World Rally Championship Posits Innovative Concept

North One Sport is co-operating with iOpener Media and Black Bean Games to investigate “real-time rally gaming.”North One Sport, the global promoter of World Rally Championship, is working together with Black Bean Games – the publisher of the official WRC console game – and iOpener, developer of real-time positioning data, in order to port the data into games.The idea appears to be that a stream of positioning and telemetry data can be taken from the cars in genuine WRC rallies and put into the game.Speaking about the impact this would have on players, CEO of North One Sport Simon Long said “Using the internet they would be able to compete in the rally on the same stages against some of the best drivers in the world.””If this test is successful then we hope in the future to crown our first virtual rally champion.”The exact implications of this are uncertain. One possibility is that players could race in ongoing WRC races; another is that it could generate genuinely accurate races and opponents based on the real-world data.It’s certainly an interesting concept, though.