While Gran Turismo 5 on the PS3 was playable at the ongoing Gamescom event on Cologne, Germany, enticing details on the game showed up and quickly disappeared from the Japanese official Gran Turismo site. Those details were quickly translated into English and some but not all were later confirmed to IGN by director Kazunori Yamauchi.

Yamauchi confirmed that car damage would be in Gran Turismo 5 but only for some of the 1,000 cars that the game is speculated to have. There is no word on which car models will have damage, but the selection is likely due to licensing agreements with car manufacturers.

Those selected could be the 170 premium cars mentioned on the Gran Turismo website that will have full interior modeling unique to each car. The site said that even damage will be modeled in the interiors of these cars.

The E3 2009 trailer for Gran Turismo 5 showed that the game would contain some damage models for cars, but analysts were still skeptical then.

In a Gamescom hands-on, Ign confirmed that Subaru was among the makes that would display damage. Although significant damage couldn't be shown on the car, Ign reached a point where the front bumper hung off to the side of the car and the doors were forced to constantly flap open.

Some of the translated details grabbed from the Gran Turismo site suggested that the physics system is completely re-done from what previous Gran Turismo titles used. Full fall would be represented in vehicles and it's possible that vehicles might roll over in crashes.

Car damage is something long clamored for by Gran Turismo fans because it helps better simulate the risks involved with high-speed racing. The Forza Motorsport games have always had car damage and have shown how damage can affect a car during a race. Gran Turismo has not done this up until now.

There are also supposed to be 830 standard model cars. The status on car damage for them is unknown. Many of these cars may be pulled from Gran Turismo 4.

Gran Turismo 5's physics engine, according to the site, should also try to reproduce the behavior of electric cars and hybrids like the Prius, Insight, and the latest Tesla model.

The Gran Turismo site also seemed to confirm 60 courses and say that 20 more will be revealed. Yamauchi denied that Gran Turismo 5 would contain a course editor when Ign asked him about it.

In terms of modes and interface, according to what was on the web site, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue may already represent well what's going to be in the full game. The interface will mostly be in the same format with a lot of things added.

Local multiplayer will still only be for up to two players, but the online mode seems like it will be fully-featured. The site listed an open lobby system where private rooms can be made. Text and voice chat were listed as being available during online play.

The ability to take photos from replay was also listed as making a return from Gran Turismo 4 and Tourist Trophy with added online functionality. Players will be able to trade photos and videos online and even instantly post replays to YouTube.

Custom soundtracks were also listed among the features for Gran Turismo 5 – something that almost no PS3 game has included despite Sony allowing developers to do so for over a year now. Also significant for the game's audio is the option for 7.1 sound which was listed.

Singleplayer gameplay for Gran Turismo 5, from what the site listed, looked largely similar to its predecessor. All the same modes like World Map, Car Dealerships, the Championships, and License Tests should be there under the interface seen in Prologue.

The "Gran Turismo TV" delivery store for car-related programming that was in Prologue was listed to have an improved interface in the full game. The videos will be transferrable to the PSP and new ways to download the videos will be available.

The last thing the web site listed for Gran Turismo 5 was head-tracking with the Playstation Eye. Head-tracking allows games to sense the movements of the player's head and move the in-game camera accordingly.