More GT6 Online Service Maintenance Scheduled for July

Gran Turismo 6

Hot on the heels of an unusual 3 hour online maintenance period, Polyphony Digital has announced more online maintenance for GT6 during July – and if you thought it was odd last time, this one will boggle the mind completely.

This time round, the maintenance consists of two, eight hour periods separated by just 48 hours. During these times, GT6 players will be unlikely to be able to connect to any of the game’s online services, though experience tells us that connectivity may vary geographically.

The two schedules are:

7th July 2015; 1100-1900 GMT/UTC (time zone conversion here)
9th July 2015; 1100-1900 GMT/UTC (time zone conversion here)

Although maintenance periods are often accompanied by game updates – and these two outages are belters – many players expecting a significant update following this week‘s tinkering were disappointed, so we’d advise against too much anticipation. These are just about unprecedented downtimes though and do suggest some change to functionality may follow.

Image courtesy of Northstar.

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Comments (215)

  1. Tenacious D

    “It is worth mentioning that you will soon enough be afforded the privilege to have the news you want to read displayed appropriately, but that will be announced in greater detail in due time so keep an eye peeled.”
    ~ Terronium-12, today’s GTPlanet Community Spotlight: Enough to Drive For a Lifetime

    Well, la di da… the teases just keep coming, don’t they. I hope rather than being poopy about this, most here find this mildly thrilling like I do. I’m caught up in foraging for GT7 news myself, but with two things in particular coming to GT6 this year, I’m going to find much pleasure in what lands in my hard drive from those wizards toiling away in The Land Of The Rising Sun.

  2. BrunetPaquet

    Good thing I didn’t hop on the “hype train”… otherwise I’d be Disappointment Ville right now.

    Gonna play some other types of games, I’m kinda burned out by racing games.

    1. BrunetPaquet

      Forgot to mention, I’ll be back in a week or two… don’t tell me “Bye!” or “Good Riddance.”

    2. BrunetPaquet

      @ALeftRighter It’s cool, I’m not even disappointed. I didn’t expect anything and after maintenance one, I pretty much guessed nothing would be added.

      Sure, I got a little excited but when I saw nothing was there, I thought: “mm’kay. It’s all right.”

    3. Tenacious D

      I can’t be the only one here with several things vying for my free time. I know that a few of us play nothing BUT Gran Turismo, but that can’t be all that many people.

      I just get on here every day to check things out, but seriously, if all I did was game, I still have plenty of other things to do. I guess it also doesn’t hurt that I also would much rather be playing GT7, but heck, GT6 doesn’t define my happiness factor. I think some of you guys need a pet.

    4. BrunetPaquet

      Got a semi-maine coon/semi-american short tail. If you want I could send you a picture of him, He’s absolutely adorable. Sadly my autism draws me towards a compulsive need for gaming but I go outside sometimes and I help with family chores. :) I know, you weren’t targetting me or ALeftRighter. Just was saying this like that. Also I have Tourettes and hyperactivity, hence why reactions can sometimes be awful.

    5. Johnnypenso

      Had to look up “Maine Coon”….lol. Thought you were saying you adopted a raccoon or something.

    6. Tenacious D

      By the way, sure, shoot me a pic sometime!

      Now, to do that life living thing I mentioned below. Probly with some GT6.

  3. alifra

    Starting with the fact that I love GT6, I am not happy with the development of the game.
    On June 28th 2014, Kazunori Yamauchi said: “…the Beta version [of the Track Maker] is already working and in my hands now. When we can deliver it to users is still up in the air.”

  4. s3nNa

    Dont you guys think its poor that polyphony are not keeping their consumers in the loop about anything at all? Just stringing us along with a few “surprises” along the way and we all just keep defending their cause.

  5. celtiscorpion73

    Internet went down Sunday and now I’m forced to change carriers. Therefore, this wouldn’t apply to me until I get back online again. So, I’m kinda glad to see nothing atm. Looking forward to whatever it’s building up to be, though.

  6. ALeftRighter

    Maybe testing it? Is it possible to check code? I’m sure some people are trying to find something. Remember, the Tomahawk was in the game before it was released.

    1. Manasseh257NSX

      For real! People act like we’re suppose to get an update an hour after maintenance. I say we gotta give them a week, 2 weeks tops. Something will come from all this.

