SEGA News

Segabits @ E3: Off-screen video and more details on Hatsune Miku Project: VR Tech Demo

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Shigs here. I’m at E3 and despite no Sega booth, I’m managing to find some Sega…bits of information here and there. As announced earlier, there is a Hatsune Miku VR demo at Sony’s Project Morpheus booth. In this virtual reality demo, you are at a Miku concert enjoying the music with the large, silhouetted crowd. They all have their glowsticks waving to the song “Viva, Viva, Happy” and you need to do the same (I think). Eventually, Miku brings you up on stage and it gets a little odd as words and random objects are seen all over her. You’re playing a rhythm game with the move controller and waving the stick at Miku and the crowd to the beat. The person playing seemed to be too interested in looking around and was obviously losing,  since X’s and storm clouds were appearing everywhere. Still, it looks like a fun game and I’ll try to get my hands on it Thursday when Project Morpheus demos are open to the public.

I apologize for the quality of the video, but it was taken offscreen.

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Sega feat. Hatsune Miku Project: VR Tech Demo announced

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SEGA has revealed a new title for Sony’s Project Morpheus VR headset for PlayStation 4 which will transport players to the world of Hatsune Miku! Titled Sega feat. Hatsune Miku Project: VR Tech Demo (doesn’t quite roll off the tongue), the simple demo features Miku singing songs from artist Mitchie M. while dancing (what else did you expect Miku to do?). We don’t know much more about the demo beyond that, so any gameplay or interaction is possible but unconfirmed. Also, it has not been stated if this will lead to a full retail release once Project Morpheus releases next year. Still, this should be an exciting experience for fans who truly want to have some fun with Miku!

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Nintendo pre-E3 Digital Event: Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games trailer

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Nintendo’s Digital Event at E3 2015 has wrapped, and on the SGEA side of things we have a new trailer for the upcoming Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games title. The new trailer showcases summer sports that will be included in both Wii U and 3DS titles, though those hoping for any real surprises or hints at a story mode or party mode will be disappointed. Hopefully we learn more about the game soon, personally I’d like to see a beefed up London Party Mode (obviously set in Rio) and I think SEGA really needs to include some Samba de Amigo characters given the game’s setting.

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Shenmue 3’s Kickstarter has been funded

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Shenmue 3 is Real

No more waiting. No more false hope. Shenmue 3 is alive, it’s coming, and one day we’re all going to get to play it. As of a few moments ago, Shenmue 3 reached its $2 million goal on Kickstarter, breaking all sorts of records along the way.

Shenmue 3 has become the fastest game on Kickstarter to break $1 million dollar and the fastest to reach a $2 million funding goal, hitting it in less than hours with more than 24,000 funders. The game’s funding moved so quickly in its opening hours that it practically broke the kickstarter page, hitting prospective funders with errors.  It’s also currently on track to outpace Bloodstained, which recently became Kickstarter’s most funded game ever at $5.5 million. For comparison, Bloodstained required 24 hours to reach half of Shenmue 3’s initial funding goal.

Of course, this is just the beginning. With more than 30 days left in the campaign, the project as more than $2 million worth of stretch goals lined up, ranging from Shenmue 1 & 2 cinema shorts at $2.5 million to an expanded Baisha village and additional mini games at $4 million. According to the Kickstarter page, we’ll be hearing more about these stretch goals after initial funding. We’ll post more details as they come in!

Shenmue 3 is being developed by Yu Suzuki’s independent studio YsNet. It is currently unknown how (or if) SEGA is involved, and whether any outside parties are will be performing publish duties or providing outside funding. The game is currently scheduled for a December 2017 release. For additional information on the project and its developers, check out the official kickstarter page and the game’s website. For a look at a list of all the known stretch goals, check out the image below the break!

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Shenmue 3 appears at Sony’s E3 2015 press conference, launches Kickstarter

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Shenmue is just one of those game franchises that make all SEGA fans sequel in delight, talk to any of the fans that played them and they’ll go on for hours about what makes the franchise so great. This year at Sony’s E3 2015 conference, Yu Suzuki announced that they will be doing a Shenmue 3 kickstarter and you can fund it right now! The budget of the game via the kickstarter is only 2 million dollars, so chances of reaching it are very high (since its at 150k right now and it hasn’t even been an hour!). But 2 million dollars seems a bit low of a budget and it also seems to have a new character models that seem out of place. This is obviously very early assets that will hopefully change down the road. The game will also be developed by Yu Suzuki’s new studio called Ys Net. It seems that the project will only be available on Playstation 4 and PC.

