SEGA News

Sonic and friends rescue a cat from a tree in a new Sonic Boom commercial

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Regardless of your opinion of SEGA’s upcoming Sonic Boom franchise, you gotta admit it’s nice to see some creative SEGA TV ads. Unlike past adverts for Sonic titles, which used actors in body costumes, the Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric TV ad features CG renderings of Sonic and his friends in the real world, using their teamwork to rescue a real cat (not Big, sadly) from a tree. Sonic Boom the TV show is set to air this coming Saturday at 7am EST, while the Wii U and 3DS games are set for a November 11th release in the US, and a November 21st release in Europe. The comic book is in stores now, and you can read our full review right here. Stay tuned to SEGAbits and Sonic Retro for all your Sonic Boom news, reviews, and information.

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Sega Amusements bringing DiRT Showdown to arcades with less DiRT

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Sega Amusements has announced that they’ve teamed up to bring DiRT Showdown to arcades, just without the DiRT brand slapped onto it. Probably because of legal reasons, or because it’s not much like the other DiRT games anyway.

A picture of the arcade cabinets was put on Facebook as well, which can be seen below. If you want to play this game and there aren’t any arcades nearby where you live, then you can still buy the original game for Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or Steam.

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Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric: A new and action-packed Japanese trailer arrives

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Get Excite! A brand new trailer for Sonic Boom: rise of Lyric (AKA Sonic Toon: Ancient Treasure) has just hit the internets. This Japanese trailer not only manages to show off some exciting gameplay footage, but some brand new areas and an all new multiplayer “party” mode is shown as well. Just listen to the enthusiasm in that Japanese announcers voice! This Japanese trailer has me more excited for the game than any English trailer has done so far. Will Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric live up to this trailer’s hype? We’ll know come November 11th in the U.S.

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All Japanese Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd DLC is coming West

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The official US Playstation Blog has confirmed that all of the Japanese DLC for Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd will be made available for the Western release!

The EU Blog has also confirmed the DLC.

According to the blog, SEGA will “be releasing content every two weeks or so for nearly six months straight,” with three categories of DLC available:

  • UI Skins: $0.99, but free for the first 39 days after release
  • Costume Modules: $1.99 each
  • Rhythm Game Songs: $2.99 each

If that wasn’t enough, some special “sales initiatives” are being launched which gets you all the content as it’s released, as opposed to buying separately.

Continue Reading ➜

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SEGA’s Valkyria Chronicles officially announced for PC – here are the details!

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When a PEGI rating leaked that Valkyria Chronicles was heading to PC, the internet exploded. Our news story brought in ten times the usual traffic, and “Valkyria Chronicles” was trending worldwide on Twitter. SEGA finally confirmed the news with a tweet that more news is to come, and the news has finally arrived! Read SEGA’s press release after the break!

Update: You can now pre-purchase the game on Steam, and if the concept of pre-ordering a digital title is silly to you, note that you save 10%

Update 2: Get Games Online has the game for 25% off

Continue Reading ➜

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“Hi☆sCool! Seha Girls” anime Episode 4 is here, and so are our impressions

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It’s that time again: Hi☆sCool! Seha Girls has a new episode out, and it’s available now on Crunchyroll!

We’re back into the world of games in this episode, as the girls enter Space Channel 5 on the Dreamcast, to save Professor Asobin’s friends who have been taken hostage by Morolians; with the help of Space Diva Ulala of course! The girls must also raise their ratings up to 100%; it won’t be easy however, as they face setbacks such as Mega Drive’s struggle to dance and the fact the World Cup qualifiers are being broadcast at the same time!

It then turns out that the first of Asobin’s friends is actually Jeffry from Virtua Fighter! His mere presence manages to up the ratings of the Seha Girls’ broadcast; but then Dreamcast uses her internet capabilities to find other ways of getting 100%. And the result leaves Saturn… parading around in swimwear. It was only a matter of time before we got some fanservice folks.

…and hey, it’s Saturn so I’m not exactly going to complain.

Continue Reading ➜

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Yakuza Zero Releases in Japan on March 12, 2015

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According to SegmentNext, Toshihiro Nagoshi recently announced a March 12, 2015 release date for Yakuza Zero in Japan. As far as known Japanese release dates for other games are concerned, Yakuza Zero comes out two weeks earlier than Sword Art Online: Lost Song for PS3, and comes out within a two week range earlier than Final Fantasy Type-0 HD, Senran Kagura: Estival Versus, and Disgaea 5 for PS4. It isn’t currently releasing simultaneously with any other title. The game will also be priced at ¥8,190.

Yakuza Zero is a prequel title that allows players progress through story mode campaigns as either Kazuma Kiryu or Goro Majima that the pasts of the iconic Yakuza characters. Be sure to check out this extended story trailer if you have not done so already!

Credit for the featured image goes to this AnimeNewsNetwork writeup.

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UK Charts: Bayonetta 2 debuts and Alien: Isolation still charting

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Its the holiday season, so you know the sale charts are on fire as new released games continue to make their mark on the UK charts. This week we have the debut of Bayonetta 2 and Alien: Isolation staying on the top ten. Check out the chart below:

FIFA 15
Minecraft: PlayStation Edition
The Evil Within
Destiny
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Bayonetta 2
Forza Horizon 2
Alien: Isolation
Skylanders Trap Team

Considering that Bayonetta 2 is competing against games that debuted on multiple consoles and debuting on a new platform that hasn’t be selling a truck load of units (especially compared to the first Wii), I’d say this is a good debut.

