"Young people don't care about cars anymore." It seems it's hard to go more than a few months without reading another installment of this story as fear grips boardrooms in Detroit or Tokyo or Wolfsburg. Executives worry that "kids today" are too distracted by smartphones, the Internet, and video games to follow the preceding generations into their showrooms.
I'm not convinced. The Internet and video games might be new competition for the car, but they're also vehicles (pun intended) for spreading the four-wheel gospel, something that comes through loud and clear in Kaz, a new documentary celebrating 15 years of Gran Turismo and its creator, Kazunori Yamauchi.
The prelude for the anticipated 2024 Gran Turismo World Series will be getting underway later this month, with Polyphony Digital announcing the third season of the interim Exhibition Series.
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.
That's Xbox language right there....quick...let's make a dozen articles about how the game is super duper successful
No surprise, ps5 selling and the game is most beautiful and approachable racing sim today.
I think people are probably enjoying Sophy, if they release their next game with it featuring as a core component they're on to a winner imo.
Offline racing against an AI that acts like an intelligent human is perfection for a lot of people.
Player counts are important for a game with LS elements. This much is known even Sony knows this. Of course it's important for a game like this.
The latest free update for Sony’s idiosyncratic racing game has helped the Gran Turismo series continue its popularity, according to its lead, Kazunori Yamauchi.
This is somehow the game I have put the most time into on my ps5 so far. It also convinced me to add a psvr2 and wheel, which I am both happy I have and angry I bought at the same time lol