Сега Туринговые Чемпионаты: История Разработки и Портирования

Sega Touring Car Championship (セガ ツーリングカーチャンピオンシップ) is an arcade racing game released by Sega's AM Annex for the Model 2 mainboard in 1996. It was later ported to the Sega Saturn and Microsoft Windows. The game was housed in a sit down cabinet with speakers installed on either side of the player's head and a subwoofer under the seat.

The game has four tracks, one of which is a secret track unlocked by reaching the final race of the season. The Saturn port includes an unlockable fifth track, allows players to create customized cars and save them to memory, and uses a split screen for multiplayer modes.

The game was developed by a 15 person hand picked team led by Sega AM3's Tetsuya Mizuguchi. This team, a new internal Sega division called Sega AM Annex, consisted of both staff who had transferred from other Sega departments and newly hired employees. Mizuguchi stated, "We wanted good working conditions, and our new department is small. From a creativity point of view, big teams have advantages and disadvantages. We certainly don't believe that it's bad to be separated from AM3. Before creating the department, I explained the concept to AM3's manager and then to Higashi Suzuki, the head of amusement machine development at Sega. Together we all agreed that creating a new department, separate from AM3, would be a good thing." Development began in April 1996. Mizuguchi recounted that acquiring the rights to use the numerous sponsorship stickers which appear in the game "wasn't so much difficult, more like time consuming. In a fairly short period of time we had to meet a lot of people and get numerous approvals etcetera. I myself went to Europe and the United States around three times and [assistant producer] Mr. Taniguchi also went once."

The Sega Saturn conversion of the game was announced at the April 1997 Tokyo Game Show, with Mizuguchi on hand to show a demo of the game. The conversion was handled by one of Sega's CS (consumer division) teams, but was overseen by the original AM Annex team, who also designed the Saturn exclusive modes. A home version for PC was also released in 1998. Two rally cars from Sega Rally Championship made a special appearance to the home console versions, then known as the Toyota Celica GT Four (ST205) and the Lancia Delta HF Integrale. Columbia Music Entertainment released a music video/racing techniques 45' VHS in Japan to promote the Sega Saturn version.

This "Touring Car Championship" is actually based upon the famous Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft (DTM) '95 and '96 series (German Touring Car Championship) where three European makers were competing at this time. Although the DTM cars are licensed, the three courses named "Country Circuit", "Grünwalt Circuit" and "Brickwall Town" (as well as the bonus stages) are all fictitious, though they are designed like real racing circuits, complete with grandstands and pit roads. Since it was released one year after the original arcade version, the Sega Saturn port includes both the DTM'95 series and ITC'96 series. The Toyota Supra doesn't compete at DTM, but at JGTC GT500 instead.

Following from Sega Rally Special Stage, a Sega Touring Car Championship Special (セガツーリングカーチャンピオンシップスペシャル) attraction version was specially designed for the "Tokyo Joypolis" (in Shinjuku district) theme park featuring real cars instead of the common single/dual seat cabinet. On this ultimate version, the player physically select his car, seat in the Toyota Supra, AMG Mercedes C Class or Alfa Romeo 155 and watched on a huge widescreen through the vehicle's windscreen. Changes were made since the original version as now up to three players could race in a multiplayer mode; the game broadcast live on three public screens, while the Opel Calibra and the external car view were removed from the so called "Special" version. Later, this rare attraction was made available in the Kyoto and Okayama Joypolis game centers too.

Upon the game's release in arcades, a Next Generation critic remarked that "where this title truly excels is also where, in its way, it fails: Sega Touring Car is the most painstakingly realistic driving game yet." He elaborated that the game requires extreme precision to avoid crashing during turns, and the unforgiving difficulty means the player must often find ways to shave fractions of a second off completion times. He also complimented the force feedback steering wheel and the soundtrack. The Saturn version received mixed reviews, though most critics regarded it as a major disappointment given what a high profile release it was for the console. While reviews widely remarked that Sega Touring Car Championship has a lack of slowdown and overall sense of speed which is virtually unprecedented for a home console racer,

Other critics found the Saturn conversion was compounded with problems besides the difficult controls. GameSpot complained at the small number of tracks and the lack of licensing compared to competing racers, and summed the game up as a mixed bag with merits which are not enough to justify putting up with its shortcomings. Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game, and stated that "As it stands, Touring Car is a decent choice for those without access to the Saturn version of the game (which is definitely superior)." M! Games gave it a score of 65 out of 100, calling it a fun game, while noting the controls were sluggish and dampened the quality of the game significantly.