Sadly, we are here to talk again about a dark page in the history of the Ps3. This time I can't blame Sony for what is happening, I guess they're pretty pissed off too!
Here the thing, Gran Turismo 5 has been delayed once again. It seems like we're never getting this game in our houses.
The huge let down in all this story is not due to the fact that this game should have been released in early 2k9. Polyphony is well known for it's search of perfection and consequently it's costant inettitude in respecting the deadlines for a release.
In addition to that, I want also to state that the real torment was not waiting all this time, the game developers never gave a precise release date, they always said "We'll try and release it for this period". And usually far from reaching the date an announcement setted the date further.
The very disappointment this time is about the metodology: first they give us an exact release date, which was by the way November 2nd, and two weeks from this date they postpone it to a vague "holidays 2010"...WHAT THE FXXK DOES IT MEANS?
The game was probably completed at least 1-2 months ago. They're a showing it everywhere Sony is exposing it's new 3D TVs....make.believe, uh?
It is clear that this time the delay is due to commercial motivations. Too much competitors are in the store during November, as if GT5 should be intimidated by other developers. Considering also that no racing games are expected for this period (the best I can think is the new NFS, I don't consider minor, nevertheless appreciable, releases such as WRC). There is a big competitions between action/fps: AC:Brotherhood, CallOfDuty VS MedalOfHonor and so on. But my opinion was that GT5 was one of the games that if you buy it it's because you're eager to drive!
On the contrary Polyphony seems to not believe in it's product, and consequentially I think that the loss of image of the product after this news can be pretty considerable.
They're pointing to the granny's money, the bills that come out after christmas, the pity money in the videogames industry (in the sense that November & March releases are bought because you desperately want to) as if they don't really expect much from this huge work.
I think they're doing everything wrong, loss of image and lost of patience of the hardcore players leads to less copies sold, lower selling leads to money loss for Polyphony which I'm pretty sure are already very low on liquids (make a guess, how much do you think that GT5 is costing per-day to Polyphony? If I were the Game Manager of the project I would be afraid to make that calculation) and all this story will not do better for them.
Sadly I will state that sometimes it's better to patch a game (overall considering that we're talking about polishing the game not reducing some major problems). But usually delays are not in the 2-3 years period, seems they're trying to emulate the Duke Nukem Forever history.
So...sorry Polyphony, probably I will buy your product on day-one, but this time it will not an act of faith, I will read a lot of reviews and tryed maybe a demo before feeling as if I MUST have it.
