While the exact credit boost wasn’t revealed in patch notes, Sony made known to Eurogamer that credits earned during early races are boosted by 110 percent, and those in later races by 170 percent.

Also, players can now earn further credit boosts by playing the game on a daily basis while connected to PSN, with up to a 200 percent credit boost offered for logging in for five consecutive days. “Be sure to login everyday to earn more credits,” Sony says.

In addition, two new Seasonal Events have been added, running between December 20th – January 17th and January 2nd – January 30th respectively. The events are said to “mark the season holidays and the new year” and will feature “special bonus credits”.

Polyphony Digital has also lowered the entry requirements for Seasonal Events, with players now only requiring a National B licence to participate.

GT6 is a PS3 exclusive launched earlier this month. It didn’t match the sales of its predecessor, falling way short, an occurrence some blame of the game releasing around PS4′s launch.

Sony says microtransactions was put in place to accelerate the time it takes to acquire their ultimate fantasy car collection.

Credits will be available from launch from the PS Store or at retail in the following denominations: 500K, 1 million, 2.5 million or 7 million. The actual real world cost of these credits has yet to be announced.

Credits can be used to buy in-game cars and parts.

Sony also announced that Gran Turismo 6 is now available to pre-order on the PS Store in Standard and Special Edition forms. The Special Edition offers 20 extra cars (Torque, Performance, Adrenaline and Velocity packs), custom PSN avatars, paint chips, race suits and race helmets.

Although the game will “naturally” come to PS4 according to Gran Turismo 6 creator Kazunori Yamauchi, it’s still a far from being released on said platform.

Said Yamauchi:

I think a PS4 version will appear naturally. We won’t keep you waiting too long, but it won’t be too soon either.

See what I mean? Buy it on PS3.

Thanks, Gematsu.

Elsewhere, GTPlanet got some hands-on time with the game, quench it below:

iAfrica has the press release and the site isn’t too worried about embargoes. Here are some snippets from the release:

GT6 for PlayStation 3 will bring new levels of authenticity to ‘the Real Driving Simulator’ as well as introducing stunning new tracks and cars and a revised user interface.

The press release also added that the game will feature a “new compact game engine” to “improve operation and increase the flexibility to expand it with downloadable content.”

iAfrica also suggested that Gran Turismo 6 will be built with connectivity to smartphones and tablets for social and community interactions.

All of the cars in Gran Turismo 5 will return in Gran Turismo 6, alongside the “notable” addition of historic cars, road cars and the latest race cars, pusing the total amount of cars in Gran Turismo 6 to 1200, with more being added in the future.

New customisation parts have also been added to Gran Turismo 6, with ‘several thousand aerodynamic parts and custom wheels’ to be made available for almost all cars.

Players will be able to personalize their own custom cars in-game too.

This press release also confirmed that there will be seven new locations in Gran Turismo 6, bringing the total to 33 with 71 different layouts. 19 of these layouts will be new.

The release also suggests that new tracks will be made available as DLC, while improvements have been made to the course maker.

GT Academy series will be returning and will feature new partnerships with tire manufacturer Yokohama Rubber and suspension company KW Automotive.

Go here to see it for yourself. If it’s been taken down, quench it immediately below:

The page reveals a “Products | Gran Turismo® 6″ page, including the custom-crafted title with the registered trademark logo, which will presumably organize future posts on the site about the new game.

Tomorrow is the big day when Sony will be celebrating 15 years of Gran Turismo and in tandem, will reveal the latest game. The only question now is whether the racing sim will be a PS3 exclusive, or a cross-platform, cross-gen title.

Are you excited? You’d better be, because we’ll be covering the entire thing right here on Gamesthirst. Stay plugged in.

Thanks, GTPlanet.

Back in 1998, the European box art for Gran Turismo on PlayStation featured a mysterious supercar covered in cloth. Beneath that cover was the start of the most successful series in PlayStation history; one that would redefine the driving genre with ultrarealistic graphics and handling.

Gran Turismo fused the excitement of arcade racing with the realism of a simulation and boasted nearly 200 cars – far more than any other racing game at the time. Players could test their skills to obtain the racing licences that allowed them to compete in events, and prize money could then be spent on the world’s most luxurious cars plus new parts to tune their performance. This level of detail had never been seen before and soon Gran Turismo was the talk of the real-life racing world as well as the gaming one.

