Spanish city names street after ‘Gran Turismo’ creator

Kazunori Yamauchi, creator of PlayStation's best-selling "Gran Turismo" series, has been accorded a special honour by the historic City of Ronda in Southern Spain.

 

Ronda's mayor, Maria de la Paz Fernandez Lobato, this week named one of Ronda's most high-profile streets, a walkway next to the famous Puente Nuevo bridge, Paseo de Kazunori Yamauchi.

 

The street is close to two others named after cultural icons, film director Orson Welles and author Ernest Hemingway, both of whom had a close association with the city.

 

The exalted company for Yamauchi is testament to the growing cultural impact of computer games.

 

The street naming ceremony was conducted while Yamauchi was in Ronda to launch the latest iteration of the "real driving simulator" Gran Turismo 6 for PlayStation 3.

 

The new game, which was released this week, features Ronda in its "Photo Mode", allowing players to position virtual cars in a number of the city's stunning locations to be captured for a high-definition image.

 

The beautiful surroundings of Ronda are also available in the game's "Course Maker" function, where players can create their own tracks incorporating the Andalucian scenery.

 

Close to Ronda is the Ascari Race Resort, an exclusive, private race circuit, that Gran Turismo's legions of fans will now be able to access virtually.

 

"Some people may find it a little strange that we have given the same honour to Yamauchi-san as to Orson Welles or Ernest Hemmingway," explained Maria de la Paz Fernandez Lobato, mayor of Ronda.

 

"But, in the same way that both of them were enchanted by Ronda, so was Yamauchi-san. There is also no doubt that his work has a huge cultural resonance with people today," she said. — Reuters