Codemasters Snags Exclusive Formula 1 License

[TTR Dr Payne]

http://worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=52022


Posted on Friday, May 09 @ 02:34:35 PDT
Codemasters announced that it has secured the exclusive video game rights to Formula 1, previously owned by Sony, allowing the UK based publisher/developer to develop a new generation of the multi-million selling Formula 1 game franchise across multiple platforms.



Codemasters Studios, creators of genre-leading racing titles Colin McRae: DiRT and Race Driver: GRID, will lead the design and development of official FIA Formula One World Championship games for home console, handheld and PC gaming formats.

“Formula 1 is ambitious in expanding its reach with more circuits planned beyond recent additions in the Middle East and China. It is also ambitious in expanding its reach via technology. The digital communities that computer and video gaming creates will play a key role in further growing the Formula 1 audience and connecting them globally,” said Rod Cousens, chief executive officer, Codemasters.

“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.”

“Codemasters’ success and recent innovations in the racing game space makes the company more than appropriately tuned for the challenge,” said Chris Deering, chairman, Codemasters. “The combination of Formula 1’s new momentum of expansion and Codemasters’ contemporary technology and past experience is the breaking of a new dawn for the sport, on the track and on the HD game screen.”

The worldwide deal provides Codemasters with rights to feature all Grand Prix circuits, Formula 1 teams, cars, and driver likenesses.

The FIA Formula One One World Championship games will be developed using the evolution of the award-winning EGO Game Technology Engine, Codemasters’ highly versatile cross-platform middleware technology. Its advanced graphics and physics technology brings an unmatched cinematic quality and realism to interactive entertainment.

The EGO Engine is currently being deployed in the creation of Race Driver: GRID, the latest in Codemasters Studio’s international circuit-based racing series. Set to be a landmark release when it launches on May 30th, Race Driver: GRID was recently hailed as “The driving game of the summer” by BBC Top Gear magazine.

Codemasters expects the first game based on the FIA Formula One World Championship to launch in 2009.

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This is huge news as it pretty much guarantees f1 will be coming to the XBOX!
We just have to hope Codies makes it more of a racing sim instead of an arcade game!




UPDATE: Codies now have a section for it on the forums and the desctiption is "Bringing the world's biggest motorsport back to multiplatform gaming" so that right there tells you we will be seeing it on the XBOX


ANOTHER UPDATE: "Right now, there's not much I can say in regard to answering questions.

The game will be out in 2009, and will feature the 2009 season's cars and tracks.

The game will be multi-platform.

The game's currently planned to have multiplayer.

The game will be powered by EGO, and developed in-house.

Beyond that, nothing else is able to be confirmed.

Still, this is really exciting news for us, and we hope you're excited too."

[IllBashU]

ttr are you happy or sad about this?

[TTR Dr Payne]

very happy because it means F1 will finally get off of the Playstation and come to the XBOX!

The F1 rights were held by Sony before(dont know for how many years, but its been quite a few now) and so it meant all the F1 games that were released were PlayStation exclusive. By Codemasters taking over the rights for F1, it means the game will become multi-platform!

Codemasters are a very good developer, and make some of the best racing games there are, so they should do a dam good job of this. Just whether they make it an arcade racer or more of a sim racer is unknown, as they have made racing games in both areas.. So they easily could take this one either direction. They seem to be leaning towards making arcade racers now though because they make more money because there is a wider audience..I do like arcade racers, my preferred area though is more of a mix between sim and arcade with the lean more towards sim. So thats what I hope they do with this game, but its totally unknown which direction they will go(they themselves dont even know yet which direction they will take it. Thats to be determined over the coming weeks/month(s).

It will be exciting no matter what though just because it will mean we will have F1 on the XBOX. I do quite enjoy F1 races, although my interest in the series has sort of faded since Michael Schumacher retired..I liked watching him race My favourite thing I remember watching him doing was in a race a year or two ago when during qualifying, he had the #1 lap time and so was going to start the race in 1st place, but on the final lap of qualifying the racer behind him was on pace to beat his time, and so Schumacher 'accidentally' lost control of his car in a turn and blocked the road causing the guy behind him to lose his fast lap XD