GT5 delayed to "iron out kinks"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 October, 2010

Yamauchi: "It's inexcusable..."

PlayStation 3 exclusive racer Gran Turismo 5 was delayed from 3rd November to "before Christmas" because the development team needed to iron out kinks, creator Kazunori Yamauchi has explained.

Polyphony Digital's long-awaited simulation driving game has "complex systems", Yamauchi wrote on Twitter today (translated by Kotaku).

"Apologies for the delay," he said.

"It's because time and labour were spent ironing the kinks out of [the game's] complex system. I'm really sorry. Everyone, it's inexcusable... Wait a little longer."

Yesterday evening Sony sent shockwaves across the gaming world when it announced yet another delay for the driving game that has been in development for nearly half a decade.

"We are sorry to say that Gran Turismo 5 will not be available on the previously announced release date of November 3rd, but the game will be released before Christmas," a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe statement read.

"We sincerely apologise to GT fans for the delay, however creator Kazunori Yamauchi and the team at Polyphony Digital want to make certain they are creating a racing experience of the highest quality.

"We are confident that this ambitious game will exceed expectations when it launches later this year. We'll have more information for you in the near future."

Tweeting again (as translated by Andriasang), Yamauchi responded to an exacerbated fan worried that GT5's delay meant the game would be released next year: "I believe we won't keep you waiting until then," he said.

In Japan, GT5 is now down for a general "2010 year-end sales season" time frame. Sony Japan cited "production issues" when explaining the delay.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

You may also like...

Comments (49) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Vitor #1 2 years ago

    Sounds like an excuse to me...

    The entire Forza series has been made and released during the course of GT5's development and, all together, probably made vastly more money than this single release will. There is no way in hell Sony will let Yamauchi carry on like this - his games may be great, but investors and stockholders must hate his lackadaisical management of the project. Cuts should have been made so that time schedules were maintained - this is how RTW fell, if it wasn't for Sony pouring money into this project, Polyphony probably would have gone the way of 3D Realms and the like.

    Blizzard and Valve can afford to take their sweet time as they have alternate revenue streams, Prologue hardly brought in Steam/WoW style money. I can't believe that anyone inside Sony is happy with how this all turned out.
    Edited by Vitor at 14/10/10 @ 08:32

  • Scimarad #2 2 years ago

    Aside from being amusing, I'm not sure what the big deal is. If you can't stand to wait one more month for a game then you've got problems...

  • GamesConnoisseur #3 2 years ago

    Ironing out 'kinks',..... by now they ll be locked in with the gameplay features, and should mainly be just eliminating bugs found by the testers.

    So if there are many serious bugs which required extra time to iron out, ie added few good weeks, that ll makes more sense than adding in features or changing gameplay mechanisms, would take months!!

  • Bennicus #4 2 years ago

    I don't think you need to keep doing news articles about GT5 delays, we'll take it as a given. Just post one when it's released and that will do :)

  • Beano #5 2 years ago

    "Yamauchi responded to an exacerbated fan worried that GT5's delay meant the game would be released next year: "I believe we won't keep you waiting until then," he said."

    He's response didn't sound very confident.

    "I believe" ... WTF???

  • mashk #6 2 years ago

    GT5 Forever?

  • thedaveeyres #7 2 years ago

    Fair enough. Ray Davies is quite wrinkly these days.

  • coolbritannia #8 2 years ago

    'I believe'?! Easter 2011, at the earliest. Shoddy stuff really.

  • joe90 #9 2 years ago

    Its wrong, but i take pleasure in this, as some guy at work is so so waiting for it.. 'Guess what .. Guess what' - I shout across the office.. GT5 is delayed again.. Office laughs, he puts his head in his hands.. The day just got better. ;)

  • HisDudness #10 2 years ago

    This delay has got me so I can't sleep at night

  • Beano #11 2 years ago

    "Aside from being amusing, I'm not sure what the big deal is. If you can't stand to wait one more month for a game then you've got problems... "

    You forgot that this is GT5 - a huge game that have allready sufffered many delays and broken promises. It's not just a case of delaying it for another month, it's delaying a allready massively delayed game AGAIN, only a few weeks before the planned release and not giving a new date. I'll bet GT5 slips into 2011.

