News

Joseph Kim to lead SEGA West’s mobile efforts

by

sega-contrata-joseph-kim-para-liderar-divisao-mobi_4rc4.640

Yesterday SEGA announced that Joseph Kim, formerly of the studio FunPlus, has been named SEGA’s vice president of product. Kim is being tasked with managing the mobile product strategy in Western markets. Sega Networks COO Chris Olson said “This position is instrumental in pulling all three of our wholly owned studios and two studio investments together to drive Sega’s success on mobile. Kim’s rich background in successfully bringing games to market along with his experience in consulting and analytics makes him the best candidate for the job, and we look forward to seeing him work his magic.” Kim had this to say regarding his role: “In mobile gaming, the best is yet to come. I look forward to working with the teams at Sega to help deliver awesome game experiences to existing and future Sega customers.”

Of course, what really matters are Kim’s results, so it will be interesting to see if there is any major shifts in SEGA’s mobile output moving forward. Hey, Joseph, if you are reading this: bring some of those Puyo Puyo’s sitting with you to the West!

[Via: GameIndustry.biz]

2 Comments

SEGA trademarks Valkyria: Azure Revolution and V-Gaje

by

VC_Selvaria_Story1
That’s right folks, SEGA has trademarked ANOTHER name related to its Valkyria Chronicles franchise (Valkyria of the Battlefield in Japan). First we had Valkyria of the Blue Revolution last month and now we have Valkyria: Azure Revolution. According to Gematsu this could be the official English title for the game but it would be weird if they drop ‘Chronicles‘ from the game’s name. Wouldn’t Valkyria Chronicles: Blue Revolution work out better?

SEGA also trademarked ‘V-Gaje’ which is mean’t to be a abbreviation of “V-Gadjet”? Not much is known regardless. It seems that SEGA has some announcements to make come 2016, maybe we should be just a tiny bit excited. Just a tiny bit.

TMs-Valkyria-Azure-Rev

3 Comments

SEGA posts sales profits despite having fewer sales

by

SonicUnleashedRing
SEGA-Sammy has posted their detailed financial report for the last six months, spanning from April to September 2015. If you guys didn’t know, April 1st is when SEGA’s massive restructure happen and around June is when SEGA of America did their big move. Not only that but the company hasn’t been releasing as much software as they used to, but they still manage to make profit even with a decrease in sales.

SEGA-Sammy reports 1.2 billion in net sales, which happens to be a decrease of 2.5% over the same six month period in 2014, where they reported over 1.3 billion. Yet SEGA-Sammy posted a profit of $7.9 million, compared to losing $23 million in 2014.

SEGA-Sammy said that digital games just happen to be one of the big money makers for the company which happen to them get out of the red. What games did good? Lets look.

Continue Reading ➜

1 Comment

Sonic Generation PC mod let’s you play as Mario

by

Well, I think saying that it only lets you play the game as Mario is short changing the PC mod being titled ‘Super Mario Generations’ by its creator. The mod also brings new bosses, new hub world NPCs, and of course Mario but with new improved animations.

Got to hand it to fans who continue to make mods for Sonic Generation, I love this sort of stuff even if it does have Mario in it (not that there’s anything wrong with Mario).

Find out more via Sonic Retro or Moddb page!

1 Comment

Homebrew developers bring Moggy to the SEGA Master System

by

moggy

It’s not all that often we hear of new games for SEGA’s Master System. While 2015 appears to be the year of the Dreamcast, SEGA’s first Western console effort has received a new game available to play today entitled Moggy Master from homebrew development team The Mojon Twins. The game is a port of Moggy, a ZX Spectrum game from 2005 also by The Mojon Twins. In the game, players control Moggy, a little yellow guy, who is out to save his purple friends.

If you love classic Atari arcade games, this is definitely worth checking out. And why shouldn’t you try it out? The game is free and available to download today! Just use an emulator or flash cart, should you own one. 

[Via RetroCollect]

 

4 Comments

Yakuza 5 screens shows off side-activities and play spots

by

Yakuza-5_2015_10-30-15_015SEGA’s Yakuza series has been well known for its side-activities and play spots sprinkled throughout the game.  But no game takes it further than Yakuza 5!

