Kazunori Yamauchi

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k270m7ezQw

InsideSimRacing has just published their Gran Turismo 5 Special, dedicating almost the entire 38-minute episode to video reports from Gamescom 2010 by our cooperative team of Andreas (from InsideSimRacing), Famine, and Venari. They discuss everything that we learned from the show, and go into more detail about the private breakout session, the Yamauchi interview, and how the latest GT5 demo compares to previous games from the series. It’s divided into three different segments, so be sure to watch through the full episode to make sure you catch everything. The guys at ISR have even more GT5 material from the show coming, so stay tuned.

Kazunori Yamauchi has given us a heads-up regarding what to expect from GT5 in terms of hard drive installation size via Twitter (human translation thanks to our own SHIRAKAWA Akira):

Hello all, from drizzly Cologne!

Before Kazunori Yamauchi created the first Gran Turismo, he began his career with a title known as Motor Toon Grand Prix. Produced by “Polys Entertainment” (later to become Polyphony Digital), it’s a cartoon racing game featuring 8 karts and 10 tracks. Sony has just announced the game’s availability for download as a “PSOne Classic” on PSN for $5.99. So, if you want to see how it all really got started, grab the 251 MB download and give it a go.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd0fscJeyxg

Thanks to gamer28 for digging up this short-but-sweet interview by AOL Autos with Kazunori Yamauchi, as he discusses the role that hybrid cars will play in Gran Turismo 5. Most notably, he also mentions you’ll be able to “tune” hybrids – with the recommendation of turbo-charging the new Honda CR-Z which will be featured in the game.

GT series creator Kazunori Yamauchi is taking your questions live, right now, via Honda’s official Twitter account! If you’re on Twitter, submit your questions by including the “#Honda” and “#E3” hash-tags in your tweets. I’ll be following the interview closely and will update this post accordingly. The interview starts right now, at 12:00 PM Pacific Time!

EuroGamer was first to share new details that emerged from the private GT5 presentation Yamauchi hosted at E3 on Wednesday, and now we’ve got even more information from MotorTrend, Kotaku, IGN, and GameSpot. Now, in addition to the new details I’ve already covered, here’s what we know:

Gaming business news site MCV is claiming to have received word from a “source close to Sony” that Gran Turismo 5’s implementation of 3D technology and support for the new PlayStation Move controller are the reasons for the game’s extended development time. While 3D support has already been confirmed, until now PS Move rumors had been fueled by nothing more than some extremely vague statements by Kazunori Yamauchi early last month to gaming magazine PSM3:

In what is presumably the last of Kazunori Yamauchi’s round of interviews to emerge from his time at Snetterton, he’s made a comment regarding the development status of the big game:

During his time at Snetterton to watch the two GT Academy 2010 finalists compete for the top spot, Kazunori Yamauchi talked with quite a few journalists. His last interview to be published is with BBC’s TopGear. As you would expect, there aren’t any bombshells, but here’s the most notable quotes:

One of the more unpleasant surprises we’ve had waiting for Gran Turismo 5 was the unexpected postponement of the game’s March 2010 Japanese release. It was a quiet announcement, but set a somber tone at the beginning of the year for us eager fans. Since that time, we have not received any sort of information on exactly why that happened – until now. In an excellent interviewwith Dean Gibson of AutoExpress last weekend, Yamauchi-san clarified things a little bit: