Gran Turismo:HD anecdote in Famitsu

[one]

Usually I don't check magazines like Weekly Famitsu the Japanese gaming magazine which are oriented to a somewhat juvenile audience but today I browsed it at a stand since I had some time to spend there and it was the 20th anniversary issue with a glossy cover IIRC. In the contents I found a column series by Kazunori Yamauchi (President, Polyphony Digital) himself where he writes what he wants to write to fill a small space in a page and the one on this Famitsu issue was an amusing anecdote about GT:HD at E3.

Basically Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital had no plan to show any Gran Turismo materials at E3 2006. The notice that they wouldn't show anything was already circulated to all related divisions within Sony, or so PD had thought.

But 3 weeks before E3, he got the news that Ken Kutaragi, alone without henchmen, would visit him in his PD office. Yamauchi got depressed since he knew when Kutaragi visits PD alone it's always of bad omen. As soon as Kutaragi arrived PD, he told Yamauchi, "Can you exhibit GT at E3? No, just bring it to E3 already!"

Yamauchi sighed, but it's not that he had no plan at all. Fortunately GT4 has hi-res car model data, which are a bit over-spec for PS2, for the photo mode that renders a car in 2x2 resolution. So using them in HD, it's possible to make a playable demo in 3 weeks, he thought.

Yamauchi said yes to Kutaragi and the PD crew began to make GT:HD for E3 which was looming 3 weeks later.

 

[Arwin]

That is amusing, and more or less what we expected, right?

Personally, I thought that Photo-Mode was some kind of clever way of preparing for next-gen all by itself, where I expected they'd be doing everything in realtime. But then last year when they showed off the two new car models with much higher detail (rx7 and latest Evo), it seemed they raised their ambitions beyond that.

From the looks of it, that's the case but at the same time I really wonder what they're doing now. Is everything going to stay behind closed doors because of the competition with the Forza team? Or are they just waiting for TGS? I really have no clue anymore.

 

[Mmmkay]

My money's on them originally planning to show GT off at TGS. Thanks for the translation one.

 

[rounin]

Interesting to say the least. 2 weeks to get something like that to work at 1080p 60 fps is quite amazing to me.

 

[kyleb]

I'm not saying they did anything but bust their asses to get that done in such a short time; but considering the PS3 both so much more powerful than the PS2 as well as built with backwards compatablity in mind, I can't say I'm amazed that they managed to get their PS2 game running good at high res on the PS3.

 

[mckmas8808]

I'll say TGS is when we will see the real GT5. I mean we seen the real GT5 car models last TGS, so why not this year's TGS also?

 

[Bad_Boy]

My money's on them originally planning to show GT off at TGS. Thanks for the translation one.

I'll say TGS is when we will see the real GT5. I mean we seen the real GT5 car models last TGS, so why not this year's TGS also?

I agree with these statements. The whole presentation of GT:HD seemed very iffy, why they spent 15 minutes on it is beyond me. This explains why Kazunori Yamauchi didnt seem to excited to show off GT:HD.

Can't wait to see the true GT5.

thx one.

 

[drpepper]

That's a funny anecdote and reminds me of Steve Jobs and Apple.

Amazing how they could take the GT physics engine designed on the EE to run on Cell. That must have been a hellish (if not wasted) 3 weeks leading up to E3. Not to mention tacked on as the presentation was unncesearily long.

It looks like KK wanted to show anything for their conference. ANYTHING! Even and old PS2 game.

 

[Bad_Boy]

Amazing how they could take the GT physics engine designed on the EE to run on Cell. That must have been a hellish (if not wasted) 3 weeks leading up to E3. Not to mention tacked on as the presentation was unncesearily long.

Well considering, the PS3 is backwards compatible and dev kits do have hard drives, I dont think it would be all that hard as you make it out to be.

 

[weaksauce]

Well they've probably had the engine on cell since GT:Vision.

 

[drpepper]

Well considering, the PS3 is backwards compatible and dev kits do have hard drives, I dont think it would be all that hard as you make it out to be.

Do the dev kits contain any PS2 silicon? Wouldn't that be a waste? I'm assuming of course that the demo was runnign of a dev kit of some kind.

I think engine tweaking would have to have been done since I don't recall seeing dust clouds kicked up during the rally stage.

