Gran Turismo 4 is a 2004 sim racing video game developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2.

It was released on December 28, 2004, in Japan and Hong Kong, February 22, 2005, in North America, and March 9, 2005, in Europe, and has since been re-issued under Sony's Greatest Hits brand.

Originally planned for a 2003 release, Gran Turismo 4 was delayed for over a year and a half by Polyphony Digital, and had its online mode removed.

The Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean releases of the game were bundled with a 212-page driving guide and lessons on the physics of racing.

The new B-Spec mode puts players in the place of a racing crew chief: telling the driver how aggressively to drive, when to pass, and mandating pit stops (by monitoring tire wear and fuel level).

Another new addition to the game is the Driving Missions, which are similar in experience to the license tests, but award successful completion with 250 A-Spec points and 1000 or more credits.

This game is able to produce a selection of screenshots with variable compression rate (Normal/Fine/SuperFine) and size (up to 1280x960 72dpi), and the user can choose to save or print to a supported USB device.

Compared with Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec, graphics are greatly improved with more detail on cars and tracks (despite running on the same PlayStation 2 hardware).

The physics are also greatly improved, with the major upgrade that cars now experience body movement, such as pitching (forwards and backward rolling) under braking.

Gran Turismo 4 Prologue (グランツーリスモ4 プロローグ, Guran Tsūrisumo Fō Purorōgu) is a 2003 racing simulation game developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2.

The regular edition was discontinued and the game was re-issued under Sony's 'Greatest Hits' line in Japan ("PlayStation 2 the Best") on August 5, 2004[4] and Europe ("Platinum").

Gran Turismo 4 Online Test Version (グランツーリスモ 4 オンライン実験バージョン, Guran Tsūrisumo 4 Onrain Jikken Bāshon) is a free 2006 PlayStation 2 game by Polyphony Digital.

This public beta for Gran Turismo 4 Online (GT4OL) was freely shipped to 4,700 selected gran-turismo.com members from Japan[6] and 300 from South Korea to collaborate as "test players".

[7] Online services lasted three months from June 1 to September 1, 2006, and included 6-player "Competition" (対戦, taisen), Time Trial, chat (mail message and microphone communication), and an Internet ranking chart was available in the game's website.

First, a special event named "Top Racer Battle" (トップレーサーBATTLE) was staged in the Polyphony Digital headquarters on August 17.

The actual Top Racer Battle though, a 10-lap Tsukuba Circuit one-make race on board a Mazda Roadster 1600 NR-A '04, was won by Ryo Michigami.

Later from August 25 to September 5, 2006, Kazunori Yamauchi the Gran Turismo series producer (re)invited two Japanese and two European professional racing drivers sponsored by PlayStation to enter GT4OL's Time Attack mode Internet ranking chart and, either to challenge him or another guest in a versus race, either to compete with five test drivers in an 8~10 rounds multiplayer online competition called "trophy".

[25]Karl Brauer of edmunds.com performed a similar test, also at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, in which he and two others — professional race driver A. J. Allmendinger, and IGN gaming editor Justin Kaehler — set times in GT4 and real life in a variety of cars.

Yes, the force feedback steering wheel does its best to let you know when you're veering off the track, or sliding the rear end, but none of this comes close to the kind of information you get while driving a real vehicle.

[17] The game has also been criticized for lack of online play which had been promised during early development, but was announced as being removed at the time of release.

[17][20][30] Many reviewers expressed disappointment in the game's AI system,[31][17] noting that "virtual racers will follow their (driving) line with little concern for where the human driver is at any one time".

"[23] Jason Hill of The Sydney Morning Herald gave it all five stars and stated that the game's biggest strength "is the realistic handling.

[32] Charles Herold of The New York Times gave it a positive review and stated that while the game "aims for realism, it occasionally falls short.

[33] However, Jim Schaefer of Detroit Free Press gave it three stars out of four and stated that "GT Mode does a great job of organizing your choices on a large home map.

You can leave your garage to race, or jump over to ogle new and used rides at domestic and foreign dealerships, take on special challenges and buy parts upgrades".