Gran Turismo 6 was officially launched on this day in 2013, following a party that occupied the Spanish town of Ronda and the Ascari Race Resort. So how have things changed in the last year.
Middle Eastern launch leaks aside, when gamers first got their hands on GT6 on December 6th 2013, the game was in a complete and playable state but one which was missing a handful of features promised to arrive in impending updates – however gamers quickly noticed that the first update on day 1 actually dropped a couple of icons from the Online tab of the game’s main menu.
Since then, there’s been an average of one update every 4 weeks, bringing tracks, cars, events and features. While players were initially limited to online participation through the Open Lobby feature, updates have added Quick Match (with variable levels of success!), Seasonal Events and the latest Community Features which allow gamers to create groups – with GTPlanet’s Club being the very first registered, with an ID number of 1000002!
New and updated versions of tracks have also arrived. The Goodwood Hill Climb and Suzuka both received updates for 2014 – though Suzuka’s appeared alongside its former version, while Goodwood’s update replaced the old track – along with the all new Red Bull Ring. 80s versions of Brands Hatch and Monza were added to complement the new Ayrton Senna Tribute special event. Another special event, Sierra Time Rally, added the longest street track ever seen Gran Turismo – Circuito de la Sierra – along with an Outrun-style checkpoint time attack.
The game was also made compatible with data logging features seen in real cars, with NISMO and Toyota making CANbus interfaces to export lap data to Gran Turismo for analysis – and even to race against, should the mood take – while a more recent update allows gamers to export their GT6 data to MoTeC analysis software.
While gamers still await two remaining features – B-Spec and Course Maker – the game’s car list has swollen to more than 1250 cars, many of which can be customised more than before, along with additional events in the career mode for the first time and a reduction in pricing for some of the more expensive cars, coupling with the reinstitution of the daily login bonus to make the game’s economy more forgiving than before.
As we look forward to seeing what the PS4 can bring to the Gran Turismo series, it’s clear GT6 is still improving, yet with more feature updates planned still has room to improve.
Happy birthday, GT6!
See more articles on GT6.
If I had something I want in GT It is I always thought it would be cool to have a point to point track of rt 66. Just a side thought.
I think its a great game I sure know I couldnt make one so im fine paying somebody else for all the work involved in creating gt because I like racing and cant afford to do it in real life so I all for the next best thing. I think id have a hard time finding a game to enjoy as much as gt if one day GT is gone andI play Forza and Grid regularly not as much as GT 5&6. I still think the course creator is coming, Im all in on the vision project, sierra and senna content was a nice suprise along with redbull ring and some cars sure seasonals are disappointing compared fo GT5 but I still hope for some bspec and endurance racingto come. Bash me all you want I am just a person who appreciates things others do that I cant and if I dont like something I do it myself not bash somebody else. Thats just me not bashing anyone else and how they think or feel about GT.
Man, the unpleasable fanbase this game has been developing.
‘Celebrate’ it’s first birthday? No.
This game is still un-finished. On the game case, clubs were advertised, yet these were only added one month ago. The car sounds are still atrocious for most of the cars. It’s basically GT5, but will less interesting career races. No course designer. Terrible AI. Some features that I payed for last December are still not in the game. If Gran Turismo 7 is no better, i might stop buying the GT series.
Were you expecting all of that to happen in a year? Course designer obviously could’ve been sooner so I get that, but all of that other crap is getting old. People complain like it’ll change overnight.
Why wait later
No course designer yet. Very sad. Oversold & underdelivered Logitech wheels don’t work on PS4. My long relationship with Gran Turismo is going to end if these things don’t change.
Logitech pulled out of the console peripheral business two years ago.
I think your chances of them making your wheel compatible are very slim indeed.
They obviously won’t be paying the licensing fee that Sony and Microsoft charge for the right to make peripherals for PS4 and Xbox One.
Finally! Two sober thinking people: SavageEvil and Tenacious D. One guy here commented that on a substandard PC, Assetto Corsa was a far better game than GT6. But just what is a “substandard PC”? Unless you’re talking about a Pentium 4 system, I don’t think PCs are a fair comparison with an aging PS3. Long story short, the PS3 is just too limited, hardware-wise, to actually do what you KIDS want it to do. If you even read the news articles here in GTPlanet, Kaz explained this already; they had to cut back on a lot of features because of the limited RAM.
