More good news from Sega! Along with Sonic Boom this year, once again Sega will be having the Sega Arcade. Aliens: Colonial Marines and Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed will be the featured games of the arcade. Sadly, no upcoming digital titles will be shown. There will be an artist singing and no doubt some cool swag being given out as well. Read on for the press release with more info.
UPDATE: By popular demand, more Sega girls!
Seems SEGA’s NiGHTS tease wasn’t All-Stars related after all. It is actually something much, much better: an HD rerelease of the SEGA Saturn classic “NiGHTS into dreams…”! NiGHTS fans have asked for this for years, and they’re finally getting it. The SEGA blog lists the following features:
So, who is excited? It’s about time NiGHTS got some love from SEGA, and this rerelease is the perfect gift for fans of the franchise.
Turns out the trailer in the last post I made wasn’t the launch trailer, this one is! This one is also more exciting. This game NEEDS to come west.
As the date states, it’s the Fourth of July! That means Americans are drinking, barbecuing and blowing stuff up. To celebrate, we gathered together three Dreamcast VMUs to make a patriotic red, white and blue photo for our Instagram feed. If you want, you can follow us on Instagram. Just download the app and search “SEGAbits”. How are the American SEGA fans out there celebrating? I can tell you that I played an hour of Binary Domain, and fittingly they called me Dan the Yankee. Happy holiday, and drink game responsibly!
The Japanese interview with AM2 and Team Ninja conducted by Japanese website 4Gamer has been translated. the interview is really long, about 3 pages. Since this was translated by VFDC, they skipped translating the first page of the interview which was about Dead or Alive 5 development. So, you get more of the Virtua Fighter goodness.
There are a lot of people worried with the new SEGA restructuring, they just announced that SEGA Europe & Australia will be distributing their games via a different company, had tons of fired employees. Now SEGA Japan has opened the doors to a new subsidiary, SEGA Networks.
SEGA Networks is going to be SEGA’s high-end game developer that will deliver games for smartphones and tablets. This falls right in place with SEGA’s plan on releasing more digital titles. How does this make you guys feel? Is lower budget, less risk taking digital titles better for SEGA? SEGA Networks CEO is Haruki Satomi and will be based in Tokyo’s Shinagawa Ward. The company will start with 211 employees.
Sony’s Playstation Plus service barely turned a year old last month and the selection of free games have just gotten better. Like check this out, this week you can download Renegade Ops, Gotham City Impostors and Pacman DX for free. The important game here is Renegade Ops. Enjoy the game, we did.
SEGA has announced that Gunstar Heroes Treasure Box and Dynamite Dekka (Die-Hard Arcade) will soon be making its way to the Japanese PSN. They are part of SEGA’s AGES 2500 line, Playstation 2 remakes of classic SEGA games for the Playstation 2. Now SEGA is pulling a inception and putting them on PSN.
But more people here will be interested in the first game SEGA is going to release on the PSN PS2 archives service, Dragon Force (trailer). That one will hit PSN on July 25th. SEGA West, we want these, please?
Update: It appears this particular image has long existed, as it shows up on a few NiGHTS fan sites. I assume it is a CG render from when the game released, or when it received a PS2 rerelease. So this is not an in-game screenshot. However, that does not discount the possibility that a NiGHTS track or racer will soon be revealed.
SEGA has updated their Facebook page with an untitled image of a desert that is half sand, half metal with cacti and nuts and bolts. Given that Sonic and All-Stars Racing Transformed is SEGA’s big game this year, and that Comic Con is approaching, could SEGA be teasing a reveal of a NiGHTS into Dreams track along with NiGHTS as a racer? It could very well be. In the meantime, I’ll slap the ol’ “rumor” tag on this one just to play it safe, but I’m pretty confident that it is Stick Canyon from the Saturn’s NiGHTS into Dreams. After the break, a comparison video of the original stage.
If you haven’t been living in a stone cave, then you will know that PSO2 has been in beta for a while now and is way awesome. The game officially launches in Japan on July 4th. Additions to the launch release include an increase of the class level cap to 40, a new snow area, 3rd form of mag, and additional story missions.
If you didn’t watch the trailer above you should, nothing amazing for anyone who has played the game, but it’s still a super awesome trailer. Fingers crossed for US/EU announcement very soon. Would be nice to play this game in English.
Here is one of those Dorkly Bits videos that people on the interweb seem to be into. In this one Sonic the Hedgehog gets engaged. I’m sure this is the first time something like this has happen, I mean, fan fiction writers take note.
Creative Assembly has been going on a make a sequel to everything frenzy, now they are speaking out about SEGA’s recent restructuring. So what do they think about all the big changes and people losing their jobs? Their excited…
“It’s a tight family at Sega, so any talk of restructuring and refocusing is always a difficult time in any business and we’re always kind of mindful of that. But as a studio we’re growing to beyond 200 people at the moment and we’re still hiring, and we’re still looking to expand and we’ve got a number of really intense and interesting products on the horizon, both Total War and non-Total War and the refocussing at Sega on the distinct brand IPs, whether that’s Sports Interactive or Sonic or Aliens or Total War itself is really exciting for us as a studio, because we’re already seeing evidence of that improved support, that idea of really getting behind those IPs and really making the most of them.” – Brand director Rob Bartholomew
Creative Assembly does make a point, its always good for a studio to get more support. If only SEGA West cared this much about games like Anarchy Reigns and Rhythm Theft, right?
Rome 2: Total War has been officially announced! Rome 2 has been the most anticipated game in the Total War series since the original Rome released in 2004. The budget for Rome 2 is said to be 40% larger then that of Shogun 2.
I began playing the Total War series with the original Shogun: Total War but it was Rome that really grabbed me and made me a fan of this series. Needless to say Rome 2 cannot come soon enough.
Rome 2 will release for PC in 2013. P.S check out that fantastic live action trailer!
It’s sad to see how bad Sega is doing these days. With the whole restructuring and with many offices closing it’s hard not to worry about our favorite game company’s future. Heck, if I were Kellie, Ken or the rest of the community staff, I’d be dusting off my resume’s right about now. But I feel many of us kinda saw this coming. We promoted and championed our favorite new Sega games (and still do) only to see them poorly marketed and handled like garbage with little promotion outside of Sega’s own website. So why is Sega doing so badly as of late? What are they doing wrong? Read on to see my own personal feelings on the matter. Just remember folks, this is an opinion article.
Looks like RPG fans on the 3DS will have quite a choice to make this October. It’s being reported that SEGA’s mashup with Namco and Capcom, Project X Zone, will be releasing not only in the same month, but on the same day, as Square-Enix’s upcoming handheld RPG, Bravely Default.
Both titles will see release for the 3DS on October 11th in Japan, with no Western plans yet announced for either; given Square-Enix’s localization track record in recent years, however, Bravely Default’s Western release is looking a bit more likely.
Do you think it’s a smart idea to go up against Square-Enix? Or does Project X Zone have the brand name recognition to crush the new IP? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!