A document hosted on the FIA’s official website appears to reveal GT Academy’s plans for global expansion over the next few years, bringing the competition to several important markets for both Nissan and the Gran Turismo brand.
New regions for 2015 are set to include Indonesia, Malaysia, and Nissan’s native Japan, while competitors in South America will have to wait one more year for GT Academy Brazil in 2016.
Of course, it is important to note this is not an official announcement, and Nissan’s plans could certainly change. These new countries were teased, however, on a map shown in the first global GT Academy 2014 trailer released earlier this year.
The document shares several other fascinating statistics about the scale of the GT Academy program: it has now hosted over 4 million worldwide participants, who have driven over 1 billion virtual miles in the competition. GT Academy television programs have also been broadcast in over 160 countries to more than 100 million viewers.
It is curious to see such a document hosted on FIA’s servers. The world’s governing body of motorsport will no doubt be taking a very close look at GT Academy, as it plans to host its own officially sanctioned virtual races in Gran Turismo with the FIA Online Championship next year.
As always, stop by our GT Academy forum for more discussion with other competitors, many of whom are already preparing for the season ahead.
Thanks to gm matthew for the tip!
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Awesome news Indonesia is coming next year! I hope those who are serious in joining the motorsport world will be preparing for the challenges ahead.
this is the best part of gran turismo. i appreciate this kind of from console to the real thing tournament is the best part by far of gt. too bad that i suck so bad XD
not that the game is bad tho.
With a such wide fan base maybe we might start seeing cars and tracks from these other great countries like Russia, India, Brazil and etc.
Would you really want a Russian car?
Think about that one again..
Marussia, mastreta, lada Riva and niva and etc.
#LetGreenlandIn
FIFA won’t let them in either…
Greenland is Danish so it counts to Denmark in sports.
meh.
Glad they finally will come to Japan, there are really fast guys there.
Still no GTAcademy for faster contries like mine :(
#LetChileIn
Hopefully we will see Morocco On this map, soon
Is Morocco also supported in PSN availability?
Yes it is. It’s a newer market.
Is it me or is it odd that Gran Turismo was made by a Japanese company(PD) sponsored by a japanese automobile company (Nissan) and the game developer personally drives a Japanese made race car(Nissan GT-R variants) in many races along with its GT Academy winners but it took them until 2015 to finally add Japan to the GT Academy list. Just seems odd to me that japan just finally got in.
That is unless Im reading it wrong.
As the AE86 isn’t premium , PD logic …. weird ! I was thinking exactly the same mate.
It’s not really strange at all. Nissan and PlayStation may be Japanese companies, but they are global, multi-national brands. Only 9% of Nissan’s global sales and only 14% of Gran Turismo’s global sales come from Japan. Both companies get a much larger return on their investment in the GT Academy program by focusing on the significantly larger markets of Western Europe and the United States.
I’m agree with you about numbers but when it come to your own country you should have a kind of loyalty (or I don’t know how to call it), it’s symbolic.
Not all countries place such an importance on things like that, only the insecure ones.
*possibly…
I don’t see what you mean ? There is hundred examples of company who gives advantages(ex:early access, exclusive content/item …..) and take care of “local” customers not only for profit (even sometimes they are loosing money) but for “loyalty” and for brand image. As I said it’s symbolic.
Japan had a lengthy xenophobic period of isolationism, which I believe left a mark on the collective psyche and such policies.
Good point and this why they are really close minded IMO. But as well everything in Japan is about respect and honor, back there they have on of the best customer services and PD is at the opposite of it. It is Japanese company but they are far from being Japanese IMO. No hanger it is a observation, the market always win and we vote with our money. As you can see here people started with GT and are now playing other games.
In honsty, I think people would be playing other games too, no matter what. I enjoy my GT games, but I also like others who do other aspects better, such as rally racing.
There will be no Gran Turismo 7. Instead of this, there would be just GT Academy 2015 and on.
Despite PD having said GT7 is on it’s way…?
How about more manufacturers than just Nissan. Then they would really have something.
Jerome
Well, it’s Nissan GT Academy since Nissan supplies all the cars that they use for the GT Academy itself and various professional racing categories that those graduates participate in. I’m not sure if other car companies want to do the same thing…
Hopefully they also include every middle eastern country after the farce this year