News

Virtua Tennis 4 rallies back to fifth in British charts

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Thanks to the conclusion of Wimbledon over the previous weekend, two tennis games saw a jump in the charts and it was SEGA’s Virtua Tennis 4 that triumphed over rival Top Spin 4. It has been reported by a NeoGAF member, using some calculations provided by Chart-Track, that Virtua Tennis 4’s combined sales last week was no more than 9,300. Whilst not as impressive as Djokovic was against Nadal, it is none the less a good number of sales in this time of year as the British market is often sluggish during June. Expect to see Virtua Tennis 4 in the British charts for a few more weeks to come.

[ Source: Chart-Track and NeoGAF]

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SEGA Japan launches Sonic tweeting game

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SEGA Japan launched another web app for Sonic’s 20th anniversary. This strange little app is called “Sonic ★ Tweet“.

I guess the way the game works is that you have to use the twitter client to unlock 500 cards that feature characters from Sonic’s history. How do you unlock the cards? Defeat Eggman by using some wit in your tweets.

Basically the game takes your tweet, breaks down the words and each one has assigned points. Depending on what words you use, in one tweet (and what others online are using) you rank in combos, giving Sonic’s attack more damage.

After you take down Eggman’s health to zero, you will get exp and a card. Cards can be used to bypass a cooldown phase (you have a limit to how much you can attack).

Sadly this game is only up for our Japanese readers, the rest of us either have to learn Japanese or pretend we know how.

[Source: Sonic Wrecks]

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Ryo Hazuki Opens a Café, Milk Not On the Menu

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Don’t worry, Yu Suzuki has not created Shenmue Diner Dash for cell phones. Instead, Ryo Hazuki’s Japanese voice actor Masaya Matsukaze has opened a cafe in Akihabara with a unique twist (don’t all Japanese cafés have a unique twist?). Matsukaze’s cafe, called “Seiyu Café”, is staffed by voice actors and has a voice acting theme. The interior of the space resembles a recording studio, and throat-friendly drinks are sold alongside alcohol and sweets.

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SEGA UK inks deal with Bowplex

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Bowplex is basically a bowling place in the UK, but also has arcade and other fluff around to make extra cash. The place has inked a exclusive deal to get ‘Sega Active Zone’ machines in their place of establishment.

“We’re really excited about the partnership with SEGA. It’s such a prominent brand within the industry and we’re thrilled to be associated with the company on this level. We work hard to push the boundaries of family entertainment and strive to be the first to introduce new concepts and we believe working with SEGA to introduce SEGA Active Zone is testament to that.” -Tracy Standish, Managing Director of Bowlplex

The project has £2 million in investments for ‘state-of-the-art equipment’. Sega Sports Active will feature sports games with iconic SEGA characters, such as Sonic. No other names where mentioned in the press release.

Hit the jump for that.

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NiGHTS celebrating its 15th year anniversary today

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Its hard to realize that the NiGHTS franchise turns 15 years old today, you know with all the celebrating that SEGA is doing with Sonic and his 20th anniversary.

Lots of users will complain that NiGHTS has only recieved 2 games in the last 15 years (3 if you count Christmas NiGHTS as a full game), there are way longer running SEGA franchises that have more games. That is true, but I think NiGHTS holds a special place in most people’s hearts, especially SEGA Saturn fans. We didn’t have Sonic like the Genesis kids, this was our Sonic for that generation.

Happy birthday NiGHTS. Lets hope SEGA ports the original game to HD consoles. Please, SEGA?

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SEGA inks Japanese distribution deal with EA

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SEGA and EA have reached an agreement to have SEGA distribute EA titles in Japan. Seems that this deal will take effect this year, with Shadows of the Damned being the first new title on September 22nd.

SEGA also hopes, starting next month, to put a list of EA back-catalog titles for release. Seems this is a great deal for SEGA. Now lets see if they put more promotional effort into selling Shadows of the Damned in Japan than EA put in the USA.

[Source: AndriaSang]

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SEGAbits Forums Updated!

