It seems another chapter has come and gone in the rumor mill predicting an actual hard release date for Gran Turismo 5. A rumor ignited the PlayStation 3 faithful that a December 23rd release date was at hand for Japanese buyers. That news quickly changed, however, and once again, we are told that no date has yet to be determined; but it is expected that a release date should be forthcoming at the end of November.

Play it out, if you will, and if (and we again say if) the date of December 23rd is actually accurate for a Japanese release, then we suspect that it is very unlikely that a North American or European release this year will take place; the logical time frame for a release in North America or Europe we forecast will come in late January or early February, at best.

When it comes to GT5 release dates these days, we just no longer believe anything that anyone says. We do think it will be released one day; and we do think that the title is inching closer to release. What we do suspect, however, is that a release for North America or Europe is starting to look less likely to happen before Christmas, but we will have to just wait and see what happens.