I admit honestly, I have been a fan of GT not since the first part, but only since the third for PS2. But still, it is in my heart forever, because it was because of this game that I fell in love with auto racing and cars. But I came here to tell the story of a series of games, not the story of how I fell in love with this series. So let’s get started!
The phrase Gran Turismo is known to almost all car lovers. By the way, this is the name of the class of high-speed cars. Today I will tell you how this legendary series of games came into being.
I divided everything into background and history. I’ve divided the story into parts so you can watch whatever you want.
1.Kazunori Yamauchi
We have Kazunori Yamauchi to thank for the birth of Gran Tursmo. Of course, he loved cars since childhood, but he didn’t dream about them at all. Yamauchi was born on August 5, 1967 in Kashiwa, Japan. Humanity had recently conquered space, and like all the boys of those years, he dreamed of becoming an astronaut. But later Star Wars was born and Kazunori became interested in cinema. In high school, he collected and began making amateur films, about one a year, then he, like many schoolchildren, became interested in writing games, but it was rather a simple hobby, and the main place in his head was occupied by cinema. He dreamed of one day creating something comparable to Lucas’s creation. But fate had other plans.
At the university, he already said goodbye to his childhood dreams and began to study computer graphics. And despite the fact that he studied to be an accountant, games and cars became his main interests.
Soon, in his spare time from studying, he began making presentation films for automakers. Gradually, the idea matured in his head to create a real simulator that would convey the feeling of the race as much as possible, but at the same time appeal to ordinary players. And a few years later he got a job at Sony, where he and a small group worked on the first PlayStation. And a few years later he was entrusted with the development of the game.
Since Yamauchi’s parents owned a private school, he invited students to test the PS1 gamepad
2.But his first game was not GT, but Motor Toon Grand Prix. Let’s talk about her.
In 1994, Polys Entertainment (a small development team within Sony Computer Entertainment) released the racing game Motor Toon Grand Prix for the Sony PlayStation console. The development of the game was led by the then unknown Kazunori Yamauchi. The main goal of the developers was to create a game that realistically simulates the behavior of cars on the track, while the gameplay should remain addictive and fun, which was facilitated by cartoon graphics.(almost the way he wanted at 15)
“At that time we did not try to recreate one hundred percent reality on TV screens. We just wanted these tiny cars to at least remotely feel like they were real in terms of control. The suspension of the cars was calculated physically, so we were able to simulate the dynamic forces applied to the cars when entering corners."
The Motor Toon Grand Prix sailor-bingo-casino.co.uk project was very important for Yamauchi, since it was his first game under the wing of Sony and he had to show himself well.
The game Motor Toon Grand Prix was released on November 16, 1994 and for a debut game it received very good reviews, I really liked the game in which the cars behaved so realistically on the track. This set it apart from the many arcade games at the time. And so it was decided to make a sequel. True, Kazunori himself considered the game too crude, because the management was in a hurry with the development, which is why he had to abandon some of the ideas. Since then, the game designer promised himself never to release an unfinished product to the market again (and almost fulfilled his promise).
Motor Toon Grand Prix 2 was released in 1996.
HISTORY OF THE GT SERIES
1.Gran Turismo
Although Kazunori had already made a game with realistic car behavior, he still dreamed of creating a simulator that would feature not only realistic physics, but also stunning graphics that could convey on the screen all the beauty of racing cars. Such a game would be equally attractive to both professionals and ordinary players who are simply used to enjoying games.
And with this proposal and numerous sketches, Yamauchi turned to his superiors, after which he was allowed to develop his own game. True, the company’s management was cautious about such an unusual project and allocated a rather modest amount of resources to the development team. Thus began the development of the very first game in the Gran Turismo series.
But things weren’t so smooth. The development process progressed very slowly due to lack of funding and human resources. The game was being developed in parallel with the two parts of Motor Toon Gran Prix, so Yamauchi was torn between the two teams, trying to pay attention to all his projects at the same time. The very first Gran Turismo game took five years to create.