Regardless you can fund the game and enjoy some of the rewards offered. $500 dollars gets you a set of capsule toys, who doesn’t like capsule toys? Are you guys excited for Shenmue III? Let us know in the comments.

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Virtua Fighter cameos hit Smash Bros on Wii U and 3DS

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While the big news is that Smash Bros added two new DLC characters that include Roy (Fire Emblem) and Ryu (from Street Fighter), there were also other characters announced as Mii Fighters, including SEGA favorites Jacky and Akira from Virtua Fighter. That isn’t all that hit the market, you can also pick up Megaman.EXE (Mega Man Battle Network), Zero (Mega Man X), Isabelle (Animal Crossing), Inkling boy/girl (Splatoon), and even Heihachi (Tekken).

Each ‘custom Mii fighter’ will cost you .75 cents per fighter, if you want them on both 3DS and Wii U it will cost you only $1.15 each. If you get them all bundled for one version its $6, but if you get them for both 3DS and Wii U its $9.20. Not bad at all.

Anyone purchasing any of these pieces of DLC? Any other SEGA characters you want to see represented in Smash Bros?

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SEGA announces Yakuza Zero has sold over 500k units, series has sold over 7.5 million

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We mentioned before on the last financial report on how Yakuza Zero has been the lowest launching Yakuza game in Japan, especially when it was released on both Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 consoles. Well, SEGA seemed to be aware and launched the game in Asia back in May where it sold out instantly. Now SEGA has stated that the game has sold over half a million copies, talk about a quick turn around.

SEGA has other games it is releasing over to in Asia including Phantasy Star Nova and Shining Resonance. SEGA hasn’t announced plans on releasing Yakuza Zero in English, but it will be releasing Yakuza 5 this fall on Playstation 3.

SEGA has also announced that the franchise as a whole has sold over 7.5 million. The franchise has had over 11 unique titles including spin-offs released since 2005. SEGA also announced before that the Persona franchise reached over 6.2 million, surprising seeing the Yakuza franchise outsell Persona when Persona‘s been around longer and is more popular in the west.

[Via: Playstation Lifestyle]

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Akira and Jacky Mii outfits for Smash Bros 4 leaked

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Twitter exploded with news of a Smash Bros leak early this morning. While most of the attention is being lavished on the two new characters this leak unveiled, there’s much more to it than them: Mii skins of the Virtua Fighter characters Akira and Jacky (as well as Tekken’s Heihachi, which is the outfit on the left).

What’s really interesting about Akira’s outfit is that it is literally his model from the first game, complete with the old school, flat-shaded, segmented polygonal limbs. Jacky, on the other hand, seems to based off of his appearance from Virtua Fighter 5.

Of course, it should be noted that these outfits have not technically been confirmed by Nintendo, but given the size and breadth of this leak, not to mention the simultaneous release of the above in-game outfits and in-game victory movies and renders of the leaked characters that are obviously real, this confirmation is likely only a matter of waiting for tomorrow’s Smash Bros Direct.

One interesting implication of these Mii outfits is that it means SEGA’s crossover with Smash Bros no longer ends with Sonic. Could another all-new fighter be in the cards? We’ll just have to see.

These assets were found on RandomTBush‘s twitter.

 

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Sonic and Angry Birds cross-over in… Angry Birds Sonic Dash Epic?

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I honestly have no explanation for this. I’m not sure if this can be explained. Some guy from VideoGamer just tweeted these screenshots and I’m just incredibly confused right now. I mean, they’re both popular games sure, but… Angry Birds Sonic Dash Epic? Are they trying to outdo SONIC BIRDS vs. EGGMAN ROBOTNIK PIGS in the naming department? I’m so confused by this.

Okay, so it turns out that this is an in-game event that’ll go on for three weeks, in which you can unlock a different Angry Birds Epic character each week by collecting tokens. That, or you can just buy them. These includes Red ‘Knight’, Chuck ‘Mage’ and Bomb ‘Pirate’. You’ll still be able to use keep using these characters even after unlocking them. This event will be on all three platforms: iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

So uh, yeah, medieval Angry Birds characters in a Sonic game. Just in case for if you weren’t weirded out already by the Sonic Twitter suddenly becoming a lot more meta.

[Source: Invision Game Community]

After the break, check out gameplay footage of the first unlockable Angry Birds character.

