Gran Turismo Series Has Sold More Than 90 Million Copies

Today is Gran Turismo’s 25th birthday. The hyper-realistic, visually stunning, and now, highest-selling first-party PlayStation title celebrated its 25th anniversary with a special message from Polyphony Digital president Kazunori Yamauchi.

"In the last 25 years, the cumulative sales total of the series have reached over 90 million copies as of November 16, 2022," wrote Yamauchi on the PlayStation Blog. "And this result is something that could not be accomplished by ourselves alone. Behind that 90 million figure, there are all the people of the media who conveyed the allure of Gran Turismo to their readers. There are the people of PlayStation who sold GT for us around the world with passion, and there is the incredible amount of support from the retailers who interfaced with our users.

"My heartfelt thanks goes out to all of them for their support."

Yamauchi also gave a touching story about how Gran Turismo came to be. Although he'd always loved video games, he initially didn't think it would ever be a career, even after starting his job at Sony.

"But the department they assigned me to was not what I was expecting," he recounted. "It was a department where the PlayStation console was just about to start, and was a place where Kutaragi-san was working feverishly to bring the concept of PlayStation to life."

Gran Turismo almost still didn't happen. Yamauchi said he made roughly 100 game concepts, and among them was approved for Motor Toon Grand Prix. An early fantasy racer with colorful cartoon characters, the success of this first-party title led to Sony green-lighting Gran Turismo, which was built with a development team of just two part-time artists and three engineers. Today, Polyphony Digital has a staff of over 200 employees.

Gran Turismo 7 is another success for the franchise, and it might soon make the leap from PlayStation to PC platforms. When asked about whether a PC port of Gran Turismo 7 is coming, Yamauchi said "yes, I do think so." He did admit that it might take some time, however, as GT7 is a "very finely-tuned game" that will require some work to get right on PC.

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