F1-Blog

For years Sony had the right’s to the F1 game’s, so we only ever saw ‘arcady’ games make it onto their own platforms.

However today it’s been announced that CodeMasters have picked up the license, and it’s internal race driver : GRID team will be doing the game, that’s good news, as CodeMasters have a long history of decent racing games (TOCA, McRae, GRID)

Centre to all of their plans is to setup a Formula 1 Online community for the games and players.

"As a world-leading creator of driving games, this alliance with Formula 1 is the jewel in Codemasters’ racing crown and creates an undisputed segment champion,"

"Formula 1 has gone with the best, the segment leader. It has gone to the home of the EGO Engine for quality; it has gone to the company that can host Formula 1 Online, to the company that is streaking away from the pack." - Rod Cousens CodeMasters.

Let’s hope they can re-create the Geoff Crammond glory days of the F1GP games.

I t seems that the young Brit Lewis Hamilton has signed a $10 Million deal with gaming Giant Electronic Arts (EA Sports).

This has lead to speculation that if the EA brand has invested so heavily in an F1 heavyweight for marketing of a game, then they are also in talks to purchase the F1 right’s, currently held by Sony.

If this is true, it’s excellent news in one way, and not so good in another. It would mean that the F1 games would be multi platform (XBox 360, PS3 at least) and people who are not on the Sony platform would again be able to play F1 games.

However it’s possibly not all good news, the current F1 game available on the PS3 is decidedly arcade’y and very easy. If EA bring the F1 franchise in house, then perhaps they are also looking to purchase the Sony Liverpool Studio’s (the current developers of F1), and if so the game would stay in it’s arcade form. It is possible though that the game would be taken over by one of EA’s plethora of in house development studio’s and get the treatment it deserves, and with a little luck, we could get back to something resembling Geoff Crammond’s greats (F1GP 1/2/3/4 from MicroProse).

Here’s hoping, as I can see the value of dumb’ing the F1 game to a level where it can be picked up by many, but us F1 fans would like something more, something that mirror’s the trials and tribulations of the F1 world a little more closely.

Hey we may even get a management part to the game, that would be fun, we can go through Stepneygate for ourselves…..