The father of Gran Turismo, Kazunori Yamauchi, has suggested that we might not see the full Gran Turismo 5 before 2010. Continued support for GT5 Prologue becomes even more important as a result. We’ll be seeing the first wave of that support tomorrow when Sony launches Gran Turismo TV in full force, which will consist of both free and pay-per-view programming, including Top Gear, Super GT, and Best Motoring. (You can find the full listing of content here.)

For the first two weeks, all of the PPV content will be available for the discounted price of $.99 before shooting back up to the regular pricing, where content “will start at $1.99.” You can draw your own conclusions about how expensive the programming might become.

Aside from the Gran Turismo TV updates, the game itself will be updated, too. Changes to penalty judgments, additional tire choices for Time Trial mode (I can only imagine how insanely boring that must sound to non-hardcore fans), and improved physics during collisions while playing online. Nothing game-changing from the sound of it, but tweaks are more than welcome.

You can find out more about Gran Turismo TV and tomorrow’s update on PlayStation.Blog.

The title of this story sure is a mixed bag for Gran Turismo fans. Joystiq got to speak with the father of Gran Turismo, Kazunori Yamauchi, and he revealed that Polyphony Digital is focusing on Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. He suggested that the proper version of Gran Turismo 5 might not be released before 2010, which somehow wouldn’t surprise me in the least.

Prologue should continue to see significant support, with new cars, tracks, and features. So there’s at least some consolation for GT fans.

But that’s not all — Yamauchi confirmed that Gran Turismo for PSP is still in development, although you shouldn’t expect that until after Gran Turismo 5 is released. So, yeah, it might be a while.

It has been one crazy week, and the craziest thing happening at home base while Jonathan and Shawn were in LA was the amount of assets we received in our inboxes on a daily basis. I have decided to post the lonely screens and trailers that did not get their very own post into one large post full of links. There’s just is not enough time to post them all, so this is the best way I know how.

While this is not a comprehensive list of what was not covered, it is close. There are more screens floating around out there that we have yet to get, but if or when we do, we will do our best to wow you with them.

Below you will find a list of games from A-N and a link to the trailer or screens for it. Be sure to look over the list carefully, because something you are interested in may be included. I have highlighted ones that may be of special interest.

Games O – Z are posted after the jump

50 Cent: Blood on the Sand Screens
Active Life Outdoor Challenge Trailer
Afro Samurai Screens
Age of Booty Screens
Age of Booty Trailer
AWAY Shuffle Dragon Screens
Babysitting Mania Screens
Bangai-O Spirits Screens
Bangai-O-Spirits Trailer
Battlestations Pacific Screens
Bionic Commando Screens
Bionic Commando Trailer
BioShock PS3 Screens
Borderlands Presentation Trailer
Borderlands Screens
BUZZ! Master Quiz Trailer
Champions Online B-Roll Trailer
Champions Online Screens
Chrono Trigger DS Screens
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 Trailer
Cooking Mama World Kitchen Screens
Dark Void Screens
Dark Void Trailer
Destroy All Humans: Path of the Furon Trailer
Digimon Championship Trailer
Digimon World Championship Screens
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen Screens
Dungeon Hero Screens
Elebits: The Adventures of Kai and Zero Screens
Empire: Total War Screens
Eternal Sonata PS3 Screens
Eternal Sonata PS3 Trailer
Final Fantasy IV DS Screens
Flock! Screens
Flock! Trailer
Gran Turismo 5: Prolouge Trailer
Heavy Duty Screens
I Am Alive Trailer (This looks rather interesting)
I Heart Geeks Screens
Infinite Space Screens
Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol Enc. 2 Screens
Kill Zone 2 Trailer
King’s Bounty: The Legend Trailer
LEGO Batman: The Video Game B-Footage Trailer
LEGO Batman: The Videogame Screens
Little King’s Story Screens
Luminous Arc 2 Teaser Trailer
Marker Man Adventures Screens
Marvel Ultimate Alliance II: Fusion Trailer
Mega Man 9 Screens
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames Trailer
Metal Gear Online Screens
Monster Lab Screens
Monster Madness: Grave Danger Screens
MySims Kingdom Screens
N+ Screens
N+ Trailer
Naruto: Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 Screens
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja STORM Screens
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja STORM Trailer
National Geographic Panda Screens
Neopets Puzzle Adventure Screens
NHL SK9 Screens

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As it turns out, GameStop’s claim that 64% of all copies of GTA IV sold were on Xbox 360 was spot on — 64.9% is the exact number if you do the math with NPD’s numbers for the month of April. Between the 360 and PS3 versions of the game, GTA IV managed to sell 2.85 million even though it was released on April 29 — not too shabby.

Mario Kart Wii, meanwhile, sold more than a million copies. That’s a million plastic wheels out there in the wild, imparing people’s ability to control the game properly. And of course, with the number of Wii systems that sold in April, you know you’re going to see a lot of Wii Play sales, and that we did. Smash Bros. had a big drop off, from 2.7 million in March down to 326k in April. Not that Nintendo should be complaining, with five of their games in the top ten, with six of the top ten on Nintendo platforms.

