7th Dragon III debuts in Japan, reaches #1 on sales chart

7thDragon1inJapanThis wasn’t the best week overall for game sales in Japan, with SEGA’s 7th Dragon III Code: VFD taking the number one spot and pushing Yo-Kai Watch Busters: Red Cat Team/White Dog Squad to second place. The SEGA published SRPG on 3DS did 72,477 units on its debut week and was good enough to top all other games for said week.

Check out the top 20 software chart for Japan, which includes total numbers. This chart takes place between October 12th – the 18th, 7th Dragon III came out on the 15th, so it had about 3 days on sale.

[Via: NintendoLife]

SEGA announces a Total War: Warhammer collectors edition

WarhammerTotalWarHighKingEditionThe war is coming to PC on April 28th, 2016 and SEGA have given out a few more details about what you can expect when the game comes out including a new collectors edition. Users that buy the game get the game’s first DLC for free.

The game will have three versions available: The standard edition that comes with the game, the limited edition with the steelbook plus printed strategy guide and the ‘High King Edition’ which comes with all the stuff pictured above!

SEGA has also shown off the latest DLC that comes for free for people that are pre-ordering/day one buying the game: check out the Chaos Warriors Race trailer. What do you guys think about this collectors edition? Tempting?

[Source: IGN]

SEGA trademarks ‘Valkyria of the Blue Revolution’

Valkyria_Chronicles-1SEGA’s SRPG Valkyria Chronicles launched back in 2008 exclusively on the Playstation 3, while it was one of my favorite games of that generation it seemed that most people totally missed it. Last fall SEGA released a port on PC, which went on to sell more than half a million copies. Seems that SEGA of Japan might actually capitalize on that success, seeing as they have trademarked “Aoki Kakumei no Valkyria,” which roughly translates to “Valkyria of the Blue Revolution”.

According to the trademark registry it can be used for console games, amusement park machines (see: slot and pachislot machines) and medal games. What do you guys think, could this be related to Valkyria Chronicles franchise?

[Via: Siliconera]

SEGA News Bits: SEGA says new Panzer Dragoon Won’t Sell

We did a news post on how Phantasy Star Online 2 producer Satoshi Sakai if they where every going to do a game with a Dragon protagonist like Panzer Dragoon, according to Satoshi Sakai SEGA isn’t in the position to have a game like that sell. So we sat down and discussed if there was a market for a game like Panzer Dragoon and if SEGA of today could manage to make the game sell.

If you like what you see here, make sure to subscribe to us on YouTube and never miss an episode!

Unreleased SEGA Dreamcast port of ‘Colin McRae Rally 2.0’ unearthed

ColinMcraeRaly2.0Dreamcast

The Dreamcast had quite a bit of cancelled game before it met its erupt end on March 31st, 2001. Some of the popular ‘unreleased’ games that have made it out in the wild include a port of Half-Life and even SEGA-AM2’s Propeller Arena. Looks like we have one more game to add that list, Colin Mcrae Rally 2.0 (the precursor to the DiRT games).

Colin McRae Rally, the first game got a release on both Windows and Playstation; while 2.0 only had a release on Windows. Mcrae Rally 2.0 added more difficultly levels (Novice, Intermediate and Expert), Arcade mode and more. Sadly the port that was unearthed was only 30% complete, but its still pretty cool to see.

You can hear Tomleecee from The Dreamcast Junkyard talk about the unearthed unreleased port.

SEGA News Bits: Sonic Boom Season 2 announced & the state of the franchise

With Sonic Boom Season 1 coming to a close and the announcement that the series will continue with a second season we thought it was time for us to chime in on the show. We talk about what we liked, disliked about season 1 and our hopes for season 2. Tell us what you thought about Sonic Boom season 1 in the comments below and tell us what you want to see for the second season!

If you liked what you saw, don’t miss a video! Subscribe to us on YouTube!

