Kazunori Yamauchi didn't speak quickly.

In addition, he speaks English, and the Japanese have a very strong English tongue, so it is not easy for European and American journalists to understand.

"The selection will be divided into three divisions, Asia, Europe and North America, and the scope of the test will cover all aspects of a professional driver, not only the driving skills, but also the psychological test, and the test is very rigorous, because we are selecting real racers, not playing a game with you, we are very careful and serious about this."

Hearing Jester say this, the interest of the reporters grew.

"Is the selection at the designated place?"

Immediately, someone followed up, and the question was a supplement to the answer of Kazunori Yamauchi's previous division.

Therefore, Kazunori Yamauchi did not hesitate, but explained directly: "Yes, the selection location of the European division is in the United Kingdom, while the selection location of the Asian division is in Japan, and the North American division is in the United States. ”

"All players who want to become professional drivers have to go to the designated countries and locations to participate in your auditions?" The other asked quickly.

"It's not just that."

However, Kazunori Yamauchi did not nod this time, but shook his head.

"The final test at our designated location is only qualified if you pass the qualifiers, this place is not too much, roughly speaking, there may be only a dozen players in each region who can obtain this qualification, as long as you get the player who participates in our final regional selection, all his participation costs are contracted by us."

"Selection?"

This left the reporters a little confused.

How to conduct the selection without being on site?

Faced with this question, Kazunori Yamauchi smiled: "This problem actually doesn't need to be hidden, at the beginning of the development of the game "Gran Turismo", his positioning was real, not so much that it was a racing game. It's better to say that he is a racing simulation software, and all the data about the car in it is true and unmistakable......"

After boasting about his own this, Kazunori Yamauchi solved the mystery.

"Also, our Dreambox3 will have a feature that no other console has, and that is the online mode, which means that players can connect to the Internet with a network cable and play against other players from all over the world...... It is for this reason. So, we set up the GT Academy mode, which is not just the name of our plan in reality, but more importantly, it is also a mode in the game, and it is also a pre-selected mode for our real-life professional drivers, which means that you can only get our second round of realistic selection if you get a good enough score in the GT Academy in our Gran Turismo game. ”

If you don't answer, you will do so. But with this answer from Kazunori Yamauchi, his answer immediately caused an uproar among the reporters~ waves.

Even more than when the GT Academy plan was first said from Jester's mouth, it was surprising and incredulous, after all. Isn't it child's fun to play a game to select a professional racer?

And say that this is not a play house? This is not a play house, what is a play house?

"You're fooling everyone!"

Immediately, someone unceremoniously questioned Kazunori Yamauchi, after all, what he had just said. It's a bit too shocking, and Jester said that when they used to select professional racers through GT Academy, they thought it was a bit crazy. But they still think it's feasible, after all, they all thought that it was selected through oath, and the so-called GT Academy was just a gimmick for their game.

However, now that I heard Kazunori Yamauchi say this, I realized that it seems that what Mars Entertainment is going to do this time is far from being so simple.

Faced with the questions of many reporters, Yamauchi Kazunori did not feel the slightest nervousness, he said unceremoniously: "How do you know that this must be a playhouse?" Why can't we have a preliminary audition through our game? As I've said before, our racing game is as realistic as it is in every detail, it's a real driving simulation software, not just a game, especially in our GT Academy mode, and my biggest motivation for developing Gran Turismo is that one day I want to have a real driver out of my game, for me, it's not a joke or a joke, it's a serious thing. ”

Although Kazunori Yamauchi said this, the reporters still couldn't understand that the final result could only be unhappy.

"Selecting drivers through games? Absurd! ”

This is a big game media for Yamauchi Kazunori to answer the title of GT racing, obviously, they all think that Mars Entertainment, Jester, Yamauchi Kazunori is nonsense, and those car manufacturers, especially those car manufacturers in Japan, are all messing around with Mars Entertainment, they don't think Jester can succeed in other aspects, they can succeed in all aspects, right?

Moreover, on the Internet, players have different attitudes towards Mars Entertainment, and there are many racing game players who are not cheering Mars Entertainment's decision, calling it the greatest thing ever, but there are many more players - probably the vast majority of whom are not loyal fans of racing games, they are the same as those media, auditions through games, which is simply messy ~.

The two sides are also arguing on the Internet.

After all, Jester is the head of Mars Entertainment, and on the day of the release of Dreambox 3, he can't be absent from his headquarters, which not only gives confidence to his employees, but also to players.

For the uproar that Yamauchi Kazunori had just caused before~ Wave, Jester was happy to see it, because the heat caused this time was much greater than what he had caused at the beginning, and it was really necessary for this kind of controversial topic to be able to cause more heat.

Even Jester is confident that in the first game of Dreambox3 this time, the sales of "Gran Turismo" may soar all the way, and his own "Hero" may not have its good results, because the controversy of this game is too big now, especially what Kazunori Yamauchi said before. I'm not just a game, I'm a driving simulation software, so we can pick out real professional drivers through the games I've developed.

