Imagine - Vaporware - Gran Turismo 4 Mobile (PSP)

Do you remember the initial promise of Sony with regards 3 broadband the PlayStation Portable? Amazing games, Adsl Speed Test the go, all the time. Right....Indeed, it does sound like amazing fun, so why is it that the flagship title that the game the machine was created Tm Speedometer still hasn't arrived? Yes we are looking, this evening, at Gran Turismo 4 Mobile.

GT4 Mobile was announced at the E3 press conference on May 11, 2004, the same conference where Sony announced the PlayStation Portable. What hasn't been announced, however, is the reason for the five-year delay. Considering that the title is essentially at its core a port of the PlayStation 2 version of GT4, it seems likely tm net promotion assume that the PSP is having storage issues, as the hardware surely couldn't be an issue. Since the last public display of the title, GT4 Mobile has since been delayed repeatedly and its completion has been pushed back until after Gran Turismo 5 is finished - whenever that is...

Since GT4 Mobile's announcement there have been a number of titles that have trickled out of developer Polyphony's little studio, such as GT5: Prologue and Tourist Trophy, titles that, dare I say, we could have done without Dialup lieu of a great racer for PSP. Tourist Trophy was a good effort and all, but as sales figures went on to show, people want cars - not bikes. In the case of GT5: Prologue, however, it's a little different! Gran Turismo 5 started out life as GT: HD Concept, a fully featured title, before being stripped to bare-bones presumably due to a lack of development time while the studio worked on the final Gran Turismo 5 release. With so much success behind them with the previous titles, especially Gran Turismo 3, you would think Polyphony would understand that you don't spread the butter too thin.

Looking at our OLC Vaporline, you can definitely see that for the past half a decade the spectre of GT4 Mobile still looms over PSP's future, uncertain and unable to gain substance.

* Announced at the E3 press conference on May 11th 2004, Gran Turismo Mobile is well received by the press and general public. What's noteworthy about this presentation is that it featured the first public display of the PlayStation Portable console itself.

* The game is notably absent from the Tokyo Game Show tmnet streamyx hotline September 2004. This is notable, as Sony always presents it's flagship titles at this event in order for the public to get a taste of what to expect.

* Towards the end of 2004 Kazunori Yamauchi, producer of Gran Turismo, claims that the main fundamentals of the title have been finished and only the 'make-up' remains to be applied in order to alleviate some of the disappointment regarding the earlier no-show.

* 2004 turns into 2005 and the original release date of April 2005 passes silently. The E3 trade show also passes without mention from either Sony or Polyphony Digital regarding the development of GT4 Mobile. Strange that the game would be missing due to the fact that traditionally all the big titles for the rest of the fiscal year premiere at this event.

* It misses the Tokyo Game Show again, Sony comment by saying that the title will ship sometime within the 2006 calendar year. By now the media are beginning to question the capabilities of the portable.

* Speaking about GT4 Mobile in 2006 Yamauchi states: "We're of course considering PlayStation 3 and PSP connectivity, similar to how a PC connects with a cell phone. I still can't comment though." This implies that development is still ongoing.

* 2007 passes, during which nothing is heard - at all!

* In April 2008, Yamauchi states that developing GT5 "took much more time and effort than we had first imagined" and he doesn't expect the PSP title to be released in 2008. At least he's being honest.

* November 2008, Yamuachi tells IGN "I can only answer the same for that as well, but it is moving forward. It hasn't been knocked off the plans: it's there."

* 2009 arrives, still nothing as of March 12th.

So either one of several things need to happen for the studio - the best one being canceling the damn game, be done with it and move on. The other options include firing Yamauchi (not likely) or creating a special subdivion, hired specifically to finish the PSP title. Something needs to happen, badly, because the smell of vapor coming from Polyphonic Digital is certainly getting stale.

Shaun McIlroy

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