Kazunori Yamauchi

In an interview with VG24/7, Shuhei Yoshida, President of SCE Worldwide Studios, made some interesting comments regarding the future of Gran Turismo 5 and Polyphony Digital’s next project:

Kazunori Yamauchi made a wise statement on Twitter today, offering up information on when the next Gran Turismo 5 update will be available while simultaneously tempering expectations. Here’s a translation of his post by Shirakawa Akira, in response to a question on the subject:

Kazunori Yamauchi is back in action on Twitter today, re-confirming one of the most-asked-for features in Gran Turismo 5 is still “under development”. Via Google Translator:

While responding to a question on Twitter, Kazunori Yamauchi has thankfully shared some brief yet interesting information on the future plans for Gran Turismo 5. Here’s a human translation of his comments, kindly offered by GTPlanet community member Shirakawa Akira:

Earlier this week, Kazunori Yamauchi announced (via rare English-language tweet) Polyphony Digital’s new offices in Fukuoka, Japan, are already up and running. Though initial news reports were lacking many hard details, more information has emerged about the details behind the move, suggesting more substantial changes for the company than was originally inferred.

Well, this was certainly unexpected: Japanese news outlets are reporting that Polyphony Digital will be moving 50 of the company’s 150 employees more than 500 miles away, from Tokyo to Fukuoka, Japan. Apparently, the trauma Tokyo suffered during the Japan’s major earthquake earlier this year has prompted the move (Fukuoka is located in the western end of Japan, which generally sees less seismic activity compared to other parts of the country).

Kazunori Yamauchi, the father of Gran Turismo, and his teammates Tobias Schulze, Michael Schulze, and Opera Performance founder Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, finished first-in-class in the 2011 Nurburgring 24 Hours! It was a dramatic race for Team Schulze, who were forced to spend a concerning amount of time in the pits addressing mechanical issues with their race-modified Nissan GT-R.

Just as it was with this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Gran Turismo fans have another driver to cheer for in the Nurburgring’s 24-hour race: Kazunori Yamauchi. Here’s all the links you need to follow along:

Kazunori Yamauchi has quietly returned to real-world racing. He was spotted at the four-hour ADAC Reinoldus-Langstrekenrennen Nurburgring VLN race in a Nissan GT-R, obviously inspired from the GT500 “Stealth” GT-R from Gran Turismo 5. His teammates include Tobias and Michael Schulze of Autohaus Schulze and Yasuyoshi Yamamoto, founder of Japanese tuning shop Opera Performance.

The next GT5 update will be available to download tonight at approximately 11:00PM (Eastern Standard Time in the United States), as announced by Kazunori Yamauchi on Twitter and Polyphony Digital. Here’s a human translation of his post by our own SHIRAKAWA Akira:

You think you know a lot about the Gran Turismo series? This jaw-dropping collection of GT games and memorabilia collected by GTPlanet’s own edward_v12 will educate even the most hard-core fans.

This interview conducted with Kazunori Yamauchi shortly after the release of Gran Turismo 5 has been flying under the radar since it was published back in February. It was just recently brought to my attention and, though there’s obviously no bombshells, it provides a few interesting details worth highlighting here:

As you’ve probably heard by now, Japan was rocked by a large earthquake and tsunami early this morning. Understandably, I’ve received questions from many other fans concerned about the safety of Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital. Fortunately, Kazunori tweeted not long after the event to report no major damage or significant injuries at either of the company’s studios.

Kazunori Yamauchi confirmed via Twitter early this morning that “game saves during endurance races” are currently “under development” for Gran Turismo 5. Here’s a translation of the tweet kindly provided by our own Shirakawa Akira:

GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi gave an interesting speech at D.I.C.E. 2011 yesterday, titled “On Gran Turismo and I”. Hosted by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, the D.I.C.E. (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit is designed to “bring together the top video game designers and developers from around the world and business leaders from all major publishers to discuss the state of the industry, its trends and the future.”

One of the more interesting and unusual GT5 features announced before release was “Remote Races” (also known as “Gran Turismo Anywhere”), enabling you to control your B-Spec races on your PS3 from your PC or mobile device. Obviously, this was missing from the game when it shipped last November, and its future has been uncertain – despite the fact that it remains listed (with this screenshot) on Polyphony Digital’s official GT5 feature list.

Kazunori Yamauchi has been honored in UK Esquire magazine’s “Man at the Top 2010” awards for his work on GT5 and the GT series. Esquire recognized ten men who “rewrote the future through their works in the past year”, placing Yamauchi alongside some big names, including actor Russell Crowe, “Inception” director Christopher Nolan, Twitter CEO Evan Willams,  Tour de France star Mark Cavendish, and others.

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Kazunori Yamauchi has been fielding questions from fans on Twitter over the past few hours. The tweets are in Japanese, but with a little help from Google and medhi_san, we can get a pretty good idea of what he’s talking about. Here’s the highlights:

First, the good news:  Yamauchi announced at yesterday’s press Q&A session that many updates and patches will be issued at the “first of December” (though it wasn’t entirely clear to me if that literally meant December 1st or early within the month). Polyphony Digital has also posted this notice on their website to reassure us that the game’s online services will continue to be optimized and upgraded to handle the additional load generated by players around the world.