At long last, Porsche's exclusive contract with Electronic Arts is at an end. The news, broken by German site SpeedManiacs, followed the appearance of some Porsche cars in Assetto Corsa. Porsche Branded Entertainment Manager Sebastian Hornung told the site that the contract expires this year. That jibes with what we learned last year on a visit to Turn 10, so we can expect many more Porsches to show up in racing games in the coming years.

The deal, which was struck in 2000, has meant that some of the coolest sports cars on wheels have been excluded from most popular racing games ever since. The Gran Turismo series tried a workaround by using the cars modified by Ruf. The Forza franchise sometimes managed to arrange a sublicense from EA and sometimes didn't. As for everyone else? Forget about it.

Why Porsche signed an exclusive license with EA back then is a mystery. As we understand it, the idea was Porsche's, a move the company probably came to regret as EA's racing titles got lapped again and again by GT and Forza on consoles and hardcore sims like iRacing on the PC. Indeed, in conversations on the topic with Porsche North America over the years, we always got the sense the company knew it was paying a hefty price and couldn't wait for the deal to run its course. (We reached out to Porsche this morning for an official comment but have not received a reply at the time of writing.)

The news means that we can expect to see Porsches in the forthcoming Project CARS sequel, and hopefully the machines will be present and correct in Forza Motorsport 7 without requiring a wait and a paid expansion pack. Could they also make it to Gran Turismo Sport? A last-minute delay to that game would hardly be unprecedented.

Now if you'll excuse me, I think a celebratory lap of the Nürburgring in a 911 might be in order...