Why is SEGA holding a Sonic birthday contest?
6/23, plus 3 months, minus 12 days = 9/11. Has nothing to do with this, but play some dramatic music!
[Thanks: Robbie Rimes]
SEGA News
Conduit 2 interview with Jeremiah Cauthorn
Nuckles87 had a one on one interview with weapons programmer Jeremiah Cauthorn on The Conduit 2.
What can you tell us about the changes in multiplayer?
We’ve added all new levels. We’ve also added six new weapons with an alt-fire mode on each weapon such as the TCP launcher. You can also lay out proxy mines so when people walk by them, they explode. You can also tag people with them. We support 12 player online multiplayer and local splitscreen with 2-4 player multiplayer. We’ve been working closely with Nintendo so we have this new rival system. So if you meet someone in a match you can click their name and add them to your rivals list.
Yuji Naka is happy with new Sonic games
The guys from Destructoid have recently posted a interview with Yuji Naka, asking him what he thinks of Sonic’s current games and if he got to play them..
“Yes, I’ve played them a bit. I’m happy to see that Sonic is still growing after my departure. All the people that worked under me are still continuing the legacy of Sonic, and I’m glad to see that as well.
Realize that next year Sonic will be 20 years old. I look at it this way: 20 years of age is old enough to go out on your own, not relying on your father anymore. In that way, it’s good to take a step back and see what Sonic does from now.”
It is sad to see Yuji Naka not having any interest in doing a 20th anniversary game and ‘moving on’ from the franchise. What do you guys think?
SEGA working on ‘hardcore’ Kinect games
Mike Hayes believes that we will be seeing hardcore titles for Kinect next year, saying its impossible to make a game for the hardcore in a year.
“My guess is when we’re at E3 next year, more of the features of Kinect will be in use by developers. I think you’ll find more clever and sophisticated applications then. It is a reasonably complicated piece of kit, therefore it’s going to take us longer to use all of those aspects in a game. We’re not going to be able to develop something [for the hardcore] in under a year, which is frankly what we’ve had.” – Mike Hayes
SEGA said they are not going to copy Wii games when it comes to making new Kinect games. The team making this ‘hardcore’ Kinect title? Members from SEGA Racing studio that still work at SEGA. When can we expect the title? Late 2011, early 2012. That is a long wait…
[Source: CVG]
SEGA having a Sonic the Hedgehog video contest
Sonic turns 19 today, so SEGA is holding a video contest. The winner will get a trip to Tokyo and a 32gb iPod Touch. Seems that SEGA is swimming in a sea of iPod Touches.
They also promise “loads of other prizes”, check out out the official page here. 100 people will get Sonic swag, not bad. I will now dress up my cat as Sonic and try to make him spin dash.
SEGA: 3DS shows Nintendo’s brilliance
Possibly the best new piece of hardware shown at E3 this year, is getting praise by SEGA West President Mike Hayes. He is even talking about mature audiences.
“With the quality of the device they’ve got it’s possible they can expand their audience into an older, broader audience. It was interesting to see games like Saint’s Row on the device. If we could bring, let’s say, a House of the Dead or an Aliens title, if the audience for 3DS is much broader it could give us much more scope in that market, and that’s as exciting as well as Mario & Sonic and Monkey Ball games. The 3DS is Nintendo through and through, this is Nintendo’s brilliance. They’re almost in their own technological world, doing their own thing. Whilst 3D TV is quite an amazing technology advancement, and many companies will get into that, Nintendo will now create this huge business with their own unique piece of technology that very few if any, will be able to copy. That’s Nintendo over and over again, it’s fantastic. For us as a third-party it’s a great leg up in terms of the portable business.” – Mike Hayes
I expect the 3DS to be more successful than the DS just because I agree with Mike Hayes, the appeal is more broader compared to the original DS.
[Source: GoNintendo]
Hatsune Miku Project Diva Arcade comes out tomorrow
It seems that Japanese audiences can’t get enough Hatsune Miku, even though the game is on PSP, meaning they can play it everywhere; it is coming to arcades. Actually expected the arcade release to come sooner.
