I'm reading an interesting book called "The Games That Weren't" about video games that were produced or partially produced but never saw the light of day. And I was intrigued to learn that one of the greatest arcade racers of all time, Namco's "Ridge Racer," was originally scheduled for official release on the PC in 1996, but was never released until Sony decided they wanted to keep the game to themselves.

In the 1990s, the British studio Signosis worked closely with Sony to develop such classics as "WipEout" and "Destruction Derby" for the original PlayStation. These two games were ported to the PC and were to be followed next by "Ridge Racer. No one, including Frank Gasking, author of "Game That Whelen't Not," knows exactly how the deal was brokered between Signosis, Sony, and Namco.

The team worked hard to make Ridge Racer work on the PC, upscaling low-resolution textures and adding PC-specific graphics and control options. But otherwise it was a faithful replica of the PlayStation game, which is exactly what Signosis wanted. At this point, "Ridge Racer" had been out for some time, and they wanted the PC version to be as faithful as possible.

According to the book, the game ran beautifully on modern (at the time) Pentium PCs, and Signosis also optimized the code so that it could be played on older machines without graphics acceleration. The book also states that the port didn't get much press, but PC Gamer asked "Where are they now?"

Sadly, it never made it to the finish line. Despite allowing PC ports of Destruction Derby and WipEout, Sony apparently wanted to monopolize some of its own flagship games. Today, this is not a great loss, as PlayStation and arcade originals can be emulated perfectly on the PC. But it would have been cool to see this smooth and sharp PC version of Ridge Racer in action.

Thanks again to The Games That Weren't. You can read more about this story, including an interview with the original developer.