Gran Turismo 6 is a blend of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’, says Yamauchi

Sony has posted an interview with Gran Turismo 6 maestro Kazunori Yamauchi and SCEE CEO Jim Ryan, discussing the racer along with the series' 15 year history and how it kept the development team in tact for the duration.

Yamauchi said the team has worked hard over the years, and continually strives to make each game better than the last, and innovate along the way.

"The main thing that we try to do is to keep improving what’s in front of us," said Yamauchi. "There’s a lot of hard work there, but that’s what we enjoy doing. There’s a lot of fun to be had. I think that if we continue that hard work, something great is going to come out at the end of it. Maybe I’m thinking about it too simply, but that’s the idea, [and] improving what we’ve been doing has continued over the years.

"It’s not something that you can actually do all the time, even if you try. We’ve been really lucky that over the last 15 years we have in fact been able to do that, and that we’ve been able to do it with the same team. If you look at the wider game industry, there are not many places where they’ve kept the same team over the years working on the same title."

Yamauchi also said there comes a point when developing a new title in the series, it can be hard to tell a graphical difference between it and the last game in the series. It especially becomes harder to do once the hardware has matured.

"Professionals can tell, but a casual game player probably couldn’t," he said. "As for GT, we always love new technology; we’re always going to pursue it and implement it, whether it be improving the PS3 version or working on a PS4 version. The key thing with GT6 is the blending of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ – where something new and interesting will come to life from the merging of two totally different industries. The more you work on that, the more interesting it gets.

"It’s not really a matter of lessening the difference between real and virtual. The interesting part of it is when the ‘real’ starts to effect the ‘virtual’, and vice versa. How these different worlds start to affect each other is what we try and work on in GT, and it’s what makes GT so interesting."

During the interview, Ryan also reiterated what he told VG247 during the GT6 announcement, that the game would be released on PS3 due to its "70 million installed base" and how there have been two releases in the series per platform, so the latest is just a continuation of the pattern.

Gran Turismo 6 is out this holiday season on PS3 and a demo is slated for July.