Trivia / Gran Turismo

• Bad Export for You: Downplayed with the North American version of 4. While it retains the video output options for 480p (Progressive) and 1080i (HDTV) while introducing the the ability to change the measurement units, it had a large chunk of the licensed music removed, reducing to the number of the tracks to 65 (as opposed to 100 in the Japanese release) presumably due to licensing issues.^NoteIronically, the NTSC-U version of 3 had 20 licensed tracks unlike PAL and NTSC-J, which only featured around 12. The European/Australian version, in the other hand, retains the missing songs at the cost of Masahiro Andoh's compositions being swapped out in favor of four exclusive licensed tracks. However, it lacks the said video output options and the ability to run at 60hz in supported TV screens.
• Cash-Cow Franchise: The series has been this since the early games were legitimate system sellers for Sony. For example, 6 sold over five million copies and is the worst-selling console release in the series. Four of the first five games cleared over ten million sold.
• Christmas Rushed: Gran Turismo 2 was released ahead of schedule in order to be on the market in time for Christmas 1999. Early copies were extremely glitch ridden, which players reporting many extremely weird glitches, the most prominent being that their garage can be randomly deleted. Additionally, players can only attain 98.2% completion percentage due to several race events being removed or undefined (updated versions of the game released in early 2000 fixed this, however).
• Cross-Generation Video Game: 7 is the first GT entry to get a cross-gen release (on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5); the game was initially planned as a PS5 exclusive but due to chip shortages and difficulty of finding PS5 systems, the game was retooled into a cross-gen release.
• Defictionalization:
  • The GT by Citroën, a concept car created by Polyphony Digital and French automaker Citroën for GT5 Prologue, was eventually built for real, with a limited run of six vehicles and a price of $2.1 million.
  • The Audi e-tron Vision Gran Turismo from GT Sport is the first Vision Gran Turismo car to have a fully functioning model in the real world, that matches the specifications of its virtual counterpart.
  • This German tuner wants to build a replica of Sport's Group 3 Volkswagen Beetle, though the real one will have a different drivetrain (five cylinder turbo and all wheel drive rather than four cylinder and rear wheel drive) to the fictional version.
• Development Hell: Pretty much every iteration of the series goes through it. The most commonly-cited reason is the licensing issues related to the in-game cars.
  • The most glaring example would be the PSP game, which originally began development as a port of Gran Turismo 4 and was originally scheduled to be released in April 2005 to coincide with the debut of the PSP. Unfortunately, it was neglected in favor of Gran Turismo 5, and as a result, took four years to be released.
  • Gran Turismo 5 suffered this as well, taking 6 years to come out due to Polyphony Digital struggling to handle the complex architecture of the PlayStation 3 as well as the increased fidelity it was capable of.
  • The first game began development in 1992. Back when the PlayStation was going to be an add-on for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Gran Turismo could have been one of Nintendo's killer apps and their secondary flagship racing series instead of F-Zero.
• Dueling Works - Racing Games:
  • Console brand rival Forza is its biggest rival in terms of driving simulators. The older, more successful Need for Speed is for the arcade style of racers that was seen in the first two GT games. Forza contains elements such as car vinyl creation, full damage modelling and performance changes as a result. The GT series would not see the latter until a few games later in the series, and the former feature was introduced in Sport. NFS on the other hand is squarely in arcade gameplay territory save for ProStreet and the Shift sub-series, but since the multiplatform series has sold more copies than PlayStation-exclusive GT while having been around for several years as well, they are considered competitors nonetheless.
  • An earlier attempt at a rival was Sega GT, but that series fizzled out quickly after one entry on the Sega Dreamcast and two on the original Xbox (Sega attempted to drum up interest by having Sega GT 2002 and Jet Set Radio Future as an Xbox pack-in title, but that failed because people would return the pack-in to get Halo: Combat Evolved or other titles).
  • Another earlier attempt was Driving Emotion Type-S created by Squaresoft (now SquareEnix). It also failed to give Gran Turismo a run for its money, not to mention that the game came several months before the acclaimed Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec.
