The free Gran Turismo 5 demo used to host the first round of competition in GT Academy 2010 has been downloaded over 1 million times in Europe within the first three weeks of its release (that’s one download approximately every 2 seconds), according to SCEE. Here’s what Yamauchi had to say about the milestone:
“Hitting one million downloads of the GT Academy Time Trial from the 17 participating countries alone is a very important milestone. We created the Time Trial purely as the mechanic to run the first phase of GT Academy 2010. The massive interest is testament to the strong GT Academy concept that offers the chance to make a dream come true. But it also clearly demonstrates the popularity of Gran Turismo. This Time Trial is only a tiny sample of what is to come in Gran Turismo 5, so it is particularly pleasing to have seen such a positive reaction to it.”
There was some doubt in the community as to just how much the demo will represent the final version of the game, and those doubters will no doubt pay special attention to the fact that Yamauchi specified the demo was created “purely” to host the first round of the GT Academy. Regardless, reaching 1 million downloads in Europe is a good accomplishment over such a short period of time. I wonder how this compares to the North American download statistics…?
See more articles on GT Academy 2010 and GT5 Demo.
MESSAGE FOR GT ACADEMY PARTICIPANTS TO QUALIFY FOR STAGE 2:
The fastest 30 players from the UK need to register their details by Tuesday 26 January on http://eu.gran-turismo.com/ in order to proceed to stage two of the competition. While only the 20 fastest players are due to contest the National Finals, the next ten players will be on standby should competitors be unavailable or not eligible to continue in the competition under the terms and conditions. The UK National Final will be a day event hosted on Wednesday 17 February. Participants will be offered overnight accommodation the night before the event (evening of Tuesday 16 February)
oops, then i understoud it wrong, when was spa coming then :s
Spa, Spa, Spa…(??!) What do you guys see in that track??? Only about 3-5km??
@ Corrado
I know it doesn’t got race tyres, but to me it seems exagerated. I’ve driven some sports and they don’t feel as dull or heavy as this 370Z does, and this is a car that’s suposed to be a small coupe, an agile car. In the game it takes forever to change direction and when it does it loses control with fast agressive oversteer, shouldn’t be like this in a front engine rear wheel drive car. And no way the car oversteers in third at half throttle in dry conditions, it feels like the weight distribution is wrong. The car loses too much traction and feels too heavy, it isn’t that powerful to behave like this, my only guess is that the N3 tyres aren’t the stock ones, just some rubish tyres and maybe S2 are. But don’t get me wrong, I love gran turismo and been playing since ever, just think they are making cars that should be fun to drive completly boring.
not to mention the ROCKET POWERED BREAKS… 320 km/h to 0 in 5 seconds…. thats soooo reallll…
haha, honestly you just turn normally and you do a perfect drift, with GT you actually have to countersteer, judge how fast to enter the corner, how much power to apply etc (shock horror for nfs fans). With NFS u just slam your foot down and turn lol
Yeah , its called for some reason. .. and i have to listen s**t like “NFS Shift its way more realistic than ANY GT” in other foruns… how to argue with something like that?
Just for laughs…
@Mario
Thats because its got road tyres, not designed in any way for track racing, so its very realistic how it’s so stubborn round corners, you can hear the tyres squealing almost constantly at high speed. It is called the Real driving simulator for a reason…
I’m 9th national but I just can’t stand the s****y 370Z, it drives like a 69 Mustang, what the hell POLYPHONY?! It feels like a slow fat car, so annoying. Not fun at all to drive, come on you can and must do better than this.
Curious on the North American downloads as well.
Personally, I love the Demo, the physics seem spot on, and with the visuals, we all know things will be awesome come GT5 time.
tyl0r_r
1.000.000 of us who played the game… you mean. Not who really cared about timing and get in the ranks… that shoud be take in consideration too. Offcourse, i consider a 1.000th position really great … anything above that its really something to be proud of.
arrgh crap.. Just read that GT5 got a 3 months delay in Japan ;(
source: http://www.razzamataz.net/?p=2042
Someone, please prove that this source is wrong :'(
*hoped
@Luke and Blademask
I hope that it would be more fun than driving my ’98 Toyota Tercel…
I don’t care about the number of cars, the physics (and even less the car modifications) if driving them is boring. And the AI in the previous GT games was so bad that you had the feeling you were racing alone with the other cars acting like moving pylons.
@alex p. What’s a magazine? Exactly why GT5 is by far the most hyped and publicized GT game yet. The internet buzz, GTPlanet swiftly posting any tidbit of information trumps the magazine coverage. The UK OPM gave us new info, I wonder if PTOM has anything new?
@blademask
haha soo true. its JUST a time trial. there will be sooo much more to do in the full game, that isnt even racing around many different tracks
@Luke
lol, what is he expecting in a time trial?
@lemad
Nope, the final game will be just the same, driving on a track, nothing more ;)
The thing is whenever the date of NA/European release, we get extra stuff from the Japan/Asia version, so I would wait for NA version. However since PD can release patch anytime over the PSN, so each version will be the same at the end. Get your Japanese version if you don’t care about the translation.
The demo was really boring though, just like Prologue. I hope the final game will be more exciting…
japan release first, us and europa later why ? its not good for us because whe dont have the game in our hands, gt5 will be revealed on the internet , and also the most will buy a double copy inport version japan and the original PD $$$$
So I guess 700th place is not so bad after all (As opposed to 3rd in HD with the 599). But the game is not as hyped as expected. Surprised? Be prepared.
