Kazunori Yamamauchi is the face of Gran Turismo and the man behind developer Polyphony Digital’s legendary attention to detail and drive for perfection. But just because he and his team are working on Gran Turismo 7 doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about what comes next.

Yamauchi recently discussed a variety of things in an interview with accountant firm KPMG. That might seem odd until you realize he was speaking to Masayuki Chatani, KPMG’s chief digital officer, who held the same job at Sony Online Entertainment (then Sony Computer Entertainment) for fourteen years, including the PS3 days.

While the interview is both long and detailed, one of its most interesting aspects focuses on Yamauchi’s dreams for the future, and the projects he’d like to work on. Don’t worry, folks. He still wants to keep making Gran Turismo games. “At the same time, I would like to also do something different,” he said.

Yamauchi elaborated by saying that digital worlds have long tried to be a “digital twin” to the real world, but that he didn’t feel they needed to emulate reality to create something that feels real.

“I would like to take on the challenge of creating a world where people feel more reality than the real thing, whether this is through Grand Turismo or not,” he said.

Yamauchi also talked about how digital worlds could be used to create or recreate moments that can no longer be experienced in the real world, citing examples from his childhood. “In the 1970s, mountain foothills and flat land, very much like the world of Totoro, extended in my hometown Kashiwa City. As I liked to collect insects and climb mountains from when I was a child, I used to spend all day in the forest or played in the river.”

While he feels that such things aren’t really possible in modern Japan, he’s still thinking creating “some kind of digital nature and convey the complexity and severeness of the world when we get out into nature and the feeling that things do not work out as one expects.”

It sounds like an interesting concept, and it would be nice to see someone of Yamauchi’s stature work on something new. If he does decide to pursue this project, though, we probably won’t see it anytime soon.

Gran Turismo 7 was recently understandably delayed due to COVID. Hopefully, however, we’ll see that, and the project Yamauchi is fantasizing about, sooner rather than later.

Gran Turismo 6’s release is right around the corner and they’ve been doing a whole lot more to keep up with things. The improvements to the series goes much deeper than simply another installment on the racing franchise. There are some real improvements to the series, and it’s going to be great to get our hands on all the changes that are going into the franchise.

"The painful loading times from Gran Turismo 5 have been reduced, and the graphics have been improved by several notches. While Polyphony is certainly following their standard development schedule of two games per console generation, GT6 certainly isn’t just a filler in this franchise to just keep up with their release schedule."

The Gran Turismo series has always strived to make the most realistic racing game they possibly can, and with each iteration that is released, Polyphony seems to be getting a little bit closer. The Polyphony team has been collecting data on tracks and cars since the release of GT5 and it’s looking like it will really pay off for them. According to the developers they’ve rebuilt the physics engine along with complex aerodynamics and suspension system. This brings a much more realistic weight displacement as players race through corners and over hills. For instances, it’s clear to see how the vehicle shifts it’s weight from one wheel to the other in the trailers, when the player breaks hard, and swings through a corner. This is a much more true-to-life addition to the game that may not be immediately noticeable, but would be if you went back to play the older ones on the PlayStation 2.

The developers have done a good job of improving the franchise from the ground up. The painful loading times from Gran Turismo 5 have been reduced, and the graphics have been improved by several notches. While Polyphony is certainly following their standard development schedule of two games per console generation, GT6 certainly isn’t just a filler in this franchise to just keep up with their release schedule. Lead developer, Kazunori Yamauchi is probably one of the biggest critics of the franchise. He knows what is wrong with each game and what he wants to fix moving forward. It’s this honesty with himself and his development team that allows for vast improvements from game to game.

Not only has Polyphony made changes to the physics, they’ve made extensive overhauls to the audio in the game. While this may not sound like too much, it’s incredibly important. The right audio queues can tell the player how they approach a corner, whether it’s too fast, too slow, just perfect or completely over the limit. The developers are trying incredibly hard to make this game feel like you’re really racing and with a steering wheel and pedals they very well may have nailed the formula for the ultimate simulator.

