Original Content

Swingin’ Report Show #50: Dreamcast Birthday Bash with Francesca Reyes, Simon Cox, & Ricardo Torres

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If you didn’t know, we here at SEGAbits are huge fans of the Official Dreamcast Magazine, so you know we totally geeked out knowing that Francesca Reyes (ODCM writer and OXM editor-in-chief) and Simon Cox (Editor-in-chief OCDM) were coming on the podcast. But that isn’t all, we also have a unique perspective coming from Ricardo Torres (working at CNET Gamecenter, coming from early online media compared to print at the time) who gets massive SEGA props for having more Samba de Amigo maraca sets than all the staff combined. I’m really happy with the way the podcast turned out this week, full of nostalgia and the perfect way to kick off the 14th anniversary of the Dreamcast.

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SEGABits Gaming Community Night featuring Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown on XBLA

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Want to play SEGA games online with the staff and writers of SEGABits on PSN and XBLA? Look no further, we at SEGABits are willing to play SEGA’s library of titles along with our readers and forum members twice every month on the weekends.

Our first game featured on our gaming community night is Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown on Xbox Live Arcade on Sept 7th at 6pm Eastern Time. If your interested, add me “KoriSX15” by 5pm EST time and I surely will add you on the list.

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My Life with SEGA returns this October with an Alien-packed season 2 premiere

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The SEGAbits YouTube channel original series My Life with SEGA will return this October with a three part assault on the Aliens franchise! On October 2nd, AJ revisits the Alien Trilogy, a game he reviewed way back before the series moved to SEGAbits. October 16th sees the battle of Aliens vs. Predator, and then the infamous Aliens: Colonial Marines lands the day before Halloween. Check out the trailer above, and mark your calendars!

Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel.

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SEGA Tunes: Samba de Amigo’s Samba de Janeiro

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In Samba de Amigo, every day is a dance party, with and endless parade of singing, shaking and Latin music. Few songs in the game embody the spirit of Samba’s visuals as well as Samba de Janeiro does. This is what a wild party sounds like and it’s always a joy to shake maracas to. This carefree party atmosphere also makes Samba de Amigo one of SEGA’s quintessential summer games.

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A trio of Sonic Lost World videos from Sonic Boom/Summer of Sonic

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Tonight’s Sonic Boom event was host to some awesome music, cool giveaways. great guests and some exclusive videos (I REALLY wish I could have gone). First up is a new trailer for Sonic Lost World showing off some brand new areas and a return of an old gameplay formula. Hope you like grinding!………A lot!

Liked the Japanese cutscene last week? After the jump, check out an extended, full English version! Also, we finally put up the HD Summer of Sonic trailer from last week that we somehow missed!

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Fighters Segamix: Waku Waku 7

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Now for something a little different. I’m reviewing Sunsoft’s Waku Waku 7. A fairly rare import (although available on Neo Geo in the U.S.) full of oddball fighters that takes some stabs at Anime tropes. It’s a very fun fighter with a small assortment of crazy characters and a super meter that beats them all. However, the translation from Nero Geo to Saturn didn’t go as well as expected. Considering it also comes with a one meg RAM cartridge, how could they mess up those backgrounds so badly?! Check out my video and see is you have the “balls” to play this wacky fighter.

Click on comments to check out a Neo Geo comparison.

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Summer of Sonic 2013 – Takashi Iizuka Interview

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Over the past few years the Sonic series has hit a bit of a renaissance, with Colours and Generations achieving relative success critically as well as commercially. Typically, just as this turnaround is achieved, the newest game shows signs of radical change to the 3D Sonic formula that had finally gained acceptance. Sonic Lost World’s new design is the kind of decision that means it’s always interesting to chat to Takashi Iizuka, the man at the top of Sonic Team today and the public face of the team. He’s always cheery and approachable, but you can never quite predict the answers you’ll get from him. Read on to find out Iizuka’s take on the limitations of Sonic’s previous 3D outings, what inspired the new design of Sonic Lost World and his view of differences between working in the USA and Japan!

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SEGAbits Visits SEGA of America, Inc. in Sunny San Francisco – Part 3

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Welcome to the third and final part of our visit to SEGA of America! Check out the first part here and the second part here. In part three, we’re going to take a look at several rare, cool, and sometimes strange pieces of SEGA history pulled from SEGA’s archives from SEGA community managers Kellie Parker and Julian Mehlfeld. Consoles in their original boxes, cool accessories, rare statues, and a few items from the Kellie Parker Collection™ can all be seen after the break!

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Sonic Talk #22 Getting fat from eating your black hearts

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We got some communications problems in this weeks Sonic Talk. Makes for some humorous moments though. In this episode, we talk about the latest movies we’ve seen and our time at the San Diego Comic Con. We also talk about the controversy surrounding the dark, violent dialogue in Sonic Lost World and speaking of dark dialogue, Alex goes on a rant about Ken Penders and the Ouya.

[ MP3 Download ] [ iTunes ]

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SEGA Tunes: OutRun 2’s Splash Wave

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Nothing screams summer fun like driving a Ferrari along the coast of some random tropical paradise, with a pretty girl at your side and rocking guitar music filling the air. Outrun 2, having all of these things, is pretty much SEGA’s definitive summer game. Splash Wave is one of my favorite tunes in the game because it perfectly matches the atmosphere Outrun 2. It starts out fast and frantic but quickly slows down with a lazier, more relaxing beat. As fast and frantic as Outrun 2’s game play can be, you are still a dude driving a Ferrari through some of the most picturesque scenery in gaming and Splash Wave aides that feeling beautifully by alternating between the exciting synth and the slower, lazier guitar.

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Summer of Sonic 2013 – Sonic Lost World Impressions

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Summer of Sonic features an in-development game to play every year, usually for the first time to the public outside big industry shows like E3. This year, we got Sonic Lost World, on both Wii U and 3DS, making its debut in the United Kingdom.

First, a quick summary of what was on show. The rep told us this was the Comic-Con build, so for the few Americans in the audience who were there, we played the same game you did. There were three Wii U demo pods and six 3DSes running. On the Wii U game there were 4 levels available to play: Windy Hill, Desert Ruins 1 (styled with a small letter S shoe-horned in between the s and the e on the title card to make Dessert – a pun on the fact it’s a candy/sweets level), Desert Ruins 2 (an auto-run level through honey combs) and Frozen Factory (the Sonic 2-styled casino level). On the 3DS, there were 3 available choices – a Windy Hill tutorial level, Windy Hill 1 and Desert Ruins 2 (here, an Egyptian-themed puzzle level with moving around of blocks & balls). We tried to play as much as possible, bearing in mind that because of queue lengths there was a limit of one level per person. Those of you who recall back to Summer of Sonic 2010 may remember we did a look at Sonic Colours‘ debut – this time we have opinions on the game not just from myself but several Sonic Retro forum members, so read on to see what we thought!

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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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