Kazunori Yamauchi: Online code refactored for Gran Turismo 7 to expand features

Sony’s leading live service game, Gran Turismo 7, has seen its fair share of online challenges in its opening year – but series producer Kazunori Yamauchi has explained Polyphony Digital’s philosophy at the Word Series esports competition final.

At launch, changing lobby settings such as the track or cars in use required a new room to be set-up. The ability to host a qualifying session only appeared in November’s 1.26 update. It felt like a backwards step for network-connected competition when compared to 2017’s preceding Gran Turismo Sport.

“You know, Gran Turismo Sport had a real focus on online competitions hosting the World Series events. It was developed for it,” said Yamauchi-san to Traxion.GG in an interview earlier today (26^th November).

Gran Turismo 7, however, is a fully-fledged series entry, with the numbered nomenclature signifying higher importance.

“When you develop a software programme, the core code needs to be refactored every once in a while to accommodate new elements for the future,” said Yamauchi-san to Traxion.GG in an interview earlier today (26^th November).

“That’s what we did for Gran Turismo 7.

“We had to refactor everything which will allow for future advancements to the software.

“Now we have a clean code that we can expand upon and add more features to.”

This weekend sees the culmination of Gran Turismo’s World Series, with the World Finals held in Monaco. The general format and technical baseline haven’t seen significant changes for a number of years, with the exception of a switch from GT Sport to Gran Turismo 7.

Through a number of routes, drivers can compete in-game – and formerly GT Sport – within Sport Mode for a chance to enter the tentpole events. Now that Gran Turismo 7 is more stable, changes could be coming to the ranked online mode and events, too.

“I think there is still lots more left to do for Sport Mode,” continued Yamauchi-san.

“We already have events like this [World Series], but I think there are more things that we can do on the code side to make it make it even better for this.”

Yamauchi-san remained characteristically tight-lipped as to what those features may be, however.

We were left with the impression that despite approaching nine months on sale, Gran Turismo 7 has yet to reach its full online multiplayer potential, and we’re looking forward to potential future changes.