You've Been Patient For Gran Turismo 5 This Long, Wait Just A Little Longer.

It was sad to hear Gran Turismo 5 will release March, 2010 in Japan. Sad, but also kind of comforting — because you know Kaz Yamauchi (Polyphony honcho) and his team will be working tirelessly right up to the minute the game has to be shipped to make this the best racing game since sliced bread. In many ways, this is Polyphony’s life; they live their passion and they do it best. In many instances, we don’t expect Gran Turismo will ever truly be finished, we imagine Kaz and his team could work forever on the game and still not be done. Still, fans want to play the game and they’ll finally get to do that this coming March in Japan. But what about the rest of the world? Kaz says that’s still to be decided; “I don’t think it’s going to be that different for US and Europe,” Joystiq report from Kaz’s GT event in Japan, “Marketing is still discussing their issues.” The issues being that God Of War III is due to release in the very same month; something Sony would love to spread about.

Still, Kaz has been on hand to talk about the game’s features. And well, there’s a lot to be excited for. Firstly the single player; GT mode returns with the garage, tuning shop and license tests. Sweet. What about the new though? There’s a new physics model with realtime damage for all the “normal” cars. Hybrid and electric cars are to be added to the game’s roster, filling out a mammoth 950 vehicle selection pool. There will also be 70 tracks spanning 20 different locations – perhaps a little thin but there’s always the promise of DLC in the future.

It’s the online that will see the most expansion though, with support for lobbies, private rooms and text/voice chat. There’ll also be online photo albums, replays with the ability to export to Youtube and an improved Gran Turismo TV. Not to mention the game also now features head-tracking via the Playstation Eye.

So basically, it’s got everything but the kitchen sink. And rightly it should too, it’s been in development for nearly 5 years. Now is the time to hush down on the Gran Turismo hype and let Kaz and his team finish it. They’ll let us know when it’s time to take notice.

Update @ 19:06 – Stop press! Polyphony have just reiterated that Gran Turismo 5 will indeed feature night/day cycles and weather; the latter of which accurately effecting your tires, for example in the rain.

Attendance Was Slightly Down At TGS This Year.

The figures are in and the news out of Tokyo is that attendance was slightly down for this year’s Tokyo Game Show. While the business days remained largely unchanged, it was the weekend public attendance that saw the biggest drop with fewer people visiting the convention than previous years. The numbers will still largely impressive though with 185,030 people attending the show in total; just 9,000 less than 2008.

We assume the impending threat of Swine Flu and the recession were to blame for the change in attendance.

Seems like there is some bureaucracy involved in the lead up to Assassin’s Creed II’s plot. The trailer depicts an angry Ezio watch on as his father is sentenced to death. We’re going to go out on a limb and suggest his father was wrongly sentenced death. Probably because of corruption.

The trailer also features those crazy ass wings. Dude.

We’ve known there’s been a new Yakuza coming for a while now. But now we can all finally see what it looks like via this Yakuza 4: Heir To The Dragon Tokyo Game Show trailer. And the verdict is… It looks a lot like a Yakuza game! It’s hard to get excited when us Westerners are still waiting for the release of Yakuza 3. Yeah.

Dynasty Warriors Online Is The Latest In A String Of MMOs To Be Announced For PS3.

Stop press: Dynasty Warriors Online is making the jump to the Playstation 3! We know you’re excited. To be honest there are no real details as of yet, aside from this awesome little Flash teaser website. We can infer a lot from the game’s title however; it’s Dynasty Warriors Online. So if you like Dynasty Warriors and the Internet, well, hallelujah.

Unlike The Slightly Creepy Playstation Home, Room Is All Super Stylised.

Well this has taken bloody long enough. We’ve been expecting this for months. Sony have taken the idea of Playstation Home and scaled it down for the PSP — readers, meet Playstation Room.

Playstation Room will be added to the PSP’s XMB and will offer a complete digital service for designing 3D avatars and spaces, along with blog, album, group gathering and chat support. That a service as complex as Playstation Room is coming to the Playstation Network, bodes well for the inclusion of features such as friends lists and – dare we say – trophies joining the Playstation Portable. Of course if you don’t want to use this, you don’t have to. No one will force you.

Sackboy Will Find His Home In Japanese PSPs This December.

VG247.com have discovered a little tid-bit as part of a TGS fact sheet — LittleBigPlanet PSP is due to release in the East this December. We’re still listed as an “autumn” release here in Europe, hopefully Sony can provide a few more concrete details over the coming months.