With racing fans all revved up about the latest iteration in the Gran Turismo series, it seems a tiny speed bump has been spotted regarding the PlayStation Portable release of Gran Turismo 4 Mobile. Due to the amount of time invested on the PS3 projects, it seems highly unlikely that fans will be seeing the handheld racer released any time this year.

With all the neat features, like car deformation, being planned into the PlayStation 3 version of the latest Gran Turismo title, it's no wonder why this setback occurred. However, series creator Kazunori Yamauchi reassured gamers that they will still be working on it, along with a couple of improvements seen on the PS3's Gran Turismo 5 Prologue.

He mentioned that the PSP version will include online features similar to the next-gen version. In fact, this was what Yamauchi had to say to explain the planned changes:

Once we experienced PS3 online and went through all of that, we came to the conclusion that PSP should not be a standalone product - it should be linked in to the world of Gran Turismo, linked with the PlayStation 3.

Until they release more news regarding the game, we guess this means we'll all just have to wait and see what else Yamauchi and his development team at Polyphony Digital have in store for the handheld racer. In any case, don't forget to keep coming back to this spot for more updates regarding the popular racing title.