Gran Turismo 4 slip denied

The UK arm of Sony Computer Entertainment has confirmed that Gran Turismo 4 is still on track for a November 2004 release, despite rumours from sources close to Sony that the PAL version has slipped to early 2005.

A source close to the platform holder told Eurogamer this afternoon that "SCEE won't admit that GT4 will slip yet," but maintained that internally, Sony is facing up to making the unwelcome move of shifting the game's PAL launch until early next year - a claim denied by SCE UK's PR chief David Wilson.

"We haven't been made aware of any changes to the schedule, but Polyphony are such perfectionists that they won't ship the game until it's absolutely ready. It's such an important title," Wilson told us this afternoon.

Polyphony's legendary GT-creator Kazunori Yamauchi admitted in a recent interview that perfecting the game's online mode was a major factor in the extensive delays besetting the project to date, and that adding the huge Nurburgring track had also been behind the decision to put the game back.

In the event of a small slippage for the PAL release, Sony would be looking at pushing the game all the way back to mid February - usually the first week considered for any major game releases post Christmas. Any further slippage would be a major blow for both Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and fans of the series, who would otherwise have to console themselves with the stop gap release GT Prologue - a review of which you can read here, and buy in PAL territories as of tomorrow (or today, if your local retailer has broken street date, as they all seem to do these days).