Gran Turismo 5 Prologue dated and priced @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on January 29, 2008

News: And it's way more pricey than I would have expected.

The PlayStation.Blog has dropped the news that Gran Turismo fans have been waiting for for a long time: the release date and price of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

The glorified demo of the next Gran Turismo game will be released on April 17th in a Blu-Ray version and as a download through the PlayStation Store. Both version will sell for $39.99, although the disc version will include a documentary feature called "Beyond the Apex" that details some of the behind-the-scenes stuff at Polyphony Digital during the creation of GT5 Prologue.

The Prologue edition of Gran Turismo 5 will include five tracks, 60 cars and 16-player online play. A free demo was offered on the Japanese PlayStation Store when the game was released there for a limited time. It's unknown if we in America will get that same deal.

It's also unknown when the full version of Gran Turismo 5 is supposed to be released. The general wisdom is that it will hit stores sometime in 2008, but Sony may have a tough road ahead of them if they release the full version of GT5 too close to the almost-full priced GT5 Prologue.

Right now, Polyphony Digital is saying the full version of Gran Turismo 5 will feature more cars than Gran Turismo 4 (which included over 700 cars), an unknown number of tracks and the same 16-player online play that GT5 Prologue will sport. It's assumed that the full version will retail for $59.99.

We'll have more on Gran Turismo 5 (Prologue or otherwise) soon.

source: PlayStation.Blog