The game has activities like rhythm dancing, hunting bears, drinking, gambling, trying to get SEGA swag from a UFO catcher, playing Taiko Drum Master in arcades, and even driving taxis! So much to do, so little time.

Check out the screenshots after the jump. Yakuza 5 will hit PSN in Europe and North America sometime this month.

[Via: Gemastu]

Continue Reading ➜

No Comments

Review: The Legend of Legacy (3DS)

by

LegendofLegacy2
The Legend of Legacy piqued my interest when I heard that the team behind the game (Furyu) was billing the title as a spiritual sequel to the SaGa series of games, a series of RPGs that I played many moons ago. Did I enjoy them? Hard to tell since I was quite young when I played them but the name always stuck with me over the years. I  was excited to start this long RPG trip and ready to see if the game will live up to its ‘Legacy’ namesake. Well, does it? One way to find out…

Continue Reading ➜

2 Comments

Ys Net releases Shenmue 3 progress report on the game’s development, featuring new screens

by

ca517d68a37d20177fb00617a5df315c_original

As Shenmue 3 enters the third month of post-Kickstarter development, a much welcomed progress report has been posted detailing what the team has been up to and what they plan to work on in the coming months. Most exciting are four screens of the game in-progress showcasing battle tests, a cutscene, and an environment which you can see after the break or at the above link.

Continue Reading ➜

12 Comments

Wii U hardware sales officially surpass the Dreamcast

by

WiiuDreamcast
The Wii U and Dreamcast have a lot of things in common, for one they both have secondary displays on the controller and the other is that they both didn’t sell as expected. The Wii U, in its third year on sale, has finally surpassed sales of the Dreamcast. The SEGA Dreamcast reached sales of 10.6 million units 18 months after release, Nintendo just announced that the Wii U reached sales of 10.73 million units recently.

While the Dreamcast did reach a higher number of sold units at a faster rate, it was also heavily discounted from its original MSRP launch price compared to Wii U, which has had a minor $50 re-configure bundle price drop. I remember after the Dreamcast got discontinued how you could get a bundle with a few games for around $50 dollars, as stores where trying to get rid of them.

[Source: NintendoLife]

6 Comments

Sonic The Hedgehog 1 & 2 Virtual Console and XBLA to be delisted October 30th

by

sonic2

Via XBLA Watchdog Twitter user Lifelower comes news that SEGA Japan has announced that the Xbox Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console versions of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 will be pulled tomorrow, October 30th. The reason for the games being pulled is unknown, but there are two possibilities. The most likely reason is that the contract for the games’ music rights, which are held by the original composer Masato Nakamura, are expiring and these versions of the game are affected. Another possible reason is that the Taxman/Stealth remastered versions are finally making their way to consoles, but take that possibility with an Oil Ocean sized amount of salt.

If you haven’t bought these versions yet, you have less than a day to do so. However it should be noted that there are several other versions out there including the original cartridges, Sonic Jam for Saturn, Sonic Mega Collection (playable on both the Xbox 360 and Wii via backwards compatibility), Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection, the aforementioned Taxman/Stealth remastered versions, and 3D Classics versions. I’m sure I missed a couple dozen others, but you get the point.

4 Comments

Update: SEGA Europe marketing director says they are exploring opportunities for re-releases of legacy titles like Shenmue

by

Shenmue3

Marketing Week held an interesting interview with SEGA Europe marketing director Jon Rooke. The interview, which centers around the company’s recent changes and a shift in approach, also touches on the Shenmue series. SEGA allowing Yu Suzuki to use the license to make a third game and the Kickstarter campaign proving to be a success “shows that people love [SEGA’s] legacy”, said Rooke. The article adds that Rooke said SEGA is exploring ways to re-release the original two Shenmue titles.

Could it be that much like Valkyria Chronicles performing well on PC, it took the successful backing of Shenmue 3 for SEGA to rethink rereleases of classic titles? It has long been rumored that there are reasons for SEGA holding out on Shenmue and Shenmue II, chief among them being that there are rights issues standing in the way. Whatever the case, it’s good to hear somebody like Jon Rooke speaking publicly about a possibility of a re-release.

