Gran Turismo 6 will have a large day one patch
Online to be updated upon release, with more to follow over 12 months.
Gran Turismo 6 will receive a sizable day one patch upon its release this December, with updates set to roll out in a support period scheduled to last 12 months.
Following news that the audio - an area of contention for many players of Polyphony's series - likely won't be updated for the release of Gran Turismo 6, creator Kazunori Yamauchi confirmed to Eurogamer that a large day one patch will update other features within the game.
"It's the same every time," said Yamauchi. "Everything's very tight. It's an incredibly tight schedule. As to being able to include everything we want to on day one, we probably won't be able to. I think for the 12 months following the release we'll continue to update the software. Because in Gran Turismo 6 we're preparing a lot of different things we haven't even touched on yet."
Gran Turismo 5's release in 2010 also featured a large day one patch that introduced multiplayer to the game. There'll be multiplayer on day one in Gran Turismo 6, with a new and improved online lounge that allows players to set up championships and races with more ease, and also via smartphone and PC apps. "The system we had in Gran Turismo 5 was hard to understand. In Gran Turismo 6 it'll be more clear cut," said Yamauchi.
It's likely that some of the online will also be updated on day one. "I can be almost certain that there'll be a day one patch applied," said Yamauchi. "The online features are already working - we'll be updating it with a day one patch, and we're still overflowing with stuff we'd like to do. So I think the day one patch will be a fairly large patch."
With Gran Turismo 6 reliant on patches and updates to deliver its features and content, Yamauchi addressed the idea of the series moving towards acting as a service in the future rather than a boxed product, and whether Gran Turismo 7 could be released in a Prologue version that expanded over time.
"I think you're sort of right in that we've really changed how we make games now. Even now when we're near the end of development [on Gran Turismo 6] we're still creating features that will be provided in this game in updates later on. I think it's a possibility that one day these types of update will be continuing for our titles. More recently, the speed of our output is much, much faster."