Gran Turismo 7 Servers have been restored after 24 hours of unexpected and unprecedented downtime. Since PlayStation 5 and PS4 require an internet connection in order to save gameplay progress, the entire experience has been largely unplayable for the past day. The new update, which weighs 354.5 MB, brings the version back online.
Here are the patch notes, from Polyphony Digital:
- Fixed an issue where the car collection would not appear in the dealerships of used cars and legendary cars
- Fixed an issue where the game would in some cases not progress to the world map, making it impossible to play
Serial maker Kazunori Yamauchi also owns Comment on the hiatus: “Immediately before Update version 1.07In this article, we have detected an issue where the game does not start correctly in some cases on the PS5 and PS4 product versions. This was a rare issue that wasn’t seen during tests on development machines or pre-release QA sessions, but in order to prioritize the safety of data saving for users, we’ve decided to interrupt the release of update 1.07, and for a patch update 1.08. This is the reason for the delay. My sincere apologies for the late report to everyone.”
This makes sense, but we’d argue that communication could have been better over the 24 hours that the entire game was offline.
Furthermore, that’s not the only concern fans have with Gran Turismo 7 at the moment: In-game currency rewards have been modified with update 1.07which raises questions about microtransactions in the £70/$70 version.
Yamauchi said the following: “In Gran Turismo 7 I would like to make users enjoy a lot of cars and racing even without microtransactions. At the same time, pricing of cars is an important element that conveys their value and rarity, so I think it is important to correlate them with real-world prices. I want to make Gran Turismo 7 is a game in which you can enjoy a variety of cars in different ways, and if possible, I would like to try to avoid a situation where the player has to mechanically replay certain events over and over again.”
He continued, “We will inform you in due course of update plans for additional content, additional race events, and additional features that will constructively resolve this. It pains me that I cannot explain the details on this at this time, but we plan to continue reviewing Gran Turismo 7 so that as many as possible can Players can enjoy the game. We would really appreciate it if everyone could follow the growth of Gran Turismo 7 from a fairly long-term point of view.”
Honestly, it’s a terrible statement, and it’s a shame to see a warmly received version fall into these obvious traps just two weeks after its release. Gran Turismo 7 is a great racing game With some of the best content in the series’ illustrious history, but acting as in-game economy mods meant to convey the “value and rarity” of real cars is an absurd statement.
Sadly, a few days after the release of a game that won critical acclaim, Polyphony Digital will now have to work hard to save face and restore this release’s reputation. A real unintentional mistake!
