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Gran Turismo 4 to Make Holiday Release...Offline

Posted by Zonk on from the gran-turismo-by-your-lonesome dept.

sm4kxd writes "EuroGamer is reporting that in a press conference at the Tokyo Game Show, Sony representatives stated that Gran Turismo 4 is still on schedule for release. They're looking for a December 4th Japan release, followed by a near December 14th release date in both the states and Europe, but it will be exclusively offline. There is to be a follow up GT game with online capabilities that has a speculated release sometime in 2005."

10 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. what's the point? by muel · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who cares about a new Gran Turismo game without online play? It's been the same game over and over. Sure, the last sequel had the benefit of PS2-powered graphics, but what's this one going to bring to the mainstream-gamer's table? A few more cars? More decals? Spiffier-looking still shots that wind up being lost when you're actually racing? Please.

    If Sony had any respect for its customers, they would abandon this game's Xmas hopes and prep the game's release, with online, for Spring 05, rather than wait a few months after a lame Xmas launch and later release an "online patch" product for the low low price of $49.99!!

    1. Re:what's the point? by DJayC · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The thing is they've already built a fan-base. You could say the same thing about sports games (football in particular). Tony Hawk even.. same game, different levels, etc... Gran Turismo will sell well... and you know what's funny is they will probably end up making MORE money by the overlap who buy both the offline and online version.

      Most people prob. wont even know there will be an online version when the offline one comes out.

      Luckily I'm a ESPN fan, and the new football game only cost me $20 bucks ;-)

    2. Re:what's the point? by blueZhift · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Online play does affect gameplay because data has to be transmitted back and forth. The world that player 1 sees has to be in synch with player 2 and so on. For a highly detailed racer like GT, that could be a whole lot of data. If you've played online games like Unreal Tournament, Quake, or Final Fantasy XI, then you know that things can get pretty choppy when there are a lot of players interacting and any lag in data transmission just makes things worse. Lag is caused by the time it takes for signals to travel, plus whatever time is spent by the console to process those signals before sending a response.

      In simulations you can cheat a bit using physics, but still, high detail modelling mean you're pumping more data through the pipe in order to keep things in synch. If the PS2 is already close to its maximum load just doing the one player version due to the level of detail in modelling the physical behavior of the vehicles plus the AI, then adding the burden of online multiplayer means either crappy performance, or you have to turn the detail way way down.

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  2. Shocking... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ...considering Gran Turismo 3 was essentially perfect in what it was trying to achieve. The whole point of a GT4 (aside from making craploads of money) was to play Online.

    I guess GT4 will just be GT3 with new cars and tracks - another expansion pack.

    1. Re:Shocking... by incubusnb · · Score: 4, Insightful
      GT3 was far from Perfect my Friend, GT3 was the rushed re-hash and re-tooled GT2 engine, it was rushed to meet the PS2's launch date, which it missed anyways. GT3 was originally called GT2000 as it was supposed to be an expansion of GT2 but Sony decided it would be a better marketting Strategy to call it GT3.

      GT4 on the other hand, is a complete redesign and reimplementation of the engine, its not just a "re-tooled" GT3.

      as for online... if it was implemented i would probably use it for a while, until the skill-less cheats took over, then i'd happily play offline anyways, the loss of Online is no big deal to me, i play GT for the cars, and to challenge myself, not to get told i'm not "ub3r 1337" by some 12 year old wannahack

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    2. Re:Shocking... by DarkZero · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...considering Gran Turismo 3 was essentially perfect in what it was trying to achieve. The whole point of a GT4 (aside from making craploads of money) was to play Online.

      I guess GT4 will just be GT3 with new cars and tracks - another expansion pack.

      GT3 was a great game, but it wasn't "essentially perfect". The tuning system was really abusive if you didn't already know EXACTLY how to tune a car (and the in-game information was absolute crap), the physics engine didn't allow for anything other than very stiff or very wild movement, and the physics engine also rewarded driving like an idiot. I've played one of the mountain stages probably over a hundred times and I still haven't found a faster way to handle the widest curve other than letting your car slam into the guardrail and slide across it.

      The real attraction, for me, is the new physics engine, which is the soul of the entire game, along with the new modes, such as the drift competition. The new cars and tracks are just gravy on top of that.

  3. PStwo + GT4 Online... by Drakonite · · Score: 4, Insightful
    A PStwo and GT4 online bundle for christmas would have been a HUGE seller and made a huge impact on PStwo and GT4 sales, and a huge boost to the amount of people playing online.

    This seems like one of those "Someone is going to get fired" screw ups to me.

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  4. The New XMas Bundle by blueZhift · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Given that the online part of GT 4 was the big new thing, I think that Sony now has big time egg on their faces. So I'm going to make the big ol' guess that they will want to do something to make up for it in part. I wouldn't be too surprised to see GT 4 bundled with the new PStwo for XMas at some discount. And to sweeten the deal a bit, I'm guessing that while there won't be online multiplayer, there probably will be some kind of online goodies, like leader boards and stats, and maybe some downloadable cars later. They might even have downloads of player data for ghost races.

    Now to toot my own horn, I speculated on this several weeks ago in my blog!

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  5. Doesn't bother me a bit... by samdu · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why? 'cause I STILL don't think that the ability to take a game online is a make or break feature. I will scoop up GT4 on release day, online or not. Hell, many of the games I've bought recently are capable of online play and I never end up playing them online anyway. Judge the game on its merits. Is it fun, are the graphics good, the sound, the mechanics, etc... If there is an online mode, is it well implimented? It doesn't make sense to judge a game for features it doesn't have. For instance, would you hold it against a game if it didn't support a VR helmet? Of course not. The same should go for online modes. Personally, I'd rather see no more games support online play than have online play sledge-hammered into every game under the sun JUST so they can throw it on the feature list.

  6. Real Car Enthusiasts by TheBot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Will love the game even with it's lack of online play. Those types of people appreciate the game's realism, not the photorealistic bushes on the side of the road. Some people can't always get what they want, and they just have to whine on here about it. Please, get over yourself, no ones making the game exclusively for you. The lack of online play is a bad move for the developer, but you know how these things happen, publishers want the game pushed out NOW NOW NOW, especially with the holidays coming up. I know people who have a Recaro Race seat, big screen TV, Wheel Controller w/ Shift Knob and Pedals set up as their GT playzone. So until you guys really play the game like that, I think you need to stop barking to the big dogs about how the game is just a re-hash. What kinds of Fans are you?

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