Ridge Racer returns to the PSP

Sony released a list of upcoming games coming out for the PS2, PS3 and PSP in North America yesterday. The majority of the titles announced are games with well known release windows like Dawn of Mana, Odin Sphere, Crush and Spider Man 3. One title sort of stood out though, Ridge Racer 2 for the PSP. What is a little odd about the release isn’t that it was released in Japan  back in September 2006. We’re used to seeing some lag time between releases, but Europe who unfortunately faces even longer delays got it a mere month later care of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. There is also an official English version of Ridge Racer 2 circulating in Asia regions (read: Hong Kong) that was released last year too. For some unknown reason Namco Bandai delayed the North American release until Q2 2007, way after an English version was completed. One guess is Namco Bandai held Ridge Racer 2 back so it wouldn’t be in direct competition with their other PSP racing game based on the Fast and the Furious.