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Company of Heroes 2 removed from store shelves in Russia

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It seems that SEGA’s new RTS, Company of Heroes 2, will no longer occupy store shelves in Russia as its publisher over there 1C-Softclub has bowed to pressure from press to remove the game from store shelves.

It seems people in Russia are taking great offense to how the game portrayed the Allied Forces in Company of Heroes (first one) as brave and honest, but the sequel, which focuses on the Russian forces, decided to use ‘offensive’ stereotypes. Relic on the other hand stand by the game, stating that it’s historically accurate, and that they used eye-witness testimony when they made the game’s story mode.

Seems that they even have a 17,000 signature petition wanting to remove the game from Steam. My opinion? As much as I hate developers showing how ‘great’ American soldiers are and how ‘every axis power is evil’ or ‘brutal’ compared to us, I have to say they are taking way too much offense to this. If you don’t like what the game offers, don’t buy it. But don’t go and force everyone not to experience it because it offends you.

Your thoughts? 

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Summer of Sonic 2013 – The Metal Sonic Edition

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That time of year is upon us once again – Summer of Sonic, the Sonic the Hedgehog fan convention in the UK, held its 6th show this weekend just gone; back in London again following a brief visit to Brighton last year. This year the event boasted as guests Takashi Iizuka, Jun Senoue, and Kazuyuki Hoshino; with a playable build of the upcoming new title Sonic Lost World available. So let’s dive in, shall we?

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Total War: Rome II joins the PC version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

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Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed’s PC roster has expanded, with the addition of Willemus, a Roman soldier from the upcoming Total War: Rome II. Owners of the racing game spotted the new character in a free update that just recently rolled out. Willemus joins other PC exclusive characters which include General Winter of Company of Heroes 2, the Football Manager from Football Manager, Shogun of Total War: Shogun 2, and the Team Fortress 2 trio. While I find the PC characters to be pretty cool, it would be awesome if SEGA gave the same level of love to the console versions of the game. After the break, check out photos of Willemus in action.

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SEGA-Sammy is trying to buy Atlus’ parent company

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If you guys didn’t know, Atlus’ parent company, Index Corporation is in a finical mess. The company is in over $2.4 billion yen in debt and is also being investigated for fraud. The company recently talked about selling assets, but now it seems that they might just be bought out whole.

Bloomberg reports that 20 companies are in the race to buy Index, one of those companies is SEGA-Sammy Holdings who is leading the pack. It seems that bids have exceeded the $150 million everyone thought Index was worth, the current bid is at $200 million! It is said that bidding will be narrowed down by next week and if all goes well we will find out what company gets Index and their assets.

But lets say that SEGA does buy Atlus, would that be a great thing for gamers? I mean, I love SEGA and I love Atlus games, but Atlus always brought obscure games over from Japan for Wesetern audiences. Without them we wouldn’t have Demon Souls or even the recent Dragon Crown, while SEGA seems more hesitant to bring over titles (Yakuza 5, Valkyria Chronicles 3 and more). What are your thoughts?

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SEGA-Sammy’s net income up 400% from last year

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Its crazy knowing that filtering your content can do so much good for your company, especially SEGA’s recent financial results for the first quarter of its 2014 fiscal year. SEGA-Sammy’s operating income for the quarter ended on June 30th and totaled 16.1 billion yen ($163.85 million), 197.7 percent higher than the same time last year. Net income came in at a (for SEGA-Sammy) staggering 12.9 billion yen ($131.6 million), which is a 408.8 percent increase year-over-year.

SEGA-Sammy totally improved their consumer business segment, which includes those video games you loved published by SEGA and its Japanese pachislot/pachinko machine division. Panchislot/pachinko branch of the company saw a increase of revenue of 138.5%, totaling 18.7 billion yen ($190.2 million).

According to SEGA-Sammy’s press release, their latest RTS game (which they got by buying the team/their franchises from THQ for 26 million) Company of Heroes 2 sold a staggering 380,000 copies. I know most of you will see this and say it isn’t over a million units so it is a failure, but you have to know that this report is from June 30th, the game launched on June 25th. The only other major SEGA retail title outside of Company of Heroes 2, was the Playstation Portable Japan only title 7th Dragon 2020-2. SEGA’s publishing side saw a year-over-year decrease of 9.7 percent, selling 1.21 million units.

SEGA also reported favorable performance of their digital games on Windows PC, Playstation Vita and mobile devices. SEGA-Sammy state that Phantasy Star Online 2 (Japan only for now) helped bring the operating income of the consumer division up to 39 million yen (approximately $396,000).

It should be a good year for SEGA with Total War: Rome II, Football Manager 2014 and Sonic Lost Worlds around the corner.

