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Transportation PlayStation (Games) Sony Games

Sony and Toyota Bring Real-Life Racing Into the Game World 42

Posted by Soulskill from the driving-in-a-circle dept.
cartechboy writes: "Racing games on consoles are fun, but, ultimately, they aren't real. The difference between racing around a track on a TV screen and being behind the wheel of a real car on the asphalt is substantial — there's no reset button in real life. But Sony and Toyota have teamed up to blur that line with a new Sports Drive Logger device. It's a USB data logger that maps your real-world lines around a local racing circuit using the car's data systems and GPS coordinates. Using satellite positioning, pedal depression, steering angle, gear selection, engine revs, and vehicle speed, the Sports Drive Logger replicates this data in Gran Turismo 6. You use this data in the game's telemetry screen, or watch a virtual representation of the laps you've just driven, and even compare that data against your friend's data. If you're brave enough, you can compare your data to that of a professional driver's. Unfortunately this system is only available on the Japanese-spec Toyota GT 86 (a near-twin to the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ in the U.S.) — for now."
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Sony and Toyota Bring Real-Life Racing Into the Game World More

Sony and Toyota Bring Real-Life Racing Into the Game World

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  • Tracks (Score:4, Informative)

    by bmxeroh ( 1694004 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2014 @04:37PM (#46698459) Homepage
    And only available on three tracks in Japan. Certainly not my local circuit, and I would guess not most peoples local circuit here either. The article also mentions that other tracks are able to join, however I'm guessing this in only tracks that are in GT6, or at least could be in some future DLC. Ultimately it is neat, but being such a limited use case really not that exciting.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Cryacin ( 657549 )
      I can see a market for literally hundreds of users for this!

    • Unless they've added a Dirt Oval License to GT6, chances are not a damn one of my local tracks will be featured...

      My kingdom for a paved road course within 100 miles!

  • Coming soon (Score:3)

    by Russ1642 ( 1087959 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2014 @04:38PM (#46698467)

    An add on for GTA that tracks how many actual pedestrians you run down in your stolen cars.

  • Since Toyota took a bit of a hit after the acceleration problems they were having, I expected Sony might come along to help them out. I'm just waiting for this collaboration to eventually yeild a power drivers seat with a memorystick slot in it that remembers the shape of your ass.
  • As an FRS owner, this gives me some hope that toyota hasn't completely abandoned the platform. I like my car enough to want to spend more money on it, but the only factory upgrades they've offered so far have been ludicrously overpriced (1000$ headunit? Why is a radio priced like it has an i7 in it..) and cosmetic rather than performance. (No thanks to your 80$ oil cap). There have been rumors of a factory installed turbocharger since their original run, but so far nothing. It's a toyota vehicle, but many

    • I've known people to buy the TRD stuff for trucks, but never for cars. Who cares if there are official performance parts? You'd normally go to the aftermarket for anything but a Ford or a Nissan anyway, and in most cases those too.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by MrLeap ( 1014911 )
        That's fair, and i'll probably do that when my warranty gets a little closer to expiration. I bought a 2007 Jeep and got __burned__ by its shitty problems, so I'm skittish now. :(

      • People who buy TRD are generally going for either aesthetics (the TRD exhaust for GT86 is rather unique looking), warranty/insurance, or loans. Increase my payment by $10/mo for the TRD catback? Warrantied and insured without question? Awesome, go for it!

        People looking for perf will always go third party. You'll never see a TRD intake that gives large gains because it needs to work with the stock ECU. Go third party and you can get a giant intake that requires MAF scaling or a catless header etc. -- so many

  • nice concept (Score:3)

    by demonbug ( 309515 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2014 @04:57PM (#46698665) Journal

    Neat concept, but as others have said, pretty useless in practice except for a very small minority of people who own the game, the right car, and live in the right place.

    I'm still waiting for the smartphone app they advertised prior to release that was supposed to allow you to take a GPS track from driving around (or walking) and turn it into an in-game course; that seems a lot more useful to a lot more people. Of course, it would also require them to release some sort of course maker, which so far they have failed to do. It feels like they've pretty much abandoned GT6 in favor of working on a version for next-gen consoles - updates thus far have been few, and mostly very minor.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      SO far. If ti's popular it will expand. THEN I can finally find out how my Saturn will behave on the worlds best tracks.

    • Why add features now? The promise alone was enough to sell copies of the existing game to most of those who would be interested in such a thing, and it's far more profitable to restrict new features to proof-of-concepts for features they are considering for the next release. After all you wouldn't want to undermine sales of the next iteration.

  • Other way around would be more fun. (Score:3)

    by Ira Sponsible ( 713467 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2014 @05:24PM (#46698987) Journal
    Let me race the car in GT6, remotely operating the car on the real track. Why can't we have this instead?
    • I'm having flashbacks to multiplayer Nascar games. Since it is boring to go left all game some people change things up and go right for a lap or two.

      Though... If someone makes the device to autodrive a car cheap enough, it could make for some high intensity demo derbys. Look on the plus side, don't need to hose the track down to get lower impact collisions if no one's safety is at risk.

  • See, I'd think it would be more interesting if things were reversed: you load your GT6 profile into the car, and let it drive the IRL track!

    Maybe Sony and Toyota will read this post, then give the Goog a ring-a-ding-ding...

    #wishfulthinking

  • Pedal depression? (Score:3, Funny)

    by pinzvidz ( 3520933 ) on Tuesday April 08, 2014 @05:26PM (#46699005)
    Yeah my accelerator pedal's depressed, it's in a hybrid. ;)
  • robotic drone software finishes First, Second, ....

  • video game vs real life (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Jeremy Clarkson attempted to take on a course he'd often played in a video game in a car he'd played in the game, and the real world experience was different enough that he could not match his best video game lap time: http://www.carsite.co.uk/gallery/videos/id/1148-jeremy-clarkson-brings-playstation-3-lap-to-life-in-honda-nsx

  • History is littered with those failures.

    Mechwarrior Pods, they went out of business and all that is left is a handfull across the country still played by a small rabid fanbase. (I luckily have a bunch near me)
    NASCAR Experience stores... Again died off rapidly, had a small but rabid following. Price to play was so high that barely anyone played them.

    The Sony/Toyota venture will also be a failure. Everyone before them failed badly because it was done half assed, and horribly overpriced to play. If it co

    • I don't think I understand what you mean? All they did is build an import function for an auto datalogger into Gran Turismo.
  • For some reason, the first time I scanned over the title, I read it as "Toyota and Sony bring real life racism to the game world". I was waiting for an epic story - but instead only got a story about how some peeps are using GPS data in a simulation.

  • Given Sony's record with electronics and Toyota's record with runaway automobiles, I'm not sure that's the best combination.

    It'll look good, but it won't be very functional.

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