'Eunos Roadster Driving Simulator' and 'Sim Drive' (lost Namco/Mazda driving simulators; 1990-1992)

This article has been tagged as Needing work due to its lack of organization.

A flyer for the game.

Status: Lost

In 1990 and 1992, Namco (with involvement of Mazda Motors) developed two driving simulator prototypes based on the Mazda MX-5 (known as the Eunos Roadster in Japan). These driving simulator prototypes later became the basis of the 1993 arcade game Ridge Racer and its full scale counterpart.

Eunos Roadster Driving Simulator

In 1990, Namco (with the involvement of Mazda Motors) developed a driving simulator based on the Mazda MX-5 (known as the Eunos Roadster in Japan). It uses Namco's System 21 arcade hardware, unlike Sim-Drive and the final game. The game simulates a Eunos Roadster in a flat-shaded three-dimensional environment. A second prototype based on the Eunos Roadster was later released in 1992.

Sim-Drive

Sim-Drive was shown at the 1992 AM Show; it is the second prototype of Ridge Racer. It is also the first ever arcade game to feature texture-mapped polygons, which Namco took advantage of the System 22 hardware, which uses the TR3 graphics chipset from Evans & Sutherland. It gave a limited release in 1992, which means it was actually developed, but not released outside of the 1992 AM Show.

"Lost" status

Both of these prototypes were lost due to its obscurity. No screenshots or recordings of these prototypes were released yet.