  • Freek #12 2 years ago

    Given that his estimates have been widely off the mark in the past this is starting to look like a Q1 2011 game. DNF might even be out before it. Wich is just insane, totaly, utterly, insane. :D
    Edited by Freek at 14/10/10 @ 08:49

  • icematt12 #13 2 years ago

    joe90, that's evil. I'd do something similar though :D

  • Goodfella #14 2 years ago

    'I believe' doesn't sound very convincing at all, reads like 'the release date is out of my hands'.

  • NotSoSlim #15 2 years ago

    Or maybe lost in translation maybe? The guy speaks basic English at best.

    A number if bugs were noticed with demos so if they are having issues fair enough but they will get it out before Xmas just so it doesn't affect Sonys other games

  • TOOTR #16 2 years ago

    Have valve somehow got involved with the launch date?

    Will HL ep 3 be found as a minigame in a garage a la geom wars in project Gotham ? ;)

  • wizlon #17 2 years ago

    GGAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!

  • teabagger #18 2 years ago

    Sounds like they failed QA submission and have some class A bugs to get rid of.

  • Badassbab #19 2 years ago

    Maybe they are trying to iron out the screen tear. Also does anyone think they should get rid of the dust the tires kick up as it seems to be cauing slight slowdowns.

  • Nighthawk_08 #20 2 years ago

    I'm gutted bout this game being delayed. Everything about it looks awesome, just can't wait for the god dam thing to come out. But I bet it's worth it. Oh well there's quite a few good games to take my time
    Up till then. Roll on fallout Vegas

  • killyourtv #21 2 years ago

    I wouldn't say the announcement sent 'shockwaves'. I thought the general reaction was basically along the lines of 'cool story bro'

  • bigtechno #22 2 years ago

    Ha

  • bigtechno #23 2 years ago

    Ha
    I have this shit on pre-order but have forza as well
    What your excuse now sony fan boys?
    this will never live up to the hype
    think i'll go and cancel it now

  • orangpelupa #24 2 years ago

    why not just release a day-1 patch....

    Ethernal Sonata released with broken completely game. Stuck at NAMCO BANDAI GAMES logo at boot. It took about a week for NBGI to reelase the patch, and that game still selling well.

    but on the flip side, its good to know that there still developers that want to squash every bugs, make sure it is a proper game before release :D
    not like some other developer with "m" logo developing F1 game.

  • captain_ginge #25 2 years ago

    Getting tired of waiting for this now

  • JBlokeUK #26 2 years ago

    So "before Christmas" will they delay it even further to iron out more "kinks".

  • kangarootoo #27 2 years ago

    "Blizzard and Valve can afford to take their sweet time as they have alternate revenue streams"

    Well, so do Sony really.

  • Slikz #28 2 years ago

    Yamauchi was too busy sucking off Nissan (GTR) when he should have been working on GT5.

    I think we should be given an extra track and some cars to download for prologue. Especially if I'm not playing GT5 over xmas.




  • Bigglesworth #29 2 years ago

    Its a PR disaster, more than anything else. The huge, grumbling anti-Polyphony/GT sentiment that had steadily built following the years of delays had been all but eradicated by the deluge of screenshots, videos and new-feature-news that have surfaced in the last couple of months. Now, it returns.

  • RexRunti #30 2 years ago

    Unless this game is a solid 10/10 then they've wasted a lot of people's time.

  • sfp_noodle #31 2 years ago

    I think too many people are getting a bit hooked up on the potential score EG will award GT5. You know they gave GT5P 8/10 right? By that logic, 9/10 is most likely the default score they can award it, since its got tonnes of content packed into it. If it gets awarded an 8 or lower then that will be really headscratch worthy.

    Of course I only played the game at the EG expo and whilst I wasn't too blown away by the 3D effects the rest was awesome. But it would surprise me that EG would award a game a lot of people (foolishly) like to dismiss as a demo gets a high score of 8/10 and the complete product gets scored lower. It would not make any sense. But that's just my 50 pence :D

  • Beano #32 2 years ago

    Maybe Yamauchi suddenly realized he forgot to include a career-mode :p

  • coolbritannia #33 2 years ago

    Beano, that made me genuinely LOL in the office

  • des #34 2 years ago

    So now,GT5=Boring buggy game...nice
    Good thing is that Sony is writing the checks,lol

  • Psychotext #35 2 years ago

    I suppose at least we know what it is that caused the delay now. That's something.

