SEGA News Bits Live: Christmas Blast – Past, Present & Future SEGA

On this Christmas day SEGA News Bits Live, Barry looks back on SEGA Christmas past, present and future! What was the worst video game gift you received? What was under the SEGAbits tree this year? Who is behind the upcoming SEGA revivals? Click play and find out!

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Marza Animation Planet posts Sonic The Night of the Werehog short on YouTube for the first time

You’re probably thinking: “I’ve seen this already on YouTube, why is this news?”. Well, aside from Sonic Unleashed articles being an easy way to increase traffic, it is notable that Marza Animation Planet has posted their short film Sonic The Night of the Werehog on YouTube officially for the first time as the video has always only existed thanks to fan rips or low resolution uploads from SEGA PR. It’s nice to see SEGA and Marza showing Sonic and his ghostly friends some love again, as we had a Halloween sequel posted just a few months ago. Check the short out for yourself straight from the studio that made it!

Key art revealed for upcoming 3D Golden Axe game showcasing main characters and enemies

The new SEGA game news keeps coming today as we have a fresh look at the upcoming 3D action adventure Golden Axe! Unlike Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi, Golden Axe has a brand new logo and potentially could be using simply the name Golden Axe as the final title. This would made sense, as the series has not seen a new game in a number of years and only the arcade original and Genesis/Mega Drive port have used the name. Also revealed is key art of the main cast and enemies including the dreaded Death Adder. While the characters look a little too “World of Warcraft” for my tastes, they do retain the look of the classic trio with new twists. It is likely this is either a reboot or a sequel set years later starring a new cast, as aside from the dwarf looking like Gilius Thunderhead, the male and female look a bit different from the Ax Battler and Tyris Flare fans remember.

New artwork for upcoming Shinobi game revealed in SEGA Sammy report

While we can only speculate that developer Lizardcube (Streets of Rage 4 and The Dragon’s Trap remake) is behind the upcoming 2D Shinobi game, new key art utilized in a SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc. report screams Lizardcube aesthetics. Little else is revealed, aside from the player taking up the Oborozuki sword to slay evil. It also appears that the game will stick with the title Shinobi, unless they tack on some more words or some numbers. Personally, I think it has been long enough since the last Shinobi game to use the same title again. The artwork also looks great, and we can’t wait to learn more about the upcoming title!

New details emerge for upcoming Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi games

A recent SEGA Sammy Holdings Inc. report has revealed new details for the upcoming Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi games. First up, Jet Set Radio will see an open world setting and will allow players to make friends, increase their fans and “create a movement”. Fans speculate that this is a nod to the recently revealed news that Jet Set Radio is likely to be an online “games as a service” title. It is likely the friends you make will be real, and the fans you make are either other online players or the amount of graffiti you leave around town will increase your popularity and in turn your street cred. The in-game graphics show Beat in addition to returning characters Cube and Gum, who were also in leaked artwork earlier this year.

New Streets of Rage game title revealed in SEGA SAMMY report, developer potentially revealed

A recent report from SEGA parent company Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. has revealed a new look at the upcoming Streets of Rage game, including the games potential title! Streets of Rage Revolution promises a return to the side-scrolling beat ’em up action series in a whole new (well, new as of the mid 90s) dimension: 3D! While Streets of Rage 4 gave fans a throwback title with modern 2D animated graphics, the upcoming Streets of Rage Revolution will evoke later 3D beat ’em up titles like SpikeOut and Zombie Revenge. While the developer has not been announced, fans speculate Mighty Fight Federation developer Komi Games Inc. is behind the title based on shared visual styles and recent job postings.

While the fourth title was licensed out and published by Dotemu, Streets of Rage Revolution will likely be published by SEGA so as to bring their legacy franchises back under the SEGA umbrella. The game will still be developed externally, like Sonic Mania. It’s nice to see SEGA finally showing some pride for their past franchises outside of Sonic!

Memorial service for fictional Like A Dragon characters, named “Like a Dragon: The Men Who Perished Exhibition”, being held in Japan

Any fan of the Like A Dragon (Formally “Yakuza”) series will know that these games’ stories have never sugarcoated the mortality of its entire cast. Many characters, some loved and some loathed, have met grim fates in virtually every game ever released bearing the names Like A Dragon and Yakuza. Now, Sega, in collaboration with Parco shopping centers, is giving fans in Japan the chance to pay their respects to many of these characters with the Like a Dragon: The Men Who Perished Exhibition, a series of funeral events for every character in this series that has died up to this point.

At three separate events planned for Tokyo, Nagoya, and Sapporo in the next two months, you can attend traditional Japanese funeral services for these characters to offer flowers and prayers and to purchase exclusive merchandise. Some merch you can purchase fits right in with a funeral service, like incense sticks, mini-headstones, and handkerchiefs. Others are more fun, typical merch, like t-shirts, handbags, bookmarks, and acrylic standees. You can also use your smartphone to see images of the deceased characters with AR on site.

