is a 1982 racing video game developed and published by Namco for arcades. It was released by Atari, Inc. in North America. It was developed as a successor of Namco's earlier arcade racing electro-mechanical games, like F-1 (1976), whose designer Sho Osugi worked on Pole Position.
The game was a major commercial success in arcades. After becoming the highest-grossing arcade game of 1982 in Japan, it went on to become the most popular coin-operated arcade video game internationally in 1983. In North America, it was the highest-grossing arcade game for both 1983 and 1984 and still one of the top five in 1985.
Pole Position spawned ports, sequels, and a Saturday morning cartoon, although the cartoon has little in common with the game. The game established the conventions of the racing genre and its success inspired many imitators. Pole Position is regarded as one of the most influential video games of all time, and is considered to be the most influential racing game, as well as one of the most important titles from the golden age of arcade video games. A sequel, Pole Position II, was released in 1983 with four tracks instead of one.
Gameplay
thumbnail|left|The player's car approaching a curve
The player assumes the role of a Formula One race car driver who is attempting to compete in a race at the Fuji Speedway. The first objective is to complete a one-lap time trial within a specified time limit in order to qualify for the race. A successful qualification awards bonus points and sets the player's starting position among seven computer-controlled cars, based on the lap time. The actual race consists of a set number of laps, with a set amount of time given at the start and more granted after each lap.
During both the time trial and the race, the player can briefly lose control of the car by running through puddles on the track, colliding with other cars, or driving around curves too quickly. Running off the track and into the grass will slow the car down. Billboards placed next to the track will destroy the car if it collides with one of them, resulting in a brief delay as a new car is put into play.
The game ends when the player either runs out of time during the qualifying lap or the race, or completes the final lap. The player earns bonus points for every car passed, and an additional bonus for any time left on the clock.
Pole Position was the first racing video game to feature a track based on a real racing circuit. It was also the first game to feature a qualifying lap, requiring the player to finish a time trial before they can compete in Grand Prix races. Once the player has qualified, they must complete the race in the time allowed, avoiding collisions with CPU-controlled opponents and billboards along the sides of the track. The game's North American distributor, Atari, publicized the game for its "unbelievable driving realism" in providing a Formula 1 experience behind a racing wheel. The game's graphics featured full-colour landscapes with scaling sprites, including race cars and other signs, and a pseudo-3D, third-person, rear perspective view of the track, with its vanishing point swaying side to side as the player approaches corners, accurately simulating forward movement into the distance. While earlier three-dimensional arcade driving games emphasized staying on the road while avoiding crashes, Pole Position gives a higher reward for passing rival cars and finishing among the leaders.
Development of the game lasted for three years. The controls also proved to be a challenge, as Okamoto wanted them to feel realistic and to match up with the gameplay The game is an early example of product placement in a video game, with billboards around the track advertising actual companies such as Pepsi, Marlboro, and Canon. The development team had long fights over how fast the gear-shift should be, until it was ultimately decided to simply be either high or low speed. It was licensed to Atari, Inc. for release in North America, where it made its debut at Chicago's 1982 Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA) show, held during November 18–20, before receiving a mass-market North American release on November 30, 1982, while Namco themselves released the game in Europe in late 1982. The environmental/cockpit cabinet was chosen due to the popularity of such machines at the time.
Reception
Sales
In Japan, Game Machine magazine listed Pole Position as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1982, and later listed it as the second top-grossing upright arcade unit of May 1983, before it returned to being the top-grossing game of October 1983. Internationally, Pole Position was the most popular game of 1983. In Europe, it was a top-grossing arcade game in 1983.
In the United States, it sold over 21,000 arcade cabinets for an estimated ($ adjusted for inflation) by 1983. In addition, US coin drop earnings averaged ( adjusted for inflation) per week ($450 weekly per machine). On the US RePlay arcade charts, it topped the upright cabinet charts for seven months in 1983, from March through August and again in December. It also topped the US Play Meter arcade charts for six consecutive months from March through August 1983, and then topped the street locations chart in November 1983. It ended the year as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1983 in North America, according to RePlay and the Amusement & Music Operators Association (AMOA), and again became the highest-grossing arcade game of 1984 in the United States. Several years after its release, it was still one of the top five highest-grossing arcade video games of 1985.
The console version topped the UK sales charts in late 1983. In the United States between 1986 and 1990, the Atari 2600 version sold units for , the Atari 5200 version sold units for , and the version for Atari 8-bit computers version sold units for , adding up to units sold and grossed between 1986 and 1990.
Critical reception
Upon its North American debut at AMOA, Pole Position was reviewed by Video Games magazine, which listed it among the show's top ten games. They compared it favorably with Sega's Turbo (1981), referring to Pole Position as "Turbo Deluxe" in "a speedway, not a cross-country race". They called Pole Position the "ultimate test of driving skill" for racing players. They gave it the 1983 Arcade Award for Coin-Op Game of the Year, praising the racing gameplay, "beautiful graphics" and "breathtaking" scenery as well as "the two-heat format for the race itself". It was considered the all-time best racing/driving game by InfoWorld in 1983 and Computer Games in early 1985. and reiterated the recommendation in InfoWorld's Essential Guide to Atari Computers, but said the Commodore 64 version "looks like a rush job and is far from arcade-game quality". Computer Games magazine criticized the Commodore conversions for lacking various features from the arcade original, giving the C64 version a mixed review and the VIC-20 version a negative review. Computer and Video Games reviewed the Atari 2600 version, stating it is "the best driving game available" on the Atari VCS.
In 2007, Eurogamer gave it a mixed retrospective review, calling it "a simulation down to the core" and that those dedicated racing fans will be deterred by the game's difficulty.
Legacy
Pole Position is regarded as one of the most influential video games of all time, and was the most successful racing game of the golden age of arcade video games. Bill Loguce and Matt Barton listed it as one of the 25 most influential games of all time, calling it "arguably the most important racing game ever made". In 1984, Electronic Games stated that, for "the first time in the amusement parlors, a first-person racing game gives a higher reward for passing cars and finishing among the leaders rather than just for keeping all four wheels on the road, thus making driving an art". In 2015, Pole Position topped IGNs list of The Top 10 Most Influential Racing Games Ever. They stated it had "a drastically better-looking" third-person "chase cam view" than Turbo, was "the first racing game based on a real-world racing circuit (Fuji Speedway in Japan)", "introduced checkpoints, and was the first to require a qualifying lap", and that its success, as "the highest-grossing arcade game in North America in 1983, cemented the genre in place for decades to come and inspired a horde of other racing games".
Pole Position spawned ports, sequels, and a Saturday morning cartoon. Parker Brothers also published a board game based on Pole Position in 1983. The game was re-released as part of Microsoft Return of Arcade, the Namco Museum series of games, as well as by Hamster Corporation as part of their Arcade Archives series for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in July 2023.