We also learned how many users did Gran Turismo Sport get – this game went with a more eSports-oriented approach due to Polyphony Digital using a different approach.

Kazunori Yamauchi, the head of Polyphony Digital and the father of Gran Turismo, was interviewed by Octane, where he talked about both the three-year-old PlayStation 4-exclusive Gran Turismo Sport, as well as the previously announced but not that shown PlayStation 5-exclusive Gran Turismo 7. „We see Gran Turismo as an avant-garde title, and have consciously incorporated new challenges with each change of generation. That’s why each series has its fans, but sometimes the changes come to users as a surprise.

For example, with Gran Turismo Sport, which is available now, we took on a full-scale eSports challenge as our first online-dedicated title, but some people may have considered this bizarre. We acquired 9.5 million users as a result, but it didn’t sell like crazy from the beginning—more like appreciation gradually grew and support increased over three years.

With Gran Turismo Sport, I think we were able to achieve our fairly ambitious design. That’s why with Gran Turismo 7, we’re carrying over elements that we brought out in Gran Turismo Sport like Championships, while also returning to a traditional full-scale experience like Gran Turismo 1 and 4 to offer the best Gran Turismo available. So fans of the old Gran Turismo may feel somewhat nostalgic,” Yamauchi said.

We’ll see later (by the end of the year). If Gran Turismo 7 will be as meaty as Gran Turismo 4 was in 2005 on the PS2, while keeping the eSport-touch (in a different game mode, for example), then the game, which is planned to arrive this year on the PlayStation 5, could get a lot of applause from the players.

Source: Gematsu