Of course, this is a suspicion of big talk.

However, this is really not too much, because Jester knows that Gran Turismo is indeed a racing game with a high degree of realism, and it can even be said that it is by far the most professional racing game.

His professionalism and authenticity are unparalleled. In Jester's memory, he's seen a lot of interviews with people who became professional drivers through the GT Academy program, and that's what they call Gran Turismo, their extreme love for the game seems to be close to madness, they have their own little world, they have the ultimate pursuit of cars, and many times, they seem to compare it to a racing simulation software rather than a racing game.

In Jester's memory. I remember a player of Gran Turismo named Haite Kode, who was just a very ordinary person before participating in GT Academy, an ordinary American living in Fresno, California. However, he loved racing games and dreamed of becoming a professional driver, and later Sony, Kazunori Yamauchi started the "GT Academy" program with some Japanese car manufacturers.

He is at GT Academy, the online platform for Gran Turismo. Defeated more than 50,000 competitors and earned the chance to travel to Silverstone in England for a final training session.

Afterwards. He successfully completed his training, became a professional racing driver, and was the holder and champion of numerous racing records, even before that, he was unemployed.

Later, when Haitcord recalled how he got in touch with Gran Turismo, he said that a year after he was introduced to Gran Turismo, he decided to bring the results of his training in Gran Turismo to real cars, that is, to participate in the general skills show jumping competition of the local American Racing Club (SCCA) chapter, after all, only practice can tell the truth. This kind of multi-trick obstacle course is actually very different from traditional racing competitions, it is more like a warm-up exercise for people who are ready to go to the field, there is no-for-tat confrontation, there is no excessive speed competition, only relatively basic skill training and strict requirements for car control.

To his surprise, he actually achieved a good result in this competition.

In the 12 years since, Heitkord has honed his driving fundamentals with Gran Turismo and the combined skills show jumping races, and it could even be said that he has a real talent for this area, in addition to winning several general skills jumping championships, and in 2010 he was awarded the Super-Stock title by the SCCA World Championship.

The rest of the story is even more legendary, and as an ordinary racing gamer, Heitkode felt that he could go further, for example, to become a real racing driver, just as the GT Academy selection program was in full swing.

In the interview, Haitkord said this.

"The problem is, you can't go on like this all the time, and the mixed skills show jumping does give me a lot of fun, but at the same time it's expensive and not rewarding. It also meant that I couldn't make a living using it, at best as a hobby. Subsequently, Heitkode quit his job and found a casual job as a part-time worker specializing in delivering auto parts, but half a year later, he was unemployed again.

Heitkord recalls and says he can keep doing it, but he still wants to chase his dreams. But life is not a drama, it is bland and cruel, and when it gradually becomes unsatisfactory, people will begin to deny themselves and think about themselves, whether this persistence is really worth it. Heitkode had the same thought, and he had doubts, but he never gave up.

The process in between is not detailed.

Eventually, he became a real race car driver.

Of course, the selection process is very arduous and rigorous, from the beginning of the GT Academy program in '08 to the Jester crossing, there are many people who have completed this selection event from ordinary gamers to professional drivers, and they have really become professional drivers, and even, their strength is quite good, in some events, they have even become the main force of the Nissan team.

For example, in 2011, Heitkode's 53,000 players had to compete in GT5's online qualifiers, and then the top 32 players were able to go to Walt Disneyland in Orlando to compete in the final week. But the test has only just begun, and at Silverstone, the 16 athletes will be the first to learn how to deal with media pressure, just like a true professional racing driver, who should be calm and comfortable in the face of media skepticism and interviews.

After that, everyone has to undergo a written test, a health examination and a basic physical fitness test, so to speak, the runners do not even have a chance to breathe, and the ultimate goal of all the training based on this is to let the runners learn to cope with the huge psychological and competitive pressure, and to give full play to their potential and run the best results on the course (including lap records and qualifying).

"At the end of the process, you don't even start to be able to concentrate on going on, but it's a necessary process, because it's very valuable to be able to keep going," says Heitkord, and the reality is that he persevered until the end.

In fact, in Jester's opinion, the development of this incident and the things that he encounters now and may encounter in the future are not much different from the original history that he is familiar with.

The emergence of the GT Academy, whether by accident or as an inevitable product, is no longer important, after all, its success is obvious to all.

But at the beginning of the project, GT Academy was like Blair. There was a steady stream of cynicism about whether Heitkode could move from "virtual" to "real", but time and courage finally shattered all doubts, just as Kazunori Yamauchi convinced Sony officials who were completely unconvinced of the game's benefits for PlayStation through the sales of Gran Turismo.

Their success constitutes the racing culture that is unique to the entire GT series, a dedication and persistence to the car.

In Kazunori Yamauchi's documentary "Shortening the Virtual Boundary," he has a memorable quote: "Is Gran Turismo really just a video game?" Is that just that? (To be continued......)