Update: thanks to Anonymous we found out that this game was released as “Sportscar GT” by Electronic Arts, that bought out Virgin Interactive. The screens below could still be different from the final game, so let us know if you see any differences!
In 1997 / 1998 Virgin Interactive were working on a new racing game for the original Playstation and PC know as “Professional Sportscar Racing” but it seems that the project was never released. The game was based on the license for the pro organization of the same name, a competition that was sponsored by the same Virgin Interactive. Maybe Virgin had some problems with the PSR license and the development could have been stopped. In the original press release we can read:
Fast driving, intensely competitive Grand Touring racing simulation game. For the player’s driving pleasure, all of the dream cars racing in the 1998 season of the Professional SportsCar championship will be authentically re-created including the internationally famous Panoz Esperante.
Images:
What do you think about this unseen game? Give your vote!
(4 votes, average: 3.00 out of 5)
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Released as Sportscar GT by Electronic Arts.
Notice how the quality of the graphics changes in the 3 different builds? Are they really screen shots from the same game? The first few images look like some awful homebrew effort.
Thanks for the info Anonymous! So Virgin Interactive sold the project to EA?
@Yakumo: i think the first images are from an early PSX version, while the others are from the PC one. But it’s the same game, the better screens are from an old press-kit
It’s probably not that VIE sold it to EA, EA bought out VIE. That’s one of the reasons Thrill Kill was never released. When EA took over VIE assets, they immediately terminated that game.
Great! I did not know that, thanks again for the info :)
Definitely released as Sports Car GT.
Recognized the screenshots immediately as I used to play this a lot and still have a copy of it somewhere.
Yup, the differences between this and the final game are very interesting though. For example I’m fairly certain that Hot Wheels Oldsmobile was not in the retail game, although the game had a prolific mod scene and that car was available as a mod someone made. And of course the big Virgin Interactive billboards would have been replaced with EA billboards :D (There was also some cut content like hidden cars that people found inside the game files and finished up to release as mods.)
As noted in other replies, the Playstation version looks very different. That version was developed by a different studio and was still quite different upon final release, although it may have looked better by the time it was done.