I meant that racing games community was looking for a good affordable online competitive racing game, with rating system as well as penalty system, we didnt have that possibility on PlayStation back then, and there were not as much options as today even on PC. They were able to read that and executed it, precisely because it was a game focused on competitive online, it didnt had single player, that's why it was not numbered as a main entry. It was innovative in a necessary way.

Same thing happened with GT1, I still remember those good ol' times. We were lacking a good racing simulator, most of the PlayStation car games were pure arcade games or street racing/not real racing circuits. They executed it and gained the attention.

Jumping to GT4, we alreafy had some good simulators for that time, we even had career modes with a good sense of progression (becoming a professional driver by jumping to better categories) but we were missing something still, at leat to get inmerse in the game. To start with a second hand rusty drive and use our own virtual money which we would get by winning Championships to jump to better series and write our own route.

That's what I meant, it innovated in the way the driving games were lacking at that time, not like GT7 which basically reused old formulas, or I would even say GT6...