English: The Sony PlayStation was released in Japan on December 1994 and the 32-bit system brought with it much greater processing power than the previous console generation’s Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis could offer. With this, many genres could make the leap from 2D sprite-based games into 3D graphics and environment, better reflecting what the games were trying to portray. Racing games in particular benefited from the new hardware immensely. While the SNES had titles like F-Zero and Super Mario Kart with a pseudo-3D appearance thanks to the Mode 7 mode and the Genesis had Virtua Racing (and later Virtua Racing Deluxe on the ill-fated 32X), the genre took a huge leap towards looking like the real thing visually at this point. But simply being able to drive a polygon car in a 3D environment wouldn’t have been enough, it was necessary to be able to control the car smoothly as well, and the digital nature of the d-pad simply could not provide it. Analogue controls were required. Sony’s own Dual Analog Controller, precursor to the now iconic DualShock, wasn’t released until April 1997, which means there was a gap of almost two and a half years when there were no first-party controllers suitable for racing games on the system. (There was the Sony PlayStation Analog Joystick that offered analogue controls, but due to its flight stick-like design it wasn’t exactly comfortable for playing racing games with and not many racing titles support the controller.)