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The SEGAbits forums have been changed over to SMF. I worked hard on this you guys better be happy! I mean this should be a huge upgrade from that broken theme =P Anyways yeah… new forum software means new theme.. so tell me what you think! I personally like it, I think it’s easy on the eyes and relaxing.

Oh and let me know if you run into any issues / have any issues. I tested pretty extensively, but something could still pop up.

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GAME details their Sonic Generations pre-order items

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Gamestop has already showed what they are giving users away if they pre-order Sonic Generations from them, what about GAME? UK’s massive game retailer?

  • Casino Night’ Pinball Stage: Exclusive stage. Same one that US Gamestop will be giving users. Based off the level with the same name from Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
  • Super Sonic Costume: Xbox 360 exclusive. Gives your avatar the iconic Super Sonic Costume.
  • Exclusive theme: Deck out your dashboard with awesome looking theme, created exclusively for this promotion.

Now all users know what they will get if they pre-order the game at either Gamestop or GAME. So what are you waiting for?

[Source: Sonic Stadium]

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SEGAbits gets forum and comment changes

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When we launched SEGAbits last year, one thing I wanted was to link the forums with the front page comments. There was a bit of an issue with this, we needed a plugin to get this work done. There was one out there and it was called WP United. The issue with this plugin was that it was buggy, the guy that created said that he would be fixing it in the near future and release a new version. Last update? 10 months ago.

This plugin stopped us from adding other plugins to wordpress or even updating it to the most secure version. I have been in talks with our site admin, Shadiwulf to get rid of the plugin. One of our writers members accidentally updated wordpress recently and resulted in a broken site. This meant that we had to get rid of the plugin sooner than I wanted.

So what are some changes?

Continue Reading ➜

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Emergency Changes – Update: Forums up

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Sorry about the maintenance earlier today. Shigamado upgraded wordpress and completely screwed everything up because SEGAbits was powered by WP-United, and WP-United is no longer updated.

Here are some issues that will be.
– I’m going to be deleting everyones wordpress logins except the staff.
– You will comment just like you do on any other wordpress blog, which means avatars are powered by gravatar.com and you comment using your email.
– The login box on the side will be disappearing since we can no longer link the forums and blog together.
– Other changes that I haven’t thought of yet.

There will be issues as I continue to fix this, but I just wanted to ask you stay patient. Thanks =)

Oh and regarding the forums.. I’ll try to get those up soon. Hopefully they don’t give me too much trouble. We will probably be changing over to SMF software soon, but that’s not for certain at the moment.

Update: Forums are up.

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SEGA hosting EG Expo Indie Arcade event this year

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Eurogamer has an expo for up and coming game developers that want to show off their titles. This year, SEGA is going to help throw the event, which means they will have their name plastered all over the place.

Games like Joe Danger and Hohokum have made their public debuts at past events. Submissions for developers who want to show off their games closes on August 19th. So if you are making a game, get to it. SEGA might pick it up if they like it.

The event will be at London’s Earls Court between 22nd and 25th September. You can nab your tickets here.

[Source: Eurogamer]

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Game Gear mod adds five-inch screen and rechargeable batteries

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When I was a kid and I had a Game Gear, I was super excited. The thing was way better than my Game Boy, but it only had one big issue. The battery life was horrible. Finally, someone made an awesome mod that makes the Game Gear more awesome: Introducing the Handy Gear.

It has a custom-made case, Master System converter and a 5-inch PSone screen. Most importantly, it has rechargeable batteries. The con? It’s big and weighs in at more than 2 pounds. Not so portable.

[Via: Engadget]

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Sonic making his return to Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

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[Sonic the Hedgehog, rocking Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade in 1993]

Back in 1993, Sonic the Hedgehog broke ground for video games by being the first video game character to be featured in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now SEGA has confirmed that Sonic will be returning to the parade this year.

For those readers that love their parades, this parade will take place on November 24th. If you live in New York and attend, send us pictures. We love pictures.

[Via: The SEGA Source]

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