I knew back then, when GT6 was still in the works, that it wouldn’t be a “revolution” of a game that everybody else seemed to be expecting. The hardware was always the limiter. However, I understood that PD still had to do it, just to keep in the tradition of two GT game iterations per console.
So, what am I trying to say? Gran Turismo 6 is a hell of a game. It’s actually an achievement. So Kudos to PD, and Happy Birthday GT6!
Make up your mind. If it’s a hell of a game and an achievement, why the post full of excuses as to what couldn’t be done on the PS3? There’s no denying what PD did with the PS3 was exceptional, but the argument can easily be made that the game is held back far more by design than by hardware limitations. Sober thinking people have an open mind and can still love and admire a game, but are not blind to both it’s limitations and it’s design flaws. Some of us can both criticize and love the game at the same time.
It’s come far in a year, adding a good few things although I only want 2 things on GT6.
1. AI that challenges me (I can easily beat 270HP RX-7’s in a 200HP 86 GT)
2. Fuel AND Tire depletion on Arcade, GT4 had it, GT5 had it, GT6 does not, WHY, this is a feature that lets us create our own endurance races yet we cant have pit stops because our tires are perfectly fine even after 500 laps! There is tire depletion on GT6 but it is reserved for the dull and short endurance races. The only 2 worth doing are the 24 minutes of Nurburgring and 24 minutes of Sarthe. But on arcade I have to downgrade to GT5 to have my own endurance races. I would love to be able to take my Camaro LM around Bathurst on a 20 lap race but theres no point because my tyres are fine after 10 laps in the rain. They fix these 2 for GT7, insta-buy
One year on and its still not theg ame they promised, even if they had waited a year it STILL wouldnt be the game they promised, poor show Kaz!
So much has changed, yet nothing has really changed. All these features are nice but they don’t change the core of the game. They’re all just fluff to keep the masses salivating until GT7 is released with most of the same content. GT really needs a reboot. A start from scratch, per say.
Belch whoops
After all the hype I can’t help but notice what hasn’t changed. Sure there has been some nice surprises, but I’m still left wanting for features that I hoped would be in GT6 on day 1.
Can’t believe it has been released for 1 year!
Can’t complaint nothing, thanks PD!
so one year on. came on here to check if the game has had the features put into it i paid for a year ago.
seemed it still has not.
guess i won’t bother booting it up.
Wow, whatta year it’s been.
I can’t disagree with the critics and complainers, though the tone of criticism around here is just a bit much. Still, this is a great game for many of us fans. The physics have improved and are approaching PC sims more than ever, the bot A.I. is coming along… slowly, getting good colors to paint your car isn’t the hair pulling ordeal it was in GT5, the car list is vast, the track list is sweet, the improvements while slow to come are very welcome, the features upcoming are tantalizing…
Even with games more advanced like Assetto Corsa, even with all the goodies I want to see in Gran Turismo, GT6 is the game I fire up when I want to enjoy a race, and I have plenty of like minded fellows here at GT Planet. It’s not perfect, but I love this game and its creators at Polyphony. And I can’t appreciate enough the father of the series, Kazunori Yamauchi.
Happy Birthday GT6! You make me famished for your successor on PS4, and I hope to be playing it within a year or so.
Happy birthday, GT6! Great year with great game. Thank you, PD .
You wanna know the truth about GT6? It’s “real” release date was NOT December 6th 2013, it was on one of the last few updates. Let’s face it, GT6 is almost a different game now, we just bought it too early XD.
This is true, or you could say that GT6 won’t really be GT6 until Spec 2, I’d agree with that too.
Still… well, I’ll just make my own post above.
The real truth about GT6 is that it is not technically GT’s 6th commercial release, but actually its 12th.
A year later and GT6 is still as dull as when it was released -_- happy bday,goodluck next year.
Happy Birthday GT6!!
Gt6 is on sale till tuesday for 15 bucks on psn people who haven’t got it should get it now.
This flashback article made me feel very happy. Thank you GT6! Thank you GTPlanet ;)
Bring back the ability to gift or loan a car to another player.
Agree!
Missing B-spec :(
Agree and i would of thought this would of been added by now, same with course maker. now i dont think they ever will be added.
A great birthday give back would be some dlc of new cars. I go on msn everyday right before going on here and just see loads of new cars that need to be in gt. Like yesterday the Ferrari FXXK that car is insane and today the Ferrari Sergio and the car its based on the 458 speciale A. 599 gto and 599 xx. As posted below Lambo sesto and Veneno, Aston Martin Vantage N430 the list can go on and on on new cars alone not including some older ones.
