Gran Turismo (series)

• 1. Introduction

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  Gran Turismo began with a rejection. When Kazunori Yamauchi, then an employee at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, first pitched the idea of a realistic racing simulator in 1992, Sony turned him down. His small team, originally five people, kept working on it anyway as a side project. After that team proved itself with the arcade racing games Motor Toon Grand Prix and Motor Toon Grand Prix 2, Yamauchi went back to Sony with the same idea. This time, they said yes.

  The result, released for the PlayStation in Japan in 1997, would go on to become the highest-selling game on that console. More than 100 million units across the series have since sold worldwide, making it the highest-selling franchise under the PlayStation brand. What is it about a driving simulator that captured so many millions of players? And how did a game about licensing tests and oil changes become a platform for real-world motorsport, Olympic competition, and a Hollywood film?

• 2. The Physics of Play

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  Yamauchi's team spent five years building the first Gran Turismo, and the care showed in how the cars actually moved. The simulation captures what the source describes as "real-world dynamics such as weight transfer, suspension response, and understeer/oversteer characteristics". Players feel this through the rumble features of PlayStation controllers and through specialized racing wheels designed specifically for Gran Turismo and sim racing.

  The series was the first modern simulator of the 21st century to actively promote racing with a wheel rather than a standard controller. Each game typically starts a player with a modest number of credits, usually 10,000, which they use to buy vehicles from manufacturer-specific shops or from used car dealers. Certain events are only open to particular types of vehicles, and a license-testing system guides players through driving techniques before they can enter more demanding races.

  The gap in visual fidelity across generations tells its own story. Cars in the first two games were built from 300 polygons each. By Gran Turismo 3 and 4, that figure had climbed to 4,000. The premium cars in Gran Turismo 5 were constructed from 500,000 polygons. The series has consistently served as a showcase for what PlayStation hardware could render, and Polyphony Digital built that expectation into every release.

• 3. Building the Garage

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  The first Gran Turismo arrived with 150 licensed vehicles, a roster larger than any other simulator of its time. Gran Turismo 2 expanded that to 650, and was large enough to require two discs. Gran Turismo 4 pushed the count to 700, while the PlayStation Portable installment released in 2009 offered 800 cars across 35 tracks, each track having a reversed layout version.

  Carmakers noticed what was happening to their sales figures. Mitsubishi said the American launch of the Lancer Evolution VIII was partially inspired by the game's popularity. The first seven models of the Lancer Evolution had been sold only in Japan, but the eighth came to the United States in part because Gran Turismo had built an audience for it there. TVR, a British car brand, saw sales increase six-fold after it appeared in the first game.

  The relationship deepened over time into something more collaborative. The Vision Gran Turismo project brought together Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen, Nissan, Chaparral, Subaru, Mazda, Infiniti, Alpine, Dodge, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Ferrari, and other manufacturers to design virtual concept cars specifically for the series. In 2005, Maeda Corporation, working with Tokyo University of Science, even researched whether the fictional Grand Valley Speedway from the games could be built as a real-world circuit.

• 4. From Screen to Track

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  Gran Turismo 5, released for the PlayStation 3 in 2010, introduced the GT Academy, a program that made a direct claim: the best players of the game could become the best drivers in real motorsport. The program ran from 2008 to 2016 as a partnership between Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, Polyphony Digital, and Nissan Europe. Online qualifiers were held inside Gran Turismo itself, with top performers advancing to national finals in each participating country. The country winners then traveled to a Race Camp at Silverstone in the United Kingdom for final selection.

  Winners entered a Driver Development Program designed by Nissan to train and license them as professional racers competing worldwide. The four winning drivers were expected to join the Nismo Global Driver Exchange and race in the Dubai 24 Hour. Lucas Ordóñez, Jordan Tresson, and Jann Mardenborough all came through the program and went on to professional motorsport careers. The results were notable enough that four GT Academy drivers were ultimately barred from the British GT championship's gentleman driver category, because they were judged to be too skilled to qualify as amateurs.

  The series also served as technical support for cars in the LMP1 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Nürburgring 24-hour race, and its sponsorship extended to Super GT, Super Formula, and the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb from November 2014 onward.

• 5. Controversy and Records

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  Gran Turismo Sport, released in 2017 for the PlayStation 4, broke sharply from series tradition. It was the first Gran Turismo to focus entirely on online racing, meaning it had no single-player mode and no career mode, and thus no concept of "car ownership" as earlier games had built it. Fans were initially divided over the changes. The game eventually found a strong audience in esports.

  By contrast, the broader franchise had earned seven world records from Guinness World Records, recognized in the Gamer's Edition 2008. Those records included "Largest Number of Cars in a Racing Game", "Highest Selling PlayStation Game", "Oldest Car in a Racing Game", and "Largest Instruction Guide for a Racing Game". In December 2013, the city of Bathurst in Australia unveiled a street named Gran Turismo Drive in recognition of Mount Panorama Circuit's inclusion in Gran Turismo 6. Mayor Gary Rush described the circuit as "a life changing experience for those who have the chance". That same year, a street in Ronda, Spain was named Paseo de Kazunori Yamauchi in honor of the series creator.

• 6. Olympic Stage and the Film

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  In 2021, the FIA and the International Olympic Committee hosted the Olympic Virtual Series, and Gran Turismo Sport was used for the motorsport event, structured as an online time trial open to all Sport Mode players. Two years later, Gran Turismo 7 served as the motorsport event for the inaugural Olympic Esports Week, held in Singapore from the 22nd to the 25th of June 2023. The final was won by France's Kylian Drumont.

  The path to a theatrical film was longer and less direct. Sony Pictures announced a film adaptation in 2013, with Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti producing and a script by Alex Tse. Joseph Kosinski was attached to direct in 2015, but by 2018 that version was no longer moving forward. On the 26th of May 2022, a new version was announced with Neill Blomkamp set to direct, and on the 14th of June 2022 it was confirmed he would. The film was intended as a non-fiction coming-of-age story centered on GT Academy 2011 graduate Jann Mardenborough and his transition from gamer to professional racing driver.

  Filming began in Hungary in November 2022 and wrapped in December. Archie Madekwe played Mardenborough, with David Harbour as Jack Salter, the instructor who teaches him to drive a real car, and Orlando Bloom as Danny Moore. Djimon Hounsou and Geri Halliwell-Horner played Mardenborough's parents. The film was released on the 25th of August 2023.