It’s bad enough that Gran Turismo 5 takes five years to arrive and then makes you wait for up to (and over) a minute every time a new track loads up. Now “extreme traffic congestion” is causing problems for online gamers – single players too, by all accounts.

In short, GT5 has been a runaway success – bigger, perhaps, than even Sony had bargained for. As such, the current server capacity is unable to keep pace with the surging demand for multiplayer races and other online components. Many players are now reporting delays of several minutes when trying to connect.

Unusually, this is affecting single players too, for the simple reason that GT5 goes online to update a number of community features, gameplay menus and various screen displays in ‘GT Mode’.

Needless to say that Sony is very sorry about all of this, and is currently working hard to get things running smoothly once again. The short-term solution is more stark – it’s recommended that you disconnect your PS3 from the internet while playing GT5. In the meantime Sony has also restricted access to the viewing of logs and, in some cases, user profiles and friends lists to help ease congestion.

It’s hardly an ideal start for what is otherwise a brilliant game, is it? But Gran Turismo 5 has the power to sell consoles, as well as millions of copies, so we don’t doubt that the problems will be resolved in double-quick time.