"It took us five years. It seemed to us that this development would have no end. I woke up at work and fell asleep at work. When it got cold in the office, I realized that winter had come – I was so disoriented in time. I spent only 3-4 days a year at home,” is how Yamauchi recalls the game development process.
The game went on sale in Japan on December 23, 1997. In Europe and North America it appeared on May 8 and 12, 1998, respectively. Critics rated the game very highly. To date, the game has sold 10.8 million copies worldwide.
Improvements
This game was a real breakthrough in the world of car simulators. In addition to a simple arcade mode, the game offered users a simulation mode (the mode was called Gran Turismo), in which the player had to build his racing career, obtain a driver’s license, participate in various competitions, and with the prize money earned, buy and improve his vehicles. (Well, in future parts this system with licenses continued.)
The game also used the capabilities of the PlayStation controller and conveyed the sensations of different road surfaces using vibration. All cars in the game were carefully recreated based on real ones. Sony had to fork out a lot of money to buy licenses for their use from the largest automobile concerns. Yamauchi carefully examined each car, together with his team he studied its behavior on the track, took numerous notes, photographs and notes, after which a virtual copy of the car was created for the game. 11 in-game car tracks were also created based on real-life racing tracks. There were also 180 cars in the game. Even today this is a large number. Won at Driveclub only 50. And in those days it was simply fantastic.
Gran Turismo became the best-selling game on the PS1 and remains one of the highest rated games in the industry. And also included in the 20 best games of all time.
Thanks to the success of Gran Turismo, Kazunori Yamauchi’s team was finally spun off into a full-fledged studio and became Polyphony Digital. Kazunori himself gained access to unlimited resources within the company, as well as the long-awaited independence from his superiors.
2.Gran Turismo 2
Almost 11 million copies sold meant one thing – a sequel is already in development.
GT2 appeared in 1999 on the same PlayStation. And Yamauchi has another bright moment in his life associated with him. According to him, before E31999 the whole team and he did not sleep for almost a hundred hours, finishing the demo for journalists. And after boarding the plane, he instantly passed out and did not wake up, even when he landed in Los Angeles. However, the team did not have time not only with the demo, the final game also suffered from haste, as Sony was in a hurry, they needed to take attention away from the first, as it would later become clear from the last 128-bit Sega DreamCast console.
As a result, an unfinished game hit the shelves. And part of the first edition even had to be recalled due to a serious error with support for one of the steering wheels (at that time the console had no connection to the Internet and patches could not even be dreamed of). Despite the withdrawal of the circulation, there were a number of small issues. The game took up two discs, one housed the arcade version on the other, a simulator. Graphically, GT2 has taken a big step forward, but the gameplay remains almost the same.
Gran Turismo 2 sold 9.3 million copies. And got into the Guinness Book of Records for the largest number of cars in the game, the best-selling game on PS1 in 98 and the most meticulous manual for the simulator. It was also the first game to be emulated on the Sega Dreamcast console
But still, the first generation of GT ended in triumph.
3.Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
It was the year two thousand, Sony was preparing in full for the launch of its 2nd and most popular console in history. Of course, everyone wanted to see the system in action, and especially for E3 2000, Yamauchi and his team prepared a demo of Gran Turismo 2000, then all people celebrated the arrival of the new millennium twice and inserting 2000 into the name was very popular. True, the game was released in 2001 and it was called less trivially, namely Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec.
At E3, everyone was shocked by the picture quality of the new game, no one could believe that this was real on a home system. The cars looked like real ones, drove like real ones and looked amazing in replays. And no one even remembered that the number of cars rolled back to 185.
Improvements
1.In GT3, along with regular races, real multi-hour endurance races appeared. You could win unlicensed Formula 1 cars in them.
2.Multiplayer appeared for the first time, although only for 6 players.
3.Cars in the quarry have now been distributed by category and country of production.
The game was criticized only for the AI of the opponents, who always drove only along the ideal trajectory and never made mistakes (this flaw will remain in GT for many years).
Conclusion.
The third part became one of the most popular racing games in history and, along with GTA3, the best-selling game on PS2. In total, almost 15 million copies were sold around the world, that is, every 10 system owners had a GT3. The game was so popular that Logitech released a special steering wheel for it.