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Is SEGA’s Valkyria Chronicles heading to PC? A recent PEGI rating says it is! [Update: Confirmed by SEGA]

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While there have been whispers of Valkyria Chronicles heading to PC, a recent PEGI rating for the game has appeared that all but confirms that the game will be hitting PC soon! The rating is for Europe, but it is likely that the game will be releasing to the United States and other territories as well. This is exciting news for fans who wished to see more recent SEGA classics on the PC platform, and once we learn more we’ll be sure to share. In the meantime, here is a screen grab of the rating:

Screen Shot 2014-10-27 at 2.45.10 PM

Update: SEGA has confirmed it! Interesting choice of photo they picked, given it’s the same one we used when originally posting the news. 😉

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Nintendo and Playboy team up to promote Bayonetta 2

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After Marge Simpson appeared in Playboy, nothing phases me anymore. Which is why when I learned that Playboy and Nintendo of America have teamed up to promote Bayonetta 2, the idea didn’t surprise me. In what looks to be a web exclusive, Playboy model Pamela Horton dressed as Bayonetta for a photo shoot which has been posted on Playboy’s Facebook page (which is SFW) as well as their official site (which is NSFW). The official site contains one photo that didn’t make the cut on Facebook, as it ias the most revealing of the photos. However, none of the images contain full nudity and are likely more toned down that what you can expect from the game itself. The Facebook page urges fans to vote for their favorite photo, though we have no idea what they plan to do with the winning photo. Now if only Playgirl held a Ryo Hazuki photo shoot.

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Check out SEGA of Japan’s trailer for the physical SEGA 3D Classics Nintendo 3DS release

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Not too long ago, we speculated that a physical release of SEGA’s 3DS 3D Classics was in the works, and shortly thereafter such a release was revealed to be happening! Releasing December 18th, and featuring cover art by Ken Sugimori, the compilation is to include a mix of wave 1 and wave 2 titles: 3D Space Harrier, 3D Fantasy Zone, 3D Outrun, 3D Streets of Rage, 3D Shinobi 2, and 3D Ecco the Dolphin. Also included are two bonus titles, Space Harrier 3D and Outrun 3D which originally released to the SEGA Master System and utilized the 3D glasses.

For a sampling of what to expect from the compilation, check out the trailer above. If you have a Japanese 3DS or alternate means of playing import titles, you can pre-order the game from Play-Asia. In the meantime, I’ll just sit here watching the trailer, fingers crossed for a US release. Tears running down my face.

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Bayonetta 2 releases to Nintendo’s Wii U today in the United States, Europe and Australia!

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It’s been a long and rocky road, mainly filled with fans getting over the fact that Bayonetta‘s sequel is a Nintendo exclusive, but the day is finally here. Bayonetta 2 has officially released to the United States, Europe, and Australia! Available to purchase now, Bayonetta 2 has been kicking ass these last few weeks in regards to review scores. As much as I dislike throwing metacritic data around, the game currently has an impressive score of 91.

But you know what? Throw the Nintendo drama, sales, and review scores out the window. Point is, one of the greatest action games of all time just got a sequel and we’re all excited as hell to play it. Join in on the conversation with the SEGAbits community over in our dedicated Bayonetta 2 forum topic which is exclusively for discussing the game. No drama, just good ol’ gameplay talk. Of course, if you feel inclined to talk about drama, review scores, sales, and other topics, there’s a app thread for that.

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SEGA pulls Jet Set Radio from the App Store and soon from Google Play

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Jet Set Radio has vanished from Apple’s App Store, and is soon to be pulled from Google Play as well. Don’t blame the Golden Rhinos, as SEGA says the game is being pulled for compatibility issues with iOS 8. I noticed the game disappeared from the App Store a few weeks ago when I attempted to launch the game and it crashed, I navigated over to the App Store to read user reviews to see if crashing was a common issue and the game was nowhere to be found. I assumed the game was temporarily pulled due to stability issues, and it looks like my assumptions were correct. As SEGA told Droid Gamers:

Showed some minor compatibility problems [with iOS 8]. Ensuring that all of our fans have a quality game experience is paramount to us, therefore we’ve decided to take the game off the store. We don’t have yet a fixed date to communicate regarding their return to the App Store and Google Play. – SEGA

Of course, Android does not use iOS 8, so pulling the game from both stores is a bit odd. Perhaps SEGA wants to make additional changes to both games to improve stability? In any case, if you want to snag the game before it is pulled, head on over to Google Play and give it a download before it’s gone.

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SEGA’s Initial D: Perfect Shift Online races to 500,000 downloads in Japan

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SEGA has been testing the free-to-play market on the 3DS in Japan, the first title that has been released is Initial D: Perfect Shift Online. SEGA has just announced a landmark for the game, reaching over 500,000 downloads on the 3DS platform.

For comparison the game only had 400,000 downloads last month, meaning that this whole month they have manage to get 100,000 downloads.

SEGA Japan will celebrate its milestone by discounting in-game purchases until November 5th. Nothing has been announced for a Western release.

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Shining Resonance promotional movie showcases characters and battle footage

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SEGA recently uploaded a new Shining Resonance video to their YouTube channel, called the “Shining Resonance Promotional Movie.” It is a little more than four minutes long, and showcases party members and the game’s various antagonists. The video also shows off plenty of battle footage, include a field-to-battle transition in the latter half of the video. Be sure to check it out!

Shining Resonance is scheduled for a 2014 release in Japan, and is exclusive to the PS3. Were Shining Resonance to be localized for a 2015 release, it would have some company among other JRPG’s seeing a Western 2015 release. Tales of Zestiria is scheduled to come out during the summer of 2015 in North America, and Atelier Shallie is also scheduled to be released sometime in 2015. These first two titles are also PS3 exclusives, to say nothing of PS3/PS4 titles such as Persona 5 and Yakuza Zero, which release in Japan during 2015.

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