April 2008 Software Sales

GTA IV (360) – 1.85M
Mario Kart Wii w/ wheel (Wii) – 1.12M
GTA IV (PS3) – 1.00M
Wii Play (Wii) – 360,000
Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) – 326,000
Gran Turismo 5: Prologue (PS3) – 224,000
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness (DS) – 202,000
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time (DS) – 202,000
Guitar Hero III (Wii) – 152,000
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (360) – 141,000

Call of Duty 4 on 360 continues to do its best Mustafa impression, as it just refuses to be kicked out of the top ten. Could next month finally see it kicked out? I’m going to go ahead and predict a bold “no.”

Sony announced today that the cumulative worldwide shipment of the Gran Turismo franchise has exceeded 50 million units as of April 30, 2008. This sales figure was achieved over the past 10 years and 4 months since the launch of the first title in the franchise – Gran Turismo, in December 1997.

The Gran Turismo franchise, from the original Gran Turismo to the latest Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has received high regard not just from game fans, but also from professional racing drivers and people in the automobile industry.

The seventh installment, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, has recorded strong sales since the first launch in Japan in December, 2007, followed by North America and Europe in Spring of 2008, with more than 2 million units of cumulative shipment worldwide and contributing to the further expansion of the PS3 platform.

Title Release Dates in North America

• Gran Turismo – May 12, 1998
• Gran Turismo 2 – December 23, 1999
• Gran Turismo 3 A-spec – July 10, 2001
• Gran Turismo 4 – February 22, 2005
• Gran Turismo 5 Prologue – April 15, 2008

Via: Press Release

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has been a huge success, particularly in Europe, but Sony has told GamesIndustry.biz that it expects LittleBigPlanet to outsell the first significant GT game to come out in over three years. (Sorry, Gran Turismo HD simply doesn’t count.) I don’t think anyone is doubting the success of LBP, but outselling Gran Turismo is no small task.

“We’re hoping sales will be higher than GT5 Prologue,” said SCEE prez David Reeves. Kaz Hirai also spoke at this week’s PlayStation Day, and was quite high on the game.

“These are genre-defining titles, something we’re very proud of, and just one facet of the rapidly growing world of PlayStation,” said Kaz Hirai, president of SCEA.

“[LittleBigPlanet] will completely revolutionise the way gamers interact with their games, especially through the community functions and the ability to interact with LittleBigPlanet lovers around the globe,” he added.

So, anyone want to place any bets? How many sales do you expect to see LBP sell in its first few months at retail?

With Gran Turismo 5 Prologue now in gamers’ hands, Sony and Polyphony Digital have their sights set on really taking the online aspect of Gran Turismo to a whole new level. While online play was an important step forward, we’ve been playing Forza online for years. So what’s so different about their plan for Gran Turismo? How does social networking for car enthusiasts sound?

“Our goal is to become another medium for car companies, like magazines and TVs,” Taku Imasaki, the US senior producer for Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, told Reuters. “We’re the perfect game for that and ideally we could become the MySpace or Facebook for auto enthusiasts.”

I know a few friends who would love something like that, but I’m not sure how a social network could sustain itself on a single game system. If that was expanded to work on PCs, then they might be onto something, but it’ll really come down to execution and hoping that people aren’t suffering from social networking fatigue.

via GameDaily

Def Leppard’s Guitar Hero III outing and the obligatory weekly dose of Rock Band tracks (now finally with a full album!), there’s a ton of great new content now available on the PlayStation Store. The biggest release is certainly the Variety Map Pack ($10) for Call of Duty 4 which naturally includes four new multiplayer maps.

A new PS one Classic was also released today with R-Types ($6), ending that particular drought. (Even though you and I both know we probably won’t see another Classic for weeks.) There’s also the Biolith Rebellion 2 expansion set for The Eye of Judgment, whichs adds more than 100 new creatures, spells and abilities, so that sounds like a must-buy for fans of The Eye.

There’s also plenty of videos, demos of both echochrome and Iron Man, a map pack for Army of Two, downloadable songs for Karaoke Revolution, and more. So hit the break and check out everything now available for download.

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You would think that, with no updates to the PlayStation Store for PC other than a cosmetic update to match the PS3’s update, this week would be a fairly significant. But you’d be wrong.

All there is this week is basically a message that says, “You should envy PlayStation 3 owners,” in the form of two new videos of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

That’s it. That’s all. Maybe next week will be a little better.

• * GT5 Prologue Friendly Fires Video
• * GT5 Prologue Beyond the Apex Trailer

It’s been two weeks now since there’s been a real update to the PlayStation Store, so much of what’s been released today is catching up for missing out on the past few weeks – Rock Band songs, videos, and a UEFA Euro 2008 demo.

Of course, the big news is that Gran Turismo 5 Prologue has been released. I’ve spent some time today playing it, and I think it’ll be a fine holdover for diehard Gran Turismo fans.

The new Warhawk Broken Mirror pack is also now available for $8, as well as a bundle with both the Broken Mirror and Omega Dawn DLC packs.

Hit the break for the full list of content. Read the full article »