In addition to GTPlanet’s exclusive interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, where we discussed Gran Turismo 6 engine sounds and artificial intelligence, I also had the opportunity to attend a round-table discussion with him and a group of other journalists.

He discussed car selection, original track design, GT6‘s new mobile applications, and clears the air about Greenwood Roadway, that mysterious, abandoned racetrack in rural Iowa which bears a striking resemblance to Gran Turismo’s Deep Forest Raceway.

What drives your decision making process when you choose which cars to include in a new version of the game?

KY: “The first factor is if a car has historical significance, whether the car is something that is really considered a ‘treasure’, sort of. And, of course, the newest cars, and the sexy cars!

“Also, some of the cars we just come across by chance – they just come from out of the blue – and those cars are selected just because we have ties to it somehow.

“Sometime we go out searching for cars, but sometimes car manufacturers will show us their new cars and say ‘Hey, we have this, are you interested?’ If we end up really liking that car or end up liking the people involved in that car, we will often select it to be included.”

One of the new original tracks announced was Matterhorn. How has your approached to original track design evolved over the course of the franchise? How do you do things differently these days?

KY: “The tracks in GT1 and GT2, most of them were just designed by myself. It was just me designing those tracks, so I could do whatever I wanted!

“Looking at it now, I realize it is really tricky or strange terrain that we often laid the track on. I still like the tracks like that, but now, we have several teams of people working on a single track. Of course, with the photo realism of the tracks we build now, the requirements are much higher than they used to be.

“I think that’s one of the reasons why even though it’s an original course, we started basing them on real-world environments. The Yosemite course we had in the past was like that, because when you work with a very large team, it’s a lot easier to work if you have a single clear goal you are all working towards.

“But I think that, for myself, that’s not enough. I would like to see more fantasy tracks, and I think we will make more fantasy tracks in the future as well, and bring up the level of the tracks so they are more photo realistic, so it’s fantasy but looks real.”

Regarding tracks, you may have heard there is a track in Iowa, Greenwood Roadway, which is very similar to Deep Forest. What are your thoughts on that?

KY: “Ahhhh! Yes, it’s really by accident. I was really surprised when I saw your article.

“Back when we were making Deep Forest, going outside of the country to data capture a track was just out of the question.”

One of the interesting things at E3 this year has been the proliferation of companion mobile and tablet applications, and that’s one of the features you’ve already announced will be included with GT6. What are some of the things that you are hoping to accomplish with the mobile apps, and where do you want that functionality to go in the future?

KY: “I can’t really go into details yet, here at E3, but in GT5 there were a lot of online features of which just the community feature was missing. We really want to support that well in GT6, and we realize that in managing and interacting with the community, you don’t necessarily have to be using a PS3 for it.

“I think a smartphone or a PC or a tablet is much more suited for this purpose. That’s why we want to support that.

“I’m also concerned about balance when we actually implement these features, because GT6 is not a “social game” – it is a driving simulator. We want users to be satisfied with these features and appreciate them without screwing up the balance of the game.

“We’ll go into more details on this at another opportunity.”

Besides making the game even more realistic than it’s been in the past, is there anything about the culture of motorsports or racing that’s changed in the last few years that you’re looking to capture in GT6?

KY: “I think this is another thing that we’re not really able to get into details at this time, but one of the major themes of GT6 is that edge effect of how we affect the car industry and other industries around the world, and how they affect us as well.

“When these ecosystems intersect with each other, you get some very interesting results and new things are born from them.

“That’s something that we have focused on in GT6, and is sort of outside the evolution of a normal racing game, but that’s something that kind of opens up new possibilities and brings up a lot of new and interesting things for people to experience and that’s what our focus is on.

“We’ve done things like improved the rendering engine and improved the physics, and that’s a very important part of the core of the game, but we want to both keep the basics in line and updated properly while branching out into new fields like that as well.

“As I mentioned earlier, in addition to working on the physics engine, rendering engine, AI, and sound simulation, we are really working to a higher target for these things, and one of these days we will be able to show everyone the outcome of what we are able to achieve.”

What feature of GT6 are you personally most excited to see implemented?

KY: “It might be a strange answer, but making Gran Turismo kind of made me realize again just how fun cars are, and you never grow tired of them, and I feel that every day.”

Do you guys ever look for inspiration outside of the racing genre, or draw inspiration from places aside from other racing games?

KY: “I think so, because I love my iPad and my iPad games – I play a lot of those!  I think Bad Piggies is a really cool game!

“I think if I saw that game when I was in elementary school, I think it would be one of the favorite games of my entire lifetime! I was even playing that before I went to sleep last night!”