Formula One World Championship: Beyond The Limit - Tobacco Sponsorship

Tobacco Sponsorship

In light of censorship in many console games, it is probably by accident that a couple of tobacco sponsors used in 1993 appear in the game. As is common with many of the tobacco and alcohol sponsors used in Formula 1, they are always excluded from console released games.

When driving at the Canadian Grand Prix in the game, Imperial Tobacco brand Player's (mostly sold in Canada only) is clearly visible all over the circuit. In many of the cut scenes, Chesterfields is visible on some of the cars sponsored by them, yet Chesterfields is another cigarette brand from Europe. Finally Barclay, which sponsored the Jordan team during 1993, is also visible.

Many of the other popular known cigarette brands such as Marlboro and Camel, are not displayed around the circuits or in the cut scenes, yet the cars themselves that carried these particular sponsors (McLaren, Williams, Benetton) have them clearly visible in game.

The exclusion of some brands and the inclusion of others was more than likely ignorance on part of the Japanese graphic designers, although it bears to mention that this game was under full supervision of Fuji Television and carries the FIA license, meaning someone at some point should have realized the errors. This game was released after the controversial arcade version of Super Monaco GP, that in the game and opening cut scenes included many images of the Marlboro McLaren team, even though the game was not licensed by the FIA. This subsequently led to a different version of the simulator being released.