Nearly four years since its initial release, Gran Turismo 7 continues to gain in popularity.
When PlayStation announced that the recent Spec III update tied into 100 million total Gran Turismo franchise sales, it wasn’t necessarily clear how much of that was down to the most recent instalment.
To an extent, that remains the case; however, it has now been confirmed just how many people play GT7 each month and how this success is something its developer, Polyphony Digital, hasn’t experienced before.
“We always have a list of things that we would like to do,” said Series Producer Kazunori Yamuachi to assembled media, attended by Traxion, when talking about how the Power Pack DLC came to be.
“When we can bring those things to life really depends on the situation at the time. Things like how well the title is selling or how many active users we have – all these things are taken into consideration.
“[For] Gran Turismo 7, it’s been years since its launch now, but we still are maintaining over two million monthly active users.
“We have all these loyal users, as well as brand new users joining in now as well.
“The place that Gran Turismo 7 is in now is probably the best of any Gran Turismo titles that we’ve had in the past.
“When we’re in that kind of state, there are certain different challenges that we are enabled to take on.”
Free monthly, or nearly monthly, updates have been a mainstay of GT7’s continued popularity, alongside a suite of evolving game modes such as online Time Trials, Weekly Challenges and Sport Mode.
“Active users are still increasing four years down the line since launch, and the price hasn’t even [really] been dropped.
“So we’ve never experienced this phenomenon before and neither has PlayStation. I think we’re in a very unique situation here.”
Such a high active users should put this as the most popular sim or simulation-like driving title currently on the market. Gran Turismo 7 is available on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
Spec III launched on 4th December with a suite of quality of life changes alongside fresh content. It arrived at the same time as its first dedicated paid DLC, the Power Pack.
GT Sport support laid the groundwork
A spin-off from the main numbered series, 2017’s GT Sport started life relatively light on content and features, before being built out in the intervening years.
It’s an experience that, according to Yamauchi, helped the development team update its successor:
“Ever since Gran Turismo Sport, we [have been doing] continuous updates.
“With that format, we discovered a way to keep the titles at a very high quality through this process of communicating with our users.
“And I think Gran Turismo 7 is an extension of that experience.”
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I don’t play online, but I still play a few times a week and collect new cars as needed. I like to do the weekly challenges.