  • Konami's attempt to compete with Gran Turismo was with Enthusia Professional Racing in 2005, featuring a similar roster and feel to its atmosphere. Like Sega GT, it failed to make a dent against Gran Turismo's popularity and remained in obscurity.
• Dummied Out: Lots.
  • As mentioned below, 2's development was really pressed for time, and as a result, several cars, a few tracks and a whole game mode got shafted from the final game.
  • Delving deep into the files of GT2 reveals numerous Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini and McLaren JGTC race cars. Predictably, licensing issues stopped these cars from being developed further. Had these been included, every JGTC car from 1999 would have been featured.
  • 2 also had several finished unused cars and some unused car models, such as a Lancer Evolution V rally car with an alternate Winfield livery, a Volkswagen Polo (Which despite being hidden sometimes shows up in the Event Generator anyway), the Arcade Mode exclusive rally car variants and even a number of 3D non-car objects as car models.
  • 3 had a JGTC-spec Lamborghini Diablo race car available to win in the Japanese version, which got through a licensing loophole by listing the race car builder as opposed the car's original manufacturer. Fearing legal action, it was removed from the subsequent NTSC and PAL releases. It was added back in 5.
  • 3 also had a Porsche 996 GT3 cut from the game (As Kazunori Yamauchi owns one). Whether this was a serious candidate for inclusion alongside the existing Ruf vehicles remains unknown. Additionally cut were the Lancia Stratos (In both road and rally versions; both would reappear in 4), and a variant of the R34 GT-R called the M-Spec (Which would formally debut in Concept and later reappear in 4). There are also unused car models for the 1998 McLaren MP4-13 F1 car and an Alfa Romeo 156 touring car, but these do not have any parts or other data formally associated with them. The 996 would later make a proper appearance in Sport and 7.
  • Concept, despite being a short form title, has several vehicles that go unused, including Acura branded versions of the Honda concept vehicles featured, several Alfa Romeo and Fiat models, the Opel Corsa, and a Mini Cooper rally car that never appeared in any other installment.
  • The US version of 4 had a JGTC car sent down the drain because its livery's main sponsor, Esso, doesn't exist in the US (with Exxon in its place) and it therefore couldn't be licensed there^*presumably, the reason it was removed from that version rather than modified into an Exxon-branded car is because it prominently features Esso's old Happy Oil Drop mascots on its livery, which probably would have made it look odd when swapped out with Exxon branding. It was only in GT Concept (which was not released in the US) and the Japanese and European releases of 4, and was deleted altogether from then on. Additionally, the classic Mini Cooper (In a late 90s incarnation) is included in the Asian releases, but was removed from the international releases of the game, which only feature the later BMW built models.
  • Delving deep into the files of 5 reveals that NOS was going to be carried over from GT4. However, it got removed during 5's development. (It was added back in 6, left out again in Sport, and added again in 7.
  • A few unreleased cars can be found by digging into the game files for Sport, more specifically the 2009 Lotus Evora, the 2011 Lotus Elise, and an N200 cup car variant of the 2015 Mazda Roadster with a spoiler, roll cage and tow hook. The Evora could be driven around in the beta version of Sport, but was not present when the game first launched, presumably due to licensing issues between Lotus and Polyphony Digital. While Lotus never returned to Sport, the winged Mazda Roadster would get a Suspiciously Similar Substitute in the form of the Mazda Roadster Touring Car, which appeared in 5 and 6 and is based on the first generation model.
• Executive Meddling: Gran Turismo 2 was rushed to store shelves for the Christmas period. Cue Game-Breaking Bug(s), a few dozen typos, deleted cars, and the omission of a drag racing mode.
  • Promotional material, the website and even the instruction booklet all make mention of the elusive drag racing mode. Two or three drag cars slipped their way into the game, although were pretty useless. This just shows how much Sony were pressuring Polyphony into getting the game in a marketable state.