Stella Glow to get American demo on October 27th

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If you wanted to check out the SRPG released by SEGA in Japan and developed by Imageepoch called ‘Stella Glow‘, you will be able to play a demo soon thanks to Atlus. Atlus has announced that the demo will hit the American Nintendo e-shop on the October 27th.

Pictured above is the Atlus launch day edition of the game that comes with a ton of goodies. Make sure if you want all that good stuff, that you pre-order the game at your local pre-ordering game store. The game will be released in North America on November 17th, 2015 and cost $49.99 USD.

ChuChu Rocket! coming Wii U Virtual Console in Japan

ChuChuRocket!
ChuChu Rocket!, the Sonic Team created action-puzzle game originally released on the SEGA Dreamcast is getting a Wii U re-release, only this isn’t the Dreamcast version but the Gameboy Advanced version. What are the differences? Well outside of the lower resolution and some lesser quality sounds (due to being on the Gameboy Advance) not much, it offers the full Dreamcast 100 puzzle levels and as a extra it includes 2,500 user-submitted levels. The game will cost 702 yen ($5.88 US) and launch on October 21st (in Japan of course).

Sadly for us westerners this game has only been announced for release in Japan, so if you want SEGA to release this game west, you better start bothering them on social media.

Here is a comparison: 

ChuChuRocketGBAvsDC

 

[Via: SegaFans, official page]

SEGA says they’re in a ‘difficult place for something like’ a new Panzer Dragoon to sell

Panzer_Dragoon_Saga
SEGA’s Panzer Dragoon is one of those rail shooters with fantastic art style that blew lots of fans’ imaginations and many consider the franchise as being one of the most underrated SEGA games of all time. The Dengeki Playstation magazine decided to ask some SEGA developers some direct questions about the future of some SEGA entries, one being Panzer Dragoon. Satoshi Sakai (Producer Phantasy Star Online 2) was asked if the company would ever make a new Panzer Dragoon type game and he answered:

I would like to make it, but I’m sorry to say we’re in a difficult place for something like that to sell.

The other person that was asked a few questions for the magazine was Toshihiro Nagoshi (Daytona USA, Super Monkey Ball, Yakuza series) who was asked about making a new IP which he said is being considered, even though his team was making it seem like Yakuza franchise can’t last forever a few months ago.

As for Panzer Dragoon not ‘selling enough’ for a new entry, its hard to tell. There hasn’t been a new entry since 2002’s Panzer Dragoon Orta which sold 122,170 units in America alone. Its not a bad number (for being a early Xbox game) and its sad that SEGA never capitalized on it.

[Source: Gematsu]

SEGA News Bits: Ghost Blade impressions & Hucast Games controversy talk

Today on the SEGA News Bits we have not only one, but two videos for you to enjoy. Why two? Well, we ran too long and I decided it was best to cut the conversation into two separate videos. The above video is Barry’s initial impressions of Hucast Games’ Dreamcast Shoot ’em up Ghost Blade. The second video has us talking about the article that DCGX wrote about Hucast games (the publisher of Ghost Blade). Its a great article, check it out.

If you want to see our video on our Ghost Blade impressions, thats above and if you wanna see us whine about the Dreamcast indie scene you can watch that below. If you like what you see don’t forget to comment, like, share and subscribe to us on YouTube.

Atlus announces Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final for 3DS

AtlusSMT4Final

While at Tokyo Game Show this year, Atlus teased that they had a brand new title to announce. It seems that title could be the newly announced Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final for the Nintendo 3DS, which is due to release in Japan on February 10th, 2016.

Staff working on this game: 

  • Producer: Kazuyuki Yamai
  • Director: Satoshi Ohyama
  • Character Designer: Masashi Doi
  • Sound Composer: Ryota Kozuka
  • Setting Plan and Series Demon Designer – Kazuma Kaneko

Details on what the difference between this version and 2013’s Shin Megami Tensei IV are unknown as of right now, but Famitsu has confirmed its a brand new title (not a re-release like Atlus has been known to do). For now you can check out the game’s teaser page here.

