Polyphony Digital has announced that that they have entered a long-term partnership with the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (also known as the FIA). The FIA is one of the largest governing bodies of motorsport in the world, spanning 141 countries and nearly 80 million road and track users, and now they will have their first virtual sanctioning.
Gran Turismo 6 will be the first title to benefit from this partnership, with the circuits receiving official FIA certification. Each certified track was inspected at Polyphony Digital’s HQ in Tokyo, to be ensured that each circuit met the FIA’s standards. In the near future, more GT circuits will be inspected and certified.
In 2015, the FIA is planning to drop the green flag on an officially sanctioned series run in Gran Turismo 6. The goal is to bring GT and racing fans closer to the real world of racing, and to make it more accessible to the masses.
What are your thoughts on PD partnering with the FIA? You looking forward to racing in the series when it starts next year?
I think it’s a positive move for both parties. Hopefully the Gran Turismo series has more race driver Career paths in upcoming versions, starting in feeder series and progressing up the levels. I’m assuming although the FIA oversee F1, F1 rights will remain with Codemasters?
It depends what they do with it. In the past we’ve seen companies aquiring licences and then failing to make good use of them, merely using them to block others from using the content. F1 and Sony or EA and Porsche, Codies and Toca all spring to mind. Hopefully this will be different.
Pity Opinion Nation still isn’t running, this would have been a good topic for discussion.
Wait a second here — “Gran Turismo 6 will be the first title to benefit from this partnership”
If GT6 is the first title to benefit from a partnership does that mean FIA is seeking to partner with other Simulation titles? Interesting.
I think that specific quote refers to other upcoming PD titles – that would be GT7. But it’s great that they are opening up for partnerships like that.
With as many real world racers as have gotten their start in GT Academy it does really make a lot of sense. Doing it in GT6 may not be the ideal platform, but it is widely distributed and inexpensive. ANYTHING that helps simracing become more mainstream and accessible is a good thing. I was a part of a kart racing league in GT5 for a while, then we formed other small shorter lived leagues before transferring to GT6. In the original adverts for GT6 they said they were going to have leagues in the game, both official and unofficial league scoring and help with setting them up, so maybe this is what they were referring to. I know there are still many small leagues inside GT6 that can be found on GTPlanet or just scouring the game, but something with some real structure would be interesting to a lot of sim racers. The servers there are still a lot better than any except MAYBE iRacing.
I really don’t care that official FIA licensing is coming to a game I don’t play. I care, if the deal is exclusive, in which case I’d say it’s bad business for everyone involved – especially us gamers! If it isn’t, that’s great. Means someone got a foot in the door and now other companies might help pry it open a bit more.