Why did Namco cancel the PowerVR PC versions of Rave Racer, Air Combat 22 & Tekken?

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In November, 1995, Namco Limited, the leading arcade game manufacturer, announced it will be porting games such as Rave Racer, Air Combat 22 and Tekken to PowerVR. Other companies announcing their support for PowerVR include: Activision, Looking Glaß Technologies, Inc., Mindscape Bordeaux, Mindscape, International, Psygnosis Ltd.; Gremlin Interactive Limited and Virtuality KK. Additionally, VideoLogic and NEC Home Electronics have all indicated they will be announcing add-in graphics boards for PCs later this year.

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http://www.puredigital.com/purenet/p...lease.asp?ID=9



PowerVR PC Rave Racer preview from Next Generation issue #19, July 1996:

http://i.imgur.com/BRQwM.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/xkI1W.jpg


I was so mad at Namco for not releasing at least RAVE RACER (not to be confused with Rage Racer on PS1) for PowerVR cards on PC. Well, and Air Combat 22 as well, but Tekken, not so much.

I drooled all over my copy of Next Generation with that Rave Racer preview!

Man....


Anyway, discuss.

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Originally Posted by parallaxscroll

RAVE RACER (not to be confused with Rage Racer on PS1)

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Also not to be confused with Ridge Racer I take it? Man, what an original-thinking company...

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Originally Posted by Guntz

Also not to be confused with Ridge Racer I take it? Man, what an original-thinking company...

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Correct.

Rave Racer came out in 1995 for the arcade. It was never really ported to home consoles. You can, however, play the Rave Racer tracks (renamed) in PSP Ridge Racers 1 & 2 (not only that but Namco created new more Rave Racer tracks exclusively for PSP) and of course you can play the arcade game using the VivaNonno System 22 emulator, but still, Rave Racer never came out on PS1 or PS2. It was also announced (or rumored) for Nintendo 64 but since N64 bombed in Japan, Namco never did anything.


Here's the Rave Racer arcade flyers:

http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/flye...o/21201301.jpg

http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/flye...o/21201302.jpg

Did Namco ever port any of these games to PC? Did any of these companies ever support PowerVR?

SEGA supported the PowerVR on PC with a port of Virtual On:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAC-yWCOScw

It's better than the Saturn version but not Model 2 exact.

I must have another version of PC Virtual On. It's the only PC game I have found that won't run on anything other than a Pentium 1, it won't even install. But yeah, when I had it running, it was near Model 2 quality with my old Matrox Mystique graphics card.

Interesting!

I've searched all over the net for a patch or workaround to get it to install, but it always says that I don't have MMX when I try to install it, even on Celeron, P4 or my Pentium Dual Core Laptop.

-edit-

Come to think of it, I never owned an Intel chip until now, so it must have run fine on a Cyrix 686 but nothing later including early AMD stuff.

Sorry you're having trouble with Virtual On, I hope you find whatever it is you need to make it work.

Oh I didn't read your entire post. I don't know how to help.

I did find the cover for one of the PC versions (assuming there's more than one)

http://pics.mobygames.com/images/cov...8271008-00.jpg
http://pics.mobygames.com/images/cov...8271009-00.jpg

Mine was a pack-in from some bloated proprietary manufacturer, the owner gave it to me because he didn't like good games. All I have is a disc and there is no gold plating. ;)

IIRC the rumours from back in the day were that Sony threw a bit of a fit (probably because these games looked/ran better than on the Playstation) and Namco appeased them by cancelling the ports. Who knows what the truth really is though?

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Originally Posted by Silanda

IIRC the rumours from back in the day were that Sony threw a bit of a fit (probably because these games looked/ran better than on the Playstation) and Namco appeased them by cancelling the ports. Who knows what the truth really is though?

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I highly doubt as seeing Sony had no qualms with Eidos and the Tomb Raider series. But the PowerVR chipset never really took which kinda sucks.

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Originally Posted by Silanda

IIRC the rumours from back in the day were that Sony threw a bit of a fit (probably because these games looked/ran better than on the Playstation) and Namco appeased them by cancelling the ports. Who knows what the truth really is though?

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I read everything back in those times, and I don't remember those rumors, but anyway, that's pretty interesting.

I don't think PowerVR ever caught on, so yeah...that's prolly why.

I know it's probably because 3DFX Voodoo Graphics caught on BIG TIME in 1996-1997, but still, it's a damn shame. PowerVR PCX2 was better than Voodoo1, IMHO.