[Source: Gematsu]

SEGA Europe President to explore ‘brilliant portfolio’ of games before doing Alien: Isolation 2

AlienIsolationFireGamesindustry.biz had a interview with Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe. In the interview Jurgen explained to the site how SEGA now operated, how financial reports worked and basically how gaming press write negative (and false) articles about SEGA for clickbait (remember when they left the console market?). They also talked about how Creative Assembly now has over 400 employees working on upcoming titles including the newly announced Halo Wars 2. But what about a sequel to last year’s Alien: Isolation?

“Alien: Isolation 2 is not out of the question, because we’re so proud of it and there’s possibly more to be said. But do we really want to be spending very significant amounts of money, and getting close to break-even or just about in the black? That’s not where Sega wants to be, when we have a brilliant portfolio of other games that do great business.” – Jurgen Post, COO of SEGA Europe.

It seems that Alien: Isolation 2 isn’t out of the question, but they just want to explore other games that they think would do better in sales. Jurgen talked about how he wasn’t happy with how Alien: Isolation sold, stating that it did well in Europe but didn’t do so hot in America. Being from America, I can tell you that SEGA of America can’t market a game to save their own jobs. Check out the full interview for more insight into SEGA of Europe.

7th Dragon III Code: VFD demo hits Japanese e-shop

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SEGA’s 7th Dragon III Code: VFD demo has hit the Japanese e-shop, letting players play the prologue of the game and even giving them special bonus items for the full retail version (when it hits Japan October 15th). The demo will allow users to play Chapter 0 and Chapter 1, sadly in the demo you are given a pre-created character and capped at level 10.

If you transfer the demo save to the full retail version, you get:

  • EX Upper: an accessory that increases experience points gain by x1.2
  • Skill Upper: an accessory that increases skill point gain by x1.2
  • Nagamimi’s Charm: an accessory that increases attack, speed, and evasion of the user.
  • 10,000Az: in-game currency that can be used to make purchases.

If you wanted to just go to the Japanese e-shop on your non-Japanese 3DS, you will have to modify it due to Nintendo’s amazing region locking. There hasn’t been a western released teased and seeing as how we missed the last three entries in the series, its safe to say this won’t come here either. But you can always gawk at YouTube footage of someone playing the demo and envy them.

[Source: Siliconera]

Yakuza 6 shows why its PS4 exclusive in first in-game teaser

Yakuza 6 was the big game announced by SEGA at this year’s Tokyo Game Show 2015, two big related announcements was that it will be Playstation 4 only and that famous Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano (aka Beat Takeshi) would have a character in this game. Sadly no in-game graphics where shown at the Japanese expo, but now that its over we finally get to see what Takeshi Kitano and Yakuza 6 will look like.

This looks like a big step for the franchise, but its hard to tell if it will be a huge leap like Yakuza 2 to Yakuza 3 due to how little they show in this video (and how well past Yakuza titles captured in-game faces).  What are your thoughts on the teaser above? Want to hear us ramble about Yakuza 6? Check out our YouTube episode of SEGA News Bits where we talk all about this game!

[Via Gematsu]

Volgarr the Viking gets a Dreamcast port

volgarr_screen_04
Volgarr the Viking
is a 16-bit style, tough-as-nails, retro-styled action game published by the crazy people at Adult Swim. The game has made it across multiple platforms including PC, Xbox One, 3DS, Wii U, PS4, and Vita. But what if you wanted to play this game on your Dreamcast?

Now you can, thanks to one of the developers of the orginal game, who did a side project to port the game on SEGA’s white dream machine. Since its Marc Hall’s personal port, this project is ‘unofficial’ and labeled as freeware, but works as you’d expect. The game even supports VGA, if you want a crisper picture.

Click here to download the ISO and start stabbing!