    2. Tenacious D

      If the updates involve the FIA Championships, keep in mind that FIA is a governing body, i.e. a bureaucracy. They often move at a snail’s pace. And these championships involve a number of nations, i.e. even more gubmint bureaucracies. This is why the spread of GT Academy has been progressing slowly over the years. Government wants its fingers in everything. So we’ll just have to be patient, whether this is involved or not. Things will happen when they happen. Does anyone remember how long it was before we finally got the Sierra course? Yeah, we got that too.

    3. Tenacious D

      I know you love to flaunt that DiRT Rally partnership Johnny, but checking the news blurb, that “partnership” is little more than new cars and tracks right now. The GT6-FIA partnership involves actual competition with prizes and stuff, and that includes racing against pro racers.

      Apples and lemons much?

    4. Johnnypenso

      You brought up the bureaucracy of the FIA, which has nothing to do with handing out prizes. Codies was somehow able to sidestep all this bureacracy and get the most important thing done – content into the hands of the fans. To the 99.999% of us that will not win the prizes, we could care less what they are, get the content into the game.

      Move the goalposts much?

    5. Tenacious D

      Johnny, you completely ignored everything I said. So let me be clear.

      CLEARLY, gubmints of the world don’t care which cars and tracks are in which racing game. CLEARLY, when rewards which cost MONIES are involved, especially across international borders, they want their fingers in the PIE. Kay?

  7. Lille B

    In my younger days I often went downtown to the pub or so…. sat my ass down preying the ladies.

    Got in talk and buying drinks all night for easier persuasion.

    Very often i went home alone ofcourse.

    The sum of all the disappointment those nights
    got NOTHING ON THIS !!!!!!

    Kaz you tease

  8. Drum_Tank

    What? this is a joke right? im able to access online but no update? anyone else get nothing?

    1. GTracerEHTeam

      Well it probably won’t be, if this is your only outlet for GT news you probably don’t know that 9 other games are having the same outage at the same time. This is real maintenance, expect nothing and be happy if there is something.

    2. Tenacious D

      According to Terronium-12 and Famine, this is definitely for something, but “something” to come. We should be lucky that SONY is still paying this much attention to the PS3 community instead of leaving us to dangle with their neglected old system.

      I’ve been pretty vocal about wishing that PD focused the lion’s share of the team’s resources on GT7, but Kaz has made definite statements that GT6 is still in their to-upgrade list, at least through this year. And one of those upgrades is the Course Maker. It’ll be here when it’s here, so will the FIA Championships. Who knows, maybe FIA will be directing the build of new sanctioned courses using the CM tools for the competitions. Who knows, but stuff is coming. Just a suggestion, but live life for a while in the meantime.

  9. CitroenCX

    I’m worried that this 48 hours maintenance are all for nothing for the players you know I played GT6 since it released then I sold my PS3 slim (that was over a year ago) for PS4 and now bought and playing my fat PS3 for a week now I’m really digging all the new stuff that GT6 has to offer especially Vision GT cars!
    Course Maker PD! you know we all wanted for so long!

  10. Keithdoom

    I’m guessing there’s nothing but maintenance this week. In a few weeks, by the end of the month, we’ll have an update of some sort.

  11. Topdoggdbn

    I am hoping this was the update on the backend.
    testing to follow to confirm it’s working. Then Friday go live. Well, we can all hope and dream.

    1. Griffith500

      This would seem to be what happened with GT5 Spec II, which brought changes to the online side of things, and a new “online feature”: DLC.

      Of course, the update came a little while after the train of maintenance periods in that case, but only weeks after.

    1. Lambob

      yes, the United Airline flights are no longer grounded, and the stock market is back up to take your money.

  12. Lambob

    Kaz is a busy bee, overseeing both Project Cars and his love child of Gran Turismo. One thing at a time, good things are coming here I suspect, though I won’t turn on GT news again until this Friday evening for the full updates.

  13. Tmont317

    Betting course maker + 1000 simultaneously posted comments on here how terrible it is, or what it’s missing. But hey, it’s free right? Let’s all be grateful for whatever it may come.

  14. Jayson619

    Aww man….I hope there’s some additional Lamborghini cars. Veneno, Huracan, Huracan GT3 and the Sesto Elemento.

