Even the soundtrack is made in-house, atypically for racing games. Ridge Racer takes place in its own fictional universe, dubbed 'Ridge City', complete with its own fictional line of cars and in-game brands (many of which are named after other Namco games). An eighth game, dubbed Ridge Racer Unbounded, was released in 2012 and developed by Bugbear Entertainment (developers of the first two FlatOut games). So far, seven official games have been released, mostly on the PlayStation. It's become a tradition for a new PlayStation console to have a new Ridge Racer game as a launch title, and the 3DS, DS and Xbox 360 were launched with one as well. They found greater popularity on the PlayStation, where the first Ridge Racer game was announced as a launch title, owing much of its success to its emphasis on fast-paced racing over super-realism. Ridge Racer is a series of racing games created by Namco and initially released in arcades in 1993. Then- Sony Computer Entertainment president (later president and CEO of its parent company) Kaz Hirai at E3 2006
