- Former PlayStation -chef Shuhei Yoshida says he helped save the first Gran Turismo
- Yoshida said the game’s simulation aspects were “extremely advanced” and suggested to create kazunori yamauch to tone them down
- He adds that he likes to believe that he “played a small role in its success”
Former Sony Interactive Entertainment President Shuhei Yoshida has revealed that he convinced the creator of the first Gran Turismo Game, Kazunori Yamauchi, to tone the game’s simulation elements.
Yoshida, who spoke in a recent conversation with PlayStation inside, was asked to touch some of her greatest moments from his career at PlayStation. After a brief discussion of thatgamecompany’s award -winning game TravelAs he was “really proud to have played a role in his view”, the ex-playstation chief revealed that he “partly saved” the original Gran Turismo.
“Talking about a ‘success’ in my career that has not been mentioned enough, if at all, I will give you an anecdote that I have never told in public before,” said Yoshida.
“It was the early days of the first Playstation, and Kazunori Yamauchi worked on the very first first Gran Turismo. You remember that on the cover it said the game was the ‘Real Driving Simulator’. And you know I’m not a game designer, I’m first and foremost a producer.
“During the development, Kazunori Yamauchi showed me a prototype of Gran Turismo, and I was among the first to play it. And to tell you the truth he was really serious when he talked about simulation!”
Yoshida explained that what he was playing was “extremely advanced, perhaps too much” because of realism, but it was only after Playtests did Yamauchi use his feedback to Finpue 1997 game.
“First, Kazunori Yamauchi did not take my feedback to face value, so he gathered about thirty consumers to test the game. And just as I expected, they all crashed without exception at the first turn because the gameplay was so difficult,” he said.
“I was on the back of the room with Kazunori Yamauchi, at which time he turned to me and told me I was right, and that was when he rounded things and tinted the pure simulation aspect a little to expose Gran Turismo you know today on PS1.
“In a way, I like to believe that I partly saved Gran Turismo’s fate and that I played a little role in its success.”
In the same interview, Yoshida touched Nintendo Switch 2 and said the recent increase in the cost of games “would happen sooner or later” due to inflation and production costs, but believes “a balance should be found between production costs and game prices”.
