GT5 Prologue Update Coming August 1

Polyphony Digital has just posted a special news release to their Japanese site – a downloadable update to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue (the Japanese version, at least) will be available on August 1, 2008.  Aside from the updates to the Gran Turismo TV service, which we will cover in another post, here’s the primary new features that you can look forward to:

• Improved penalty judgments in online races.
• Improved collision physics in online races.
• Improved handling characteristics for S1-S3, and R1-R3 tires
• New calculation rules for performance points.
• 6 new songs added to the soundtrack.
• Players matched in Online races now added to the [Friends] -> [Players Met] menu within Playstation 3.
• The time and score from replays of time trials, drift trials, and distributed demo replays are now displayed after their replay.
• From the latest screenshots, a new “location” for your selected car appears to have been added to the main menu screen.

There is still, unfortunately, no word on using your own music in-game or making any use of the PlayStation Network’s “trophy system”.  See the full press release, with all of the new features and changes, after the jump.

A free online update of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue will be performed beginning in the afternoon of Friday, August 1st.

The main contents of this update are as follows:

Improvement in Download Speed
– Improvements in download speeds for online updates and content

Gran Turismo TV
– Start of PPV (Pay Per View) service
– It is now possible to fast forward, rewind, or move between chapters when viewing video content.
– It is possible now to have up to 8 simultaneous background downloads running at the same time.
– Individual downloads can now be paused or resumed.

Distribution of Expansion Data
– Instant distribution feature of My Page backgrounds added

Race
– Improvements in penalty judgments
– Improved physics during collisions between cars in Online races.

Time Trial
– The tire selection in Arcade time trials changed from “S2” fixed, to “N1-S2”

Ranking
– It is now possible to display top lap times in all courses in a list.
– Improvements in the user interface

Common Vehicle Physics
– Improved controllability when using S1-S3, and R1-R3 tires.
– Changed calculation rules for performance points.

Option
– Added [Standard Definition (SD) Display Size] in [Display Settings]
– Moved the [Temperature] unit setting from [Network] to [Units]
– Added Expansion Data settings and Advanced Download Option settings in [Network]

Sound
– 6 BGM tracks added

Online race network specifications changed
– Added port 5658 to the ports used in Online races.
* Refer to the following when trouble occurs or when necessary.
List of port numbers
Port forwarding setting procedures

Other
– Players matched in Online races now added to the [Friends] → [Players Met] menu within Playstation 3.
– The time and score from replays of time trials, drift trials, and distributed demo replays are now displayed after their replay. For distributed demo’s, the Online ID is also displayed here.
– Manual updated

Important Note:
– Please make sure to read the contents of the “Please read before the Update” news entry before proceeding with the update.

* All information listed in this website is for Japan. For information outside Japan, please refer to the website of your region.