Over Christmas, I’ve received a lot of questions about the free “Christmas gift cars” which were announced by Sony Japan a few weeks ago. As it turns out, the three free cars, which consisted of a Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640, Jaguar XJ13, and a BMW M3 Coupe, were only made available in the Japanese PSN Store. Even if you have a Japanese PSN account, the cars can only be used with an actual Japanese copy of the game.
The official announcement came only from Japan, of course, but the expectations for wider distributions stemmed from this report via andriasang.com (a popular site focused exclusively on Japan gaming news) which confidently though erroneously claimed that “anyone with GT5 will be able to download the cars for free.”
Considering the hundreds of bitter complaints prompted by announcement of the free Christmas gifts, though, many of you should be very happy with how the situation turned out.
See more articles on Japan.
Just so you all know, you can still get the Chrome Line Jaguar if you really want it! Head over to Gran Turismo’s official Facebook site, then play the game called “Take it to the track”, start five ‘grudges’, head to your profile and you’ll receive the code for the Jaguar and a nice PSN Home GT Academy outfit :)
Man, Japan gets everything!
To be honest, we all need to stop complaining. GT5 is about showing off YOUR collection. The Chrome Line and Stealth Line cars are available to everyone, so they don’t really count as ‘rare’ cars.
Makes perfect sense to give out Christmas Gifts in Japan, a country that doesn’t celebrate the holiday. Maybe the U.S. will get free cars on the Emperor’s Birthday, which is a holiday in Japan.
Boooooo!
I think it was irresponsible by gtplanet to post an article about free Christmas cars based on nothing other than heresay from another gaming website, be they chrome line, stealth, or whatever.
I do find it amusing that people are so attached to their “exclusive” cars. 1000 cars in the game and protecting these 5 means their investment is safe and justified…. incredible. If I could gift my stealth cars to everyone, I would.
The Japanese are Shinto and Buddhist, neither of which have any Christmas tradition at all. So yeah, that makes perfect sense. In the mind of Kaz at least.
That’s more or less what I was going to post. Way to give the Christian world nothing and give non-Christians a Christmas present!
I couldn’t care less about the cars, TBH- the special edition owners would have a right to be annoyed. It is ironic though that there have been car giveaways specific to Europe and Japan, but afaik nothing for US/NA/SA or Aussie/Oceanic people.
If I’m honest, considering that’s 3 cars to add to a collection of over a thousand, that doesn’t strike me as a problem.
and the cars can’t be gifted to an other account .. if your were thinking rreturning them to your garage from a jap cd ; P
OMG who the hell cares about these cars anyway. It’s just 3 cars which in my opinion look anything but spectacular. If they were heavily race modified cars with all the trimmings then YES but come on a few bits of chrome stuck here and there? PD you can do better than that surely
I am happy and relieved at the same time, Those who paid for the collectors edt. Deserve to keep the chrome line a “Limited EDT”. Thanks Jordan for the info.
Nothing better than keeping my collector’s edt, something other than just a normal game.
HAHA OMG i love u guys
2 mins ago i got the 3 cars
how ?
i opened a JP account in less then2 mins
WHY u guys talk here a long time ? in under 2 mins u get the cars …
Unless you have a Japanese copy of the game, you’ll be disappointed in another two minutes.
@Ryan Lol
@Ryan LOL… :D
Hahahha @ Ryan! That made my day. :D
To be honest I am not disapointed one bit that they are not available. Yes I have both steralth and chrome line but I had to pay for those and pay a lot of my own hard earned cash. If people want thre chrome or stealth cars then maybe they should have paid that extra for them. Really cannot complain.
Btw, I’ve mentioned this very same subject on the forums, but who am I, eh?
Personally I think its a bit small minded to look at this as being an issue where users paid for the cars in the US and EU and now others might get the same cars for free. Especially since Japanese customers got the cars free for Christmas.
Would it of been too much for Sony to throw some in game money to all players for Christmas so they can purchase a new car? Its a nice little bonus and encourages more competitive racing.
As there are many mature individual on this site who support PS3 gaming I’m sure quite all of us feel that something could have been done for all the GT5 loyal customers (instead of the small segment).
LOL, this was already announced a week ago… Somewhere on N4G.com.
What? Christmas Eve was two days ago.
Yes Jordan, but it was announced a few weeks ago it was Japan only. So I don’t understand all the fuss…
I was never aware of any announcement before Christmas which specified these cars would only be playable in the Japanese version of the game. As mentioned in my original post, it was unclear at the time if they would be region-locked or not. I’ve received dozens of emails asking for clarification on what happened to these cars and why they aren’t available, so I simply wanted to clear things up for everyone reading…
No site was really clear about it being Japan only. Some were saying that they were unsure, others were saying that everyone would be able download it. I saw a few sites saying that it was currently Japan only but they didn’t know if it would be announced for other areas as well.
Anyways, my point is, even if some site managed to say weeks ago with certainty that it would be Japan only, it’s VERY easy for a good number of people to have missed that news, or to have still had hope it would happen for the US. So, that’s why this post is important. To let all those people who were still unsure and confused know.
Do you understand all the fuss now?
There where enough websites where it was clear Jordan and Ryan. People should keep an eye on actual news websites, like N4G for example, more often. Tnere’s alot of news that doesn’t show on GTP. GTP isn’t the only website offering GT news.
And I still don’t understand the fuss. It’s only a few cars not available for regions outside of Japan… So what?
My guess is, the people who took the time to e-mail Jordan, are GTPlanet users. And if they e-mailed him asking about the cars, I’m guessing they didn’t see all the other sites you’ve found clearly telling them they won’t get the cars. So if there are GTPlanet users who are confused still, it makes perfect sense to create a post explaining to GTPlanet users what happened to their cars. It doesn’t matter if it’s been on other sites for weeks. It’s here now. So people who check this site and not your beloved N4G, can have an answer about the cars they thought were coming.
And not that I’ve read them, but I’m fairly certain a good number of the e-mails may have been along the lines of, “where are they? Am I doing something wrong? I don’t want to miss out if they’re there.” rather than “WTF? PD won’t give us cars?!” Though I’m sure there were still a bunch of those, I don’t think the “fuss” was as big as you think it is.
A better Christmas present would be to save in endurance races, dammit!
That’s not entirely realistic, though.
I’m not that disappointed, especially since the Jag couldn’t be used in any period-specific races (and I already have the other two).
Considering the hundreds of bitter complaints prompted by announcement of the free Christmas gifts, though, many of you should be very happy with how the situation turned out.
How and why should i be happy about this ? That is such a stupid comment , And yeah I’m dieing to follow you guys on twitter and facebook wtf ?
Not to mention it would seem pretty unfair to those of us who got the CE edition.
You can use the Jag in A-spec world classic car race
@”GT5=arcade game”: If you’d actually read the complaints that I linked to, you would see many people were upset to learn cars they feel should only be available to owners of the Collector’s or Signature Editions would be “gifted” to everyone. Those who were so upset should be happy to learn the gifts were limited to Japanese players, helping to preserve their exclusivity.