A trailer for the new Sakura Taisen/Sakura Wars game was revealed at SEGA FES 2019! The game looks beautiful, in full 3D and graphical effects not unlike Valkyria Chronicles. The game will be releasing to the PlayStation 4. Once SEGA posts the trailer to their YouTube channel, we’ll be sure to embed it above.
SEGA FES 2019 had more news about the Mega Drive Mini! Sadly, we don’t understand Japanese but this is what we saw:
A trailer kicked off, showing the classic console telling of its history. 2019 will see the release of the Mega Drive Mini. HDMI input, USB cable input for controllers(?). You can take screenshots! And… the trailer ends. Then the console was revealed with the Green Hill music playing. The six button controller is included. Two versions are releasing, one with two controllers and one without(?).
SEGA FES has kicked off in Japan, and a slew of games for the 2020 Olympics in Japan has been announced: TOKYO 2020 for Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo Olympic Games for Switch (due out in 2019) and arcade and Sonic at the Olympic Games for mobile. The event is live as we write this, so we will share more news as we hear it! On to the next story…
At SXSW’s 2019 Sonic panel, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka dropped some big news. Another Sonic game is being developed! Okay, so it’s not groundbreaking but it does confirm that SEGA decided that after Sonic Forces the franchise should continue. On this SEGA News Bits, Barry and George discuss what worked and what didn’t work in past 3D Sonic games and what they would like to see from the next Sonic game in development.
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SEGA’s Creative Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi talked more about why he voted to pull Judgment from Japanese store shelves after actor Pierre Taki was arrested on a cocaine charge.
During the latest Sega Nama stream, Nagoshi went more into why he voted to delay the game he worked as a director on:
“There is no correct way to deal with the situation. In the end, I also cast my vote for halting sales. Some thought and pointed out “This is going too far” and “It’s unrelated to the game itself,” and I don’t think those opinions are unreasonable either—I can see it from both sides. So when it comes to why I voted for halting sales, it’s because it was just after release. If it was an older game released a considerable amount of time ago, our priorities may have been different, but when it was something that had been released only several months prior, I think it’s a different conversation.”
It seems that Japanese SEGA fans can’t wait to see the new upcoming Sakura Wars title, which is being titled right now ‘New Sakura Wars‘ (tentative title). Is it surprising? Not really considering it was the Japan’s most requested IP back in 2016 by a large margin.
While back SEGA’s Chief Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi suggested that we would get a reveal during April 2019, but SEGA Fes 2019 takes place between March 30 to 31st… which is cutting it close. This is what he had to say during the latest SEGA Nama broadcast:
“People have been saying things like, ‘Let me see it!’ and ‘What’s going on?,’ but we’re going to reveal a little bit [at Sega Fes 2019],” – Toshihiro Nagoshi
This year marks the 25th Anniversary since Streets of Rage 3 hit the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. Most of us SEGA fans have been waiting 25 whole years for a sequel to one of our favorite franchises and everyday we get closer to Streets of Rage 4‘s release, the more excited I get. Now we got a gameplay teaser trailer for us to look at.
Apple’s newly announced streaming game service Apple Arcade features titles from a variety of studios and developers, and unsurprisingly SEGA is one of many on the list. SEGA has long been a supporter of Apple’s mobile game services, with Super Monkey Ball being an App Store launch title. Now, SEGA will be bringing Team Sonic Racing to mobile with Sonic Racing as a launch title for the service when it debuts this fall. With the “Team” dropped from the title, we have to wonder if the game will lack the team mode which is the backbone of the console version. Interestingly, this also makes the previously leaked 3D ChuChu Rocket mobile game more of a legitimate possibility. Both games appeared as Facebook ads earlier this month. More information as we hear it!
A lot going on with SEGA’s SEGA AGES series. While people in western territories will be enjoying Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Gain Ground on March 28th, fans in Japan will be instead be enjoying SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo on the same day.
SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo is based on the arcade version, with several enhancements available. In addition to the familiar blob popping puzzle fun from the original, players also have the addition of an optional double rotation feature that was absent from the original arcade version, online multiplayer, and most interestingly the inclusion of the extremely rare English arcade version that changes most of the names and the voice clips. SEGA AGES Puyo Puyo is slated for a price of ¥925 (roughly $8.50), so if you have spare yen, maybe pick this up along with the aforementioned SEGA AGES Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Gain Ground titles.
[Source: Official Website]
SEGA Europe has updated us on the Western release of SEGA AGES Alex Kidd in Miracle World and Gain Ground, which according to the tweet we will get on March 28th!
What are your guys thoughts on the releases so far for SEGA AGES? What games do you think they need to add in the foreseeable future? Let us know in the comments below!
SEGA of America recently released a survey, which you can take here, and it includes a bunch of classic retro non-Sonic SEGA franchises. Everything from Shining to Jet Set Radio to Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star Online. What does this mean? On this SEGA News Bits, George and Barry break the survey down and speculate, analyze and yes… react. Enjoy!
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The picture above was Google’s GDC advertisement to what would be the reveal of the Google Stadia, a Google streaming box that will allow you to steam your games at ‘4k 60fps’. The photo that was posted by Nibellion shows off failed gaming products including the NES Power Glove, the famous Atari E.T. and lastly the legendary Dreamcast.
While I don’t want to wish bad omens on Google’s Stadia gaming entry, I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to have half the users of SEGA’s Dreamcast which sold close to 10 million units in about 2 years. But what are your thoughts on this and Google’s gaming entry?
2/2021 Update: Why tack on an update for a 2 year old article? Several comments are saying this is fake news, that we need to retract it, that this is photoshopped, etc. This is a real photo, as you can see from this Tweet showing two angles of the E.T. game on display. What is likely is that later in the event, the E.T. and PlayStation swapped places. But the point stands that the above photo is real and this did happen. So… NO RETRACTION!
While we are still waiting for SEGA West to announce release dates for Yakuza 3, 4 and 5; Japan is already finishing up their releases of the PlayStation 4 ports. Yakuza 5, the last of these ports is slated to release on June 20, 2019.
Its going to be interesting to see what SEGA West will do with these titles, especially a entry like Yakuza 4 which replaced one of the main actors due to him being accused of using cocaine.
[Via: Gematsu]
If you have been like me, sitting around and waiting for SEGA to ask for our opinion on how they’ve been handling the Phantasy Star franchise; then you are in luck! SEGA has tweeted out asking for fans to give them feedback on their on-going and some legacy brands. You can take the survey here.
This survey is also good for the future direction of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, considering it was announced that the next Sonic the Hedgehog game has already begun production.
Just the other day at the SXSW Sonic panel Takashi Iizuka confirmed that the next major Sonic Team entry into the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise has begun production. Its quite obvious that fans were less than thrilled with Sonic Forces, but I will say that the engine the team created for that title is one of the best thus far, running at a high frame rate with little to no frame drops. I really want to see how they update it for the next title, at the very least.
Now my question here is what direction do you want to see the next major Sonic the Hedgehog title take? What do you want to see them focus on? In the last few years Sonic Team has been playing it safe having 2D classic Sonic and 3D boost modern Sonic, is this something that the new game should continue? Is it time to add playable friends like the past? Sound off in the comments.