Arcade-Only Ridge Racer Sequel Rave Racer Is Finally Making Its Home Console Debut, 31 Years On

Also, Console Archives is announced

by Damien McFerran 1 hour ago

Arcade-Only Ridge Racer Sequel Rave Racer Is Finally Making Its Home Debut, 31 Years On 1 — *Image: Bandai Namco*

Hamster has revealed during today's Nintendo Direct that Namco's 1995 arcade title Rave Racer is headed to home consoles – 31 years after it launched.

Part of the Ridge Racer series, Rave Racer was initially intended to be ported to PC shortly after its coin-op debut, but the plan never came to fruition.

Since then, the only domestic release of the game has been on Arcade 1Up's Ridge Racer cabinet.

Rave Racer launches as part of the Arcade Archives range on February 26th, 2026.

In addition to this welcome news, Hamster has also announced Console Archives, a new series of classic games on modern systems. These include Cool Borders (PS1) and Doraemon (Famicom).

Damien has been writing professionally about tech and video games since 2007 and oversees all of Hookshot Media's sites from an editorial perspective. He's also the editor of Time Extension, the network's newest site, which – paradoxically – is all about gaming's past glories.

1
JohnnyMind
1 hour ago

Glad that Rave Racer is finally coming to consoles, but of course the biggest surprise was Console Archives - it's practically a Virtual Console and most certainly it will bring to Switch 1 and 2 games that wouldn't get added to NSO for one reason or another so personally I'm all for it (that said, I wonder if some will change opinion on NSO when they see the prices of these, based on Arcade Archives, the licenses involved etc. I don't expect them to be cheap)!

2
SakuraHaruka
1 hour ago

What's interesting is the announcement of "console archive." As shown in the Nintendo Direct, it's very likely that games that might not come to the Nintendo Switch Online/Virtual Console due to licensing issues will be available here, like the example of the Doraemon game, which is based on an anime series. Other games that, I can deduce, would follow this pattern include some as Tiny Toons and The Goonies, by example.

Furthermore, the mention of "console" may means that "any" video game system could be included, even older PCs like the MSX, TurboGrafx, and Amiga. Well, we'll have to wait and see.

3
KayFiOS
1 hour ago

Would be nice if this is how we get games that for whatever reason didn't appear in collections like Sonic Origins, Mega Man Legacy Collection, or Castlevania Anniversary Collection. I'd happily buy Knuckles Chaotix, the Saturn Version of Sonic 3D Blast, or the Dreamcast versions of Mega Man 8 and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Well, one can dream.

4
BulkSlash
54 mins ago

Hook it up to my veins! I can't wait to be able to play this consistently (I do actually own the arcade board, but it's a pain setting it up to play it!)

Now if we could just get Sega's Model 1/2/3 games on Arcade Archives....

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