  • Soton4084 #36 2 years ago

    Yes, it is inexcusable.

    I agree with Beano about Yamauchi's comment in response to a fan's question. I find it worrying that he hasn't got the confidence to say "Yes, it will definately be out before Christmas"

  • Spekingur #37 2 years ago

    Would these kinks be, like, the driving?
    Har har har.
    /sarcastic fake laugh

  • Baggies1879 #38 2 years ago

    While I don't agree with developers who release broken games and just patch them later, with a game of GT's size and scale there will inevitably be some bugs that won't be noticed until the masses are playing. Polyphony are better off releasing the game and then patching as I don't believe they will ever get it 100% perfect.

  • layleeloo #39 2 years ago

    Crap. I sold my Forza 3 in light of what seemed a decent enough reality of release. Should have kept it a little longer hey.

  • chessboxer #40 2 years ago

    @Beano

    "You forgot that this is GT5 - a huge game that have allready sufffered many delays and broken promises. It's not just a case of delaying it for another month, it's delaying a allready massively delayed game AGAIN, only a few weeks before the planned release and not giving a new date. I'll bet GT5 slips into 2011."

    This is only the 2nd delay for GT5. The first was in March (or was it April) which was the first officially announced release date for Japan. Until E3 2010, neither Sony or Polyphony Digital had ever given the game an official launch date for the US or EU regions.

  • Mkwone #41 2 years ago

    The genral consensus from piecing together all the news items is that they spent a bit too long ironing out the kinks that they missed their production slot for making the discs. So Sony have had to find/make a new slot to press the games (whatever the term is) which could be days/weeks.

    Such a silly mistake, if it was small things you'd of thought they'd make a day one patch and get the game out on time. Sounds like they they thought they had less power than they thought.
    Edited by Mkwone at 14/10/10 @ 12:48

  • chibber23 #42 2 years ago

    According to Poliphony the delay is only 3 days... great news... anyone else think its just enough time to pop a firmware requirement for 3.5 or over on there?

  • makeamazing #43 2 years ago

    Perhaps it is a firmware thing, especially as they suggested that COD was going to be one of the first games, perhaps Sony decided it was better to up the firmware, but they were awaiting its completion...

    Dunno, if its only a few days or a couple of weeks i dont see that as a problem, but they need a big game out this end of year, because its been alittle quiet on the exclusive front this Xmas... I hope they dont just front load Jan - March next year as well again.

  • EGoode #44 2 years ago

    Yeah this is OBVIOUSLY so they can add in calls to the new (non jailbroken) firmware. It may backfire and actually lose sales (from homebrewers/etc who refuse to upgrade). Typical Sony heavy handedness.

    Edited by EGoode at 14/10/10 @ 13:22

  • Peter_LIAR_Molyneux #45 2 years ago

    "We are sorry to say that Gran Turismo 5 will not be available on the previously announced release date of November 3rd, but the game will be released BEFORE CHRISTMAS," a Sony Computer Entertainment Europe statement read.

    Christmas 2010 or Christmas 2011? At this point I wouldn't be surprised if they meant the latter.



  • Mkwone #46 2 years ago

    @chibber23 No they missed their deadline by 3 days, that doesn't mean a 3 day delay.

  • Venom1974 #47 2 years ago

    I for one am a huge fan of GT series. Including the motorbike version (tourist trophy) i got from Japan some years ago.
    I brought my PS3 for wipeout HD which I love and GT5. This delay push's me over the edge.
    Im dusting off the Xbox and going back to Forza 3.

    Ill get GT5 some time next year when I can be bothered to buy it! Maybe Ill even pre-order it like 10 times and then cancell the pre-orders a few times, giving weak excuses......(ohhh i need to tweak my bank account slightly to raise the £40.00 to buy it)

    What a load of BOLLLL OOOO XXXXX

  • cafferkey #48 2 years ago

    a bigger joke than the games delay wouldl be no car model damage....
    Edited by cafferkey at 14/10/10 @ 15:25

  • solidSnake04 #49 2 years ago

    this is so crap.