months, digging into every aspect of the game. I went on to play it for more than a year, and still didn't complete it all. The 24 hour enduro untouched, and many of the Missions, but I conquered most of it.
With that overview map, with its own time of day changes, and many of the elements from GT4 returning - hooray used cars and racing modification - I'm expecting a similar pinnacle experience with GT7. Assetto Corsa, Race Room and my other sims give me a little more realistic feel, and the bots might be better, cough, but Gran Turismo has always had a spirit, a flavor, that's visceral and satisfying that no other game can touch. For me. Your touch may vary.
