A Lost Rally Pitch Reappears
A Sega Rally prototype for Nintendo DS has surfaced through preservation group Prototopia, which was previously known as Obscure Gamers. The group has published footage of the project, giving fans a rare look at a version of Sega's racing series that never reached players.
The demo was developed by DC Studios and appears to have been made as a pitch to Sega. Prototopia also shared footage of another DC Studios pitch demo built around street racing. That second demo includes a Juiced title screen and carries a 2006 date.
Because of that date, it is reasonable to place the Sega Rally footage around the same period. If so, the prototype would line up with the era of Sega Rally 2006 on PlayStation 2 and would come before Sega Rally Revo, which arrived in September 2007.
The later history of the series is fairly quiet. The most recent entry noted here is Sega Rally 3, released in arcades in 2008 and later brought to PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as SEGA Rally Online Arcade.
For Z-retro, finds like this are useful little windows into what might have been. A pitch demo is not the same as a cancelled full game, but it still helps show how Sega Rally was being explored during a busy stretch for the series.
