Racing

Gran Turismo 5's next significant content update, Spec 2.0, will be released next month, Kazunori Yamauchi, CEO of developer Polyphony Digital, has confirmed. Yamauchi revealed the news on Twitter, saying: "GT fans, thanks for waiting...The GT5 Spec 2.0 update is coming [in] the third week of October, with DLC following a week later." More >

The website of Australia's ratings board reveals that Sega has sought classification for Daytona USA, suggesting the much-loved racing game, first released in 1993, is bound for modern consoles. The classification listing suggests the game is in development for multiple platforms. We've sought comment from Sega.

A brand new trailer, below, of the latest in the karting series fresh from Nintendo's pre-TGS conference. The game will be released in Japan on December 7.

The publisher has announced Super Star Kartz, a kart racer starring characters from Dreamworks films including Shrek, Madagascar, How To Train Your Dragon and Monsters Vs Aliens. It will be released for DS, 3DS, Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 before the end of the year.

Yesterday reports claimed that up to three million codes giving a free Steam copy of Dirt 3 had been taken from Codemasters' servers. The developer later got in touch to clarify that it was an AMD promotional site, and the graphics card manufacturer has confirmed that. In a statement, it said: "These activation keys were hosted on a thirdparty fulfilment agency website, www.AMD4u.com, and did not reside on AMD's website. Neither the AMD nor Codemasters servers were involved. We are working closely with Steam, Codemasters and our fulfilment agency to address the situation. AMD will continue to honour all valid game vouchers, however the current situation may result in a short delay before vouchers can be redeemed."

Ubisoft is offering free access to Driver: San Francisco’s multiplayer modes to all players – and not just those who bought the game new at retail, as initially planned - after a printing error left users unable to redeem codes to unlock the title’s online component. Beginning with Driver, copies of the publisher's "popular core games" were supposed to ship with a valid one-time code required to access multiplayer features, while second-hand buyers would have to pay to get in on the action. A post on the Xbox support forums confirmed that printing errors had put paid to those plans, for now. "To solve this problem, Ubisoft has made the Uplay Passport offer free for all purchasers of Driver: San Francisco,” it read. Ubisoft says players can access all of the game’s online features at no extra cost by accessing the Uplay Passport option from Driver’s online multiplayer menu.

UPDATE: AMD has provided the following statement: "This past weekend, activation keys associated with free Dirt 3 game vouchers shipping with select AMD products were compromised. These activation keys were hosted on a thirdparty fulfilment agency website, www.AMD4u.com, and did not reside on AMD’s website. Neither the AMD nor Codemasters servers were involved. We are working closely with Steam, Codemasters, and our fulfilment agency to address the situation. AMD will continue to honour all valid game vouchers, however the current situation may result in a short delay before the vouchers can be redeemed." ORIGINAL STORY: Publisher Codemasters has, together with AMD, been running a promotion giving away a download copy of Dirt 3 to purchasers of one of the latter's graphics cards. Kotaku reports that Codemasters had three million codes sitting on a webserver, which was accessed by hackers. One saving grace is that the codes in question were for Steam, which should make it relatively easy to blacklist the stolen codes, and gives Codemasters or Valve the option of banning those who used them.

Martin Edmonson, founder of Driver San Francisco developer Ubisoft Reflections, has thrown his weight behind the publisher's controversial always-on DRM that has been a constant source of frustration among PC gamers since its debut last year. "You have to do something," he told Eurogamer. "It's just, simply, PC piracy is at the most incredible rates. This game cost a huge amount of money to develop, and it has to be, quite rightly, quite morally correctly, protected. If there was very little trouble with piracy then we wouldn't need it." Edmonson also defended the recently introduced Uplay Passport, saying: "If people don't buy the game when it first comes out and wait and pay for rental or for second-hand usage, then the publisher sees absolutely nothing of that. [The online pass is] just one of those things we have to get used to. It's going to happen."