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Kaunori Yamauchi, the acclaimed director of Gran Turismo 5, has said that the game will probably not be available until late 2008, because they want to make it perfect. They could have it ready by Spring of 2008, but Sony have given them leeway to release as late as Q4.

Normally this notice would not be an issue as most Gran Turismo games are released off schedule and do look rather impressive. What should bother fans of the series is the fact that the developers want to make the game perfect, but again have no damage model included. I had to scratch my head on that one.

Found at Computer And Video Games.com

Why would someone make a statement wanting a racing game to be perfect, yet put absolutely no damage model in place for to the vehicles? The argument that they make about licensing issues does not seem to fly anymore as Forza 2 and PGR 3 both had damageable cars, and the damage affected the handling of the vehicles. But now I find out that in the perfect Gran Turismo 5 game, I will be able to ride the rails in a turn and use the other cars as necessary to win the race. Why not, after all, I don’t have to worry about damage.

They also talked about how difficult it is to render damage. This one made me laugh He mentioned that in order to render damage on a vehicle, you have to create two surfaces, one perfect and one crumpled. Then you have to account for lighting and shadows. Again, many racers on the market can do this. Even Metalstorm had great damage models and had to render all the crumpled panels along with the lighting and shadowing. So telling me that you can’t do what all your competitors are doing isn’t really going to help sales.

Look, I know that it is difficult to get licensing for cars when incorporating damage, but it is not as much of an issue as it was in the past. If you want to make a perfect racer, you have to include a damage model. Don’t tell me about how difficult damage is to render. Gran Turismo fans deserve better than the excuses being presented.