Soldato
It is a bad sign for the gaming indusrty as a whole if this works out to be true.
I hope this is just a dodgy rumour
I hope this is just a dodgy rumour
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3153775 said:Gran Turismo HD: Two Versions, Tons Microtransactions
Famitsu reports a brand new model for Gran Turismo on PS3.
by Luke Smith, 09/20/2006
46 of 46 users recommend this story.
There's horse armor and then there's the kind of microtransactions that Famitsu is reporting (via: Beyond3D and the vitriolic NeoGAF). According to the Famitsu inteview with Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo HD will have two SKUs on the PS3. One of these games will ship with no cars, all of them will be purchased via microtransactions.
The other, Gran Turismo HD: Premium, will ship with two courses and 30 cars, with an additional 30 cars and an additional two courses online at a later date. The Premium game is being considered a prologue to the PS3's eventual Gran Turismo 5.
The microtransaction-focused game, Gran Turismo HD: Classic will be the online-focused entrant into the GT-series. In this game, players will (reportedly) start with no cars or courses available to them. Instead, they will need to purchase their stable of cars and courses to race on. The pricing reported in the Famitsu piece indicated that cars would cost between 50-100 yen ($0.43-$0.85) and courses between 200-500 yen ($1.71-$4.26). There are approximiately 750 cars and 50 tracks available for purchase in the GT: HD Classic. Let's do the math:
750 cars for $0.50-$1.00 (Sony will round-up, don't you think?)
50 tracks for $1.50-$4.50
A complete copy of the game will cost gamers somewhere between $426.50 and $975, and that's without factoring in whatever Sony decides to charge for the menus (since that's all you'll get with GT HD: Classic).
Does this sound a little familiar? It should. Phil Harrison alluded to a possible future like this one last June in OPM.
I'll give you an example; Kazunori [Yamauchi, producer of the Gran Turismo series] would kill me for this: Imagine Gran Turismo shipping on a disc with one car and one track. And then you can browse, online, a dynamic circuit of vehicles that's growing every day because either the car manufacturers are adding new vehicles or we're adding new vehicles. And you can see a specific-type car that's being called up and say, "I think I'll play with that one. Let me download and play it." Maybe the business model allows you to play it for a day; maybe the business model allows you to own it forever. But that content is now yours on your hard drive. Or [maybe you could download] new tracks, new music, whole games.
Now, is it possible that the game will be a full-priced title with a built-in download system that allows users to download cars and tracks equal to the number of the game's retail price? We hope the model ends up similar to this. However, right now, details are extremely sparse, and Sony has to have an answer to these questions -- most of the people who can answer are over in Tokyo, we'll update if we hear back.
Welcome to next-gen.