 

[SugarCoat]

Do the dev kits contain any PS2 silicon? Wouldn't that be a waste? I'm assuming of course that the demo was runnign of a dev kit of some kind.

I think engine tweaking would have to have been done since I don't recall seeing dust clouds kicked up during the rally stage.

I'm pretty sure this demo was running off a high end PC as quite a few were and i'm pretty sure the GT demo was confirmed to have been.

 

[Bad_Boy]

You might be right, but It just doesnt seem like it was all that hard work to do, maybe just annoying that they would be showing off old assets and would be pressured for time.

 

[drpepper]

You might be right, but It just doesnt seem like it was all that hard work to do, maybe just annoying that they would be showing off old assets and would be pressured for time.

Well, I'm pretty sure the grunt work was already done so it probably isn't that hard. But I'm sure it was more than just a recompile to work on the Cell.

I'd be irked though if I had to make a useless demo for PS3 just to show off 1080p. I mean, who cares? Except for KK.

 

[AlNom]

I'd be irked though if I had to make a useless demo for PS3 just to show off 1080p. I mean, who cares? Except for KK.

He really does seem like ShootMyMonkey's "creature" at times... I'm certainly not impressed with his behaviour here, and I think he should have waited until TGS to show something spectacular for a first showing instead of just another "progress update". Ah well, what's done is done, and no big deal I suppose.

 

[rabidrabbit]

He really does seem like ShootMyMonkey's "creature" at times... I'm certainly not impressed with his behaviour here, and I think he should have waited until TGS to show something spectacular for a first showing instead of just another "progress update". Ah well, what's done is done, and no big deal I suppose.

Yea, and you can tell his behaviour just by reading one short snippet of some conversation he had with Polyphony, and that from a translated magazine article.
Oh, I'm sure he just walked in the room and said "Polyphony! Make GT for me in time for E3, NOW! and make the cars shiny. I want them YESTERDAY!!"

 

[Bad_Boy]

Yea, and you can tell his behaviour just by reading one short snippet of some conversation he had with Polyphony, and that from a translated magazine article.
Oh, I'm sure he just walked in the room and said "Polyphony! Make GT for me in time for E3, NOW! and make the cars shiny. I want them YESTERDAY!!"

lol I just got a visual image in my head of that happening, pretty funny.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Yea, and you can tell his behaviour just by reading one short snippet of some conversation he had with Polyphony, and that from a translated magazine article.
Oh, I'm sure he just walked in the room and said "Polyphony! Make GT for me in time for E3, NOW! and make the cars shiny. I want them YESTERDAY!!"

Regardless of what really happened at PD, showing GT4 HD 15minutes was really stupid decision on Sony's part, even if they had little bit weak E3 showing, they still had plenty of footage that was much more impressive than GT4 HD which shouldn't had been shown. If it's true that KK made PD show it against their will, or even if that's only partly true, I have to wonder why Sony is treating PD that way, they should basically give them free hand to do as they please as they have earned it. KK/Sony had no reason to do such a desperate act.

 

[Bobbler]

Regardless of what really happened at PD, showing GT4 HD 15minutes was really stupid decision on Sony's part, even if they had little bit weak E3 showing, they still had plenty of footage that was much more impressive than GT4 HD which shouldn't had been shown. If it's true that KK made PD show it against their will, or even if that's only partly true, I have to wonder why Sony is treating PD that way, they should basically give them free hand to do as they please as they have earned it. KK/Sony had no reason to do such a desperate act.

Oddly, I'm inclined to believe that KK asked PD to show something because of Sony's appreciation/respect for PD. If I was a developer and was asked to be a rather substantial portion of arguably their biggest presentation of the year, I'd feel pretty appreciated, even if I wasn't given all the time to do what I wanted.

It isn't like KK went there and asked Kazunori out of spite.

 

[rabidrabbit]

I agree the GT HD shown was less than what is expected of PS3, and would have better suited to be shown in GDC or such, as it really was just a 1080p/60 demo nothing else.

Still, I don't think the mainstream minded that much. It was made pretty clear it was using GT4 assets and was there just to show 1080p/60.
For PS2 there was something similar, the GT2000 which was bettered immensely in GT3.

I guess they just wanted to remind there'll be a new GT game at some point for PS3.
They could've showed prerendered cgi that was made using "ingame assets", but after the Killzone backlash I'm sure nobody here would've really preferred that (though MS was given clean papers using same tactics this time, amazingly)