OutRun Online Arcade officially 'offline' on PSN. But not XBLA...

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Contract with Ferrari has run its course, so it's bye-bye, baby

OutRun Online Arcade has been taken down from the PlayStation Store because Sega's licensing deal with Ferrari has expired. Boo and, indeed, hiss. However, while Xbox 360 owners may laugh and jeer, they're still going to lose the chance to buy Sega's beautiful journey in December next year. No, we don't know why the two are different, either.

Sega has issued the following statement:


Above: Would a Ferrari not smell as petrol-sweet by any other name?

You'd think online games are easy to keep on the store, but licenses expire all the time. I had my suspicions that OutRun was having difficulties when the excellent OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast also skipped the PSP download store, even though other Sega games were put up retroactively. Looks like everything's tied up in Ferrari-red tape.

Of course, there are a couple of solutions to the problem. Firstly, Sega could take Ferrari out of the game and have generic sporty racers in their place. It would still play the same. Secondly, we could all just play OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast on Xbox 1 and PS2, which doesn't look that much different. Finally, we could just remake the entire game in ModNation Racers.

Sorted.

12 Oct, 2010

Justin Towell
Justin Towell
Freelance Writer

Justin was a GamesRadar+ staffer for 10 years but is now a freelance writer, musician and videographer. He's big on retro, Sega and racing games (especially retro Sega racing games) and currently also writes for Play Magazine, Traxion.gg, PC Gamer and TopTenReviews, as well as running his own YouTube channel. Having learned to love all platforms equally after Sega left the hardware industry (sniff), his favourite games include Christmas NiGHTS into Dreams, Zelda BotW, Sea of Thieves, Sega Rally Championship and Treasure Island Dizzy.