We've been trying to discuss what effect Kaz's "vision" has on the series in the here and now. That's quite a different thing from attributing his position as the reason for the sales success.
Good grief... three more pages of this stuff since noonish yesterday? I'll skim this stuff later. So anyhow, about Kaz's Vision Thing.
From everything he's said, he wants to encompass the world of cars and motorsports in Gran Turismo, making it ultimately kind of like an autopedia. I find this a laudable goal and I'd stick to it, personally. No, you can't do everything you want in a single game, but with something as powerful as PS3, you can do an awful lot, and look out for what's possible on PS4. I agree, he needs more of a solid racer focus, but I'll get to that.
So why was GT5 so weird, and GT6 so skimpy? It may be that he was discouraged about how little his home country appreciated Gran Turismo versus the west, especially Europe. I think it's more likely that SONY "encouraged" Kaz to experiment like they encouraged him to add 3D to GT5, and produce GT PSP before GT5, when he said a few times that GT5 was his baby and the PSP game would come afterward. And as some of us have posted a number of times, the Japanese are very, very different people, with a culture where Pokemon collecting and dating games flourish.
With GT6, I think it's obvious that he was pushed to get GT6 out ASAP, because PS4's release meant the decline of PS3 and everyone knows that, so it was a move to capitalize on a soon to dwindle market, plus there was that "15th Anniversary" thing. It seems like "half finished game" fits GT6 well, as a lot of features are going to have to be bolted on. As I mentioned before, I embargoed myself for the most part from the nets a few months before December, so I could experience GT6 with as fresh a mindset as possible, thus I didn't know that there were no used cars until I went to the dealerships in the game. Just about everything was a surprise for me.
For others obviously, it was a completely different story, as they now resent a game which they see as half baked, missing a lot of goodies they were counting on, rather naively, to be there in a few months, when Kaz said that they would be expanding on GT6 through 2014, and perhaps beyond. At the very least, major additions through May. I had no idea if this was doable on a regular schedule since this is all software, but I had a feeling that a track a month was a little ambitious unless they dumped all their GT7 work into GT6, which I never thought would happen. Other stuff, I give them the benefit of the doubt.
Well, except now there is this cloud known as GT7 hanging over us. It seems to me that SONY got spooked at non-explosive GT6 sales, along with Drive Club and P CARS release dates slipping to their vexation, and told Kaz he really should have made that GT7 after all, so go ahead. This isn't unlikely, considering the mindset of SONY the megacorp. And with the work necessary to produce a flagship racer with the scope of Gran Turismo, it's not hard to see that PD turning their attention to GT7 is going to sap development of GT6.
So what should Kaz do, if this isn't the case? Have PD produce those goodies he said they would. If it is the case? He has to do what he's told, but he can try within certain constraints to deliver the features on GT6 he said he would. And it makes business sense, because GT6 is on the market and support will mean lasting appeal and happier fans, and SONY can me persuaded in favor of this, depending on how much their collective hearts are set on getting GT7 made. SONY CE may care to an extent about their fans, but SONY the megacorp just cares about numbers.
And so what if GT7 is being incubated, which is almost guaranteed regardless, what should it be? Clearly, more racing focused. For me, since Kaz wants to make an autopedia, it needs more racing sim features. Not to the exclusion of the traditional GT game everyone has come to expect, so I'd push that off in its own GT Pro mode, and make it like a PC sim. Doing that, they need to focus on everything involved in a racing sim. So that means with WRC, come up with a bunch of tracks suitable to point to point races, and I'd allow some circuits and rallycross like Dirt features. For Super GT, have enough cars and tracks available to flesh out some version of a racing season along with a championship. The same for DTM, ALMS, FIA GT, NASCAR, etc. For me, some fantasy is fine, so include existing fantasy tracks to fill out a list of venues, leagues too such as Formula GT. A big inclusion should be Race Mod returning with a Livery Editor so we can create our own racing identity, which is particularly important for the online community. And to really support the online community, they need an Event Maker and some sort of club/league management tools allowing users to create private rooms and groups with their own rules.
I could go on and on with this, so I'm kind of done.
![LOL :lol: :lol:](/wp-content/themes/gtp16/images/smilies/lol.svg?v=3)