Be Excellent To Each Other

I hope the PS4 supports my steering wheel.

I can tell the difference immediately between this and GT6.

...

Gran Turismo 6 microtransaction pricing revealed
7 million in-game credits costs £40.

We already knew Polyphony's racer would include microtransactions - a first for the series. Now we're nearing the game's Friday 6th December release more information on how these work has been revealed.

Let's start with the virtual currency, credits. Credits, which you use to buy cars and parts, can be bought in 500K, 1 million, 2.5 million and 7 million denominations.

The PlayStation Store updated today with the prices for these. They are as follows:

500,000 In-Game Credits (£3.99/€4.99)
1 Million In-Game Credits (£7.99/€9.99)
2,500,000 In-Game Credits (£15.99/€19.99)
7 Million In-Game Credits (£39.99/€49.99)

The video, below, showcases GT6's cars and reveals one of the top priced, the Jaguar XJ13, which costs 20 million credits. You can grind for it in traditional Gran Turismo fashion or you can buy it straight away if you drop £119.95 - that's the total you pay for two packs of 7m credits, two packs of 2.5m credits and one pack of 1m credits.

The issue is, will Gran Turismo's progression system be adversely affected by microtransactions? Eurogamer's Martin Robinson has been playing the game and tells me GT6's economy works exactly the same as GT5's, with progression, payouts and car prices very similar.

Sony maintains that GT6's microtransactions offer players an alternative fast-track route through the series' famously grindy progression. Eurogamer's review will be published on Friday.

Do you still have to do shitty licences before you can actually DO anything?

I enjoyed the licences they were good fun. Trying to gold them was good fun.
I'm not buying this for the PS3 in the hope that next year a version will be out on the PS4.

They reckon that 2014 is a "best case scenario" so given their previous record I'd expect it sometime around 2016 maybe.

As long as the game mechanics haven't been changed to encourage people to buy these packs, I don't mind. Not like Forza 5.

I reckon it will be an unfeasible grind without buying stuff.

I wonder how long it will take for it to dawn on people that Sony's attitude to their customers is exactly the same as Microsoft's but they just did better PR?

As long as the game mechanics haven't been changed to encourage people to buy these packs, I don't mind. Not like Forza 5.

Bullshit, the lot of it.

It's no real difference to premium rate cheat lines and timesaver DLC packs, in my mind. Like GTAO, it offers cash-rich, time-poor people an alternative to grinding, and means they can offer free DLC packs to the rest of us (like the Beach Bum pack for example).

But, like Doc says, they have to pitch the difficultly level exactly right. If they have an artificial spike that isn't there for legitimate gameplay reasons but is instead there to drive you to spend your way through it, the game is broken.

Gran Turismo 6 is broken and brilliant all at once, then, which seems destined to always be this series' way. It lends it a certain charm, though: if Forza, with its impeccable sheen and its flair for dramatics, sets out to mimic the world of Top Gear and Jeremy Clarkson, then Gran Turismo feels more like Denis Jenkinson, MotorSport's beloved correspondent who slept with a Rolls Royce engine at the foot of his bed in a rotting Hampshire cottage. It's all wide-eyed enthusiasm, erratically delivered through a scruffy egg-flecked beard. I know which one I'd rather spend a Sunday afternoon with.

And so, 15 years since its inception, Gran Turismo carries on its pursuit much as it always has, delivering a driving simulator that's as exhausting as it is exhaustive, as infuriating as it is intoxicating. As a foundation, it's certainly more stable than its predecessor - and as a way to explore the thrill of four wheels it is, despite its many faults, exceptional, brilliant and pretty much peerless. It's not finished yet, but Polyphony likely never will be - but in Gran Turismo 6 it's just delivered the broadest, most complete iteration of its epic vision.

Gran Turismo 6 is next-gen in other ways, too, with the spectre of microtransactions lingering near. Polyphony's at least been wise to partition them away from the game - if you weren't aware of their inclusion beforehand, you wouldn't know they're there at all. The economy is, to all intents and purposes, identical to Gran Turismo 5's - prize cars aren't handed out quite so generously, but payouts are on a similar scale while car prices likewise remain frozen.

That's not to say it isn't a problem, though. Gran Turismo 5's economy was broken, an issue belatedly acknowledged by Polyphony in the implementation of seasonal events with bloated payouts that soon became the place to grind out credits. Seasonals are back, though right now the payouts are paltry in comparison to their predecessors, meaning the grind that faces players just before they unlock Gran Turismo 6's final tier is daunting. There was an opportunity to redress the balance this time out. By offering a fast track to progression through microtransactions, the problem is once again acknowledged, although the solution right now is far from savoury.

impeccable sheen ... Jeremy Clarkson

when Sony announced that Gran Turismo was going to feature a similar 'opportunity' for players to spend real cash to boost their acquisition of in-game vehicles, I was concerned that its design would be similarly compromised. Fortunately, my fears were unfounded. There's been a minor change in the volume of cars that are awarded for completing races, but the cash earnout for racing is, to all intents and purposes, the same as it was before. I'm certainly happy with that and, indeed, feel that perhaps that's the way it should be. I get to play my game, business as usual, while some rich dude who doesn't have the time to play can pay a premium to enjoy everything I enjoy with making any effort at all. Frankly, I couldn't give a toss if there was a 1,000,000 horsepower car with superglue tyres that you can buy for $100 and win everything. As long as it doesn't compromise the game I'm paying for, it's no skin off my nose.

That's not to say it isn't a problem, though. Gran Turismo 5's economy was broken, an issue belatedly acknowledged by Polyphony in the implementation of seasonal events with bloated payouts that soon became the place to grind out credits. Seasonals are back, though right now the payouts are paltry in comparison to their predecessors, meaning the grind that faces players just before they unlock Gran Turismo 6's final tier is daunting. There was an opportunity to redress the balance this time out. By offering a fast track to progression through microtransactions, the problem is once again acknowledged, although the solution right now is far from savoury.

The as not yet included GPS based course creator sounds fucking amazing though, race the drive to work. Yes, please.

Gran Turismo 6's microtransactions were always a controversial feature. Some people just don't like being asked to grind for in-game content when they know that the barrier to their prize could be waved with a few quid, while others appreciate the optional shortcut. Critics of the model will be delighted to learn that it's all for naught at the moment, as a glitch has been discovered in Polyphony's latest racer that can earn you a cool 20 million credits - about £120 / €150 - in under three minutes.

As discovered by YouTuber Radical Dreamer and verified by our own Rich Leadbetter, there are four simple steps to this economy-breaking process:

Ensure you have the 1.01 patch installed and at least 1,000,000 credits.
Buy Mercedes-Benz Concept from GT vision.
Delete the GT6 game data from the dashboard under Game Data Utility (i.e. not the save data).
Launch the game again and sell this car - now listed as model "2055" - for a whopping 333,993,856 credits. Of course, the game caps your credit count at 20 million, so it just gives you that instead.

Granted this essentially breaks the game as you'll never have to work for anything ever again, but if you really want that sweet Jaguar XJ13, you know what to do. Obviously this exploit will get corrected in the near future, so if you can't resist the lure of the dark side you'd best act fast.

For more info on Gran Turismo 6's microtransactions, Sony Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida called them "an alternative path for busy people." Our Martin Robinson further clarified in his Gran Turismo 6 review that "if you weren't aware of their inclusion beforehand, you wouldn't know they're there at all. The economy is, to all intents and purposes, identical to Gran Turismo 5's."