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Pitpass ran an interesting story yesterday about the deadlock that appears to have been reached between Sony and Bernie Ecclestone who are in negotiations to create a new Formula 1 video game. It is a shame that Bernie’s “hardball” attitude has led to this apparent stalemate.

I have been a big fan of Sony’s Formula 1 series of games. Its history can be traced back to 1996 when Formula 1 (based on the 1995 season) was released. It was a complete masterpiece. Developers Bizarre Creations had made the first 3D Formula 1-based video game and they got it near enough perfect first time round. It is still a joy to play the game today.

It was an arcade-style racer which meant that it was fairly basic, certainly by today’s standards. But it was a huge hit even among non-F1 fans. It was Europe’s second biggest selling video game of the year.

Formula 1 97 followed the year later, refining the product to a great extent. You could even set an option to have tear-off strips. When your visor got too dirty you had to press a button to clean it! It also had a separate arcade mode which felt like a completely different game. This meant that the game pleased non-F1 fans and dedicated F1 geeks alike.

From there, things went a little pear-shaped. Despite the huge success, Bizarre Creations decided to call it a day with F1 so that they could concentrate on Metropolis Street Racer. That series has since become the hugely successful — and, I must say, excellent — Project Gotham Racing series.

In the meantime, Psygnosis, the publishers who owned the rights to the F1 game, were left in the lurch. Visual Sciences were given the job of developing Formula 1 98, but they had just a few months to do it in. Sure enough, the game was an utter beast — buggy, unplayable and generally unsatisfying.

Another change of developer came for Formula One 99. Studio 33 were brought on board. They managed to do a competent job, but it was clearly a case of getting the basics right first as the game was slightly bare. It was, however, the first game to incorporate the Safety Car! Whether gamers enjoyed the experience of being behind the Safety Car is another matter…

In the intervening period, Psygnosis was bought by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and renamed Studio Liverpool. This began Sony’s association with the F1 license. Gradual improvements were made for both the 2000 and 2001 editions, but the glory days of Bizarre Creations’s games would not be reached on the PSone again.

It is worth remembering that this period was a rather congested time for Formula 1 fans. In some years there might have been around half a dozen different versions of the F1 game. The PSone alone had four F1 games released in 2000.

As well as the Sony offering, Video System brought their F1 World Grand Prix brand from the Nintendo 64 to the PlayStation. Developed by Lankhor, the game was highly realistic, with a dizzying array of different set-up options and horrifically realistic handling. At least, I hope that was the case because it made the game damn well unplayable. It was a struggle even to reach the end of a straight. It was without a doubt the worst F1 game I have ever played.

The following year, Video System published a second game based on their 1999 license. This time they turned to Ubi Soft to develop it. F1 Racing Championship was considerably better than the first attempt, but that wasn’t saying much. As it was the third PSone game based on the 1999 season, there was little reason to buy it, particularly as the year was now 2000!

More successful was the Electronic Arts series. The company made the brave decision of publishing F1 2000 at the start of the 2000 season. Sony had been releasing their games at the end of each season. This meant that there were some inaccuracies in the game as teams proved to be more or less competitive than their pre-season testing form showed. But that seemed academic when all of a sudden there was a chance to play the F1 game several months earlier than normal, and crucially before the Sony edition came out.

However, the EA game was simply not as satisfying as the Sony version. For one thing, EA brought in Visual Sciences to develop the game, although this was kept quiet! VS was the company that made a hash of Psygnosis’s Formula 1 98. Although this time round they did a better job, it was still a bit of a handful to play.

EA also made the decision to release an updated version called F1 Championship Season 2000 at the end of the season to fix some of the inaccuracies of the original. There was quite a neat “scenario mode”, where you would relive actual events from the 2000 season. But by now the PSone market was truly over-saturated with F1 games.

Presumably realising this, FOA gave Sony an exclusive license to publish Formula 1 games from the 2003 season. EA’s parting shot was to release F1 Career Challenge. This took advantage of their licenses for the seasons from 1999 through to 2002. You would begin your career in a poor car and try to make your way up to a better car through the seasons.

This added a much-needed new dimension to F1 games which were often very samey for the obvious reasons that they were all based on the same circuits and the same cars time and time again. Sony / Studio Liverpool have since added a career mode to each of their subsequent F1 games.

These were difficult years to be an F1 gamer. Instead of getting what we wanted — namely, a decent F1 game every year — we were getting several mediocre games, none of which did the trick. Thankfully this changed with the move to the PS2 and the exclusive license awarded to Sony. It was tough luck if you didn’t own a PS2 though.