"Polyphony is releasing GT6 with full 1080p and 60 frames a second support, giving the feeling of a much more fast paced, nail-biting experience. This is a vast improvement over GT5. While this is a great move overall for the game, it definitely seems to suffer from a lack of hardware boost on the PS3."

Polyphony has also done it’s damnedest to keep things that have worked in the past, while changing many aspects of the game. The driver’s view is something they have improved upon. With a static camera they’ve managed to nail the feeling of acceleration and deceleration. While many racing games use various visual effects and physics to control this feeling, making it a dramatic shift between braking and accelerating, GT6 is looking to make it as realistic as it can. The feeling of deceleration takes time and the player can almost feel the weight of the car as players move through the turns.

Polyphony Digital and lead designer, Kazunori Yamauchi are certainly willing to change anything that they feel needs a face lift though. The previous games only serve as a benchmark to move things forward. They’ve decided what worked, and what didn’t work. Remember that sluggishness in control that took awhile to get used to in GT5? Yeah, Yamauchi and his team admitted that it was a problem, without even batting an eye either. The changes to weight distribution in the turns and more accurate physics makes all this feel much more smooth and much more accurate.

Polyphony is releasing GT6 with full 1080p and 60 frames a second support, giving the feeling of a much more fast paced, nail-biting experience. This is a vast improvement over GT5. While this is a great move overall for the game, it definitely seems to suffer from a lack of hardware boost on the PS3. The current demo for GT6 works well so far, however there are a few issues with it, the game has a tendency to skip or feel jittery from time to time, especially leaning into corners with quite a few vehicles around it. While it’s relatively rare, gamers may get annoyed with it if it’s not fixed before release. The good news is that this game doesn’t have to be played in 1080p, and playing in a lower HD resolution seems to fix the frame dropping issues.

There’s really a lot to look forward to in Gran Turismo 6. Polyphony keeps pushing the envelope with each release. Unfortunately, as with every new entry, we may be waiting a bit to see what comes next in the Gran Turismo series on the PlayStation 4, but it will be well worth the wait seeing as there’s already a plenty of differences between Gran Turismo 5 and 6.

Many fans must have observed that Gran Turismo 6 is actually coming out after only 3 years since GT 5 came out in 2009. Yamauchi believes the PlayStation 3 was really hard to develop for (initially) but it became easier as time progressed.

“GT5 was really hard to develop, because the PS3 is a really complex piece of hardware, and it was the first time we built anything with an extensive online component,” he said in the interview.

He also shared his thoughts on the evolution of the Gran Turismo franchise as a whole. “I think the hardest part of GT1 was to make something out of nothing, and to shape it and figure out exactly what a Gran Turismo game was going to be.”

“The main difference between GT1 and GT6 is the scale of the game, it’s about 100 times bigger in scale. Initially we had 15 people working on the game and now we have 150 working on the game. But i think the one thing that hasn’t changed is that everyone working on it really enjoys the hard work, he said.”

Gran Turismo 6 also features a brand new lightning engine and according to Yamauchi, pixels will be represented more accurately in GT 6.

“It basically means the energy expressed in each one of the pixels is going to be represented more accurately. When the focus on the camera is on a certain item, the blurring and brightness of the area around it and how lights affect the environment will be rendered with more accuracy,” he said.

Stay tuned for more Gran Turismo 6 news. In the mean time check out our hub page for GT 6 for the complete coverage of the game.

Kazunori Yamauchi, the man behind the famed Gran Turismo franchise has claimed that the quality of racing game since Gran Turismo 4 is going down. Speaking to eurogamer.dk, Yamauchi said: ” In fact, I find it hard to play the other games in more than five minutes at a time. Previews low level of quality really shines through in the other games and I can not keep  them out! But there are a lot of things we still think is imperfect compared to GT5.”

It will be interesting to see how Gran Tursimo 5 turns up when it hit shelves sometime in 2010.

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