The release of the highly-anticipated Gran Turismo 5 on PS3 could be pushed back as far as late 2008 says director Kaunori Yamauchi, who wants the game to be absolutely perfect before it's released.

Speaking with Car and Driver magazine (via Gamers-Creed), Yamauchi touted Spring 2008 as the earliest that the game could see release, but affirmed that Sony is more than willing to push that date back to the end of the year should his team need more time.

Yamauchi made reference to the cars as being one of the key time-consuming aspects of developing the game. It's taking 180 days for someone to build a car to the level of detail required for GT5, as opposed to the 30 days for GT3 and just one day for the original GT on PSone.

Above: Driving farther and farther away...

Crash damage has also once again been ruled out, Yamauchi saying that some companies don't want their cars smashed up in the game (despite damage featuring on the licensed cars of PGR, Forza and other games).

He also says adding the perfect damage system would mean changing the physics model of the game, and modelling each panel of every car separately, both normal and crumpled, with different lighting and shadows. Again, if other games can do it, why can't GT? They're not exactly short of time.

He did say, however, that crash damage could possibly be delivered as a post-release download, and that downloadable cars were a certainty. Meanwhile, you'll have to make do with the minimalist offerings provided in GT HD for another year or more.

July 2, 2007