Sony’s early PS2 games were not all that great. But they were notable for being the only way you could get DVD reviews of the 2000 and 2001 F1 seasons, complete with footage from F1 Digital+. These remain the only official review DVDs of those seasons.

Every year the F1 game improved a little bit. Formula One 04 was enjoyable enough. But Formula One 05 was probably the first time you could say there was an F1 game as good as Formula 1 97. There were also some neat features where, using the Eye Toy peripheral, you could insert your own face into the game and watch yourself participate in the podium ceremony. Rather surreal, but good fun! Unfortunately, F1 05 was far too easy to play even on the hardest difficulty settings. Another nice touch was a set of unlockable classic cars.

Formula One 06 further refined the game. By now, a number of authentic features had been added to please the F1 fans. For instance, in career mode if you are stuck in the test driver role you have to be prepared to trundle around an empty track doing consistent laps — a lot more difficult than it sounds! Come race time you could even choose to drive the formation lap yourself and you would have to get the tyres up to temperature.

(You can read my more detailed reviews of Formula One 05 and Formula One 06.)

There has been one game on the PS3, F1 Championship Edition (strangely familiar title, that). It is based on the 2006 season. I’ve never had the chance to play it, but it looks great.

Just as the F1 series was becoming great again though, the F1 games have dried up. I had wondered why. After all, the 2007 season ought to have been more lucrative for Sony because of the hype surrounding Lewis Hamilton. Unfortunately, Bernie Ecclestone seems to have thought this more than Sony did, leading us to the current deadlock.

In the meantime, Electronic Arts have signed a £5 million deal with Lewis Hamilton. However, this does not necessarily mean that a new EA F1 game is on the horizon. Several years ago Jacques Villeneuve was involved in a fantasy racing game called Speed Challenge: Jacques Villeneuve’s Racing Vision. This EA deal could be a similar plan.

With stalemate all round, it is probably too late even for a game based on the 2008 season to be made. What a terrible shame. You might think I am going overboard a bit. But for me, the annual video game has become an important memento of the season, just as much as the review DVD is. If I feel a bit nostalgic for Pedro de la Rosa in an Arrows, I stick on Formula One 99. Now it looks like two whole years will be lost.

Fans of F1 games should check out F1Gamers. The site is chock full of obtrusive adverts, but it’s a good resource nevertheless.

On Thursday I woke up too early. Having had a little over three hours of sleep, I stumbled out of bed to prepare for the day. I have outgrown the days of getting up early on my birthday, but this time it happened by accident. And I was brought a rather good birthday present by Bernie Ecclestone — it was announced that the BBC had regained the rights to broadcast Formula 1 from 2009. I couldn’t get back to sleep after I heard that.

Obviously there was much celebration among the Formula 1 fans of Britain. ITV has won few fans for its coverage. From the very start it was bad news due to the realities of commercial television meaning that races would be routinely interrupted.

This very fact is probably what, in the end, made ITV give up their contract two years early. Bernie hinted that it was ITV’s decision when he said:

It’s not that we are unhappy with ITV but I think maybe they will have their hands full with other things.

Sure enough, ITV confirmed that it was “a straightforward commercial decision”. And it probably isn’t a coincidence that on the very same day ITV won the rights to broadcast the Champions League.

But what made ITV pull out of the deal with two years of their current contract to go? ITV have been broadcasting for 12 years and if anything it had appeared as though their commitment had increased.

In the past year or two ITV have been much less likely to drop their live coverage of qualifying or shut it to another channel. And just days ago ITV announced that they had won the rights to broadcast practice sessions on the internet — the first ever time that UK viewers have been able to watch free practice.

It makes sense that ITV would up the amount of coverage given the success of Lewis Hamilton. Surely they will be able to increase their revenue now that there is a successful British driver. But ironically, I think it might be the arrival of Lewis Hamilton that was the final straw for ITV. Let me explain.

In the off season, along with the car launches and testing times, there is one story that seems to be an annual occurrence. Almost every year, ITV struggles to find someone to sponsor its coverage. This year, they even had to reduce the amount they were asking for — even following the success of Lewis Hamilton.

Honda pulled out of their £2.5 million deal after just one year. I seem to remember that was a last-minute deal, just as this year’s Sony one was. And the year before, ITV could only do a deal with Swiftcover to start sponsoring coverage four races into the season.

Why do ITV constantly have so much trouble finding a sponsor for their coverage? Simple. Each brand that sponsors the coverage becomes associated with interrupting the race. Instead of appealing to the millions of ITV viewers, sponsors simply piss them all off.

