Gran Turismo 5 coming in 2007, says Yamauchi

The next home console iteration of the Gran Turismo series is currently scheduled to arrive in 2007 and will be "100 times more detailed" than GT4, according to Polyphony Digital boss Kazunori Yamauchi.

Yamauchi - considered to be the man behind the Gran Turismo franchise, which has sold around 44 million units in total - was speaking in an interview with Croatian car magazine Auto Klub.

While most of the interview related to the older games in the series, Yamauchi commented that he "hopes that GT5 will be finished during 2007", and that the next game will be "100 times more detailed than GT4" - although he didn't say whether this relates merely to graphics or also to other elements of the game, such as physics or vehicle tuning.

The game is likely to be promoted as an early "killer app" for the PlayStation 3, and it's no surprise to see the team trying to return to a two year product cycle after the extremely long delays suffered by Gran Turismo 4.

The next GT game to arrive, of course, will be Gran Turismo 4 on the PlayStation Portable, and it's known that Polyphony Digital was considering creating an online version of GT4 for the PS2 at some point in the future - although whether this plan is still on the table remains to be seen.

Sony has indicated that several PS3 titles may be shown off in some form at TGS this September - and while 2007 is a long way off, it's not unlikely that a concept trailer of GT5 could be on the cards.

Auto Klub magazine via the GTPlanet Forums