Sony Mess up again - Gran Turismo HD is "empty" game

[kempez]

wow Sony keep dropping the bomb!

Gran Turismo HD will be released in two versions, one with no cars or tracks (at all) and the other, called “premium” with 30 cars and two tracks. Then the point is to go online and buy additional cars through Sony’s online system. The price of cars will range from $0.43 to $0,80, while the price of tracks ranges from $1.71 to $4.26. There are approximately 750 cars and 50 tracks in the game. You do the math.

Whoops!!

Hand up who wants a PS3??

Link

[MrChris]

LOL!!!!

well EA did the money stealing with bf2 lol

see if sony can trick a few people lol

[kempez]

Yeah EA starting taking money with FB2 - but to sell an EMPTY game??

In sum:

The PS3 is £450 (at least?)
It's no more powerful than the 360.
The games are £50+
You can't get pre-owned games coz Sony won't let you.
The games Sony will let you buy don't have any content, and you have to buy it online as an extra.
It's not out until March 07

Struggling to find anything positive??

[Stoo]

Yeah EA starting taking money with FB2 - but to sell an EMPTY game??

In sum:

The PS3 is £450 (at least?)
It's no more powerful than the 360.
The games are £50+
You can't get pre-owned games coz Sony won't let you.
The games Sony will let you buy don't have any content, and you have to buy it online as an extra.
It's not out until March 07

Struggling to find anything positive??

You won't if you swallow all the fud that's flying around..

but let's try to sort the truth out from the fiction..

The PS3 is £450 (at least?) - Nope it's £425

It's no more powerful than the 360. - Unknown tbh, but given that the 360 is struggling with 720p on several games, initial pre-TGS reports claim that the ps3 is indeed running several titles at 1080p with no issues.

The games are £50+ - Nope, same price as the 360 games I think you'll find..

You can't get pre-owned games coz Sony won't let you. - Again incorrect, based on a very old rumour which was entirely discounted

The games Sony will let you buy don't have any content, and you have to buy it online as an extra. - Incorrect, this is just one title, and the full facts still aren't known, and this is the developer's decision, NOT Sony's. It looks very likely that the base game might well be free, or a minimal fee, this is mainly a demonstrator for the new microtransactions system.

It's not out until March 07 - And?


Re GTHD - Latest reports are indicating that either both classic and premium will ship on the same disc, or that classic will be a free download with just the paid for content.

[shaithis]

It really isn't looking good for Sony....they have fallen a long way recently.

It wasn't too far ago that Sony equipment was some of the best you could buy, but over the years its become worse and worse yet they keep on charging a premium for it....

Now it seems they getting a little too big for their boots and could mess up their strongest product launch.........and all because they have gotten extremly greedy. Trying to maximise profit through paid content and making gamers pay to help them win the next-gen HD format war....

AFAIC, Sony can shove the PS3 and I have been a great supporter of PS1 and PS2.

[Stoo]

Here we go, a bit more info:

Gran Turismo HD Set For Release
Sony to release PS3 GT close to launch.
by IGN Staff


September 20, 2006 - One of your first PS3 games may just be Gran Turismo! Famitsu reports that Sony Computer Entertainment will be releasing Gran Turismo HD to the PlayStation 3 for Japanese release in December. Polyphony Digital is now slaving away at the game under the watchful eye of producer Kazunoru Yamauchi, who shared some details on the game with the magazine.

Gran Turismo HD is split into two modes of play. In GTHD Premium, players get to sample a portion of Gran Turismo 5, with two brand new courses and 30 cars that fully make use of the PS3's capabilities.

This mode will offer arcade-style races, but it continues the spirit of the series by serving as a "pure driving simulator." Premium mode will not have any elements of the series Gran Turismo mode, where you earn new cars and courses by clearing events. All cars and courses will be available from the start.

Famitsu shows first screens from The Eiger Nordwand course. Assuming the shots are real time, we can look forward to a true test of the PS3's power. The other course is, according to Yamauchi, set in a natural setting. Polyphony is looking into adding weather changes to the courses in Premium mode, making it so that rain will stop midway through a race.

The magazine also has images of the Toyota Celica and Subaru Impreza rally car models from the Premium mode. The cars in GTHD Premium mode will be fully modeled not just on the outside, but on the inside as well.

The second mode of play is GTHD Classic, an online racing mode that's based off both the Gran Turismo HD demo from E3 and the PlayStation 2 beta test that Polyphony conducted a few months back in Japan. The development staff has fixed up the problems with the beta version and is even working on adding new elements.

In Classic mode, you start off with no cars or courses. New cars and courses are added via downloads. The game will offer over 750 cars and 50 courses.

