Has NASCAR Stalled Out on the New Generation of Consoles?

Feature Article

Submitted on: 11/24/2014 by Robert Kollars

As NASCAR fans watched the finale in Homestead, gamers have to wonder why the sport hasn't appeared on the Xbox One or PlayStation 4.

Obviously Eutechnyx is the latest developer to take a crack at the NASCAR series, but with releases only on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, the develpoer has left early adopter fans standing on pit road with no ride or sponsorship.

The history of NASCAR console video games is littered with failed attempts. There have been multiple efforts on consoles, and most have left fans wondering if the developers even watched the sport they were trying to digitally recreate.

Larger developers such as EA Sports tried for multiple years to find retail success through ownership and development of a NASCAR title, and while the sport has over 75 million fans, an extremely small percentage actually purchased the game. In fact EA’s NASCAR series, which ran from 1997 until 2009, sold just over 9 million copies collectively. Conversely, the Tiger Woods Golf title (1998-2013) sold over 25 million copies during its retail run, more than doubling that of its NASCAR series.

The most well received NASCAR video game ever produced was actually not even on a console, but rather the PC. The NASCAR Racing series by Papyrus had an extremely loyal following, and entered into cult status once developers learned that EA had purchased the exclusive rights to the NASCAR license, and gave fans the tools to modify the game to their liking in 2003.

As of right now, the before-mention Eutechnyx owns the non-exclusive rights to develop a NASCAR title, but as of last week via Twitter, still has no announcement or news of any new title making its way to the console for this upcoming season. Without knowing the exact plans that Eutechnyx has in place to utilize the license, I think it’s to assume we will not see a next gen title available at launch of the 2015 NASCAR season.

The racing genre is considered by most in the industry as a niche product already, and simulation-based racing titles, even more so. Even extremely popular titles like GT5 and Forza 4 sold a combined 12 million copies and are not a licensed annual sports title.

If we look at the horizon at some prospective developers that may be interested in acquiring the rights to make a NASCAR game, it would start and end with EA Sports and Codemasters. Any developer that would be interested has to have the financial infrastructure to be able to handle the initial upfront cost, and the very real possibility of mediocre sales figures. I truly believe though that a NASCAR title can be profitable, but it has to be developed and marketed properly, and above all else, has to have broad appeal to the masses, not just NASCAR fans.

Fans of the series will have to wait and see what the plans are with European developer Eutechnyx, or hold out hopes that there might be another developer that is willing to put the time and effort into making a quality NASCAR title for the PS4 and Xbox One. Sadly in our honest opinion, we would suggest not holding onto those hopes too tightly, because the thought of seeing 43 of your favorite NASCAR series drivers grinding down the backstretch at Daytona is looking more and more unlikely to happen on your console.

Member Comments

# 1 radney @ 11/24/14 01:28 PM

The sad part is if Eutechnyx would have gotten the basic things right, they could have survived the storm. How is it possible that stats and a deeper career mode not be done correctly or at all? It's like they can't seem to put it all together at one time. This year, you can change your paint scheme through the year, but the AI can't. The following year, the AI can change their paint scheme but you can't. This year the tires falls off during long runs but next year it don't or rather the AI don't. This year, the AI will wreck on its own and can be spun out but next year, the AI does not wreck and are impenetrable and drives like tanks. This year, you run away from the AI on certain tracks but the next year, you can't even keep up. I could go on and on about the inconsistencies but I'll wait and see what others have to say. I would like EA Sports to give it another shot since their list of games seems to be dwindling.

And where's Ed Martin in all this? I would like to here from him.

# 2 Candymandagreat @ 11/24/14 02:44 PM

i want a NASCAR game bad.

# 3 bluengold34_OS @ 11/24/14 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Candymandagreat


	i want a NASCAR game bad.

I think most racing fans do - Even the casual fan.

# 4 Boilerbuzz @ 11/25/14 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluengold34_OS


	I think most racing fans do - Even the casual fan.

I don't think so. NASCAR games have never sold a ton. I think the only time it sold near 2mil was 1999. Since then, it has dropped like a wet stone. And now, at a time when the sports' popularity is dwindling, I don't see any title selling over 500k. That's SO not worth it.

# 5 RunN1st @ 11/25/14 12:28 PM

They need to take NASCAR Thunder 2004 and remaster it with current rules, schedule, tracks and drivers. Don't touch the code and features just remaster and add what's missing.

# 6 brandon27 @ 11/25/14 01:14 PM

Really unfortunate if there's no next-gen title for Nascar. I thought Eutechnyx laid a good foundation, but they could just never building it out properly, which is a shame. Visually it was a very well done game too, the audio was great too I thought, the player gameplay was good, the AI was where the game really struggled. It got a bit better in each release, but still, to me always had issues that just ruined it. The most recent release really killed my interest in purchasing another game from Eutechnyx in this series, at least until I read more about it.

I'd love to see Codemasters give it a try. I really liked alot of the things they do with the F1 games.

I'd love to see the Forza team take a crack at some sort of licensed series racing sim like Nascar. I think if they based it off the Horizon driving engine, then tuned it a bit more to the realistic side like Forza 5, then just tuned everything to the Nascar side, and created the cars and tracks etc. it could be really epic. Have all the drivers come in, and race, build drivatars off their real life counterparts etc. etc. I'm sure there's many reasons its not possible, but it would be awesome.

# 7 dochalladay32 @ 11/27/14 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RunN1st


	They need to take NASCAR Thunder 2004 and remaster it with current rules, schedule, tracks and drivers. Don't touch the code and features just remaster and add what's missing.

As much as I liked 2003/2004, they still aren't as good as they could be. Always felt like to me you could find that prime setup that just allowed you to qualify top 5 every race, and then easily pull away from the field, and you were better at pit strategy than the computer, and win after win came in. 2003's career mode was nice in that you started off weak enough that it didn't start right off, but it didn't take long to get your cars and crew built up and the setup let you dominate. I want realism and it seems no one has been able to achieve that, on a console at least, for NASCAR games.

# 8 cuda_man @ 11/28/14 12:36 AM

I was thinking the same thing the other day. With Daytona coming up in February, ETX or whoever is developing a 2015 NASCAR title should have already announced their intent on having one ready.

Developers have struggled with trying to write a game that is capable of being both accepted by the die-hard sim crowd as well as accessible to the casual gamer. Dave Kaemmer said in an interview that Papyrus had a hard time selling the idea of building the NASCAR Racing series on the GPL engine because, slow sales of GPL aside, Sierra thought that it would be unsellable unless it was able to be played by a 5-year old.

One NASCAR franchise not mentioned was Hasbro/Monster Game's NASCAR Heat. Much like NR2003, it has been highly modded, updated, and also has a strong online presence. The PS2/GC Dirt to Daytona was also very playable, with a good career mode in which the player stared on dirt street stockers, before moving into modifieds, then trucks, then Cup. I always like them because they were a balance between the hardcore Papyrus sims and arcade-based EA Sports titles.

# 9 mercalnd @ 11/29/14 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Segagendude


	Off topic, but I'm actually yearning for a quality Indycar game. No, im not interested in joining Iracing or rfactor to get it..

It was announced many months ago that Project Cars will feature the Indy 500 and all the cars and drivers from the 2015 Indycar season. Perhaps they'll throw in the missing tracks as well as DLC.

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