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SEGAbits Visits SEGA of America, Inc. in Sunny San Francisco – Part 2

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Quick recap: a few weeks back I paid a visit to SEGA of America’s headquarters. In part 1, we explored the area where the offices are located, entered the office building lobby, got on an elevator, and entered SEGA’s lobby. In part 2, we’re going to explore the SEGA office lobby, taking a look at all the cool bits of SEGA history on display! Join me, as I venture inside SEGA of America.

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ESRB rates Sonic Lost World E10+ for ‘aggressive language’

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The ESRB has finally posted its rating for Sonic Lost World and it decided that the game is rated E 10+, for ‘aggressive language’.  Before you freak out, its not that big of a deal, check out some of the lines they consider ‘aggressive’ below.

Rating Summary: In this action platformer, players control Sonic the Hedgehog as he attempts to stop an evil villain’s plans. As players zoom through fantastical landscapes, they collect items (e.g., gold rings and power-ups), avoid hazards, and use spin attacks to defeat robotic enemies; enemies break apart amid colorful explosions. During gameplay, characters sometimes use aggressive language (e.g., “You’re going home in a box,” ‘I’m going to skin you alive,’ and ‘I long for death’s cold embrace.’). Cutscenes also depict laser fire and explosions, as well as dialogue that references violence (e.g., “I’ll get fat from eating your black hearts,” “One second you’re contemplating genocide,” and “As long as I can still strangle a Zeti, my hands are fine.”).

What are your thoughts?

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15 minutes of Castle of Illusion gameplay

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Game Informer have gotten their hands on a review copy of the upcoming Castle of Illusion remake and were allowed to put up a video of them playing through the first world. Along with the gameplay we also got some new details including that we can expect the game in early September and that the voice of Sully from the Uncharted series, Richard McGonagle is narrating the game. Sadly this video doesn’t feature the redone soundtrack by Grant Kirkhope.

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SEGA announces new Sakura Wars game, fans not very pleased

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People have been wanting a new Sakura Wars game for awhile, the franchise might not be huge but it has a nice cult following. SEGA and RED (developer) have been teasing that it would be coming back. So we finally get it announced and it turns out to be a Mobage game.

“The yet untold story of the other battle faced by the young maidens!”

Mobage (Mobile Games) is a social portal used for games,  focusing on freedium sort of experiences where the user gets the based game for free but pays for ‘extras’. This is very typical in the mobile landscape. Also looks like Kōsuke Fujishima won’t be designing characters for this project, the first ever for a  Sakura Wars game. Japanese fans are not happy with the announcement, hit the jump to read some of their angry comments they left on Jin115.

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Takashi Iizuka explains why Sonic Lost World is Nintendo exclusive

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There have been a lot of theories flying around online as to why Sonic Lost World is a Nintendo exclusive. Some say that Nintendo came to SEGA, offered them a pay check for exclusivity, and that before then the game was supposed to come out on all platforms. So what does Takashi Iizuka say when asked the question in the Official Nintendo Magazine?

“The Wii U hadn’t been revealed when development began for Sonic Lost World, so we were working on a PC version in order to see what kind of platformer we could make. Then, when we tried to think about which platform would be best for this game, we chose Nintendo.” – Takashi Iizuka, head of Sonic Team

So there you have it, straight from Takashi himself. Though, I assume people with their own theories will brush this off and say it isn’t true. If it is or isn’t true, who cares, Sonic Lost World is coming exclusively to Wii U (and 3DS) this fall. Though, I would really like a PC version to be released, that would mean it’s still ‘console exclusive’.

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Yuji Naka’s Rodea the Sky Soldier is Still Alive

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Have you been wondering what Yuji Naka has been up to since leaving Sonic Team besides making a bunch of small and kinda neat games? Well, a new action adventure game called Rodea the Sky Soldier was announced for Wii and 3DS, publisher Kadowaka Games released a trailer which can be seen above. So why is it being released for Wii? Well, this trailer was released a little more than two years ago, after which the publisher never spoke of it again. Yuji Naka gave an update a few months later saying that the game was finished, but that they were waiting for Kadowaka Games to publish it. After a while everyone who did know about the game either forgot about it or assumed that it was scrapped.

Now we finally have an update on the title. Yoshimi Yasuda, the president of Kadowaka Games had said that they were having trouble adapting the control scheme to the 3DS version, which is being handled by the publisher. Yasuda said that the version is about 70% finished and that there will be more information in the near future. Maybe it’ll get a re-reveal at TGS 2013? We’ll see.

Prope also released a Digimon RPG called Digimon Adventure for PSP earlier this year in Japan, a western release doesn’t seem likely for this game though.

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Interview: Sam Mullen on Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F

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Here I am (tall, fat and handsome) with Sam Mullen, localization producer on Hatsune Miku: Project Diva F. The surprise hit at the Sega Arcade during San Diego Comic con last week. Despite a demo being readily available on PS3, there always was a big crowd for this game. Sometimes as big as Sonic Lost World (or more)! I ask some of the questions fans have been wanting to know. Will all the songs be included? What about DLC? Watch and find out.

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