--OkeyDokey-- said:

...

With all of the work his company is putting into the next console GTinstallment, Yamauchi tells us that it hasn't forgotten the long-delayed Gran Turismo 4 Mobilefor PSP. He confirms that the game - originally announced at E3 2004 - is still actively in development, although it isn't planned for release until after GT5. That would be 2011 for those with pen and calendar in hand.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/07/17/kazunori-yamauchi-more-prologue-no-gt5-soon-gt-psp-still-comi/

Ok, I'll bite. I've got GT5:Prologue and Forza 2 sitting here in my living room. I've played both now quite a bit on a 42" Sharp Aquos 1080P LCD. In terms of graphics, GT5:Prologue, in almost every way, beats Forza 2 in the graphics department. I had to play each quite a bit to appreciate how much better *most* of the graphics are in GT5:P. That said, Forza's physics models for car handling, braking, drift, understeer, oversteer, FWD, AWD, body roll, nosedive, etc., are better than GT5:P. Period. This isn't fanboy rant as I frankly don't give a flying flip either way -- credit goes where credit is due. Forza has crash damage and yes, it isn't real-world, but ANY crash damage is better than NONE and it is pretty cool. I realize GT5 full is supposed to have crash damage and additional improvements in overall physics. But it isn't here yet... All I have to compare TODAY is Forza 2 and GT5. If I could have the best of both worlds, I'd take the graphics engine on GT5 and the physics model of Forza.

Forza 3 better bring it strong (graphically). 1080P 60fps is the standard now.

That distinction is irrelevant in terms of development cost. If this game has 900 cars, 900 artists would have to work for 6 months to build those cars (although some cars are probably just modifications of others). 450 artists would work for a year, or 225 artists for two years... This kind of numbers is pretty eye-opening when you think about it.

@dbot: Agreed, if that's indeed how it works out.

The mythical man month doesn't really work like that because of dependencies. The easiest way to think of that is that one woman can have a baby in 9 months so can two women have a baby in 4.5 months? With this, two artists don't have the time exactly (though it does get reduced unlike the baby example).

I also wouldn't be surprised if that six months number was an exaggeration.

And one last thing-- 900 cars is a little excessive. Sure, it's a great bragging point but how many users are actually going to see all 900? This is a perfect example of a studio just shooting themselves in the foot because while a lot of people will buy the game, not a lot will see the majority of the content.

Remember, those car numbers are exaggerated, too... Probably about 30 of those cars will be Honda Civics in various makes and years. Many of those will be able to use the same (or slightly tweaked) game models, cutting way down on development time. That applies to several of the more popular car makes and models. GT is notorious for slapping in 10 models of little differentiating performance or style.

Personally, I would rather see Polyphony get off their asses, stop ballooning the car count with useless pieces of shit no one wants to drive, and go after some of the marques that matter like Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, etc. Forza actually has a more impressive list of marques than Gran Turismo. Given the popularity of the series, there is absolutely no excuse for that.

I mean, it's fun and all whipping an 84 Honda Civic through an endurance race for three hours, but wouldn't you rather be tweaking a Carrera for use in Nurburgring?