  • The earliest builds of Gran Turismo 2 had images of the Mercedes CLK-GTR Race Car, but due to Electronic Arts owning the rights of it at the time, the car had to be removed. Polyphony attempted to put a placeholder fictional car (The "CLK Race Car") instead, but ended up being Dummied Out. Granted, it wasn't the actual CLK-GTR, it looked like the DTM CLK one (in fact, the Japanese manual refers it as the "CLK DTM2000").
  • External executive meddling (between Panoz and Nissan) led to the Nissan-marked DeltaWing being removed from GT6... only to be added back at the last minute, thanks to the day one patch. Now there are two DeltaWings to drive (the 2012 one at Le Mans and the 2013 one with it's chrome livery), with DeltaWing assigned as manufacturer name.
  • The Lotus Evora was a drivable car during the beta for Gran Turismo Sport. Come the full release however, and the Evora was nowhere to be seen, due to licensing disagreements between Lotus and Polyphony in the months between beta and release. This is also why Senna's Lotus 97T returns as the Captain Ersatz GT F1500T-A, which for all intents and purposes is the 97T with fictional GT liveries.
• Follow the Leader: Just about every racing game that focuses on realistic track racing without going full simulation owes their existence to Gran Turismo. Forza Motorsport is the most obvious example thanks to it being explicitly designed to be Xbox's Alternate Company Equivalent, but you can also see its influence in the likes of Project Gotham Racing, Sega GT, GRID^note The first TOCA actually predates Gran Turismo, though it could be noted that later TOCA games do take from the wider car variety and reduced focus on pure racing that Gran Turismo introduced, Project Cars, Enthusia Professional Racing, Auto Modellista, Driveclub, and many more.
• Killer App: Gran Turismo 3 was the first true system-mover for the PS2 and was by far its best-selling game until the fall/winter of 2001 when the heavy hitters came.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Many cars were never officially introduced in some countries and vice-versa. For example, the Toyota Tacoma to Japanese players.
• Milestone Celebration: Gran Turismo 7, released in 2022, commemorates the 25th anniversary of the series' start in 1997.^note The original game released in Japan in 1997 but didn't make it to other countries until the following year
  • Although an unofficial game mod, the Project A-Spec mod for 2 had its first full release on December 16, 2023, 24 years to the day of the original game's North American release.
• Multi-Disc Work: Subverted by the original game, which came in a "fat" CD case to hold a thicker than usual manual but still came on a single disc. Played straight with 2, which has separate discs for Arcade and Simulation Mode. Additionally, the physical release of the "Spec II" update for Sport was on two discs (the initial release was a single disc), and the PS4 version of 7 is on two discs, though the PS5 version is on a single disc.
• Multi-Platform: 7 for PS4 and PS5 marks the first game in the series to be released on multiple consoles.
• No Export for You:
  • Gran Turismo Concept, essentially a fancy demo for 3 that was filled to the brim with concept cars, was released in Japan, South Korea, and Europe... but not in North America. Unless you want to count the Nissan 350Z Edition, which contained only the 350Z and nothing else.
  • Gran Turismo 4 "Prologue", a retail demo of 4, never saw a release in North America... at least not in its entirely, as a modified, heavily stripped-down version of it does exist as the Special Edition 2004 Toyota Demo, which, as the title implies, was only playable at the 2004 New York Auto Show Toyota booth.
  • Gran Turismo HD Concept, while released as a free download elsewhere, had a physical release exclusive to Japan.
  • The initial release of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue did not make it out of Japan; the overseas release was instead based on the much expanded Spec II update.
• Promoted Fanboy: 7 features real-life professional GT players as the occasional opponent.
• Real Song Theme Tune: While the Japanese releases usually have the theme "Moon Over the Castle" as the intro, the North American and PAL region releases tend to use licensed songs from popular bands for the intro instead.
  • GT1's North American and PAL releases had "Everything Must Go (The Chemical Brothers Remix)" by the Manic Street Preachers.