The first exhibition will be in the Parco center in Ikebukuro, Tokyo from December 30th, 2023 to January 13th, 2024. Next is the Nagoya Parco from January 20th to February 4th. Finally, there’s the Sapporo Parco from February 16th to February 25th. If you happen to be in Japan during January or February 2024, be sure to stop by one of these sites to pay your respects to your favorite Like A Dragon characters.

That’s the most important info out of the way. Now check in after the break for details that include spoilers for the Like A Dragon series. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  

SEGA Filed Four Trademarks Of Classic Titles – Including Altered Beast, Kid Chameleon, and Eternal Champions

UPDATE: To follow up with this article, SEGA has filed eight more trademarks of their classic IPs which includes Alex Kidd, After Burner, Crazy Taxi, House of the Dead, Outrun, Shinobi, Streets of Rage, and Super Monkey Ball. We’ll keep you all updated when more news arrive!

Following up with the recent announcement during the Game Awards, SEGA has filed four trademarks of their classic IPs which includes Jet Set Radio (which was recently announced at the Game Awards), and three more titles such as Altered Beast, Kid Chameleon, and Eternal Champions.

With these trademarks being filed publicly, we might see more games in development from SEGA down the line or it could be something completely different from what we could expect. Until then, we will keep you all posted if there are any official announcements regarding these titles. Let us know what you all think of this news in the comments below!

Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi sequels likely Super Game releases based on SEGA website updates

Based on revised recruitment pages, posted on ResetEra by SEGAbits community members Dooble and Suzuki Yu, it appears that the upcoming Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi games revealed at the Game Awards will fall under SEGA’s Super Game initiative. SEGA’s division 3 is the online division, which through interviews has been said to focus on the Super Game releases. Jet Set Radio’s staff was moved from division 4, the mobile division, to division 3. Division 3 has been confirmed through interviews to be focused on GaaS (Games as a Service) and currently handles Phantasy Star Online 2. This would mean that both titles are likely to be online and potentially online only, much like PSO2. They would also be high budget triple-A releases.

This would align with SEGA’s decision to send announcement postcards to Twitch streamers, who are more likely to give GaaS titles attention, rather than fan sites like SEGAbits who are more aligned with traditional games and account for a majority of the Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio fanbase.

SEGA News Bits Live: New SEGA Games Announced + Trailer Breakdown

SEGA revealed five games currently in production from classic franchises, and on this SEGA News Bits Live your boy Barry “Yo yo!” the Nomad breaks down the trailer and details new information from SEGA on this initiative!

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Power Surge: SEGA Announces Five Brand New Games for Classic SEGA Titles; Now In Development

SEGA’s announcement at the Game Awards was a major treat for many SEGA fans as the iconic gaming company revealed five brand new games in a mind blowing trailer featuring their library of classic SEGA IPs such as Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Shinobi, Crazy Taxi and many more to come!

Currently the games are in development and we can hope to see more information in the near future. You can follow updates by signing up on SEGA’s Next Level website.

This is a big day for every SEGA fan who remembers the company’s iconic franchises and now we can experience these games again in a brand new era. Which game are you guys excited for, let us know in the comments below.

The Creative Assembly will focus more on offline real-time strategy games following cancellation of Hyenas

After having ceased production on Hyenas in September, SEGA says developer The Creative Assembly will shift focus back to doing what they do best: real-time strategy games. SEGA CFO and Koichi Fukazawa stated:

To put it simply, Creative Assembly was good at offline games in the RTS genre, but they took on the challenge of developing Hyenas, an online game in the FPS genre. However, although the game itself was good, we decided to cancel the development of Hyenas because we did not think it would reach a quality that would satisfy our users when we considered whether we could really operate this as a competitive online game for a long period of time.

SEGA Announces Virtua Fighter 3tb Online for Arcades in Japan

SEGA announced Virtua Fighter 3tb Online for arcades in Japan during the Amusement Expo in Tokyo Big Sight event before beginning the “APM3” exhibition match event for Virtua Fighter esports. The game will have similar features seen in Virtua Fighter esports (Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown in US & EU) such as national matches, in-store matches, password competition with friends, ability to use Aime cards to save progress, and change from original and arrange BGM.

Newly uncovered Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) concept art gives us an early look at a robotic Dr. Robotnik

Way back in 1991, when Sonic the Hedgehog burst onto the scene in his debut game, the title made such an impact in the west that TV networks and animation studios scrambled to create an animated series starring the blue blur. With Sonic came his cast of video game co-stars however at the time Sonic’s stable of characters was quite small. Outside of the little animal friends and badniks, we had Sonic, Eggman (localized as Doctor Robotnik) and eventually, in 1992, Tails. The first animated series to get the green light was what fans affectionately call “Sonic SatAM” or just “SatAM” as the series aired weekly on ABC Saturday mornings. This series retained Sonic, Tails and Robotnik, but also expanded the cast to include the Freedom Fighters as well as a lackey for Robotnik named Snively.