The arcade game is basically a port of the first one, with new tracks. They say that the game might be updated via network to have more tracks in the future. They also added “extreme difficulty mode”, if you are feeling adventurous.
Not the end for the franchise, next month, on July 29th, Project Diva 2nd is coming to PSP.
Alpha Protocol getting patched
Chris Avellone from Obsidian Entertainment has confirmed that they are working on a patch for Alpha Protocol. They stated the reason that they have not released it yet was because of SEGA.
“We wanted to release something fairly quickly based upon some feedback we were getting. I think [SEGA] wanted to take a different approach by gathering more information over a longer period of time and provide a patch then. That’s what we’re figuring out right now.”
So what about DLC? This seems like the type of game that would benefit from such a thing, just like Bioware games. Don’t hold your breath.
“I don’t know if [SEGA is] talking about that at all yet. I can say that we’re not working on any DLC right now. We’d love to, but we’re not.”
With the game dropping to $39.99 already, maybe its the prefect time to get the game?
[Source: GameBanshee]
Celebrate Sonic’s birthday by saving money
SEGA is having a big sale on PSN (Tuesday June 22nd to Tuesday July 6th), XBLA (Thursday June 24th, one day only!) and iTunes (Wed June 23rd to Wed June 30th).
The sale will have a ton of content up to get and some of it is great. Getting great stuff for cheap is great. Happy Birthday Sonic! Hit the jump to see the full list of games….
Conduit 2 to ship with headset
SEGA and High Voltage seem to be going over the top for their upcoming FPS game on the Wii. They have promised chatting before matches and during matches. So everyone can chat, SEGA will be bundling a headset with the game.
Also new, the game will have a ‘perk’ system like Modern Warfare 2, they will also be able to patch the game, have 30 suit upgrades, and 15 confirmed multiplayer maps. The team is thinking about DLC and even hinted at vehicles being used for some game types.
Sounds like the game will be jammed pack.
[Source: GoNintendo]
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown Trailer
Another excellent trailer for the upcoming Virtua Fighter sequel has hit the internet. Really nicely put together and showcasing the entire cast once again.
Conduit 2 Developer Chat
Me and Nux talk to one of the developers on Conduit 2 about the upcoming game.
SEGA aware we hate mine carts in Sonic games
So, we all seen the leaks that made rounds about the internet. You know, the Sonic 4 leaks? Well, SEGA is not happy with that (obviously) and said that it was early concepts.
“Yeah it’s a shame such an early concept was viewed upon when the reality is that the game we have today is very different from that. My job as brand manager is to communicate with the consumer, letting them know how we react to this feedback. We took it very seriously that our build had been stolen and took measures with first party to ensure that it doesn’t happen again, but more than anything we want to lay to rest fan concerns that the game isn’t polished or doesn’t have what it needs and I think a big part of that message was extending the development and making sure that fans feel like they’ve been hard because they have been.” – Ken Baloughs, Sonic 4 brand manager
I’m pretty sure that the leaks actually helped the game in the end of the day. Lets be honest, you think they would have told us about the mine cart level? SEGA was very secretive about the game, they would have most likely just released the game as was, mine carts and all. But after all the fans saw it, they complained. Now we have extended development times. Good? Bad?
[Source: Destructoid]
Conduit 2 to support voice chat with any player?
New information regarding Conduit 2 suggest that you won’t need to be in the same game with players on your ‘friends list’ to chat with them. Which is pretty good for a Wii game.
The article also says that you will be able to add players you played with to your “ally list”, this list can hold up to 96 players. Friend codes will be required to put friends on your ‘friends list’ but not ‘allies list’. Sort of move, if you ask me.
Since this information is not 100% confirmed, we will put this up as a rumor.
[Source: GoNintendo]
Black Panther: Yakuza New Chapter theme song
SEGA has now revealed the theme song for their upcoming Yakuza PSP game. The song will be Muppet by Rize. Rize was founded in 1997 and had their first debut song in 2000, the song was called “Kaminari.”
The new song Muppet is going to be the single of their upcoming album Experience, which is set to hit store shelves on June 23rd.
[Source: AndriaSang]