Gran Turismo 6’s Course Maker may be the best way for you to drive your morning commute in a Ferrari.
Polyphony Digital is working on a companion app for their upcoming driving simulator Gran Turismo 6, which releases on Dec. 6 for the PlayStation 3. The Course Maker puts data from your travel routes (like your morning commute) directly into the game.
GamesBeat reached out to Polyphony Digital North American producer Taku Imasaki over the phone for details on this app.
Imasaki described the companion feature as a “MapMyRide for the driving world … a phone app that calculates [the] real-life route.”
Course Maker is similar to other mobile services that chart and track people’s running routes. The Course Maker — coming out on iOS and Android sometime after GT6’s Western launch — moves information from most GPS systems to your PS3. Players can drive along any route they plug into their GPS unit and then use the companion app to integrate the data into an online PS3 after reaching their destination.
After the companion app successfully uploads the GPS data, GT6 will modify it to work within the game’s engine, turning the information into a track that players can drive on with any of the racer’s 1,200 cars. People could also share their track data online. Polyphony Digital has yet to finalize the exact methodology of inputting said data from a GPS, although Imasaki has informed GamesBeat that the team is looking for the “easiest, swiftest way possible.”
Players will not only be able to drive along their local routes in the game. They can also get technical data readouts, including lap times and a route’s impact on a car’s suspension and tires, as if they were racing on Gran Turismo 6’s professional circuits. This could potentially give somebody a whole new perspective on how to take the surface streets into a city — after they had driven through them in a Pagani Huayra supercar. The GPS data will not fill with objects or buildings in the background, but players will be able to add scenery to the environment themselves after they upload their information.