SCEA has finally announced the release date and pricing of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The sim racer from Polyphony Digital is on the way April 17th in North America, and will be available for $39.99 on Blu-ray or as a PSN download. So get ready to rev your engine as April gets closer.

Gran Turismo has long been the premiere racing sim on the market, with attention to detail being unrivaled for nearly a decade. Even with the absence of vehicle damage – a “feature” that is interesting, but not essential – the series has always been at the forefront of physics and graphics technology. Prologue is a bit like a nice duck breast with cranberry compote on a baguette before you get to the main course. In other words, it’s small but oh so tasty.

Then again, $40 is a steep price to pay for a partial game. How much more will there be in the final version that would necessitate the increase in price? For that matter, is there enough content in a Prologue to warrant more than half the cost? Perhaps Polyphony Digital has a different definition of “prologue” than I do, but I’m fairly sure it doesn’t mean 60 percent of the content.

From Crackle: Gran Turismo 5 Prologue trailer