According to a post at Beyond3D an interview with Kazunori Yamauchi about the new Gran Turismo on PS3 in the latest issue of Famitsu has more details on microtransactions in the game.
According to the article, shortly after PlayStation 3's launch there will be two versions of the new Gran Turismo HD, both have online multiplayer. Gran Turismo 5 will not arrive until 2008.
Gran Turismo HD: Premium is a GT5 prologue that comes with two courses and 30 cars. Gran Turismo HD: Classic has no cars or courses and is meant to be a platform for the online multiplayer, which according to this report supports up to 20 cars in a race.
Up to 750 cars and 50 tracks will be available for purchase. The cars are reportedly 50 - 100 yen (approx. $0.43 - 0.85) and courses are 200 - 500 yen (approx. $1.71 - 4.26). You will not get cars via in game events, only by purchasing and downloading. Apparently, there are also plans to release limited numbers of downloads for special courses.
IGN contacted Sony who would not comment at this time. Does this mean that to own all the cars and courses in GT HD a PS3 owner would have to drop up $500-845 bucks on Gran Turismo? What if you don't download all the courses, but your friend does? Can you not race on that track unless you buy it? Hopefully, these questions can be answered later this week at Sony's Press Conference from the Tokyo Game Show