Image courtesy of Bandai Namco
The arcade racing game series Ridge Racer is having its 30th anniversary, and Bandai Namco has still not forgotten one of its classics. The company announced that it will hold the Ridge Racer Night 2024 DJ event to celebrate the anniversary milestone on July 7, 2024.
Composers who have contributed many tracks to the series will attend the event as DJs. The list will include Shinji “Sampling Masters MEGA” Hosoe, Ayako “Sampling Masters AYA” Saso, Nobuyoshi “sanodg” Sano, Hiroshi Okubo, and Sho Okada.
People who want to attend the event will have to purchase a ticket that costs 9,900 yen (~$65.95). Each ticket will also come with an exclusive CD containing two 25-minute-long medley tracks produced by Sampling Masters MEGA and AYA.
Bandai Namco has also started uploading soundtracks from the series on digital music platforms like Spotify and YouTube Music. The first two titles that received the treatment are the 2004 PlayStation Portable version of Ridge Racer and its 2006 sequel Ridge Racer 2. The company promised that it will release more soundtracks from other series titles as the DJ music event draws near.
The inaugural Ridge Racer entry appeared in arcades in late 1993, but Namco then brought it to the PlayStation as its launch title in Japan in late 1994 and the West in 1995. Namco also made a tradition of producing new series entries as launch titles for subsequent consoles, such as Ridge Racer V for the PS2, Ridge Racer 6 for Xbox 360, and Ridge Racer 7 for the PS3. However, that ended with 2011’s releases for the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. There has not been a new Ridge Racer entry since the Western-exclusive console game Unbounded in 2012 and the mobile app Draw & Drift in 2016.
The Ridge Racer Night 2024 DJ event will be held to celebrate the series’ 30th anniversary at WombLife in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan on Sunday, July 7, 2024.
