SEGA has posted its latest Financial Statement for the first quarter, which was released earlier today. This financial year is going to end on March 2019. One of the first big bits of news is how SEGA-Sammy’s latest financial report leaked Yakuza 6 for PC, right under their major 2019 titles:
It says here 4/2018, which seems to line up with the PlayStation 4 release. But if you look on the platforms, SEGA-Sammy posted it as the title being on both PS4 and PC. As you know, we just got Yakuza 0 on Steam the other day and have been promised Yakuza Kiwami in the near future. Could we be getting a Yakuza 6 soon as well or is this just SEGA making a mistake?
While the whole ‘more legacy IPs’ and SEGA doubling down on that wasn’t in the investors report, it was actually in a separate release paper (page 4, bottom)which stated:
“With regard to the Entertainment Contents Business, the Group will continue to advance the launch of new titles in the field of digital game software. In addition, the Group will advance efforts to capitalize on existing, revival, external and new IPs in each business field. The titles scheduled to be released in the field of digital game software, the packaged game software field, and the amusement machine field in and after the second quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2019 are as follows.”
My only issue here is that when they went into details on already doing this as they listed ‘existing IP’ being brought back as Yakuza 3, Border Break, Shenmue I&II (revival, even though Shenmue 3 was announced prior), Sonic Mania Plus, and of course StarHorse3 on arcades. Did SEGA forget they’re also publishing House of the Dead: Scarlett Dawn in arcades?
I think the biggest issue here is that when SEGA fans think of ressurected franchises they want to see something from far back in their catalogue and they have a lot of great IPs to choose from including stuff like Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Shinobi, NiGHTS, Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Cop, Skies of Arcadia, ChuChu Rocket!, Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, and honestly that is just scratching the surface. While its cool that SEGA is finally getting around to porting Shenmue I & II, saying they are ressurecting it by porting the classic games years after the Shenmue III kickstarter is a bit… disingenuous. If SEGA really mean’t they wanted to resurrect some classic IPs, they should do that and not do it to ride some coattails on a successful kickstarter. I doubt Shenmue I & II wouldn’t have happen if it wasn’t for the successful Shenmue III kickstarter.
SEGA-Sammy has also been teasing that they have 3 unannounced digital games for the 2 Quarter (aka upcoming) to announced. What is a ‘digital game’? It seems to SEGA that could range from a mobile game like IDOLA Phantasy Star Saga to a free-to-play console game like Border Break. What do you think it is? I guess we will find out at TGS2018.
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I dunno, most of these other games listed under “digital titles” look like smartphone games. I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
Getting Yakuza 6 on PC, on the other hand, that’s pretty sweet. Hope we also get Kiwami 2 and all those remasters. I’m not insane enough to want that Fist of the North Star game, but that’d be nice.
Honestly, Sega is at their best when making new, original IP’s rather than bringing back old ones. The old IP’s had their time in the sunlight, make room for something new!
In regards to the older IPs, I’m really not interested in yet another re-release of SoR, Golden Axe, etc. Now, if they were compliance NEW games in those series Is be listening!