..but fear not, Pure developer Blackrock Studios is on the case. In a comment that is sure to be a bit of a sarcasm magnet, Blackrock’s studio head Tony Beckwith feels the racing genre is a dying breed. “If you look at the sales figures, the racing genre is in many respects dying out – take Mario Kart out of the equation and the category is in a dire way. I think this genre is ripe for something new and inventive to give it a kick start,” Beckwith told Develop.

We’re not really sure you can say a genre that’s been giving birth to titles like Burnout Paradise, Dirt, Race Driver Grid, Forza Motorsport 2, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, and Project Gotham Racing 4, all at least million sellers by the way, in the past few years is dying out. Sure, not all of them have the sales of Halo 3, but calling the sales situation “dire” is still a bit of a stretch. Although people from Bizarre and Codemasters have agreed in the past that unless a more mass market approach is figured out, becoming a niche market is a possibility.

Split/Second’s director Nick Baynes hits the nail a bit more accurately, “..as a genre it is relatively stale – the evolution is only coming from how you customise cars, which can only serve to remove you from the action – I think Split/Second will do the opposite.” Hopefully so. The game does indeed look interesting from what we’ve seen so far.