Gran Turismo 7 is back online after developer Polyphony Digital took the game offline for extended server maintenance of over 24 hours. The official Gran Turismo Twitter account shared a statement from their Japanese website that has since been removed. Following the post, Polyphony Digital shared on Twitter “Due to an issue found in Update 1.07 we will be extending the Server Maintenance period. We will notify everyone as soon as possible when this is likely to be completed.”
Gran Turismo 7 is, more or less, a live service game meaning that it requires an internet connection to play even in regards to the single-player campaign. Director Kazunori Yamauchi released a statement this morning explaining the reasoning behind the extended maintenance. “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,” said Yamauchi. “…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.”
On top of the maintenance issues, Yamauchi also made comment regarding the decision to reward players with fewer credits than what was originally given at launch, and his response was not exactly what fans will want to hear. “In GT7 I would like to have users enjoy lots of cars and races even without microtransactions,” Yamauchi explained. “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.”
Yamauchi finishes his statement hoping that players stick with Gran Turismo 7 in the long run and that future updates will help resolve the credit issue that players are having down the line. Until then, players will just have to be patient.
