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Japanese Arcade Game Uses Real Drift Cars

by Tim Stevens on July 31, 2007 at 01:07 PM

Japanese Game Uses Real Drift Cars

'Initial D,' a Japanese anime series following the exploits of a young tofu-delivery-guy-turned-illegal-drift-racer, has been hugely popular in its home country since the mid-'90s. Its fast-paced scenes of sideways, wheel-to-wheel racing never really captured the eye of many American viewers, but in Japan, the show helped inspire the popularity of professional (and legal) drift racing.

Naturally, the craze gave rise to a whole slew of video games aimed that at those wanting to experience the same thing without the whole risk of actually crashing their cars and such. Unfortunately, those games could never replicate the feel of actually sitting in a tuned drift car -- until now.

At Sega's Joypolis mega-arcade near Tokyo, an installation 'Initial D Arcade Stage 4 Limited' game includes three full-sized cars selected from the anime series. The first is the tofu-wagon itself, the iconic white Toyota Sprinter Trueno GT-APEX "Hachi-Roku" featured in the series. The other two are common drift cars, a Mazda RX-7 and a Subaru WRX. Of course, players don't actually drive these cars -- the vehicles are just set on top of motion simulators -- but the seats, dashboard, and steering wheel are the real deal.

At roughly five bucks a try, the game is certainly not cheap, but it's certainly a lot more practical than trying it for real.

From OhGizmo!

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Tags: anime, Drift Racing, DriftRacing, Initial D, Initial D Arcade Stage 4 Limited, InitialD, InitialDArcadeStage4Limited, manga, Sega Joypolis, SegaJoypolis

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