Update: The article’s author has shared the exact quote from Jon Rooke on Twitter:
When I asked about Shenmue being remade, I was told: “There are lots of opportunities for legacy titles. We are exploring. We know what fans want as they have a petition.” So it now appears that the quote wasn’t referring to Shenmue specifically, but legacy titles as a whole.

[Source: Marketing Week]

8 Comments

SEGA hints Sonic 25th Anniversary game could be inspired by classic games

by

ClassicSonicSEGA really has changed the way they handle PR for their Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, admitting to wrongs and promising a brighter future for the franchise. So far they are keeping that promise and recently went as far as delaying Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice into 2016 (shall see if its a better game for it).

The other day Marketing Week interviewed SEGA Europe’s marketing director Jon Rooke who also admitted to Sonic the Hedgehog‘s recent poor track record of games and suggested that the upcoming Sonic the Hedgehog game will be “more inspired by how it played in its heyday.”

“Sega has publicly apologised to the fans as the quality of console games in the Sonic franchise hasn’t been acceptable over recent years. It’s been tough translating that iconic side scrolling 2D experience from the 90s into 3D but Sonic is still huge for us so the new games will be more inspired by how it played in its heyday.” – Jon Rooke, SEGA Europe Marketing Director

Honestly this isn’t the first time I have been hearing call backs to Sonic’s heyday, they do it with marketing trailers all the time. I guess we shall see soon enough if this is all just talk.

[Via: TSSZNews]

5 Comments

Tell us your top 25 SEGA games – submit your list today!

by

top25

Recently, a major gaming news site that will not be named (on account of their IGNorant actions) made a top 100 list of what they deemed were “The Top 100 Video Games of All Time”. While these sort of lists crop up online often, and they are never in any way definitive, SEGA fans were quick to notice that not a single SEGA title made this list. Seriously? This got us to talking in the SEGAbits Forums about just how many great SEGA games there are, which led to us attempting a list of the Top 50 SEGA Games as decided by the fans. We sorted out a way to formulate a list, but the one thing we desperately need are lists of your top 25 SEGA games! Yes, you!

Continue Reading ➜

53 Comments

SegaSonic Popcorn Shop Dumped, Coming to MAME

by

800px-Segasonic-pop-corn-shop3Recently, Waku Waku Sonic Patrol Car finally made its way onto MAME thanks to the work and funds of some pretty cool individuals. I ended the article with a little bit of a rib saying that SegaSonic Popcorn Shop should be the next game dumped.

Now that one can be marked off the list because it too has now been dumped and should be hitting MAME. The main notable note is that this game also operates on MegaDrive-type hardware named the SEGA C2. It also curiously comes with an English switch, meaning there is a possibility the game came to the West in limited numbers, or at least was planned to.

You won’t find much of a game here since this was more a little video demo that played as the “player” waited for the selected popcorn to be finished. The cabinet did have button and a crank to distract the player, but it didn’t particularly matter if you played or not. Naturally, emulating it won’t yield much unless you have a microwave near your general vicinity and some flavoring agents (salt, butter or curry, if you want to keep the authenticity of the machine.)

But this could make for a neat arcade board to setup at home for the more dedicated.

Continue Reading ➜

2 Comments

Indie Dreamcast game Pier Solar now shipping!

by

PierSolarHD

Pier Solar and the Great Architects is a game that has been a long time coming. Developed and published by Watermelon Games with work starting as far back as 2004, Pier Solar originally released to the Genesis/Mega Drive back in 2010. Since then, the team held a successful Kickstarter which lead to an HD remake of the game for a slew of modern handhelds and consoles, but SEGA fans were most interested in the proposed Dreamcast release. While modern platforms have since seen release of the game, Dreamcast fans had to wait a bit longer. Today, it seems that wait is over as backers from both the Kickstarter and Watermelon Games website have received notifications that the game is now shipping!

I’ll admit, after being disappointed by other indie developers I was hesitant to put my money towards the release until solid proof that it was going to release by the end of the year (the initial expected release was way back in December 2013). Luckily I was able to pre-order the game earlier this month, just days before they cut pre-orders off. Since then, the game has been relisted on the Watermelon store with a price increase of $6 (from the initial $50) and a “SOON AVAILABLE” notification of November 11th. So if you had a pre-order, be excited because the game is coming! And if you don’t, there should be additional copies available soon.

4 Comments