Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. sent out a self-congratulatory press release, bragging about how the Gran Turismo series has sold over 50 million units, as of April 30th. It took a little over 10 years for the franchise, which spans over across all three PlayStation home consoles, to reach this incredible milestone.

The latest release in the franchise is Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, which provides PS3 gamers an early taste of "next-gen" racing. 16-player online racing, Gran Turismo TV, and downloadable content are some of the key features in GT5:P, and they show exactly how far this franchise has come since its first release on PS1.

"Initially, Gran Turismo was an 'alternative' racing game, kind of an outsider in the genre," said Kazunori Yamauchi, Producer of Gran Turismo. "And we made it thinking that it would be okay as long as it reached out to 'the select few who would agree with us.' So this figure, 50 million units - is simply astounding. If you go to a game store and look for a particular package, and pay for it at the cash register, though the time may be very brief, it still takes at least 3 minutes or so. It's simply mind boggling and hard to believe that this has been repeated 50 million times all around the world in the last 10 years. I would really like to thank all the fans who have supported the Gran Turismo series over the years, for all their passion and love of the game. We'd like to continue making every effort to create cutting edge, high quality games, so that we don't disappoint anyone's expectations.

[Via press release]