During Sony's huge E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) announcement, an official North American release date of 2nd November 2010 was set following a Gran Turismo 5 video presentation.

Throughout the press conference following the presentation Kazunori Yamauchi, the creator and producer of the Gran Turismo series, spoke about a number of in-game features, previously unseen in any video game or racing simulator. One of the biggest announcements was that both NASCAR and WRC have been officially licensed to the game, and all cars will now carry active damage modeling - a feature previously missing from the GT series. Highlighting just how committed Polyphony Digital are to detail, every single piece of graffiti on the 12.9 mile Nordschleife has been accurately re-created.

Yamauchi has also said that more Formula 1 teams will be bringing cars to the game, with a clip of the series creator talking with Sebastian Vettel and Adrian Newey at the Red Bull Racing factory in Milton Keynes, UK. For the first time ever, both Ferrari and Lamborghini have licensed their cars to Polyphony, but Porsche will not be present due to an exclusivity deal signed with Electronic Arts.