All of which are boring super cars that every modern arcade style racing game will have. *yawn*
And still, no shuffle. The one reason I bought the ps3 was because I tried shuffle racing, and LOVED IT!! Was the only racing I did on gt5. Sooooo like a dummy, I pre ordered gt6 with the assumption that the one type of racing that brought me more joy than any other would be there, but alas, screwed by the infinite wisdom of PD. Wasted my $60 on a game that I no longer have any interest in playing, and breaking my 15 year love affair with the gt series. Thanks a lot.
One year on and still no course maker…
Just like GTA V one year on and still no Heists XD
One of the biggest selling points of the game for me…just shows how much they care about the raking the money but not delivering on the goods
Still need the real Endurance races and overhaul of Arcade mode as well.
Haven’t played it for 6 months. The longest I’ve ever gone without playing a GT game since GT1. GT6 is a relic of what the series used to be.
^^^Most factually inaccurate statement feasible!^^^
Yes but you know what he means…no point turning on him.
The sounds are still crap, no real career mode, still using old models, hardly any new cars apart from vision concepts…where the hell are the racing gt cars like vantage, dbr9, gallardo and ferrari racers??? How hard is it really to make a race version of those cars…we just get skylines and concepts…they have fallen short for years despite the requests…its becoming frustrating to be honest! Theres no excitement in the game!
Slight correction: there’s no excitement in the game for you.
For the rest of the planet, it varies. GT6 still has a thriving online community after a year, when other games have lost interest. People are still buying the game and playing it. Some of us are running various GT Mode races with a variety of cars we’ve won or bought. In my case, in spite of Assetto Corsa’s better physics – and similar A.I. but I digress – I have much more fun racing events in the I-A class with sports cars I bring up to par with the race cars. Cars that I feel like I own.
When I want to race, GT6 is my choice, and I’m not alone. Not everyone here is down on GT6, so make of this what you will.
Can’t agree more Lee and Mubble. Unlike TenD above there, once I tried AC on a substandard PC earlier this summer I was hooked. The difference in the driving experiences AC vs. GT is as dramatic as the difference between a DS3 and G27 or T300/500. AC is just so much deeper in terms of sophistication and the complexity of it’s physics model that driving in the game is much more instinctual, whereas in GT you have to learn a bunch of game “tricks” in order to be truly fast. When I first tried AC I couldn’t get the car around the track in fact, because I was still in GT mode, where ABS is actually stability control and can be used anywhere at any time, even mid-corner. I still thought I could just turn the wheel at any angle at any point in the corner and it would be ok, but just like in real life there are consequences in AC, but not in GT. I discovered that race tracks are actually bumpy and that those bumps upset the balance of my car, and the closer to the edge of control you were, the smaller the bump it took to throw you off balance. You had to learn the entire track and when and where the bumps were in order to keep it straight and fast. If you go full simulation, you actually have to heel and toe and match revs or you can damage your engine/transmission.
GT has a long, long way to go to get to the level but I don’t think that’s their target. It’s a fun game for the masses, not a full on simulation and for what it is, it does a decent job.
Happy Birthday GT6, cue complaints.
Dude it’s the PS3 there is only so much PD can do with the thing, favorite lists, stock yard and other weird things are simply because the machine has literally no kind of ram to deal with the constant swapping in and out of memory in order to not crash. There are finite possibilities in that machine, PD rearranged things to accommodate and still things act up, the machine simply cannot give all that they are asking of it.
Other things that can be fixed such as leader boards and other should probably be getting their fixes, but still the PS3 has to interface with it and all without causing runtime errors. So how about we cull the complain fest and just be thankful they gave us the game at all.
*heads back to PS4 to wait for word of G25/27 being green lit for use*
I wish I had a PS4. :/
But you’re so right. I’ve been harping on this point for ages, and is why some of us like me were pulling hard for GT6 to be a PS4 game. Earth became downright angry about it. The headroom of horsepower available has resulted in a lot of shortsheeting of things from A.I. to damage to physics to shadow graphics… we all know the gripe list. It’s why Zahara took so long to make, almost an extra year of work, and likely why the Course Maker is late too.
