SEGA Rumors Roundup: Jet Set Radio 3, Shenmue 4 and a weird Sonic movie pitch

You hear that? It’s the sound of engines revving, which can only mean we got a roundup of SEGA rumors to drop on you today! While some of these are indeed just rumors, others are cold hard facts. Which is which? We will leave that for you to decide. Because there are so many little bits of SEGA rumors, I’ll break it down into bullets.

• Jet Set Radio 3: Bloomberg reported on Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi sequels or reboots in April, and we thought we would share a follow-up. Outside sources tell us that this is still moving ahead, and focus now appears to be on Jet Set Radio. Specifically, nailing down the art style and gameplay focus. Just about every aspect of the first two games in on the table, and it appears they are trying to gauge the best balance. Concept artwork has been described as featuring Beat, Gum and Combo in new costume designs and the art is similar to this style. Recall, Bloomberg stated the Crazy Taxi game is two to three years out. At the moment there is no timeline that we know of for Jet Set Radio but it could be the same window.
• SEGA Classics: SEGA is aware of the successes with SEGA owned IPs that have been licensed out and published and developed by third parties. It appears there is an effort to bring the publishing side of this back in house (think Sonic Mania). Classic IPs and known retro-style developers are being considered.
• Shenmue 4: Shenmue Dojo and Game Rant have been following this strange story about 110 Industries and their continuing Shenmue 4 teases. Game Rant lays out the latest in an article here, but the gist of it is Yu Suzuki was a special guest at 110 Industries 40-minute long Tokyo Game Show presentation despite never working with them. Since then, 110 have made vague tweets about Shenmue and then deleted them just as Suzuki was questioned about a possible collaboration with the studio to make Shenmue 4. It appears the two are in discussions at the very least.
• Unseen Sonic Movie Treatment: Sonic and motion pictures have had a LONG history. Decades before 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog there were a number of pitches to SEGA for possible live action films. Many are known about, some aren’t. We’ve found one that has been unseen outside of a few peeks provided by ourselves over the years. Why are we providing just peeks? Basically, this thing is our white whale. Years back somebody sent a photo of the cover, dated November 11, 1994 but their end goal was to gauge the price they could sell it at rather than share the contents with us and fellow fans. Now, about 5 years later, we found the buyer and are in talks with them to reveal the whole thing. How and where will be revealed soon. We can say we have read most of it and it is insane. If you think 2020’s Sonic movie had some weird moments, just wait until you hear what 1994’s movie could have been. YIKES.

That’s it for now. Again, these are all rumors (well, except for the Sonic movie treatment) and they come from third party sources. Take that as you will.

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