The video, below, showcases GT6’s cars and reveals one of the top priced, the Jaguar XJ13, which costs 20 million credits. You can grind for it in traditional Gran Turismo fashion or you can buy it straight away if you drop £119.95 – that’s the total you pay for two packs of 7m credits, two packs of 2.5m credits and one pack of 1m credits.
The issue is, will Gran Turismo’s progression system be adversely affected by microtransactions? Eurogamer’s Martin Robinson has been playing the game and tells me GT6’s economy works exactly the same as GT5’s, with progression, payouts and car prices very similar.
A12-hour-long “Day at the DMV” mode isn’t in the cards yet. Instead, the team has been hard at work developing two GPS-powered features that incorporate your real-life driving data into Gran Turismo 6.
The GT6 companion app will let you answer these burning questions, and others, using GPS coordinate data. When enabled, the app will trace your movement and record how far you traveled in the real world. You will then be able to import that data into Gran Turismo 6, which will generate a racetrack that follows the same path as the recorded data.However, the app only records the path you took and doesn’t record other details such as the road’s width or surrounding scenery. Those details will be fine-tuned using GT6’s course maker within the game itself.
This technology lets you visualizein GT6 every decision you made while driving in the real world. The way it works is that an automotive manufacturer attaches a small device to your car’s computer. This device then records data that the computer is receiving, such as throttle control, brake timing, steering angles, and whether or not you’re terrible at parallel parking.
However, these ideas are still in the realm of speculation. For the time being the GPS visualizer is primarily intended for personal improvement. A racer could complete a lap on the real-life Willow Springs, import that data into GT6, and watch the car in the game make the same decisions he did in real life on the virtual Willow Springs track.
So far, GPS visualizer technology has only been integrated into the Toyota 86 in Japan–as well as its North American counterpart, the Scion FR-S. The device will be available in Japan starting next spring as a dealer option for the 86. Together, these GPS-powered technologies represent an exciting step forward for Polyphony and the Gran Turismo series towards becoming a truly complimentary experience for car owners everywhere.