    I’m done driving on Driveclub; I wanna drive my cars on the Nurburgring like I did with the rest!!!!!!!

    1. research

      Time to look into Assetto Corsa, man. It will have all of those Lambo’s soon (exept maybe the Veneno).

      You can ‘Ring them out like a wet dishrag. Assetto ftw.

  15. Tenacious D

    celtiscorpion73 said to place bets. I’ll play GT6 Update Casino. 100 chips to place in 5s and 10s on what I think is coming.

    30 – FIA Championships, including online feature enhancements
    25 – Spec II, including community features and online feature enhancements
    20 – Course Maker II, including online feature enhancements
    10 – New cars for the FIA events, race modded from the GT6 stable for the most part
    5 – Not new tracks PD built from scratch, but new tracks made with CM II for FIA events
    5 – Event Maker
    5 – Community features, including online enhancements

    1. Gyro1780

      I place my chips on:
      95 – Disappointment. A few small (pretty rubbish) changes to the game like the last update.
      5 – Course Maker II or FIA Champs

    2. Progress823

      My bets:

      85 – routine maintenance
      10 – GT6 Spec II, including new course maker
      5 – FIA GT Championship content

    1. amdlll

      I agree. I want to be able to test my transmission of all my cars down to the millisecond. Why did they ever take that feature out? lol

  16. wvmgmidget

    If we get an update I’m only expecting a new Vision GT but, I think even if we do get an update it will come on Wednesday.

    1. Mulan

      as always, to know when its ready?
      Not checking timezones.
      Fun thing, this can be a major happening.
      Its not a big thing to do but gives all visitors headsup that something is coming and lots are waiting in the forums.
      Perhaps not get many”is the update out yet” questions…

  17. wraith of horus

    Lets hope Sharpie. Speed test is what I am missing in GT6, speed and acceleration testing was my fav thing to do in GT5, top speed and drag timing cars as fast as I could make them go.. finding their limits. I don’t much care for course maker. I’m so annoyed at PD having not put Speed test into GT6. I will forgive them if they decide to put a newer or better Speed test into GT6 Spec II. But surely they realize that since they added speed test to GT5 there would be loyal PD fans of GT that will miss Speed test badly. They are giving those people a real kick in the teeth. These people don’t realize how much course maker and speed test mean to their customers and players of the game. We demand it back in the game. Or PD stfu forever and to Forza 6 I go if GT7 is no better.

    1. Divaldo

      We had speed & acceleration tests in Gran Turismo 2, 3, 4 and 5. I wonder why this feature is not available in Gt6.

    2. jdiaz092009

      Agreed Wraith, it would be nice to have those 1/4 mile tuning battles like in gt5. Time we eliminate the men from the boys when it comes to tuning for the 1/4 mile.

  18. Antony Henley

    You know what. I am not going to speculate at it being anything. Im just going to sit back and lol at the butt hurt comments about how GT6 sucks etc etc etc

    1. Lille B

      Could be awesome if every track, every car,every specials andevery missions that’s been in ALL the Gran Turismo series could return.

    1. BrunetPaquet

      I’m guessing it’s a different version than the one in International A License where penalties would be set on “Strong” and judging how only the player gets penalized, I’d say it won’t be fun for the average race.

      That is of course, if it’s in Single Player. If it’s online I’d avoid it by any means considering how some people drive… Sorry. Short memory.

  19. GTracerEHTeam

    Everybody is saying it has to be course maker, which is possible, but I’ve moved off of the opinion for now. What I’m hoping it is now is that they’ve actually acquired their own servers for us to connect to instead of going PS3 to PS3. A lot of people don’t realize that is how GT online works and I’m hoping that changes, especially for when 7 comes out.

    1. Famine

      That would require server farms across the globe (which is why very few console titles use client-server connectivity) and a complete restructure of online mode with a pretty significant game update.

      So it’s quite unlikely.

    2. Andyc709292

      @Famine
      This would be my thoughts – it might coincide with course maker, but to have a service outage for so long screams of infrastructure changes – source: I do them.

