Gran Turismo 7 isn’t quite the black sheep of the franchise, but it isn’t really the return to form that fans hoped would get from Polyphony Digital. While the game received generally favorable reviews upon launch in 2022, its reputation would sink due to the developer’s decisions when it came to microtransactions and monetization.
However, if we looked at the bigger picture, there has always been a contingent of fans that felt that Polyphony Digital lost their luster with the later entries in the franchise. There’s certainly an argument to be made that the studio was never the same since the PlayStation 3 era ushered in their first Gran Turismo titles that released with issues and had to be patched through the years.
But another side of looking at it is that the Gran Turismo games on the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 were genuinely impressive for overdelivering on graphics and performance on what we can now recognize as limited hardware. Whereas now, what Polyphony Digital can bring to the table isn’t as special. So many other developers, from Kunos Simulazioni to iRacing, can deliver better or superior experiences, whether they are strictly sim racing titles or not. And one can argue that Polyphony Digital’s attempts to bring the series forward with Gran Turismo Sport and Gran Turismo 7 may have been sincere, but came one or two steps forward and five steps back.
One of the things that Polyphony Digital has never seemed to budge on is making their games exclusively for PlayStation platforms. While that obviously is because they were owned by Sony, it also had consequences for their game design. Each Gran Turismo title is designed to be a technical showcase, that fans can brag about compared to what’s available on Xbox or PC.
While some Sony loyalists won’t want to admit it, Gran Turismo 7 isn’t so much better than everything else that they can do that anymore. But that does raise a question today. If Sony is now branching out to publishing their games on PC, why couldn’t Polyphony Digital deliver Gran Turismo 7 to PC? They could make changes and improvements that aren’t possible on PlayStation 5, and also widen their potential player base.
It now doesn’t seem like that possibility is likely anymore. As shared by Bryank75 on IconEra, they received word that Sony was planning a PC port for Gran Turismo 7, but they have cancelled it. Bryank75 touts their previous track record in leaking confirmed news, specifically Returnal coming to PC.
Lest we forget, the game’s director went on record to deny that they were planning a PC port in 2022. Given that Gran Turismo 7 isn’t that popular for the franchise, this isn’t as big of a miss as it seems.
If anything, we suspect that fans would rather have a rerelease of the Gran Turismo games from PlayStation and PlayStation 2, to be brought back to PSN and on PC. Sony would be riding the bandwagon of rereleases of classic games that’s been all the rage lately, and it would arguably be a better introduction to the franchise than even My First Gran Turismo.
But it’s safe to assume that Polyphony Digital is working on the next Gran Turismo for the next PlayStation, and maybe they will plan for that title to also be available on PC.
