One of the Best PS1 Games Released on Nintendo Switch Today

One of the best PS1 games has been released on the Nintendo Switch today, September 3. The release is currently limited to Japan and the Japanese eShop. There are ways to bypass this regional restriction and download the game in the United States and other regions, but there is no English support for the release either. In other words, anyone interested in doing this will need to know Japanese.

The new release comes the way of Japanese developer and publisher G-Mode, which is specifically based out of Tokyo. This new release is Ridge Racer, which it has specifically released as a G-Mode Archives+ title. It’s also bringing the game to Steam for a global release on September 16, but this version also won’t have an English version, so Western gamers will still encounter the same problem. That said, it’s still exciting to see a classic game return and come to a Nintendo platform for the very first time. Further, while the menus will be in Japanese, the game itself is actually in English, so it is possible to power through even if you don’t know Japanese; it’s just very far from ideal.

One of the Best Racing Games of All Time

For those unfamiliar with Ridge Racer, it is widely considered one of the all-time great racing games and a pioneer within the genre. It was originally released by Namco, before it merged with Bandai and became known as Bandai Namco. That said, in North America and Europe, the PS1 version was actually published by Sony. Before this happened, though, it was released in arcades in 1993. The PS1 version wouldn’t come until the year after, in Japan at least. In the United States, it wouldn’t arrive until 1995.

The Namco System 22 game was a huge, early PS1 game. It sold very well, was received very well, and gave the console an answer to Sega’s Daytona USA, which was exclusive to the Sega Saturn, one of the PS1’s primary competitors. Not only is it considered by many as a Mount Rushmore racing game, but it’s often cited as one of the great games of all time.

Like many arcade racers from the 1990s, it holds up surprisingly well in 2026, regardless if you have nostalgia for it or for this generation of racers. It’s primitive and simple, but there is a simplistic arcadey quality that resonates in an era where racing games aren’t solely focused on the actual racing. Unfortunately, in the modern era, the series is dormant, and Bandai Namco has shown little interest in doing anything with it, hence why it’s willing to license it out.

That said, if this PS1 nostalgia isn’t nostalgic for you, the good news is there’s more. A lot more. To this end, a 27-year-old PS1 RPG was recently re-released on modern hardware.