    3. Rallywagon

      Sorry to say Andy, but I also agree with Famine. I don’t think PD has the resources to purchase floor space in a data center, especially with the going rates in Japan. I also do not see them dropping a.fairly common networking model either, or completely redoing all of the code in game.for that sort of network change. I think the CM is a more realistic outcome than migrating to server hosts.
      Source: I build and maintain 20+ petabyte SAN systems for the state of Michigan.

  20. XSRacing111

    Well as far as I’m concerned, the things that still need to fixed/added are these things:
    Add Shuffle Races, Add Tire Wear and Fuel Consumption to Arcade Mode, Fix the “refueling” of electric cars (they don’t recharge, but they did in GT5), add interior views to VGTs, and add Fully customization transmission to certain VGTs which don’t have that option (I’m looking at you BMW and Toyota).

    1. HarVee

      Arcade Mode already has a Fuel-Tyre consumption option. It’s the Test Drive function from the garage that needs it. Apart from that though, I completely agree that these options and features should be implemented. Surprising they haven’t already.

      I’d also suggest FOV options, and more global settings for dealership searches. E.g. If I set it to “By Price” then it should stay that way and not revert to the By PP setting. Also the ability to make custom playlists for different game menues would be nice too, but that’s just wishful thinking and unless PDI are committed to actually improving GT6 (Which they don’t seem to be, given the lack to good updates) I doubt any of these features will come.

    2. Manasseh257NSX

      uhh HarVee, are we playing the same game? I don’t recall GT6’s arcade having any type of tire/fuel consumption option. GT5 had the option, but GT6 doesn’t. Unless I’ve been missing it this entire time.

      But the custom playlists for different game menus, definitely a great idea. I have GT1,GT2 and GT3 menu soundtracks on the game all over the place lol.

    3. ynot

      Everyone talks about wanting more interiors. How many people race inside the car? I have only met one person in 4 years that races that way. The view is too restricting. Interior views are nice to look at but certainly not a requirement to have a good race.

    4. Johnnypenso

      I race nothing but cockpit as do most of my sim racing friends. GT lacks the fundamental FOV and cockpit cam adjustments that have been standard in sim racing for a long time which is probably a big reason that view isn’t as popular as it should be.

    5. Manasseh257NSX

      Johnny I agree, The cockpit view isn’t as popular as it should be. I recently started racing in cockpit view (About 2 months ago) and I wish I would’ve switched sooner. The only thing is some cars have terrible cockpit views (TS030) So I definitely agree with you on the idea of PD giving us more cockpit cam adjustments and better view.

    6. Pseudopod

      @ynot
      I often race in cockpit view. I’m not faster in it, but it lets me immerse myself in the driving more easily. I don’t always use it, but I would like the option to do so. It’s enough for me to almost never buy standard cars (or other cars without interiors), unless it can’t be helped.

    7. Benny44

      @ynot I agree. Cockpit view is only going to benefit a select few. I get the whole immersion thing when in cockpit view, but in my opinion it’s not the most realistic experience. I don’t want 1/4 of my screen (or more in some) taken up by gauges, etc. I’m hoping for a course maker, FIA championship, or some fresh online options.

  21. Amac500

    I think they are testing the community aspect of the course maker. Last time we had Theseus of mat nene periods without an update was just before the community feature came out if I remember correct.

    1. Tenacious D

      It could be a bunch of community features. The courses made in the Course Maker would need to be shareable, and a lot of things could be coming with that, such as tunes, cars, credits, etc. Like, user championships (some online Event Maker) might involve prize car giveaways. They could be involving that in a Spec II update. But sharing race courses might involve a rather large data file, depending on what all is involved with making one in CM II. We have no idea what all is involved with the FIA Championships. It could require a lot of server enhancements.

      It could be more than just the FIA events and CM II. We’ll see soon enough.

    2. Johnnypenso

      Nope. They already said there are no major updates coming for GT6 outside of what we already know.

    3. Amac500

      Johnny the things that are known are the FIA gig and the course maker. None of us know what those will entail, so you can’t say it isn’t related to those things because they are known to be coming.

    4. Johnnypenso

      That’s exactly what I said Amac, there are no major updates coming to GT6 outside of what we already know.

  22. Andyc709292

    I put a vote in that it’s a substantial infrastructure upgrade. Possibly data centre moves etc.
    First outage was to redirect domain controllers to new locations, second outage is for main migration and third is contingency in case of roll-back.