  • GT2 used "My Favourite Game" by The Cardigans, while a remixed version was used on the PAL version. The song itself is about how much the band loved playing the first game on their bus while on tour. In addition to this, the name of the album where it comes from is also Gran Turismo.
  • GT3 had a remixed version of "Are You Gonna Go My Way" by Lenny Kravitz on the North American version and "Just a Day (Alan Moulder Mix)" by Feeder on the PAL version.
  • GT4 had "Panama" by Van Halen play after the series theme in the North American version. The PAL version used "Reason Is Treason (Jack Knife Lee Remix)" by Kasabian instead.
  • TT has an original arrangement of "I Against A Speed" by The Sun Paulo.
  • GT5 uses "Planetary (GO!)" by My Chemical Romance.
  • GT6 goes back to original score with "All My Life" by Daiki Kasho.
  • The GT Sport intro has a custom theme composed by John Paesano.
  • GT7 marks the first time that Moon Over the Castle serves as the intro for all releases regardless of region.
• The Red Stapler:
  • Subaru and Mitsubishi have said that the popularity of their vehicles in-game was what convinced them to start importing the Impreza WRX and the Lancer Evolution to the United States. This also caused the Fandom Rivalry to become more aggressive.
  • The fact that the Nissan Skyline GT-R was 1) affordable at the start of the game and 2) tunable up to 800-1000 BHP must account for some of its prevalence in the modified car scene in the 90s and early 00s, as the "PlayStation Generation" grew up. With grey-market importers filling the void and other pop culture works adding up to the Skyline GT-R's iconic status, Nissan eventually released the GT-R R35 worldwide in 2007, unlike previous generations which were JDM-only models. Interestingly enough, Polyphony Digital contributed to the R35's development, having developed the multifunction display UI. Polyphony was also contracted by Nissan to design a special bodykit for their 350Z coupe.
• Saved for the Sequel:
  • Jaguar's entry into the Vision GT Project was introduced during the 2019 Tokyo Auto Show, when the Gran Turismo World Tour held the Tokyo round at the event venue while the autoshow was running. The car was raced was raced twice, once in an exhibition race, and again during the Nations' Cup on the second day of the event. The car would not be available to players, however, and it took until 2022 until both it, as well as a speedster version, were finally playable in 7.
  • Lamborghini's entry in the Vision GT Project was unveiled, in physical form, at Monaco during the final stop for the 2019 Gran Turismo World Tour. Unlike the Jaguar VGT, the Lamborghini VGT would not show up in Sport in any form, and like the Jaguar VGT, would finally be available in 7.
• Schedule Slip: Polyphony has fallen victim to this trope quite a few times.
  • After three years in development a "March 2010" release date for GT5 was finally announced at E3 2009. Then it went back into the "delayed indefinitely" pile. Then a new release date of November 2nd, 2010 was announced at E3 2010. Then the game was delayed again (reportedly for missing its production date due to firmware issues) until the final release date of November 24th, 2010 was announced. Which, thankfully, they managed to stick to. During this time period, the game has had two free demos, one non-free demo and that demo's "Greatest Hits" re-release came out between it's announcement and the final launch date.
  • The PSP title was initially stated to be a portable version of 4 to go on sale shortly after launch. It was later retooled into its own game, taking elements from both 4 and 5 Prologue, and released in 2009, after more than four years in Development Hell.
  • While the release of 6 averted this, the X2014 Standard and the Sebastian Vettel Challenge (using the fan model) for that game also suffered from this; it was originally supposed to be available in January 1, 2014. It was delayed so Polyphony apologized and changed the date to "January 2014" in an update. The races and cars finally arrived on the 27th of that month.
  • Sport was originally announced for an indefinite 2016/17 release, which was later set to November 15, 2016 with an open beta being held around the first two quarters of 2016, only for the game to be delayed to 2017. The beta was also cancelled as a result. However, the beta was ultimately released on March 2017, and in July of the same year, the game's release date was announced to be October 17, a date that the developers have thankfully stuck to.
