There was once a time when developers would trip over themselves to rush out a demo for whatever game they have on the horizon. Initially these were released on floppy disks and later CDs as a “freebie” for the monthly gaming magazines. With the advent of the digital storefronts on consoles, and the larger storage available through hard drives and by this point, DVDs on the cover of magazines, the demos were able to showcase more of the games world. Such examples include Crackdown and Saints Row on Xbox 360.
Unfortunately the idea of demos seemed to largely disappear as the PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 into the PlayStation 4/Xbox One generations continued though demos still had to be produced for E3 and Gamescom conferences so that journalists and the public could try out the next big releases. But these were rarely made available for downloading on consoles at home.
Thankfully there has been a bit of a comeback in more recent years, though one game we wouldn’t have expected a demo of was for Gran Turismo, which is one of Sony’s longest running and most successful franchises.
Gran Turismo 7 is the latest in the mainline games and it released on 4th March 2022 for both the PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4. It is a bit surprising that Sony decided to therefore release a demo for such a well known series in a genre that you wouldn’t think needs much of a “try before you buy” approach. However, Sony has now revealed that My First Gran Turismo is launching on 6th December 2024 for both PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.
Despite giving a name that sounds more in keeping with a Fisher-Price toy, My First Gran Turismo is in fact a demo for Gran Turismo 7. It is a pretty impressive in depth demo to be fair, allowing you to unlock up to 18 cars. You can also race in three race events and set lap times in time trials across several tracks. And, most surprisingly it also supports PSVR2.
