Gran Turismo 7 Dev Apologizes For Server Outage, Defends Microtransactions

Gran Turismo 7 developer Polyphony Digital has shared a statement from the series creator Kazunori Yamauchi on the recent server outage.

The game is getting a lot of backlashes recently due to a server outage that made it unplayable for almost a whole day. The server outage might have been resolved but it did lead to a lot of frustration even among the die-hard fans.

Kazunori Yamauchi has posted a statement on the official website and commented on the recent turn of events.

I wanted to explain what happened in this update.

Immediately before the release of the 1.07 update, we discovered an issue where the game would not start properly in some cases on product versions for the PS4 and PS5.

This was a rare issue that was not seen during tests on the development hardware or the QA sessions prior to the release, but in order to prioritize the safety of the save data of the users, we decided to interrupt the release of the 1.07 update, and to make a 1.08 correctional update.

This is the reason for the delay.
My sincere apologies for the late report to everyone.

Also in this update, some event rewards have been adjusted. I wanted to also explain the reasons for it and our plans going forward.

In GT7 I would like to have users enjoy lots of cars and races even without microtransactions.
At the same time the pricing of cars is an important element that conveys their value and rarity, so I do think it’s important for it to be linked with the real world prices.
I want to make GT7 a game in which you can enjoy a variety of cars lots of different ways, and if possible would like to try to avoid a situation where a player must mechanically keep replaying certain events over and over again.

We will in time let you know the update plans for additional content, additional race events and additional features that will constructively resolve this.
It pains me that I can’t explain the details regarding this at this moment, but we plan on continuing to revise GT7 so that as many players as possible can enjoy the game.
We would really appreciate it if everyone could watch over the growth of Gran Turismo 7 from a somewhat longer term point of view.

There has been some anger over the state of microtransactions as well, and Yamauchi appears to defend their decision to increase the price of cars to either force people to grind or get microtransactions for a shortcut.

Gran Turismo 7 is available now for the PS4 and PS5.