Gran Turismo 5 will be getting an update (version 2.02) on December 20th and with it will come the addition of Toyota‘s GT 86 to the game for free. A new downloadable content (DLC) Car Pack 2 will also be available for just $3.99 adding four new cars to your collection.

The second Car Pack DLC will add the 2012 Nissan GT-R Black R35, 2010 Volkswagen Scirocco R, 2010 Volkswagen Gold VI R and the 2011 MINI Cooper S to your garage. In addition, those that purchased the first DLC will receive the Gran Turismo Racing Kart 125 SP in the 2.02 patch.

The update will also come with some interface tweaks and will award virtual racers with 10 oil change and car wash coupons.

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Happening right now out in Cologne, Germany is Gamescom, the world’s largest trade fair and event for video games and entertainment. And with all the passionate automotive enthusiasts in Germany, it’s no surprise that Sony wanted to make a statement in their booth by teaming up with Audi to show off a whole new way to play Gran Turismo 5. Custom built by quattro GmbH in Neckarsulm, the PlayStation Racing Simulator that’s currently setup at the booth is a full-on carbon-black Audi R8 LMS imitation race car.

The cockpit features the same bucket seat that one would find in the GT3 car, while they’ve added an additional one for a passenger to spectate. The roll cage has been simplified to make it easier to get in and out of the simulator, but players get to hold onto an authentic race steering wheel that’s been hooked up to the PlayStation 3 and enjoys full Dolby Surround Sound as they power their way through twists and turns.

What puts it altogether though are the pneumatic cylinders located where the race car’s suspension would be. This allows the virtual racer to really feel the physics of driving while in the cockpit of the simulator. That means they feel every bit of the centrifugal forces while cornering, braking and accelerating. According to reports, it took Audi and Sony six weeks to assemble the entire unit, far longer than it takes to build a real car.

After having been delayed more times than the second coming, Sony recently announced the official launch date for Gran Turismo 5 as November 24th. But with that many delays there are still skeptics and so Sony has now rolled out its adds in an effort to drum up interest in what will no doubt be the most popular gift this holiday season.

The spot features PlayStation 3 front-man and “VP of Add More Awesome” Kevin Butler, who has made us laugh in pretty much all of PS3′s earlier commercials and this one is no different.

See the commercial, plus an extra Japanese-market ad after the jump:

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While we’ve seen many e-retailers do this before, both Target and Amazon have updated the release date of Gran Turismo 5 to show January 1st, 2011 and December 31st, 2010 respectively. It sounds as if they plan on releasing the game at midnight on New Years Day, or this could just be Target and Amazon’s way of playing it safe since Sony did somewhat promise us that GT5 will be released around the holiday season and before year’s end.

Whether or not this will play out to be true, we’re going to guess many of you out there are still clinging onto your pre-orders and hoping that the game will come out during the holiday season so you don’t have to take any more sick days off to collect your licenses and build your garages with over 1,000 cars in the game. Will GT5 really live up to its hype? We only have a couple more months to wait… we hope.

Worth noting is that the above image seems to be an official game disc along with the box art out in Europe. Rumor has it that some European gamers are already playing through the game.

[Source: Target and Amazon via WorldCarFans]

Game developers never get much time off, and it looks like the development team for Gran Turismo is already hard at work on the successor to Gran Turismo 5, a game we still have yet to even touch. But now that GT5 has probably gone gold and game discs are being produced, Kazunori Yamauchi, the creative force behind the video game franchise, recently commented in an interview with Autoweek that GT6 is already in the early development stages.

In the rather lengthy interview, Yamauchi reveals Polyphony’s relationship with SEMA and discusses the process of perfecting Gran Turismo 5 and the reasons behind its constant delays. He did reveal that a new release date will be announced soon and that we could possibly be playing it by Christmas time, but we’re not overly optimistic.

But the biggest reveal came from a one-word answer to the question, “I know you’re trying to push GT5 out the door. Is development underway on GT6?” With the answer of “Yeah,” it’s no surprise that there are plans for a 6th rendition of Gran Turismo, but we are shocked that the development process is already underway.

And what we can possibly expect? Well, considering Yamauchi claims it took around 2,000 days to get GT5 the way he wanted it to be, he says it’s way too early to even speak about GT6. So let’s start the five years of speculating.

[Source: Autoweek]

Let’s go ahead and add Gran Turismo 5 delays alongside death and taxes as life’s certainties. Taku Imasaki, Producer over at SCEA has posted the following information up on Sony’s official Playstation blog:

“We can confirm that Gran Turismo 5 will not be available this November 2nd, but the game’s release will be coming this holiday season.”

[Source: Playstation Blog]

There is a whole lot going on right now at Tokyo Game Show 2010, including the release of a new trailer for Gran Turismo 5. Yes, the game that everyone has been highly anticipating for what seems like the past decade, is very close to release… we hope.

The trailer shows off just how grand the scope of Gran Turismo 5′s development is. We don’t even have to address just how detailed the courses and vehicles look, or just how accurate everything is expected to be from driving simulator to engine modification. But what’s just going to blow us away (when we finally get our dirty hands on it) is the variety of game play we’ll get to experience.

Forget just fighting your way to obtain licenses and pack up your garage with as many cars as you want. Gran Turismo 5 is going to usher in a new era of driving simulation with so many different racing modes that you’ll be able to experience what it’s like to be a race car driver in all different styles; from NASCAR, to rally racing to vintage street cars.

Will the game be worth the wait? Or will the anticipation and promises kill it before it’s even released? We’re always a little skeptical when something tries to be a jack of all trades and ends up being an ace of none. Let’s hope this isn’t the case with Gran Turismo 5!

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It’s been delayed more times than a mid-east peace agreement, and until now it was looking just as unlikely. That’s right, we’re talking about Sony’s Gran Turismo 5 video game. At a press conference held yesterday at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Sony confirmed that GT5 will hit shelves on November 2.

The game will feature 950 vehicles, NASCAR racers, exotics like the new Mercedes SLS AMG and its even touted to have 3D graphics.

[Source: USA Today]

See the GT5 trailer after the jump:

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Sony has just released the first screen shots from the highly anticipated Gran Turismo 5 racing simulator for the company’s Playstation 3 system and they’re, well… just ok.

Sure the widebody Nissan NISMO GT-R from Japan’s Super GT series looks incredibly mean, but we wouldn’t mind seeing a few action shots. Although to be truthful, looking at pictures and playing the game are two completely different things, so we’ll wait to get our hands on the latest GT game before passing judgment.

We do have high hopes as Sony has announced a lineup of over 1,000 cars that actually get damaged! Another unique feature is the ability for users to automatically upload their favorite replay footage directly to YouTube – something we’re certain to loathe in the not-too-distant future. As though YouTube isn’t already overstocked with personal montages, replies or covers of what you’re actually looking for, now we have this. We’ll be cursing Sony when our search for “Nissan GT-R Nürburgring” turns up a few thousand CGI videos made by virtual Stigs. But I digress…

An official date for the release of Gran Turismo 5 has not been set.

GALLERY: First Gran Turismo 5 Screen Shots