Gran Turismo was the first game in the Gran Turismo series. It was released, in Japan, for the Sony Playstation on December 23, 1997, in the USA and Canada on May 12, 1998, and in Europe 4 days before the North American release.
Development
The first time Kazunori Yamauchi requested to make this game. The higher up peoples did not allow him to make the game. Instead, he made 2 games: Motor Toon Grand Prix and Motor Toon Grand Prix 2. He was the main designer for both games and it allowed him to change each cars physics and experiment with the raeing dynamics as a whole. He then requested to start Gran Turismo, the higher up at Polyphony Digital allowed to make it. He then began development on his dream game.
Gameplay
Gran Turismo is a simulation racing game. 6 cars are racing in every race throughout the game. Each event is a tournament which is made up of at least of 3 races. Each event has specific criteria for cars that are allowed. There are total of 16 events, 3 of which are endurance events which are only 1 race but take over an hour to complete. Gran Turismo features 178 cars and 11 race tracks.
Sequels
Gran Turismo 2 was released in 1999; Gran Turismo 3 was released in 2001; Gran Turismo 4 Prologue was released in 2004; Gran Turismo 4 was released in 2005; Gran Turismo 5 Prologue was released in 2007, and Gran Turismo 5 will be released in 2010, all the games of the series use a built-in engine, with exception of GT5 Prologue and GT5, that uses a modified version of CryEngine 2.