    Of course, why big changes is another reason altogether, I hope it’s course maker and the need for more storage space with online track sharing…

    1. Tenacious D

      Terronium has indicated that something will come of the flurry of updates, so I’m going to be patient and see what they are. It’s evidently something more than mere server maintenance.

    1. HarVee

      Unless GT7 turns out like GT5/6 did, there is still a very small chance that the series could reclaim its former glory. I say this because they (PDI) always claimed the PS3 didn’t have enough RAM for all of the things they wanted to do, well now the PS4 has it. So if they don’t take advantage of it, then I’d come to that conclusion of GT’s finest days being in the PS2 Era.

  23. Scheer

    It’s not unreasonable to expect something to come from this massive double server outage, however it is always top fun to watch the bunfight between the optimists and the die hard pessimists. It’s almost become a game in it’s own right! :) Sadly, Famine knocked the last update thread to the floor then Jordan kicked it squarely in the nuts! It’s all good fun though. Surely more posts = more traffic = more $$$?

    1. Racin-Rev

      @Scheer “however it is always top fun to watch the bunfight between the optimists and the die hard pessimists. It’s almost become a game in it’s own right! :)”
      You Are Correct Sir!

  24. TRLWNC7396

    I can see Jordan, Famine, and maybe Terronium doing a long, slow facepalm over the speculation….. ;-)

    1. HarVee

      So speculation is bullcrap? The mere human thought of wondering “What’s next?” is bullcrap?

    2. Johnnypenso

      I can see Jordan, Famine and T quite happy about all the speculation as speculation=activity=money.

    3. TeamCZRRacing

      Unhealthy speculation is bullcrap. the users here specifically CHOOSE to get hyped up and then they bash PD when they’re let down.

      And Johnny, negative speculation=negative activity=a negative reputation.

    1. Amac500

      They still do DLC basically, they just give it to us for free instead and I for one ain’t complaining.

    2. HarVee

      They still do DLC. It’s free DLC instead of paid. Only problem I have with GT6’s DLC is that PDI haven’t striked a good balance. They keep catering to racing and concept car fans, but ignoring the pople who would rather see more real non-race cars.

  25. JKgo

    I thought I remembered nothing worthwhile happened when a “double” maintenance period rolled along.

    But I’m pretty sure the hours specified in those dates are pretty much unprecedented.
    So then, what now? What will happen? Is it just to improve the server performances? Fixing the net code? The infamous C.M.? Or that FIA thingy?

    Hmm….Boggles me mind.

  26. ScotteDawg

    Usually, after a maintenance episode, we have to download something or other in order to install it on our system… This never happened the other day after that 3 hour maintenance.

    So, if they’re having two 8hr maintenance periods, I can only conclude that something quite big is on its way to us!

    3 hours to set up a VGT or two, 8 hours to set up the FIA Championship stuff and 8 hours to add in the Course Maker. Then, when all of that is done, the update will then be ready for us to download when next we turn on our PS3’s!

    Of course, I could be wrong………..

    1. Tenacious D

      Terronium-12 said in one of the Course Maker threads for us to not look at what happens with the (3.5 hour) update right then. The implication to me was that the update was in support of something to come. Now we have these two massive updates in two different days. This may STILL not result in any game updates – at that time. But something is coming. Maybe two somethings, FIA Championships and CM II. We will just have to see what next week brings.

  27. littleregret265

    I’m not saying I wouldn’t want new features to come out of this, but I sure as sugar want this to be some kind of resolution to the way that the online modes operate.

  28. BrunetPaquet

    Well, well… this is really interesting. I’m gonna hold my horse…power until the updates are over before saying anything.

    Then again it might be nothing, or just routine maintenance but this amount of maintenance—
    DAMMIT!! Why don’t they give us at least a little hint??

  29. Tenacious D

    This has me seriously intrigued. Even GT5’s 2.0 update didn’t have anything like this. It indicates something substantial is up. Setting up the infrastructure for the FIA Championships? Course Maker II? Both? While CM II is definitely coming according to Kaz – at some point, the FIA Championships are due any week now.

    Once again, nothing may not come of it next week, but something substantial is definitely in the works. This isn’t routine maintenance at all.

