We can't go little more than a day without a new development regarding Gran Turismo 7. Today's announcement though, may not directly impact the Real Driving Simulator, but we'd be surprised if it didn't. Sony Artificial Intelligence have announced a partnership with GT developers Polyphony and a "breakthrough collaboration".
So, with that in mind, what can we expect from this project? And what do we know so far? We've got everything you need to know right here!
A surprise announcement
News regarding GT7 has been coming thick and fast since the turn of the year. It's little wonder why, as GT7 will launch on 4th March this year, but we didn't expect to see this from Sony AI and Polyphony. We've got a little teaser as to what this project is, but the project itself will be announced at 4pm UK time tomorrow.
What is this project? Well, all we've gotten so far is that it's a “Gaming Flagship” and a “breakthrough project”.
In the teaser trailer, we see the light traces that we've seen a few times now in GT7 trailers. What they're trying to show isn't clear though, they might not be spelling anything out. We also saw snippers of GT World Tour champions Takuma Miyazono and Igor Fraga as well as finalist Emily Jones.
The trailer ended in a familiar room for those that have been paying attention to the trailers. It looks like Polyphony's Tokyo studio, the place we've seen GT creator Kazunori Yamauchi making Q&A presentations from regarding GT7.
No such thing as a coincidence
In police work and life, you're told that there's no such thing as coincidence, that everything has to happen for a reason. This announcement from Sony AI has incredible timing, as it's come less than a month before Gran Turismo 7's release date.
What's more, this has also come after the State of Play presentation where we learned loads about GT7. The clues are anything but subtle, as multiple GT World Series stars showed up in the trailer. Right at the start of the trailer as well, you can see someone holding up a mobile phone and wearing a red GT shirt.
It's no secret that Polyphony has been working on improving its AI for GT7. This though, could be about something even bigger than that and potentially revolutionise sim racing. GT could implement a system similar to MotoGP's Neural AI.
Neural AI, when done properly, allows the AI to learn from human racers and match their driving styles to that of real players. And who better to learn from than some of the fastest GT players in the world? Perhaps that trio's likenesses could be imported into the game as some kind of ultimate racing challenge?
Full Teaser Trailer
There are only 24 seconds to chew on from the teaser trailer, but they could be the start of something huge in video gaming history. We've linked the full trailer for you below, see if you can spot something we might've missed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MG_pecVKq_Y&t=1s