A PlayStation Blog post covering some of the games that will benefit from dedicated PlayStation 5 Pro upgrades has revealed that Gran Turismo 7 is “targeting” a November window for its relevant update.
The free update will add on-track ray-tracing for GT7, while running in 4K resolution at 60 frames per second — although that will be courtesy of the new PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution upscaler which will somewhat reverse the hit that the new GPU will take from this costly effect and bring it back up to 4K.
Additionally, although you will need a display that supports it as well as a high-bandwidth (48Gbps) HDMI cable, the title will add an “experimental” 8K60 mode for the PS5 Pro. That’s not likely to be of significant consumer relevance for a little while, but will certainly be used to sell some 8K displays.
The approximate scheduling is perhaps to be expected, given that the console itself will launch on November 7, priced at $699.99 (€799.99/£699.99) — although you won’t get a disc drive or a vertical stand for your money. Should GT7’s Pro-centered update arrive in the first week of the month (or sooner), it’ll make it the second successive new piece of PlayStation hardware that has had a Gran Turismo title at launch, following the PlayStation VR2.
While that’s all good news for prospective PlayStation 5 Pro owners, who’ll be able to pre-order the console from today, it does leave open a question Polyphony Digital’s current content update plans for the regular PlayStation 5 and even PlayStation 4 owners — who already don’t benefit from features like VR support or GT Sophy.
Gran Turismo 7 players have become accustomed to almost monthly content updates over the past two and a half years. While this was never specifically promised — in fact quite the opposite — it has become an expectation for many, and it appears that the game has entered an unprecedented barren spell on that front.
Most content updates have arrived on the last Thursday of a month, and until this summer that had been the case for all but five months out of 28. Moreover, on three of those occasions the following month’s update contained more cars than usual, which players have interpreted as a way of making it up for the missed month.
However, the last GT7 content update was in July 2024, with August 2024 only seeing a fix for a major physics issue (which still partially persists on some cars, notably Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution models), and September rapidly running out of days for an update deployment — today also being the last Thursday of the month.
Should the PlayStation 5 Pro update be dedicated to that alone and arrive in October or November, that means it could be three months — or more — between game content updates.
That is, of course, a pessimistic look. Alternatively, the Pro update could be a part of a rumored “Spec III” patch which will, like “Spec II” in November 2023, bring changes throughout the game as well as some new content for players to get to grips with.
Either way, we’re hoping to hear more about the PlayStation 5 Pro update, and the free “My First Gran Turismo” demo at this weekend’s Gran Turismo World Series Round 3 Tokyo event.
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