Formula One video games

The roots of Formula One games can be traced back to the 1970s, with arcade games such as Speed Race and Gran Trak 10 which depicted F1-like cars going on a race track.

However, the first successful Formula One game in arcade history was Pole Position, by Namco. In Pole Position, the player has to complete a lap in a certain amount of time in order to qualify for a race at the Fuji racetrack. After qualifying, the player had to face other cars in a championship race. The game was very successful and it spawned an official sequel, Pole Position II, and an unofficial one, Final Lap. After the success of Pole Position, many similar games appeared in arcades (and later ported to home computers) such as TX-1.

During the late 1980s, arcades began being dropped in favour of home computer games. Late successful arcade games can be considered Super Sprint, which uses the top view instead of the rear view of most games, and its sequel Championship Sprint.

The first true Formula One racing simulators were Chequered Flag and Geoff Crammond's Formula One Grand Prix (F1GP). Chequered Flag featured fuel depletion and car damage, and a set of several real circuits. Previously, most racing games representing Formula One, such as Accolade's Grand Prix Circuit and Electronic Arts' Ferrari Formula One, had been arcade-style games, but F1GP paid more attention to the physics of the cars, in addition to innovative graphics and accurate rendering of the actual racing tracks. The game, released in 1992, was based on the 1991 season. Over the years, the game had sequels Grand Prix 2, 3, and 4 (based on 1994, 1998, with a 2000 update, and 2001 respectively).

The F1 official license was also held by Ubisoft and later transferred to Electronic Arts, which published seasonal simulations and also F1 Challenge '99-'02.

A notable place on PC simulation games is held by Papyrus' Grand Prix Legends, which depicted the 1967 Formula One season instead of the then-current season, like all other contemporaries. It recreates in a very accurate way the physics of the car and the feel of driving a real 1967 Formula One racer: for this, even after many years, it is still considered one of the most realistic games ever made. The game still has a vast popularity among video gamers, with many mods and original circuits being produced.

Beginning from the second part of the 1980s more games were being created for personal computers, which could guarantee an easier and less expensive development. Most of these games featured racetracks, cars and driver names similar to the real ones, but all modified slightly, since they did not have official licenses from FIA. Examples of this are Super Monaco GP (and its sequel Ayrton Senna's Super Monaco GP II, which had a license to display only Ayrton Senna's name) or Nigel Mansell's World Championship, but many other less known games had similar features.

The first half of the 1990s saw a growing in popularity of Formula One games, and many software houses began acquiring licences and display most real names and cars, for example Formula One by Domark, which featured most real tracks, drivers and teams.

The 3D graphics revolution started by Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix did not go unnoticed by the console market: some software houses began developing games in this style like Sega with its Virtua Racing, and later Namco with Ace Driver: Victory Lap (which featured futuristic, F1-like cars).

The first 3D game to feature a full license was Formula 1, developed by Bizarre Creations and released on PlayStation, the first game of the successful Formula One series. Despite the game being a mostly arcade game rather than a simulation, it was very well received; later the series moved towards a more realistic race approach. Other Formula One games released around the same time include EA Sports F1 Series (which runs from the 1999–2002 F1 season with all drivers from each season) and Video System/Nintendo's F-1 World Grand Prix and F-1 World Grand Prix II.

Sony had held an exclusive license to make Formula One games from 1996 until 2006, releasing sequels to Formula 1 on its PlayStation systems roughly at an annual pace throughout that time to form its Formula One series, as well as licensing the release of Infogrames' 2003 PS2-exclusive game Grand Prix Challenge, developed by Melbourne House. Challenge was well received by critics,[1] particularly its high quality graphics for its time,[2] despite being unknown to most F1 gaming fans.

After Sony concluded the Formula One series with the releases of Formula One 06 on the PS2 and Formula One Championship Edition on the PlayStation 3, the license for F1 games then passed to Codemasters, which then used it to begin their own Formula One video game series, releasing titles in annual installments for each season, starting with the 2009 season. The first game of the series, F1 2009, was released on the Wii, PlayStation Portable and iOS, with the Wii version supporting the Wii Wheel for motion-controlled steering. However, Codemasters chose to release subsequent annual sequels (with each successive installment adding more advanced features to better capture the realism of the sport) on non-Nintendo consoles and personal computers, with F1 2011 also being available on eighth-generation handhelds and F1 2016 also available as a paid mobile title on iOS and Android. Besides the Wii U port of the F1 Race Stars spin-off, subtitled Powered-Up Edition, no other Codemasters F1 game has been available on a Nintendo console.

While Formula One games in general are strict reproductions of the sport regardless of gameplay style, Codemasters ' F1 Race Stars was the first to bring Mario Kart-style gameplay to the setting, while their official license from FIA (which the company has held since 2009) allowed for the teams (complete with their respective sponsors) and drivers from that year's season to be given a cartoonish makeover.