Nürburing 1 - Arcade - (1976) 🚗 First "First-person" racing video game.

Name: Nürburing 1 Developer: Reiner Foerst Year: 1976 Simulation/ Emulation/ Playable: Not Available Platform: Arcade ⭐ ✅ Description✅ In 1971 Reiner Foerst (then 38) took a job as director of a German wire-manufacturer called Trakus. With a background in simulation, Foerst decided to capitalize on this growing market by creating the best driving simulators in the business. To do so, however, he needed money and to do that, he decided to create a coin-op driving game. Examining the patents of other companies he found that Volkswagen and British Petroleum had both created simulators, both of which were too expensive for a game. Frustrated, Reiner slapped together a prototype using light bulbs to create a crude display, but the resulting product didn’t work very well. When Pong exploded onto the scene in 1973, Foerst knew he'd found a better solution and by the end of the year he was at work turning his prototype into a video game (that same year, he filed or a US patent on a tic-tac-toe like game). The first version was finished in May of 1975 and placed on location in an arcade in the university town of Giessen where it did well. Encouraged by the success of the prototype, Trakus provided more funding and the first two production units were completed by March of 1976 (when they were shown at the International Exposition for Coin-Op Games in Berlin). Production began soon after at a rate of one machine per week. Dubbed Nurburgring 1 (after the famed German race track built around the mountain village and castle of Nurburg in the 1920s) it featured almost 1,500 components, including a rack stuffed to the gills with a whopping 28 circuit boards. While the visuals were sparse (consisting almost exclusively of a series of white posts along the side of a virtual road, the first-person perspective gave the game level of realism unseen in a video driving game. Adding to the immersive experience were the game’s sounds, which included the roar of the engine, air whistling by the car, crashes, and screeching tires. The engine sounds grew louder the faster you drove and more hollow when the brakes were applied. Realistic as it was, the game was also expensive, and complicated, which is why Foerst could only afford to produce one machine a week – even though he realized this would allow other coin-op games to copy his idea. Before long, Foerst’s fears were realized. It started when Foerst paid a visit to a bowling alley to check on one of this games. Some parts of the video taken from here. Channel: Foerst Driving Simulators    • Foerst GmbH, Historie      • Bigfoot Bonkers   More Info: ⏬⏬⏬ https://www.wochenblatt-reporter.de/w... https://allincolorforaquarter.blogspo... https://historyofracinggames.wordpres... https://www.senscritique.com/jeuvideo... https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/vide... http://weltenschule.de/vgames/Nuerbur... https://www.jalopnik.com/meet-the-doc... Song: Just Dance - Dangerous Toys - SefChol Thanks for watching. Please subscribe, Like 👍 and comment. ¡SUSCRIBE! Follow me on Instagram   / kronossaul   Follow me on facebook   / videogamehistoryproject   Follow me on TIK TOK   / videogamehistoryproject   Follow me on X/Twitter   / videogamehp   Follow me on Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/videogamehis...) Follow me on Pinterest (https://pin.it/6BexhczqO) Follow me on Threads (https://www.threads.com/@kronossaul) Check My Other Channels: 📱    / @animehistoryproject   🎮    / @videogamemusichistoryproject