Gran Turismo 7 in the works, standard cars set to stay
And it won't be out this year, of course.
Polyphony Digital is at work on Gran Turismo 7, and it's likely that the standard cars whose heritage stretches back to the PlayStation 2 era are to stay for the PlayStation 4 sequel.
Speaking to Eurogamer at this year's Goodwood Festival, where Yamauchi has unveiled a number of new GT Vision cars as well as taking to the hill in a Nissan GTR Nismo, Yamauchi said work was under way. But it won't be out as early as 2014, as he optimistically stated last year.
"We are working on the title," said Yamauchi. "I don't think it'll make this year!"
Yamauchi also said Polyphony will go straight into development on the full game rather than working on a taster, as has been the case with recent iterations. "I don't think it'll be a Prologue," he said, confirming that the full Gran Turismo 7 was next on Polyphony's plate.
And what can we expect of the PlayStation 4 game? Polyphony has recently started its own blog where it's addressing concerns of its community, including the quality of the sound within the series which Yamauchi admits isn't up to scratch. It's still in the plan to update the audio in Gran Turismo 6 - as Yamauchi revealed to Eurogamer last September - but the full overhaul won't come until Gran Turismo 7.
"I think the quality of the sounds in Gran Turismo 6 will be improved, but most of the work will be done in Gran Turismo 7," said Yamauchi.
Gran Turismo 6 has enjoyed a suite of updates recently, with a selection of Ayrton Senna's cars being followed up by the inclusion of Austria's Red Bull Ring and the Toyota TS030 - all for free. The Course Maker and B-Spec modes, which are still absent from the game, are coming in an imminent update.
And when Gran Turismo 7 does come around, the standard car models that persist from 2004's Gran Turismo 4 will most likely feature.
"I doubt that we'll be throwing away the standard cars," said Yamauchi. "Each car has its own fans. So I think we'll hang on to the archive. In the meanwhile, some of those cars we may be able to make into Premium cars as they become available - but basically we're more focussed on increasing the number of premium cars."