In a new interview with PlayStationInside, the former PlayStation president Shuhei Yoshida has shared a story, in which he claims to have "partly saved" the original Gran Turismo from failure by convincing its developers to tone down the handling of the realistic racing sim (thanks VGC!)
In the interview, which was published on PlayStationInside yesterday, the site's co-founders Geoffrey Lerch and Yacine Ouali asked Shuhei Yoshida about any achievements that he was particularly proud of during his career at Sony. This led Yoshida to get onto the topic of the 1997 racing game — a project he personally oversaw as an executive producer at Sony and one that he argues he played a small but significant role in giving important feedback on while it was still in development.
"It was the early days of the first PlayStation, and [Gran Turismo creator] Kazunori Yamauchi was working on the very first Gran Turismo," Yoshida told the interviewers. "You’ll remember that on the cover it said that the game was the “real driving simulator”. And you know, I’m not a game designer, I’m a producer first and foremost. During 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 (laughs)!"
According to Yoshida, the early version of the game that he played was "extremely advanced, perhaps too much so", due to Yamauchi's desire to make the most realistic driving simulator on the market.
So, as a result, Yoshida suggested that its creator Kazunori Yamauchi tone down the car's handling, to make it more accessible to a wider group of players. Yamauchi, however, apparently didn't take Yoshida's words at face value, instead ordering a playtest based on Yoshida's feedback to see if there was any truth to the producer's comments. The results of this ended up confirming what Yoshida had said.
"He gathered around thirty consumers to test the game," continued Yoshida. "And just as I expected, they all crashed without exception at the first turn, because the gameplay was so difficult. I was at the back of the room with Kazunori Yamauchi, at which point he turned to me and told me I was right, and that’s when he rounded things off and toned down the pure simulation aspect a little to put out the Gran Turismo you know today on PS1. In a way, I like to think that I partly saved Gran Turismo’s fate and that I played a small part in its success (laughs)!"
Gran Turismo went on to be a huge critical and commercial smash for Sony when it was released, with the title even becoming a rare recipient of a 10/10 from Edge Magazine. At the time, Edge described it as "a new standard of excellence for all other platforms to follow." as well as the "most realistic, detailed and playable example of an extensive genre".
You can read the PlayStationInside's full interview with Shuhei Yoshida here.