SCE will be charging players for these downloads. While pricing hasn't been finalized, we can expect each car to cost between 50 and 100 yen (50 cents to 1 dollar). Polyhpony plans on adding more cars and courses on a weekly or monthly basis, with some cars available in limited quantities. Concerns over players using real money to trade vehicles may keep car trading functionality out, although Polyphony is currently looking into the matter.

Courses will cost between 200 and 500 yen. According to Yamauchi, the difference in cost is due to the amount of work that goes into the course. The Nuremburg course will likely cost more, Yamauchi noted.

Polyphony is looking into other types of downloads. Yamauchi mentioned the photo mode as a new mode of play that players might be able to download. The team is even looking into making new parts downloadable.

Premium mode will also offer download elements. Polyphony plans on making 30 cars downloadable via the PlayStation network platform. New courses will also become available in time. It's unclear if these will be available for free, or if we will have to fork over our yen.

Gran Turismo HD seems to be positioned somewhat like Gran Turimso 4 Prologue, a Japan-only release that offered a sampling of Gran Turismo 4 well before the final game's release. Polyphony is aiming to finish up work on the true Gran Turismo 5 in 2008. But prior to that, they wanted to both show a sampling of what Gran Turismo would look like running on new hardware, and build up a full network service in time for GT5. Premium mode takes care of the former, with the latter filled up by Classic.

SCE has not commented on a US release for the game, but Yamauchi did reveal to the magazine that we can expect an overseas release at around the same time as the Japanese version.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/733/733728p1.html

[Stoo]

So to sum up..

Both classic and premium are part of the same game.

This isn't a full release, it's more like the GT4 Prologue edition, so expect it at a reduced price.

The classic mode is online only, so if you don't want to pay for the cars and tracks, you don't have to, you've still got the offline mode to play with.

There is still more info to come, and bear in mind that famitsu is prone to translation glitches.

[kempez]

OK

My main point above is that what has the PS3 actually GOT that we don't have already in abundance? Nothing

Stoo whilst your comments are much more accurate than my rumour mill stuff: do you actually think the PS3 is worth that much more than competitors, coupled with the fact it's like 2 years late? I certainly dont.

Sony have been asking for trouble with the PS3 - too many mistakes imo

I am no fanboy...of anything, but the PS3 is something I will not buy.

[SmileyUK]

It's no more powerful than the 360. - Unknown tbh, but given that the 360 is struggling with 720p on several games

thats due to sloppy programming though and generally on the games that are ports of other console games.

[dangel]

thats due to sloppy programming though and generally on the games that are ports of other console games.

Seems entirely probable - I'd be surprised if developers are leveraging all the processors currently and the '360 certainly doesn't lack in the graphics department as compared to the PS3. Not only that, but 1080p is a marketing checkbox considering how many TVs can actually even _display_ it right now (or in March for that matter). As for the claims on pricing for the PS3 - given that is doesn't yet _exist_ in the retail channel _any_ claims of exact pricing are pretty moot. The only certainty is that it's going to cost twice that of it's rivals and deliver much the same experience. The PS3 is coming - And?

[kempez]

Yep agreed dangel. On paper the ATI GPU in the 360 is certainly powerful enough to rival the PS3 nVidia offering.

LoL @

The PS3 is coming - And?

[YorkieBen]

sorry to sound dumb, but does this mean that there is no actual Grand Turismuo mode?

[sawyen]

I guess we will never know how a product will perform until it hits the shelves and ppl start playing with it...

I think its unfair to judge a console's content by the press releases and speculations on its consumer acceptance.

You'd never know, perhaps ppl might think its crap now.. but when you pick up that controller, and start playing, we all might think otherwise. Sure its expensive, but everything has a bad start, PS never started to well IMO.. Not sure about the UK, but the Playstation was spit and poo'ed on everywhere around asia when Sony decided to take on Nintendo and Sega. Sony then also had hardware that raves about performance but cost double/triple what Nintendo offered (then the playstation cost S$1600 when launched.. and I recall a parent was asking, 'does it come with a TV?'). The only difference was that there were worse candidates available, such as the Panasonic 3DO and Neo Geo stuff..

I'm being purely phylosophical here.. I'll go back to my corner over there...

[Tom Scott]

I honestly can't understand why you would want to "announce" that news.

Personally I feel its the euivalent of MS/Bungie going:
"Here we've got the Halo 3 Pre-release-cash-in-game - its got a few guns, but if you want to play on live, you have to pay for all the maps and guns individually"

[arthurleung]

I have a feeling they're just trying to reduce piracy? You can't pirate something that is not there. Its not built into the game and you can't pirate it

[sawyen]

I have a feeling they're just trying to reduce piracy? You can't pirate something that is not there. Its not built into the game and you can't pirate it

Good example.. bravo..

I'll go back to that corner again now..