Still, this game rocks, and I was getting so tired of the issues in GT5, I’m glad we got GT6 a year ago. Room for improvement? Sure, lots, but I’m counting on the slow updates being a sign that the team are working their workstations off, and Kaz is schmoozing everyone from racing leagues and teams to automakers like Porsche to get GT7 out the door by Dec 6 next year. Or so. ;D
Happy birthday Gran Turismo 6!
Wow! One year of a great game!
Happy birthday GT6
Happy Birthday GT6! Much as your flaws annoy me, you’re still a bloody good laugh.
1 year later and there’s still no proper racing offline. GT6 has cars & tracks but doesn’t have racing offline.
Is it that difficult to give players the option to enable things such as standing starts, mechanical damage, fuel/tire wear, corner cutting penalties, & full balanced grid in offline arcade races? Those things are in the game already, what’s the reason for not having those basic racing options available in all game modes?
It’s funny how the creators of the real racing simulators on pc are keenly aware of how important offline racing is. Almost as funny as the question: Why is this even a problem?
PD. You have lost your way. Good luck to the diehards who keep waiting around for them to get a clue. The worldbeating assets in GT are going to waste in the mist tragic way.
And another thing…:-P
NERF that STUPID Racing Soft tire or just put that down!!!!Everyone using it try to be like”oh,I drive a 500pp car,yet I can win even a 550pp cars online.I’m da best!”
This kind of tires is juat totally unrealistic and not even LM cars in real life work like that…Do something on it pleade PD!
If people allow it online, like allowing SRF, it’s the host’s fault. Having qualifying tires available in a racing game isn’t the game’s fault.
Happy birthday GT6 !!!
HB GT6!!!
Thanks again and again for your work on what you believe what a real driving simulator should be ;)
Now that that’s over,… honestly hope to use b-spec and course creator for more than a year (at least 2yrs online).
I know I’ve said here over and over again that course creator wouldn’t be coming to 6, because of usable space, and still do, but I just visited Gran Turismo’s official website and discovered these two aspects continue(?) to be promised in future updates. I DON’T DIG HOLDING MY BREATH FOR ANYTHING! Especially for something that should have been available from day one.
OLT, I sincerely hope that if and when this ever happens these important items are playable offline so I can continue to enjoy the game whilst saving up the big bucks for part 4, episode 7.
Happy Birthday to you,Happy Birthday to you, When do we get the update that removes the Stock-Yard? Happy Birthday to you! If P.D thought of a 500 Car favorites list cool I like it, but why still have the 100 Car favorite list on top of it mixed with the cursed Stock-Yard and it’s blasted load times. It still stops me from buying more cars while many I have been driving with since day 1 GT5 suffer longer load times as they have bought everything like we used to. The load times I deal with are less as I have about half the cars in the game but I had those for a while now (Added Cars Excluded). All I’m saying is what others are not, yet no one really thinks it’s a big issue. To worried about a game not out yet? Focus here on what is for a moment. Great stuff added so far Great but the problems with cars moving whilst parked roadside as well as cars that at low to slow speeds seem to hump the road for lack of better words but that’s what it looks like on screens looking at others cars. But yeah great stuff added hoping more comes. Hoping some leaves. Happy Birthday,Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday GT6!
Gran Turismo 6 Spec 2.0
Tourist Trophy 2
Gran Turismo 7
Lovely of my PD.
Happy birthday gt6!!!
I really learnt a lot more about cars and met a lot of good drivers this year,all these because of one game:-)
Hoperfully more are coming,like we expected,and give us more joy in the coming days
…just one more thing,can Kaz you make it compatible for G27 with PS4?I don’t want to buy another expensive thrustmaster just after 1year of buying G27…
Happy birthday GT6! and keep going Yamauchi San!!
B-Spec and Course Maker aside, I think GT6 has evolved a lot in the past year. It’s far better now than it was at release that’s for sure. Spec 2.0 should indeed bring some interesting additions to the table, and then there’s GT7 on the PS4….
GT’s future seems bright :D
Boy o boy was I waiting for this post! Happy Birthday GT6!
I love you GT but you’re starting to show your age.. maybe a face lift on the PS4 would help things? :)
This game has improved a lot since it came out! I actually made an event for my club for the 1 year anniversary on Circuito de la Sierra. Happy Birthday GT6!
How many times you get kick by the servers?
Happy Brithday, GT6!
Gimme Sesto Elemento and Veneno!
Happy Brithday, GT6!
Now, give us Spec 2.0 ;)
Or DIE!!!! XD
Happy Birthday GT6 :)