Andrew MacKinlay MP may believe that F1 coverage “could be provided, and should be provided, on commercial television.” He obviously doesn’t know much about the sport. Because if there is a sport that is wholly unsuited for commercial television, it is Formula 1.

Try as I might to think of another popular sporting event that may last as long as two hours plus without a single interruption, I have drawn a blank. Every other sport I can think of has some kind of break where commercials may be shown on television. (If anyone can think of a popular sporting event that may last for two hours uninterrupted, please leave a comment.)

It is a truism to say that, when the BBC and ITV jointly own the right to broadcast the World Cup final, everyone prefers to watch BBC. This is said to be mostly because the BBC does not have adverts. But at least when ITV broadcast a football match commercials are run at half time, well out of the way of the actual action. If adverts obscure the match, it is by accident, and only for the first few seconds of the second half.

With F1 though, ITV systematically, deliberately, routinely interrupt the action to bring us some words from their sponsors. There have been campaigns against this behaviour. It has been pointed out that 17 minutes and 15 seconds of the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix (Lewis Hamilton’s first ever F1 victory) were missed by ITV viewers. In total for the entire season, viewers lost 4 hours 6 minutes and 4 seconds — the equivalent of well over two average-length Grands Prix.

Moreover, several pivotal events have been missed by British viewers. Ironically, the moment when Lewis Hamilton effectively lost the 2007 Drivers Championship happened just seconds after ITV had gone to a commercial break. British viewers missed it, and the moment wasn’t even shown in the highlights package because James Allen and Martin Brundle were having their brief break (before resuming for other broadcasters who receive their commentary), so there was no commentary for it.

The year before, the pivotal moment also happened almost immediately after ITV went to a break. When Michael Schumacher’s engine blew in Japan, effectively handing the 2006 Drivers Championship to Fernando Alonso, British viewers were completely unaware. If football fans had to endure this sort of thing, there would probably be riots in the streets.

Yet, it is a commercial reality. ITV simply cannot afford to let two hours’ worth of televisual real estate go by without screening an advert. ITV were probably waiting for someone like Lewis Hamilton to come along to let them make more money. This would partly explain their fawning coverage of Golden Boy. But the opposite happened. As the viewership increased, it simply increased the amount of people who were pissed off by the adverts. When they struggled to find a sponsor even at the height of Lewismania, it was probably the final straw.

It is fair to say that the vast majority of fans will not be sorry to see the back of ITV. Their coverage has become laughably one-sided, with all of the commentators unashamedly obsessing over Lewis Hamilton to the extent where some viewers might be surprised to find that when the race started there were 21 other drivers.

It is, of course, understandable that ITV would concentrate on the British hope. But the sheer obsessiveness, to the point where Hamilton’s father and brother have both been elevated to the status of minor celebrities in their own rights, utterly grates. Imagine if football broadcasters started every programme with a hour’s worth of, “Well, we really hope Manchester United can do the business today,” and interviews with Cristiano Ronaldo’s brother and Wayne Rooney’s father. And all without a mention of any of the other teams in the Premier League. You would be thoroughly sick of it.

Whenever they weren’t stalking Lewis Hamilton, viewers were treated to patronising fluff of the lowest order. Who could forget ‘Cooking with Heikki’ or the tour of Jarno Trulli’s vineyard? Just one race into the season, ITV delivered a gem presented (sic) by Tamara Ecclestone. She “interviewed” the Ferrari drivers going skiing, but all she could say was, “That’s wonderful. Amazing. Just incredible.”

Then, of course, there is James Allen. You don’t have to dig deep to find swathes of people on the internet criticising his coverage, often in rather rude terms. He is a good writer, but his contrived excited style really grates and he is constantly putting his foot in his mouth. Murray Walker made plenty of mistakes as well, but that was more endearing. James Allen has an air of smugness about his commentary that most people cannot abide.

It is strange because James Allen is a really good writer, and I thought he was a fine pit reporter as well. But he simply isn’t suited to the role of main commentator. ITV’s inaction over this matter — this is Allen’s seventh full season as ITV’s main commentator — earned them a major black mark in most F1 fans’ minds.

It is not all bad news though. It is easy to forget that ITV truly have revolutionised coverage of F1 since they won the rights in 1997. Even though the preview show is often annoying, at least it exists. The BBC used to do the bare minimum. A bit of competition is healthy, and no doubt the BBC will up their game. It certainly sounds like it from the little hints we have been hearing already. But I will write a separate post about that.