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Pole Position

Game » consists of 7 releases. Released on July 1982

Strap into your F1 racer and get ready for some fast-paced track fun! The first 16-bit video game, Pole Position was responsible for popularizing third-person psuedo-3D graphics and racing games as a whole.

The Pole Position wiki last edited by Jagged85 on 04/05/13 02:44PM View full history

Pole Position was an arcade game released in 1982, developed by Namco. The game is seen as revolutionary for its popularization of sprite based, pseudo-3D graphics. It was one of the first games to use the "rear-view racer format" that would change the way in which racing games were developed. Pole Position was also one of the first games to feature in-game advertising. It was also the first ever 16-bit video game, utilizing two 16/32-bit Zilog Z8002 processors.

When looking for a publisher in the United States, Namco originally approached Midway with a choice between two games, Pole Position or Mappy. Midway chose Mappy and Namco turned to Atari to publish the game. Midway would miss out on a large opportunity as Pole Position became one of the most popular arcade games of 80s and was ported to an assortment of different consoles. The game even spawned its own Saturday morning cartoon show on CBS.

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