Sega Confirms OutRun 2 For Arcades

Thanks to several readers for pointing out that Sega AM2 have opened an official page for their forthcoming arcade driving game, OutRun 2. This sequel to the all-time classic racer, originally released way back in 1986, was unveiled at Sega's private show in Tokyo last night, and confirms earlier information that it would run on the Chihiro arcade hardware, a modified Xbox arcade board, making it a prime candidate for conversion to Microsoft's console. The game also sports licensed Ferrari cars (the F50, F250, and Testarossa), and apparently, driving 'cool' will impress the girl in the passenger seat and get you different game endings.

Hopefully

[tarius8105]

They will make a PC version instead of just an Arcade version. Outrun was fun but not when you had to keep feeding quarters in.

Xbox benefits coming?

[bigman2003]

Hopefully this will start a very long chain of arcade titles being ported over to the Xbox quickly, and well. The concept is good- make a console with good hardware, use it in arcades, port the same game over to the home version of the console. (Profit?!?)

The Xbox is not going to beat the Playstation 2 because of the huge difference in numbers- but hopefully the fact that it is easier to program for, and port to/from will benefit us Xbox users.

I've played a few PC games that were ported from the Xbox, and they were excellent games - Rallisport Challenge comes to mind- good on the Xbox, excellent on the PC. The PC gets much better graphics, but the gameplay is the same.

Maybe it will be a winning combination. Personally I am sick and tired of hardware and software conflicts while playing games on my PC, so I finally bought an Xbox. It thrills me to play for 2 hours without a single crash. Most of the crashes on the PC come from audio/video driver incompatibilites. I've sunk so much money into video cards in the past 2 years, I could have bought an Xbox and dozens of games.

Finally- freedom from that mess, AND Sega will hopefully be porting over arcade games...cool.

Re:Xbox benefits coming?

[Craig Maloney]

It's been done successfully by Sega in the past, with the NaomiDreamcast, and the Saturn (Can't remember the name of the Saturn-based arcade board), as well as other companies. Sometimes the differences between the arcade machine and the console machine are just the methods of storage (and even those lines are blurring. Couldn't believe when I saw a "Now Loading" screen on the Sega Airplane Simulations, and the Eighteen Wheeler game.

Arcades are a dying breed...

[Man In Black]

The concept is good- make a console with good hardware, use it in arcades, port the same game over to the home version of the console. (Profit?!?)

It's not really a good concept at all... once the game comes out for the console (in this case the XBox, although systems like the Dreamcast/NAOMI had the same situation), the arcade version is essentially doomed. The fact that home conversions are essentially perfect these days is completely killing arcades. If Sega really wanted to revitalize the arcade indust

Re:Arcades are a dying breed...

[ChronosX]

You're right... sort of. They shouldn't just port from the arcade to the home machine.

I think Nintendo has the right idea. Look at what they're doing with the new version of F-Zero. Home and arcade versions, both built from gamecube hardware. You can design and build your own racer at home. Save the info on a save card. Take the save card to the arcade and race your own car. Win races in the arcade and get new car parts to take home. Now there's an idea.

Nintendo learned a valuable lesson from Poke

Re:Xbox benefits coming?

[Fammy2000]

How many games can Sega release on the XBox that could have sold twice as well on the Gamecube or 10 times as well on the PS2? Apparently, it's not about the money for Sega. And you wonder why they can't beat out the EA Sports titles.

Re:Xbox benefits coming?

[ChronosX]

*laugh*

I'm glad to see you've discovered the joys of "closed platforms". Game developers also love consoles for a similar reason. Testing and support are much easier for console gaming than PC.

But home console/arcade hardware isn't something new that XBox is doing. Sega actually pioneered the idea decades ago (and if you read my other post, Nintendo is currently doing it with the Gamecube as well.)

Different Endings?

[Anonymous Coward]

Different game endings depending on how much the girl is impressed?

Maybe a happy ending?

*yawn*

[Sloppy]

Screw this game, it sucked.

If there's a driving game sequel that needs to be made, it would be to Atari's Hard Drivin' and Race Drivin'. Now those were fun.

Magical Sound Shower...

[ihatesco]

Oh my god. I can remember when I was 10 and saw the original Outrun for the first time. It was awesome! Very nice to get on board of the model Ferrari, and (IIRC) having the fan blowing fresh air in the hair...

Graphics was astounding at the time.

My friends were even more impressed than me, because that game let you dream to be "on the road" with a fabulous blonde near you (at the time I didn't care of this detail, but they were AT LEAST 2 years older than me... mind you that at the time I was at a seaside summer camp, when I was older I started to care of that detail as well :D).

Outrun 1's music was awesome as well...

Now, to get ontopic: When this beast comes to the XBox, I really wonder how they will compress the landscape appearance of all the 15 levels to fit the XBox Ram, or if they will make things to be loaded on the fly like "SWIV" for the Amiga (so that you will have to load only 3 levels at a time, current level + the two other levels).

The landscape anyway seems to be a bit simplistic, maybe is Sega's choice of screenshots, but only this image [sega-am2.co.jp] shows a complex building on the roadside. This is fully in spirit with the original game... I only hope to see some parts with many of the wacky fake advertisement billboards that used to be there in Outrun, Turbo Outrun and the fabulous Super Hang-On.

This Outrun does not stand out for graphics (if you want to see one of the best graphics look this game here [milestone.it]), but I really really hope that it will stand out again for the "Cool" factor. Outrun was cool as a snowball that did not melt in hell at the time (the second game that made that effect was Bubble Bobble).

Hope to see it soon in an amusement arcade here :) (or a good XBox conversion as well).

Outrun 2?

[Spudley]

It's deja vu all over again. I'm sure I had a copy of Outrun 2 on my Amiga ten years ago or more.

Re:Outrun 2?

[ihatesco]

There wasn't Outrun 2 for Amiga. There were Outrun (crappy conversion by U.s gold), Turbo Outrun (even worse) and Outrun Europa. This last one was better than the other two, but was more or less a "Chase HQ/SCI" kind of game, and you had to collect microfilms stolen from Interpol. No Outrunners for the Amiga IIRC.

Impressive screenshots

[klui]

There is a similar contrast with Dreamcast titles when you compare AM2's Ferrari F355 Challenge to others on the console. Crazy Taxi High Roller looks more like your average game but when you see OutRun 2's graphics it is like day and night. It's a shame the DC is dead otherwise Sega may have ported OutRun 2 to some future incarnation of the DC. If the X-Box receives OutRun 2, I'll definitely pick one up.