  • 7 was originally set to be released somewhere around 2021, but it has been delayed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In September 2021, the release date was set at March 4, 2022, a date they ended up sticking to.
• Screwed by the Lawyers: Two examples in GT Sport noted by this article for GTPlanet.
  • Polyphony Digital has already modeled the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the game, and even showed it off at the 2019 New York World Tour Nations Cup final. However, the owners of the circuit, knowing its storied history in auto racing, asked for two to three times the licensing fees that other circuit owners are asking, and Sony held off on paying them not just because they think the money would be better spent bringing other circuits into the game, but because they didn't want to set a precedent that would cause other circuit owners to raise their own fees.
  • Cars by Lotus were featured in the beta, only for Lotus to discover that, thanks to a rolling contract and the delay in the game's release, they were receiving less money than other automakers, causing them to pull out of the game. The fictional F1500T-A is a Suspiciously Similar Substitute to the real Lotus 97T Formula 1 car, made famous by Ayrton Senna.
  • In the other direction, GTPlanet has also speculated that Sony has an exclusivity agreement with Toyota preventing that automaker's cars from appearing in other racing games, which Toyota later confirmed. Much like with a similar arrangement between Electronic Arts and Porsche in the 2000s and early '10s, other companies have gotten around this through loopholes, featuring Toyota-based vehicles modified by Arctic Trucks and other companies, as well as their American-made T100 Baja trophy truck. The deal also doesn't seem to affect games published by Japanese companies, with the Japanese arcade games Initial D Arcade Stage Zero and Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 6 featuring Toyotas, as well as Project CARS 2 (developed by the British company Slightly Mad Studios but published by the Japanese company Bandai Namco Entertainment).
• Suddenly Voiced: GTPSP was the first title to be fully voiced, with said voices provided by car enthusiast Jay Leno and an unknown female voice-over narrating the Driving Challenges, whereas prior GT games are voiceless.
• Trolling Creator:
  • One wonders what the Polyphony staff were smoking when they came up with the pro-league Vitz championship in 3. Five ten-lap races, against infuriatingly brutal AI, in one of the slowest cars in the game, with one race being on the Test Course.
  • The song that plays when you fail a license in 4. It's "Oh Yeah" by Yello. After you fail the damn test for the 246th time, having the game play an "oooooooooooh, yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaah" at you can certainly feel a lot like this.
  • There has been endless fan demand for Spa-Francorchamps in Sport (which had been held up by licensing issues), to the point where the Gran Turismo Twitter page lampshaded it on one of their videos and even showed the track off in the 2019 New York World Tour Nations Cup final. It looked like the track would be coming to the game in the August 2019 update that came afterwards but instead, players were treated to rainy conditions at Red Bull Ring.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The E3 2009 trailers for 5, as well as a teaser included at the end of PSP's staff credits, featured winged version of the fifth-generation "Car of Tomorrow" NASCAR cars. These trailers also featured Michael Waltrip and his NAPA-sponsored car; the following season, Waltrip began to wind down his driving duties while NASCAR went back to the traditional rear spoiler, so the NASCAR content in the released game followed suit.
  • Italian coachbuilder Bertone had planned an absolutely nuts Vision GT concept for 6 (it barely even looked like a car), but the company filed for bankruptcy before the project finished.
  • Alfa Romeo also planned a Vision GT concept but ultimately pulled out of the project.
  • A real-life limited production run of the Fittipaldi EF7 Vision Gran Turismo concept from Sport was announced in 2017, but as of 2022, nothing has been heard of from the project since, and the concept mysteriously disappeared in 7.
  • At one point, Kazunori Yamauchi expressed interest in making a youth-focused Gran Turismo game titled Gran Turismo for Boys, which ultimately got cancelled. He tried implementing it as a separate game mode in 5, but that never happened either. Yamauchi did say that the PSP game was derived from some of his for Boys ideas.

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