Since its release nearly two years ago, Gran Turismo 7 has seemingly performed well in PlayStation’s largest and most important markets, but neither Polyphony Digital nor Sony has released any specific sales or player numbers.
When series creator Kazunori Yamauchi was asked directly about the topic during a tri-lingual round-table interview at the GT World Series Finals in Barcelona, his response was vague but positive:
“[Gran Turismo 7] has been a success, and we have been able to maintain a really high number of active users throughout the release. That’s something very unique to Gran Turismo that other titles have not been able to see,” Yamauchi-san explained.
The biggest surge in player numbers came after the release of Gran Turismo 7 Spec II in November, the game’s largest and most significant content update since it was released in March of 2022.
“When we released the Spec II update, the number of active users jumped up to double of what it was before that,” Yamauchi-san revealed. “I’ve heard in the video game industry that is quite rare.”
Spec II introduced seven new cars, an all-new snowy rally track, new single-player content, a new rotating set of “Weekly Challenges”, new license tests, four-player split screen, Photomode and Scapes enhancements, and the introduction of the all-new AI system, Gran Turismo Sophy 2.0, as a special mode in the game.
It’s also worth noting that the update brought a small game economy change that — until it was patched out in v1.41 — allowed players to exploit a glitch to earn credits much more rapidly. This became one of the most-searched and most-asked questions in GTPlanet’s Gran Turismo 7 forums at the time.
It is likely indeed very rare for an 18-month old game to double its active user count almost overnight, but not entirely surprising for a game series like Gran Turismo, which began its evolution from standalone games into a more “service”-like architecture all the way back in 2010 with the launch of GT5.
The lack of an in-game narrative allows Polyphony Digital to keep adding significant amounts of content to each game throughout its life, bringing players back to the title for an extended period of time.
When pressed, neither Kazunori nor the PlayStation representatives present at the interview could provide any hard numbers regarding GT7. However, the fact that it has been “a success” by Kazunori’s standards is a positive sign for the long-term future of the franchise, and he seemed optimistic and excited for its future.
We’ll have more from the round-table interview over the coming days, so watch this space!
