Contrary to what you might have read elsewhere, the reports of problems in Japan and the US have not put back the British release of Sony's own racing giant, Gran Turismo 4.

The ball started rolling earlier in the week when the Japanese arm of Sony announced that their region's release of Polyphony's masterwork was to go back from 3 December to 28 December.

Last night, Sony's US branch also announced that the game was going to be delayed over there, with the release date sliding from 14 December to an unnamed date in early 2005. Both delays were attributed to the developers wanting more time to work on the final tweaks and the localisation of the game - the same reason given after the game was delayed in Britain last month.

Being the ever-eager newshounds we are, we called Sony to see if these latest slips in foreign climes had changed the UK's GT4 release date. And the answer is... they won't. A Sony spokesperson has confirmed that the game is still on target to be released in the first three months of 2005. Phew.

Gran Turismo 4 will be released in early in 2005 for PS2