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The path of Gran Turismo
To recreate the real-life cars realistically in the game... to make the modelling and car handling perfect, just like in real-life... These ambitions were first realised in 1997. With its beautiful replays and realistic car handling, the first GT impressed thousands of racing fans worldwide. Seven years later, the series has moved its 6th game, and is now popular not only in Japan but in America and Europe. Counting the total sales figure from the first GT (GT1) through the last GT (GT4 Prologue), an astonishing 36 million GT games have been sold worldwide.
Caption: As the series moves forward the game has become increasingly more realistic. In GT4, which is the 6th game in the series, lots of never before seen new features have been added as well as the usual improvements in graphics and control.
1997: Gran Turismo
Total sales worldwide: 10,830,000 units
Total sales in Japan: 2,550,000 units
Release date: December 23
No. of cars: 100
No. of courses: 11
Unprecedented beautiful graphics, realistic car handling, and a huge number of cars (100 cars, 146 grades) and tracks were implemented in the game. Gran Turismo was a mountain of a racing game in its day and was a revolutionary debut. Hence Gran Turismo was suddenly the number one racing game in the world.
Caption: You must still remember when you saw the game for the first time.
1999: Gran Turismo 2
Total sales worldwide: 9,280,000 units
Total sales in Japan: 1,710,000 units
Release date: December 11
No. of cars: 500
No. of courses: 28
With the inclusion of K-cars and used cars from overseas, with 500 different cars and 600 grades, the number of cars was simply unmatched. One of the highlights of the game was the addition of "learner licence mode(?)" for beginners.
Caption: Using the PS hardware to the limit, GT2 was a game that was unmached by any other game in the world.
2001: Gran Turismo 3 A-spec
Total sales worldwide: 13,710,000 units
Total sales in Japan: 1,890,000 units
Release date: April 28
No. of cars: 200
No. of courses: 20
The first GT on the PS2. With the hugely improved hardware the the PS2, all features such as the graphics and handling of the cars were improved dramatically over its predecessors.
Caption: The evolved handling of the cars could be made even more realistic by using the GT FORCE steering wheel.
2002: Gran Turismo Concept
Total sales worldwide: 1,480,000 units
Total sales in Japan: 430,000 units
Release date: January 1
No. of cars: 51
No. of courses: 6
The concept cars shown in the Tokyo Motor Show 2001 (and Geneva Motor show in the overseas version) were put in the game. GT mode and license tests seen on the other games were absent, but allowed driving of cars you could only dream about.
Caption: The fact that the GTR Concept seen in the TMS hall was in the game was the cause of some talk.
2003: Gran Turismo 4 Prologue
Total sales worldwide: 1,310,000 units
Total sales in Japan: 780,000 units
Release date: December 4
No. of cars: 64
No. of courses: 5 (a bit lacking? :-/ )
As the Prologue name suggests, the game is aimed at beginners to GT and racing games. The main feature, the driving school, shows the basics of driving in detail.
Caption: The improved physics allowed inclusion of real-life courses such as Tsukuba circuit.
No pastry is safe.
