The significant extra power of the PS5 means that compromise isn’t needed and GT7 would be able to run dynamic time of day and weather at a true 4K60, likely seeing the return of endurance races. PD opted to pre-bake light conditions with ray-tracing, in order to save GPU power for 1080p60 on the base console and 4K60 (checkerboarded from 1800p) on the PS4 Pro with HDR. Gran Turismo Sport was a visual compromise. For the most part this probably doesn’t matter, as it doesn’t for DIRT 5 or Wreckfest, but it could severely hamstring GT7. This means that if there’s a PS4 Gran Turismo 7, it too should be identical to the PS5 version, aside from different sound, visuals, DualSense effects. It was a slightly different situation - there was no PS4 version, nor could the PS4 play it - but GT6 shipped just 5.2m copies to 87m PlayStation 3 owners. It’s also worth noting that the last time Sony decided to launch a GT game on an old console with GT6, it returned the worst sales performance in the history of the series. However demand for the PS5 is robust enough to survive it.

If the game appears on last-gen hardware, there’s no need for people to take the plunge on a new console great for the PS4’s tail, not so much for the PS5. GT7 would be a flagship title for PS5 and sell consoles all by itself. It may make a loss on PS5s right now, but that won’t last long, and it wants people to buy those sweet, sweet $70 PS5 games which fill the coffers. In an ideal world - and the events of 2020 have very much proven we’re not in an ideal world - Sony would want to get people off the old console and onto the new one. Why hasn’t Sony developed the game for both platforms from the outset? Although the PlayStation 5 is outperforming the PlayStation 4 in terms of consoles shipped at the same point in their lifespan, despite the silicon shortage, the simple fact is there’s 110 million PS4s out there right now. While we wait for appropriate confirmation one way or the other - GT7 still appears on the PlayStation site as a PS5 exclusive - the possibility of a cross-gen Gran Turismo 7 raises several questions. “That being said, it’s also very important to have showpieces for PS5, hence the development of Returnal and Ratchet that are exclusive to PS5.” If they want to go on and play the PS5 version, that game will be there for them. And if PS4 owners want to play that game, then they can. “Where it makes sense to develop a title for both PS4 and PS5 - for Horizon Forbidden West, the next God of War, GT7 - we’ll continue looking at that.

“You can’t build a community of over 110 million PS4 owners and then just walk away from it, right? I think that’d be bad news for fans of PS4, and frankly not very good business.

Gran turismo 7 ps4