PlayStation 5 graphics teased as new Gran Turismo sets the standard for next-gen

This week, we've seen a hint of what the future of PlayStation graphics could hold thanks to a Lexus advert, of all things.

The luxury car company has teamed up with Sony to generate a series of images and set them alongside realworld counterparts, inviting punters to spot the different on the streets of London.

Lexus has chosen a couple of with shots of its flagship LC 500 coupe set up exactly as the car can be found in the latest version of the driving simulation game, Gran Turismo Sport.

Though the game is out now on PlayStation 4 (in fact, it launched back in 2017!) these images have been through a little post-production, and the photomode in-game has allowed for them to be a little more photorealistic than you'd see in live gameplay.

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"With gameplay graphics becoming ever more lifelike, Lexus decided to test the theory that in-game imagery could be mistaken for a real-life photograph and, in a process that started huddled around a games console in the living room of photographer Jayson Fong, set about the painstaking process of recreating the Gran Turismo scenes of a Sonic Red LC 500 in a number of London locations," a press release from Lexus reads.

The project expanded on the Scapes mode (basically the game's photomode) offered within Gran Turismo Sport which gamers can use to position their own cars in all manner of worldwide locations, tweaking the on-screen image as if it were a professional photoshoot.

Having used Scapes to isolate the Lexus scenes in London, Jayson and his team worked out the exact geometry of each shot, the time of day and associated lighting, adjusting light intake with the same f-stop camera aperture adjustment process used within Gran Turismo to capture the perfect recreation.

These images are a phenomenal showcase of what PlayStation consoles can already achieve, and are a genuinely insightful look into what the standard of next-gen graphics could be.

The fact that we find it difficult to differentiate real world versus game world images certainly says a lot.

If we're already capable of achieving these sorts of visuals now, just imagine what Polyphony Digital (developer of the Gran Turismo series) could be cooking up by the time the PlayStation 5 launches in 2020.

The images embedded on this page are surely a testament to the power of modern graphics, and racing games have long been the playground platform holders use to demonstrate the power of new console hardware.

We have little doubt that PlayStation will be putting the Gran Turismo developers to task to really show off what kind of juice the upcoming PlayStation 5 has under its hood.

If you reckon you know which image is which, you can tell Lexus your thoughts on its Twitter, Facebook or Instagram accounts.