A special demo of Gran Turismo 6 with fully integrated motion simulation was shown to the public at Fuji Speedway in Japan, during the latest round of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The game was running in a triple-monitor configuration on the SimCraft APEX3 GT motion simulation rig, allowing attendees to drive the Toyota TS030.
As most readers will realize, this is very unusual. Although other “motion rigs” have been used with GT games before, they were custom-built, one-off implementations, or generated motion feedback from controller inputs, like the Subaru Simulator running GT4 or the Audi motion rigs used at European game shows.
To find out if that was the case here, I reached out to SimCraft and learned the technology behind this demo is much more interesting, and the company has been working closely with Polyphony Digital for quite some time to refine the motion feedback:
“We’re pulling physics data out of the PlayStation; we have a full motion interface with Gran Turismo 6 that allows us to pull the physics files that we need in order to control pitch, roll, and yaw,” said SimCraft brand manager Sean Yoder. “It’s running real-time chassis dynamics and terrain dynamics, so what you’re seeing there is actually the race surface as it is in the game.”
To be clear, this does not indicate motion simulation for consumers is coming to Gran Turismo any time soon, but it is a positive sign things are moving in that direction.
Although motion simulators are currently too expensive for most people (the APEX3 rig in the video above starts at $30,000 USD), Sean confirmed that SimCraft is hard at work developing a significantly lower-priced platform, designed to bring motion simulation to mass-market consumers.
If SimCraft can pull that off – and Polyphony Digital decides to support motion simulators – the next few years could see a rapid evolution in console driving games.
See more articles on Fuji Speedway and Motion Simulators.
Maybe i repeat things said before….
Where is the sense in building an incredible expensive motion simulator when the game itself is not able to send correct feedback data to the steering wheel ?!?! Everyone who played games like rfactor, iracing for example knows of what i´m talking about….Don´t understand me wrong. It´s fun to play GT6. And it´s in my opinion better in physics than GT5. But miles away from rfactor and co…..I pray to all gods i know that this will change in GT7. And grretings to the idi%%%s who brought us the steering-wheel-chip-gate – go to hell.
Dear PD. First fix this problems – and then you can build an simulator…..
Greets from the black forest.
thorfynn aka Michael
I wonder what would happen if you flip your car or spin out :P
Looks good though, lots of fun to be had. Don’t know if it’d work with drifting but in a drag race you would feel like you’re being pulled back by the G-force
What is the point of driving as a sim game unless you are in a cockpit view?
Cool stuff, but you can buy a nice real with that value.
nice real car*
Yes, except the chance of dying in a car crash is completely eliminated :)
I’ll take two please. send me the bill.
AWESOME!
:)
Just show us some new incoming content, please.
Replace the 3 monitors with the Oculus Rift, and you have my attention.
I have spent £150 on a G27 which I have just found out is not compatible with next gen (ps4). Just imagine spending 20x that on a motion rig to find out the same?
$35,000 and no cup-holders? It’s a rip-off.
All kidding aside, it’s good to know that PD – a games-maker – is involved in simulation technology at this level, too.
This is awesome, but the $35,000 price tag is just absurd. I could almost buy all the DLC for an EA free-to-play game for that price!
Ha ha! Well played! ;P
This plus Project Morpheus. Just imagine the immersion. Wow. Not gonna happen in GT6, maybe not even on GT7 but on a GT8?? Or is that too far in the future?
That’s the ticket right there. It would be far less cumbersome and more compact with the VR Headset, Morpheus or Rift. I can’t imagine those monitors are going to last too long being shaken up like that…lol.
I would be happier with this $35K rig in my basement den, than 99.9 of real road cars at the same price in the garage. That’s just me, and Simcraft has a customer.
I wish they would release just the software as a stand alone product, that way it might be possible to build our own affordable versions.
… this is IMHO neither a GT6-, nor a PD-news … no reason to be mad ;)
It has for us the same importance like the “accurate stars at Le Mans”. r.
raweer “A special demo of Gran Turismo 6 was shown to the public at Fuji Speedway in Japan…”
Good day for sim-racing on Sony’s Playstation platform(s).. should be tweaked to perfection in a couple years and will almost certainly be used at the GT Academy Competitions.
I just read the third line. D’oh!
Racing line twonks!
” the company has been working closely with Polyphony Digital for quite some time to refine the motion feedback”
Wow… Look at that again. Jordan giving us more info about the game, than the creators of itself. Horrible communication from PD. Absolute disgrace.
Maybe PD chose GTP as their agent for releasing this news to the world.
I’m sure Jordan or one of the guys would tell us that…. I don’t see it happening unless we get news from both.
I guess you missed the link, in the very first sentence of the news article, to the PitStop blog post.
That site has been so poorly executed, it’s not worth notice.
Besides, that’s not what I meant. The point was that in the amount of time these two have been working with eachother, PD never announced it from the beginning.
Jordan says that he himself reached out to find out more information, which should’ve been all detailed from the start..
Imagine if you got this for free when buying a gt game
I’d imagine gt would cost 30k
If you going to spend 30k on a simcraft just to play GT6, you absolutely need help. I could use 30k to upgrade my project car to test a around a track.
You missed something: “SimCraft is hard at work developing a significantly lower-priced platform, designed to bring motion simulation to mass-market consumers”
I know more people that spend more than that amount for coffee during their midlife working years, I’ll tame a SimCraft seat instead, thanks!
For fun, yes!…The professionals simulators–300.000 dollars–have motion simulator, but the professional pilots do not prefer to use.
This could be amazing! If we could build our own, it would be even better. (Talk about a 1/10 cost difference.)
I sincerely hope this is on the way!
if you pitch your idea to most any Asian manufacturer, link a distributor or two, and your dreams may come true!