UNINNOVATE / Engineering At Its Finest

According to an online summary of an interview with Kanzunori Yamauchi appearing in the latest issue of Famitsu magazine, Gran Turismo HD for Sony’s Playstation 3 won’t include any cars to race or tracks to race them on:

Gran Turismo HD: Classic is what adopts the GT:HD playable demo at E3 and meant to showcase the online aspect. A race is done with about 20 cars. Apparently this part starts with no cars or courses. You download a car for 50 - 100 yen (0.43 - 0.85$) and a course for 200 - 500 yen (1.71 - 4.26$). Over 750 cars and 50 tracks are available for purchase. Users can define race events freely and can hold online race events by themselves.

GT HD Premium = GT5 Prologue | GT HD Classic = GT:HD at E3 - Beyond3D Forum

While these details can’t be confirmed until Sony or the developer of Gran Turismo makes an official statement, it appears users will be expected to purchase each car and track separately.  Additional details in the interview summary outline Sony’s plan to create demand for cars by limiting the number of downloads available for particular models or only offering certain models for a limited amount of time.

While this strategy might appear shocking to some, Sony has been working towards this all along.  In an interview in June 2006, the president of Sony Worldwide Studios hinted at this plan:

“Imagine Gran Turismo shipping on a disc with one car and one track. And then you can browse, online, a dynamic circuit of vehicles that’s growing every day because either the car manufacturers are adding new vehicles or we’re adding new vehicles. And you can see a specific-type car that’s being called up and say, “I think I’ll play with that one. Let me download and play it.” Maybe the business model allows you to play it for a day; maybe the business model allows you to own it forever.”

The Overlord: Phil Harrison Talks Sony, PS3 and the Future from 1UP.com

Unfortunately, there is no mention of a plan to allow gamers to resell purchased content if they ever sell their copy of Gran Turismo HD to someone else.  If Sony follows a similar model as Microsoft and ties all downloads to the user account that purchased them, users who resold the game to someone else would be stuck with useless content while the purchaser of the game would have to buy the same content again from Sony.  Without the extra content, there is nothing to do in the game.  In effect, Sony would be dismantling the market for used games by using DRM to lock downloads to individual users and making the games themselves nearly worthless. 

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