It took five years for Gran Turismo 5 to make it onto the starting grid, but thankfully the wait won't be that long for its follow-up. SONY has confirmed that Gran Turismo 6 is not only in development, but will be released later this year.
The announcement was made at Silverstone on May 15th, a date which marks the fifteenth anniversary of the original Gran Turismo on the original PlayStation. Bet you feel old now.
The game will boast all the cars from Gran Turismo 5, plus enough new ones to bring the garage up to 1200 painstakingly modelled real world cars. There will also be seven tracks that are new to the series, including Silverstone. Another of the new tracks looks likely to be Australia's Mount Panorama course in Bathurst, where a team from Japan's Polyphony Digital was spotted scanning and photographing the track last March. There will be 33 tracks in all, with 71 different layouts.
Plans are in place to support the game with downloadable content into the foreseeable future, while connectivity with phones, tablets and other devices is also confirmed, along with social and community features.
For now, Gran Turismo 6 will be a PlayStation 3 exclusive but a PlayStation 4 edition has not been ruled out. "We have refactored the game to make it very flexible and expandable, with a view to making many future developments," said Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi. "I am very pleased with everything about the new game and the new additions, but the launch will be only the beginning for GT6. The game will continue to develop throughout its life."
See you at the chequered flag!