Dear Reader:

You are viewing a story from GN Version 5.0. Time may not have been kind to formatting, integrity of links, images, information, etc.

SEGA and M2 reveal the many struggles and challenges of creating SEGA AGES: Virtua Racing

It wasn't nearly as straightforward as expected
by rawmeatcowboy
25 April 2019
GN Version 5.0

SEGA AGES: Virtua Racing is now available on the Switch in Japan, and with the launch comes a special interview featuring M2 and Sega. Check out a summary of details from the interview below.

- the idea for this port came about back in the 3D Classics days on the 3DS
- back in those days, M2 wanted to port the Sega 32X version of Virtua Racing, and began looking into the possibility
- the fan voting for the third Sega 3D Classics Collection lead to Turbo OutRun being included instead of Virtua Racing
- the team at M2 continued to test out the possibility of Virtua Racing on 3DS for another 3 months
- once it was officially announced that the 3D Classics line would be ending, work ended
- when SEGA AGES was announced, the team picked the project back up, and this time aimed for the arcade version
- the source code for the arcade version was lost, which meant the game needed to be built from the ground up
- it took quite a long time to bring the project together
- one of the main programmers for Virtua Racing had the arcade data for Virtua Formula, the updated release of Virtua Racing
- this used Virtua Racing as the base, so M2 could utilize it to move forward
- the SEGA AGES release is based on the Deluxe version of Virtua Racing, which used 16:9 widescreen monitors
- this version lacked multiplayer, so it was built back in
- all the polygon models were upgraded into HD by M2, but the backgrounds and 2D sprites were all left untouched
- the Switch version plays at 720p in handheld mode, and 1080p in docked mode, both at 60fps
- draw distance has been improved
- you now have the option to play with up to 8 players total

[Link]