Half the people who talk about video games talk about CoD (No surprise on how over-hyped that piece of crap is. MAG and Warhawk beat it anytime). But when you ask about Gran Turismo, their reaction is a simple “huh?”. 3 things:
1. Xbox poisoning. The cheap box has produced so much clouded visions on the PS3, it’s annoying. Good thing it’s starting to wind down.
2. Forza poisoning. No explanation.
3. The wrong audience. Polyphony should know that we’re already gonna buy the game, we’re PD freaks. They need to concentrate more on a broader audience. Look at the stupid Avatar (game, not movie) and Mass Effect commercials, they’re all over the place.
worse : be 1.000.000th. I would delete my account!!
I was ranked around 400 a few weeks back… (without trying as hard as i could)
but then i stopped playing since then, and now am pushed back to around 1500 (stock 370z)… I gotta jump on it again…
It would s&*% to have a ranking of 500,000th LOL
Could someone make a screen shot of that number please?!
makes my rankings look a little less pathetic when you consider there’s over a million of us on it. nice news.
Yop like me :(
and my chances weren’t so bad. Was 16..something..th, on international ranking. Now pushed back to something in the front 200th after some weeks not playing
But at least i was kind of in the front field.
It would sweet to know how many times the forza 3 demo got downloaded? I guess it wasn’t even the half of it, especialy here in europe!
“…from the 17 participating countries alone…”
So it’s not actually Europe. Some Europe countries can’t participate in GT Academy.
thats pretty cool. Lucas got to say he beat 25,000 gamers.. whoever wins this year gets to say they beat 1,000,000 which is a pretty ridicules bragging right :D
1 million in EUROPE. Not USA, not Japan, EUROPE!!!
Where is a freakin logic for release delay PD???
Loved the demo, much improved physics over GT5P, at least for the R1 fitted 370z. Not to mention that Indy road course is a lot of fun. Thought the graphics looked as good as GT5P on 1080p but I’m the minority I guess. Thankful to have this demo to hold me over until GT5 is available in the states. I think the area PD needs to focus on for GT6 is the force feedback. The car behaves as it should but FF at the limit, on brakes, etc. could be improved. Other than that I hope they don’t change a thing except add more cars and tracks!
@ Viktor Navorsky
You know Victor you can order it from abroad and i have to say prices are very interesting. I got FF13 from japan for 62 euros and i am expecting it to be around 70 euros where i live
I never had a good (a.k.a 900 degree and clutch package ) wheel… but it´s something that´s gonna change, very soon…
I´ve picked the G25 instead of G27 … thinks its a smart choice .. after read so many foruns and google til my fingers get on the flesh… i´ve made my mind.
I agree with Alan, I have a wheel but haven’t used it yet. I have always been really good at driving sims but felt that in the GT Academy the cars’ suspension was either not set up very well or the game physics were not overly accurate. I played the Forza 3 demo (Got tired of waiting) and instantly got well inside the top 1% of hot laps globally. My real love has always been the GT series and I’m hoping for us all that it’s not alredy been over-hyped.
@alan
ur rite. but even with the g25 (wooo so awesome) u cant floorboard the gas r u spin out. with the wheel it seems more realistic as much as tougher
Alan, time to get a wheel, right?
Was anyone else dissapointed with how much harder the physics where in the tt, i use the d pad while playing gt and with these new physics its now so much harder, not that its a bad thing but the new physics are going to suit steering wheel drivers so much more now, in gt5p i could take on beat most people on pro physics, with these new physics i wont stand a chance
larsjuh33 2 days for a new track? please read the article again. and stop making up stories
spa is gonna be awesome :-D 1 of my fave f1 tracks cos of schumachers success their in the past, and raikkonens recent dominance!! shows how much publicity GRAN TURISMO 5 is getting already!
Holy crap i’m waiting for the next track! Sure hope that it would be Spa!
Certainly makes me feel better about my overall position of around 1100!
2 days for new track : probably spa, can’t wait. getting my new 37 inch full hd lcd about 2 days as well. so that’s gonna be a hell of a party
Cool. That’s a lot for a demo. So there are many participants playing the demo. Good to know.
As Pedz said, hope this will push the release date.
Got to reset my times again, after 3 weeks they are surly a bit lower placed.
From videos we have seen from main GT5 gameplay the demo, to me, appears to have dumbed down graphics (besides that on the car). Things like the specular mapping are far more apparent in the TGS demo around Tokyo R246. That’s just an example though.
The demo was made for 2 reasons: To demonstrate the fantastic new physics in GT5; To give people around Europe the chance to enter the GT Academy competition.
Now lets hope this 1 million downloads pushes them to releasing it in March for Europe too…
The release price in my country will be the same to buy brand new ps2…for sure. Brazil sux for games… too much taxes, too much piracy… we all pay for that.
I hope not final version,TRACK visuals not soo good.2D public!!Ugly,not GT and PS3 quality!
spats ur right. its with professional physic. good point
thats y the US is gettin a later release. hype sales
More hyped than GT3?
I remember this game being in EVERY issue of EVERY magazine, which was ps or multi, in some form, it was crazy, I had to buy them all lol…
Or the best…
I hope people won’t think the TT is representative of the final build and pass on buying it based on that. I loved it though. :-D
The most HYPED GT of all times… no doubt about that.