Gran Turismo Back On for 2004 Release, but At What Cost?

At the Tokyo Game Show today, Sony confirmed that Polyphony Digital's highly anticipated racer, Gran Turismo 4, will be released in 2004 after all, but online play has been removed.

The game will be out December 3 in Japan and around December 14 in Europe and North America.

It comes down to how badly you want it now (or if you're willing to pay for GT4 twice), because it looks like the full online-enabled version will eventaully be released. It isn't certain that this same game will come out in 2005 with online play, but that seems to be the most likely scenario. In any case, there will almost definitely be online GT in 2005.

The rumor is that problems implementing the online functionality were what was holding up this title, and this move seems to confirm that.

What? This sure is confusing, and the release date is really skimming it being in December. Most killler aps come out in November to let everyone get a shot at snagging a copy. IRT online play, it never really was that important to me, but I'll probably end up buying it anyways.

With so much coming out in October and November, I don't think saving this until December will do much more than help it stick out more. I'm a last-minute shopper, so it suits me just fine.