Today, Gran Turismo Sport's July update went live, bringing a new race track and even more cars to Sony Interactive Entertainment and Polyphony Digital's latest entry in the long-running driving and racing simulation game series. What's more is that the patch has also introduced microtransactions to the title nearly a year after its release in 2017, despite the fact that Polyphony Digital's CEO, Kazunori Yamauchi, said a couple months before the game came out that the business model wouldn't be in the project.
During PlayStation Experience 2017 in Malaysia, Yamauchi was asked if Gran Turismo Sport would contain microtransactions like some of the previous entries in the game series, which led to the Polyphony Digital CEO responding with, "No," through a translator. As a matter of fact, the interviewer who asked the question actually breathed a sigh of relief, causing everyone in the room to laugh, including Yamauchi and the translator.
This recent inclusion of microtransactions has many Gran Turismo Sport players in the game's official subreddit discussing whether or not this is a good move for the fan base, the title, and the series as a whole. Some have expressed interest in the feature, as having the option to buy in-game assets and use them immediately is more conducive to those who can't afford the time to grind for the content. Others have stated that a better solution would be to just unlock every car, or up the payouts for races so it doesn't take as long to get new vehicles.
Taking all of this into account, the most likely reason why Polyphony Digital decided to add microtransactions to Gran Turismo Sport so long after launch is due to the fact that the title had sluggish sales, and it sold much worse than previous entries in the racing series. Compound the lackluster launch numbers with the continual cost of server maintenance and perpetual updates, keeping GT Sport up and running has surely been an expensive endeavor for Sony and Polyphony, so it will be interesting to see if the feature helps keep the game going. What is certain, though, is that microtransactions will continue to be a part of gaming's future.
Gran Turismo Sport is available now for PlayStation 4.