The evolution of a driving experience

Gran Turismo 2 followed two years later, upping the stable of cars to an astonishing 650, thanks to the enthusiasm of the series’ creator, Kazunori Yamauchi. As a connoisseur of cars both classic and new, he helped forge a close bond between developer Polyphony Digital and the car manufacturers themselves.

“Relationships with manufacturers have always been very important,” explains Yamauchi. “And that’s because the cars which we cover in the game are something that is open to society. Gran Turismo is always looking to communicate with the world outside of the games industry.”

PlayStation 2 arrived in Europe in 2000 and the world waited to see how Polyphony would use the new hardware. The answer came a year later with Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, a game that would make casual observers do a double take when they found out they were watching a video game rather than a real race.

Speeding up

Before Gran Turismo 4 arrived there was Gran Turismo 4 Prologue, which gave a taste of the next major evolution in the series. Launched in 2005, Gran Turismo 4included more than 700 cars from 80 manufacturers, from the 1886 Daimler Motor Carriage to concept cars looking as far ahead as 2022.

The game also introduced B-Spec mode, allowing players to move away from the driving seat and into the role of race manager. Driving missions were another new addition to Gran Turismo 4, challenging drivers to perfect certain racing skills such as slipstreaming.

Gran Turismo players in Europe started their first online races in 2008 thanks to Gran Turismo 5 Prologue on PlayStation 3. It was the first game in the series to include network features such as online racing, leader boards and GT-TV, a service that allowed players to watch motorsport programmes in-game.

Take it to the track

Gran Turismo 5 Prologue also unearthed a potential star in Lucas Ordoñez. The winner of the inaugural GT Academy – a search for the fastest GT players in Europe – went on to earn his racing licences, compete in the Dubai 24 Hour Endurance Race as his prize and then became a professional racing driver as a result.

GT Academy represents a particularly proud moment for Yamauchi: “It was a dream I had when I first started developing a driving simulator, especially because I was confident that one day it would come true. And when it really came to be in the 2008 GT Academy, it was incredibly exciting.”

Polyphony Digital switched lanes in 2009 with Gran Turismo on PSP. Speeding onto the handheld entertainment system with over 800 cars and 35 tracks, as well as multiplayer racing and player-to-player car trading, the depth and thrills of an authentic driving experience quickly became a fast favourite for gamers on the move.

A new industry standard

The hotly anticipated Gran Turismo 5 arrived on PS3 in November 2010, once more shifting the realism of its cars and tracks into a higher gear. Over 1,000 cars featured, from classic automobiles and family runarounds to stunning supercars like the Bugatti Veyron. Real-life racetracks were painstakingly recreated, with classic circuits such as Germany’s Nürburgring featuring alongside the sort of inner-city tracks that dreams are made of, allowing drivers to race through the streets of Rome, London and Tokyo.

Building on the introduction of online play in its Prologue, the 16 player racing modes featured in Gran Turismo 5 were just the beginning. Special timed and seasonal events provided an ever-growing roster of challenges to enter, while the Course Builder mode allowed players to build their own raceways to share with the online community.

The real world of motorsport was brought ever more into Gran Turismo 5. Racing heroes such as Formula 1 driver Sebastian Vettel and NASCAR champion Jeff Gordon made cameo appearances, while popular motoring programme Top Gear featured its famous test track. And since its inception in 2008, GT Academy has gone from strength to strength, uncovering six winners across Europe and putting together a team that placed 2nd in the SP3 class at the Dubai 24 Hour Race.

Fifteen years on, it’s clear that Gran Turismo hasn’t just changed the face of driving games, but of the racing industry as whole. So it seems fitting to leave the last words to the man responsible for it all, Kazunori Yamauchi:

“I sort of consider Gran Turismo to be a movement. If the movement that involves GT leaves a mark in history, I think I’d be very happy.”

That’s according to SCEE blog manager Fred Dutton, who wrote about the announcements in the comments section of a blog post on the site. He did not, however, reveal anything about said announcements.

For some reasons unbeknownst to me, Sony love revealing games just before E3, a move I believe takes away from its overall E3 presentations. But maybe the firm has so many games to announce this time around, that it actually plan on showing off some big hitters before its press conference on June 10th. Just maybe the PS4′s reveal will be so all-consuming that the electronics giant can’t wait until then to start showing off its games.

