This year at the upcoming Goodwood Festival of Speed (July 11-14) a demo version of the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 6 for PlayStation 3 will make one high-profile debut. With a crowd of 185,000+, the Festival of Speed is by far the biggest motoring event of its kind. And what better place is there to show off this prominent racing game than to the biggest motor sports enthusiasts in the world. Iconic, circular Gran Turismo ‘race pods’ will be set up at various locations around the exciting Goodwood Park for fans to come and try out the new demo to prepare for the game going on sale later in the year.
Gran Turismo is PlayStation’s biggest ever game franchise, having sold more than 70 million copies since launching in 1998. Having recently announced that Gran Turismo 6 will be on sale later in the year, Kazunori Yamauchi, the game’s legendary creator and president of developer Polyphony Digital Inc, was keen to showcase the new game with the discerning Goodwood audience.
The partnership will see GT6™ ‘pods’ located at the Goodwood Hotel, the FoS Family area and in the members’ enclosure as well as in the Drivers’ Club and media centre. In keeping with Gran Turismo’s long track record for close and innovative partnerships with a number of automotive manufacturers, pods will also be located on the Nissan and Alfa Romeo stands and in the Nissan, Mercedes Benz and Ford areas of the Moving Motor Show.
Nissan, PlayStation’s partner in the innovative GT Academy programme that aims to take the best Gran Turismo gamers and turn them into real racing drivers, will be hosting a competition at Goodwood for the fastest gamers on the GT6 demo to win places directly into the UK national finals of the competition. GT Academy is currently live online for anyone with a PlayStation to enter. Furthermore, two previous GT Academy graduates very recently achieved a fourth in class and top 10 overall finish at the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours. The ‘wildcard’ event will take place at Nissan’s Moving Motor Show display, with one person each day winning their ticket to the next round of the Academy.
Kazunori Yamauchi himself will be a welcome visitor to the 2013 Goodwood Festival of Speed. A keen amateur racer, Yamauchi-san will be donning his overalls and helmet for some high-adrenaline drives up the famous hill climb course in a number of stunning cars. With a reputation as a perfectionist, no doubt his experience behind the wheel will go into further refining some of the expected 1200 cars that will feature on Gran Turismo 6 at launch!