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SEGA’s Puzzle & Glory mobile game gets soft launch in Canada

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SEGA has just had a soft launch for Puzzle & Glory which is being developed by newly acquired Demiurge Studios (Marvel Puzzle Quest). The game should be available to Canadian users on both the Play Store and iTunes right now. Puzzle & Glory is a Match-3 RPG puzzle game that has been popularized by Puzzle & Dragons (wow, see the similar titles?).

The game has you going through dungeons as you explore, conquer quests and traverse the dangerous landscapes of Aetria. The game even has competitive PVP mode if you’re into that. If you want to try the game out and you’re on Apple devices you can always make a Canadian iTunes account to try it. As for Android users, we have to wait until the APK pops up on the internet.

[Via: The Forums]

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Sonic Central information app headed to iOS and Android devices this summer

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In all the commotion over the announcement of Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, a piece of information slipped by many fans as it was tacked on to the end of the game’s press release. Heading to iOS and Android devices this summer is a Sonic the Hedgehog information app called “Sonic Central” which will act as a hub for franchise information including art, wallpapers, character bios, clips from animated shows including Sonic Boom, concept art, and games. The app will also include a function called Sonic Pix which will allow users to include Sonic and friends in photos (think Dreamcast Dreameye but not all pixelated).

The name Sonic Central may be familiar to some fans, as it was initially the official North American Sonic the Hedgehog page operated by SEGA in the mid to late 2000s. Sonic City, meanwhile, was the European site. The North American site wound down in 2008. No word if SEGA will revive the Sonic Central site for the upcoming app. As mentioned, the app will arrive this summer, and once we have more info we will be sure to share!

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Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice releasing Holiday 2015 to Nintendo 3DS

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SEGA made quite a shocking announcement today, the Sonic the Hedgehog Sonic Boom franchise has not left the world of video games in the dust as a new Nintendo 3DS game titled Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice is set to release to Nintendo 3DS this holiday season! Developed by Sanzaru Games, creators of Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal, Fire and Ice looks to be a direct sequel to the original 3DS game. Fans will be happy to hear that Amy has joined the playable roster and Eggman is back as the lead villain (so long, Lyric!) alongside a new baddie named D-Fekt.

Honestly, after hearing news that Archie’s Sonic Boom comic books would end with issue 11, and the fact that the Wii U game was a failure for the company, fans assumed that Sonic Boom was relegated to being a TV show and toy line. I personally thought Sanzaru’s first game was alright, but I think with a longer development window they could make a much better title the second time around.

After the break, check out SEGA’s press release, artwork, and screens.

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New Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax adds characters from Heavy Object

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So Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax will be getting a sequel in arcades that is set to add quite a bit of new content including new playable characters. If you never heard of the game, its a 2D anime based fighting game that happens to feature some SEGA characters (from franchises like Virtua Fighter and Valkyria Chronicles). So what can you expect to see in the new game? Let’s check it out:

This new version of Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax is being titled ‘Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax New Work’ (working title) and will hit Japanese game centers this summer. The console version of the first arcade release is set to hit Playstation 3 and Playstation Vita this fall in the West.

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SEGA unleashes trailer for Blade Arcus from Shining 2.0

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Never heard of Blade Arcus from Shining? Its a Shining series spin-off that takes characters from Shining Hearts and Shining Blade and pits them against each other in a 2D fighting game, with a look that is very comparable to Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. The game hit Japanese arcades on November 11th of last year and is now setting up for an updated release being called ‘2.0’. The update is set to hit game centers early this summer.

Version 2.0 will have the following additions:

Four new playable Shining Hearts  characters

New game systems

  • Rejection card
  • Reversal strike

Its also set to feature new stages, motion frame adjustments for all characters and other system improvements. The game has only been officially released in Japanese arcades, no plans are set for a console release at this time. What do you guys think of this spin-off? Would you guys give it a go if it was released in the West?

[Via: Gemastu]

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Sonic Dash has reached over 100 million downloads

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Seems that SEGA and Hardlight’s Sonic Dash is still a success for the company, originally released in March 2013 the game has now reached over a 100 million downloads on both Android and iOS. The game is a free-to-play endless runner in the vain of Temple Run starting the Blue Blur himself.

SEGA even released a info image detailing all the games accomplishments since release. Including users having collected over 850 billion gold rings, 123 million hours played and a average of 14 million players playing the game daily since launch.

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