If that’s the case, E3 2013, and the days and weeks leading up to it, should be moments to be reckoned with. Moments to be cherished. Indeed, moments we as gamers live for.

Thanks, TSA.

Back in February Denny told Silicon Republic that PS3 still had a lot of great games incoming, including GT6.

Look at the games coming out on the PlayStation 3 like The Last of Us, Beyond: Two Souls, GT6 and then on the third-party side of things another fantastic Assassin’s Creed, GTA.

So yeah, the game will be released on PS3 we believe. But how about a launch in tandem on PS4? That’s a sure system selling right there.

Maybe, or maybe not, because the consensus is, and I believe this also, that Gran Turismo 6 should be a PS4 launch title if it’s coming this year… Better yet release the game on both machines…

Denny’s comments got a rebuttal from Sony Europe today, however, one that’s more vague than an iguana in the jungle. You can’t see me, can you? Will Gran Turismo 6 be a PS3 or PS4 game? Will it be both? We have no clue but, SCE promises, we’ll know soon enough.

Uncharted

If there has been one PlayStation franchise that’s made PS3 a viable buy, and there have been many, Naughty Dog’s Uncharted must be counted atop the bunch. The franchise has sold over 14 million units on PS3 alone, making it the most successful exclusive Sony’s seen in the seventh generation of gaming. The game has also helped move millions of PS3s, while helping the console find its identity.

Uncharted 4: Drake’s New Beginning should be a PlayStation 4 launch title.

Metal Gear Solid 5

When PS3 was being lambasted by journalists in its early 2006-2007 years for being too expensive and not having enough games to support a purchase, there was only one game Sony could turn to: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots. The game was, at that time, Sony’s killer punch, a secret weapon of sorts to calm the building storm, and that’s exactly what it did.

MGS4: Guns Of The Patriots sold almost 6 million units in lifetime sales, helping Sony move over 200,000 consoles immediately upon its release, and thousands more thereafter. If you’re going to release PS4, then Metal Gear Solid 5 must be an exclusive on said console, just like its predecessors before.

Killzone 4

Every console needs a strong shooter. Xbox 360 has Halo, so will Xbox 720. PS4 needs Killzone 4 – even as a launch title.

Killzone 3 was, and still is the best looking game on consoles although it was released way before Battlefield 3 and many other top shooters. If Sony hopes to wow crowds at E3 next year, the firm should have Killzone 4 running, and ready for release alongside PS4.

Although the last installment was received differently by varying fans, it sold 2.2 million units life-to-date, a number I believe could rise substantially if Guerrilla Games stuns us at E3 2013 with KZ4, and if it’s released as a launch title – Killzone 2 sold almost 3 million.

Gran Turismo 6

There is no doubt in my mind that Polyphony Digital is already laboring away on Gran Turismo 6 for PlayStation 4, and why wouldn’t they? Gran Turismo 5′s demo (Gran Turismo 5: Prologue), sold a stunning 4.10 million units. Did you get that? A demo sells more units than top shooter Killzone 3, Sucker Punch’s inFamous 1 and 2, Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet 2, and the same amount as God of War 3? The game itself has sold almost 8 million copies life-to-date, more than any other PS3 exclusive, ever. It was also a system-seller for Sony. Just imagine what GT6 will accomplish once released on PlayStation 4.

LittleBigPlanet 3

Every console needs a family game because parents are the ones with the money. Why do you think Kinect sold 18 million units in two years? Or do you think guys were the ones purchasing Wii Fit causing it to sell over 22 million units worldwide? No, mothers were the ones purchasing the game, and Sony knows it needs a family title to answer this problem. It already has one.

LittleBigPlanet is one of those games where everyone can pick up a controller and have at it. It’s fun, silly, rewarding, makes people laugh and can bring the whole family together to play. The game’s also sold a respectable 5 million units life-to-date, while the second title sold 2.5 million. Not bad for a new IP showing up to the game rather late.

There are other titles we believe will help PlayStation 4 but are not necessarily needed and we’ll talk about them in another thread. But these are the titles Sony’s next console, codenamed Orbis, simply can’t do without.