TOKYO — After a server update left players unable to access even the solo portions of Gran Turismo 7 for over 24 hours, developers Polyphony Digital have offered everyone affected by the outage a gently used copy of 2003’s Midnight Club II in the interim to fulfill their daily racing game obligations.
“Eh, I’m still not thrilled that I couldn’t come home from work and unwind by playing the career mode on a game I just dropped 70 bucks on,” said Clark Miltroe, a PS5 owner that was disappointed to find the game inaccessible last night. “But, it’s nice for them to set me up with something until I can get back into GT7. Midnight Club II is definitely a little older and slower, but I’ll be able to smoke a little weed and vibe out to this tonight. I hope they get me my game back soon, though. I have a girl coming over this weekend and I told her we’d play Gran Turismo!”
Kazunori Yamauchi, Gran Turismo designer and Polyphony Digital CEO, explained that routine maintenance on a game is integral to ensuring it lasts a long time.
“Nobody wants their game to have to go into the shop, we know that,” said Yamauchi. “But we also know that no one wants their game to crash when they’re in the middle of a race. So we decided to fix the issues we saw now, rather than have to deal with more explosive crashes happening later in the game’s lifecycle. And hey, we’re gonna hook you up with Midnight Club II as a daily driver. Would Microsoft do that? Doubt it.”
One of the lead programmers on the game echoed Yamauchi’s insistence that taking the game off the road was necessary.
“Oh yeah, that cocksucker had a few bugs that were seizing the whole thing up,” said Cal “Hoss” Billings, a third generation game programmer, as he wiped the motor oil from his hands onto a soiled rag. “Sumbitch wasn’t firin’ like it shoulda. So we got in there and cleaned some things out, polished some things, gave the chassis a new coat. Oh, and we cranked down how many credits you get per race, in an effort to make players spend more of their real money. Buncha shit like that.”
As of press time, Gran Turismo 7 was back online and Polyphony Digital had politely asked that all copies of Midnight Club II were returned to them by midnight.
