Codemasters snags F1 licence

Codemasters is certainly no stranger to the racing genre, having produced rally and touring car franchises such as DiRT and GRID, the latter of which is due out in Europe on May 30 (June 3 in North America).

However, Codies obviously isn't content with merely having those two racing games in its virtual garage, as the publisher has just announced an exclusive licensing agreement with Formula One Administration.

The first game to come out of this agreement will be released on "home console, handheld and PC gaming formats" in 2009, and is expected to be based on next season's roster. The game is being developed with the developer's own EGO engine, the same one being used in GRID.

Prior to this agreement, Sony Computer Entertainment had held the rights, with its first game being Formula One on the original PlayStation in 1996, and culminating in Formula One Championship Edition, which arrived at the European launch of PlayStation 3. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe was unavailable for comment at the time of publication.