    But, to follow on Mulan’s post, maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with GT… 6… ;D

    1. Johnnypenso

      FIA was announced as being released in the Spring of 2015, so it was past it’s due date 2 weeks ago.

    2. Tenacious D

      I am aware of that, Johnny, thus the remark, “the FIA Championships are due any week now.” Which means, at any time, since as far as I know, they haven’t been released yet. Capiche? ;-)

    3. Johnnypenso

      “Due” implies a due date. The due date was “spring 2015”. They are now “past due”, not, “due any week now”. Capiche?

    4. Johnnypenso

      Look up closer to the top DaGiBUS and you’ll see a post by me with a few links to the FIA info.

  30. Lambob

    Rockband4 confirmed for October 6th! looks like I’m gonna buy a PS4 sooner than I thought.

    Here is hoping for a GT7prologue, where we are conductor of a CHOO CHOO train, I mean why not?

    1. Tenacious D

      GT7 Prologue or GT6 HD, either way I’d wave bye to any thoughts of an XBone for another year or two. Would love this, but… we’ll see.

    1. ALeftRighter

      Maybe! We can hope! But that’s a faaaaaar shot in the dark with a blind eye. He said their coming, but he didn’t say in gt6.

  31. GTRufus

    Now thats just great.. I just read the article. It seems that the maintenance already has begun. PSN seems to be off.

  32. Filthywzard

    Gt7 confirmed, gt6 2.0 confirmed, course maker (still in progress, should be with us for gt7 release)

  33. RACECAR

    I’ll admit, 8 Hours is a very longtime to have Server maintenance (apart from maybe fixing the servers after a massive crash) and having two only 48 hours apart is unusual for ANY dev to due nowadays. That said of course, people thought a sudden 3 hour maintenance would yield something and look how that turned out.

  34. Mulan

    Can it also be preparation for GT7,
    rearranging from GT6.
    So one down for rearrange and second one for final GT6 content missing.

  35. Doodle

    Wow! I simply cannot wait for an 8 hour period in which I cannot play online for reasons being normal server maintinence!

  36. Manasseh257NSX

    If they can’t stabilize the online servers with these two maintenance periods. I’m unleashing war on PD………

    By writing a very angry letter to them expressing the unsatisfactory towards their online services.

  37. HarVee

    Maybe they’re finally getting rid of the potatoes and sledge hammers they’re using, and switching to a cheese grader. :sly:

    In all seriousness though, I hope these server maintenance periods this time will fix the invisible players issue once and for all.

  38. warpkez

    Must be setting up for the new game: Gran Turismo – Hype Train edition.

    More than likely these are kernel and system updates that need to be done to the servers.

    1. MOPARbarrett5

      Enough with the hype trains, if anything it is a hype Skyline, but it’s probably nothing.

  39. KasperFOX

    Maybe they’re just making new driving physics for the game after the two American upside Down planes came to gt6?

    Just kidding, i’ll join the HYPE TRAIN

    COURSE MAKER, HERE WE COME!

  40. Eggstor

    Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t GT5 2.0 come out of a similar twin maintenance?

    Not that I’m expecting GT6 2.0, or even a significantly-different 1.21 (at most, a removal of GT Academy 2015 and perhaps a VGT) out of this round.

  41. Skarmory

    I know people are expecting a 2.0 update(which in all honesty can happen literally any time now) but if this is anything they’re probably just fixing online stuff, like that nasty connection bug where other drivers don’t appear to be on track when they are.

  42. AudiMan2011

    I expect nothing. Those creating hype for the course maker out of nothing are only setting up for another letdown.

    Did literally nobody learn from the idiocy 2 days ago in the last double maintenance?

  43. Fat Tyre

    Kaz is gonna release the course maker just before my birthday (july11), that is nice. Thanks!

  44. thegt500

    The anticipation is palpable ! These maintenance schedules could point to something big, but I won’t get my hopes up just yet.
    It could just be a major overhaul of online servers as these have been especially poor of late ? Of course, as the latest service maintenance has proven, it is not a guarantee that anything in the game will be updated, so I will not join the queue for hypesville until it’s confirmed what they are all about.

    1. Johnnypenso

      Nope, something that gets the GT fanbase even more excited on a regular basis – maintenance!

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