The month of May is known for racing, including the F1 Grand Prix of Monaco, NASCAR 600 at Charlotte and, of course, the Indianapolis 500. The video gaming world had its own little dual this May with the release of not one, but two, high-profile and highly promoted racing titles from two established studios with a long history of producing racing titles.

For Disney Interactive Black Rock Studios, Split/Second is an attempt to establish a new franchise after the company’s last title Pure met with only mild commercial success (even after getting high review scores and winning many awards). Split/Second was a chance to do something new that would get noticed in a tough market.

For Activision, the release of Blur represented the first release from developer Bizarre Creations since their departure from being under the Microsoft wing. The release of Blur also was the first multi-platform release that the studio had done in some time. The developer was best known for the Project Gotham Racing series that appeared on both the Xbox and Xbox 360. Some were hoping that Blur would be the spiritual successor to the PGR series, and while the game appears to have been influenced in some ways by PGR, Blur is clearly not PGR 5.

Split/Second was released first and on the same day as Red Dead Redemption, and this decision did overshadow the release of Split/Second despite a massive marketing campaign. (If Pure would have gotten this type of support it would have sold much better!) Blur, on the other hand, shipped just earlier this week, which means that Split/Second did have a head start, but not by much.

Traditionally, you can't really tell much about the sales of racing titles by the quantity of pre-orders, according to the retail sources that we have spoken with. Normally, racing games have low pre-order numbers and only real racing fans are the ones that pre-order these titles. Racing games, however, also attract a lot of casual racing fans who buy these titles as an impulse buy. Both of these titles have a lot of appeal to the casual racing fan, as they are more arcade racer style than simulation-based; which means that they will sell better.

Reviews for both titles have been a dead heat. Both titles are scoring an average of 82 on Metacritic, which is considered good. Sales from what our retail sources tell us have been fair, but not anything special. Split/Second seems to be leading the sales, with Blur trailing. This is due in part to the lead that Split/Second had by being released first.

Long-term, we think that based on the feedback that we have received, both titles are likely to sell over the long haul, but neither one will hit it out of the park. The gimmick nature of Split/Second will likely give that title an edge in the sales department over time, but the online nature and progressive system of Blur could lead this game to continue to be popular online for a long time. In the end, we think that both titles will cross the line in a tie. They started out in a dead heat and they are going to finish that way, as well.