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SEGA-Sammy report net income loss of over $28 million

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The first quarter of the year hasn’t been to kind to Japan and its video game industry. What with the tsunami and earthquakes that ravaged the lands. Its not that surprising seeing SEGA-Sammy post about losing revenue.

“During the first quarter of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, some uncertainty prevailed in the Japanese economy due to various impacts in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake that took place on March 11, 2011, including the concern for the availability of parts and materials and the struggle to cope with the shortage of electricity supply which is now likely to be prolonged”

This means that operating their Japanese studios, pachinko slots and arcade buildings cost more than previously, thus where some loses come in. But what about SEGA, the consumer division?

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Sonic Generations interview with Aaron Webber

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UPDATE: Extra comment at the end of the interview.

Sega had a very strong presence at the San Diego Comic Con this year. Not only did they have a Sega Arcade down in the Gaslamp Quarter, but on the floor they had Captain America at the Marvel booth and two demo stations of Sonic Generations at the Archie Comics booth. Surprisingly (or maybe not), there was no 3DS Generations demo anywhere to be found.

At one of the demo stations, I found Sonic brand manager Aaron Webber. Trust me when I say there’s no more likable fella working at Sega. Look at him. He’s just so gosh darn huggable ya wanna stuff him in your Warner Bros Comic Con bag and take him home with “AHEM!” Anyway, as he manned the station, many people were checking out the demo. Mostly the modern version. In fact, one fan kept coming back every day and managed to beat Aaron’s record on modern by one second! When he had some time, we went to the back of the Archie booth and set up an interview. (I wanted to snuggle, but he refused. XD Kidding, kidding.)

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: What is Anarchy Reigns?

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We’re at Episode 25 of SEGA Sequel Saturdays, and for this edition I’m compelled to ask a simple question: what the heck is Anarchy Reigns? Though SEGA has, from the start, released a relatively consistent stream of footage and tidbits of into, I can’t shake the feeling that I have no idea what the game is going to be, and each new bit of footage or information we receive has the effect of confusing me more and more. To be fair to SEGA, the game’s not planned for release until January 2012, which means we’re still a long way off, but today I’m asking a couple of questions that I really want to have answered, in some form, for me to ultimately decide whether I’m excited for this game or not.

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The Weekly Five: Lesser Known Dreamcast Exclusives

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I make it no secret that I am a big time Dreamcast fan. It is the SEGA console I own the most games for (around 120 last time I counted) and every September 9th I take the day off from work to host a nine hour Dreamcast marathon. There are many reasons why I love the console, but the number one would have to be the exclusives. Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and Crazy Taxi 2 are fantastic games and have yet to appear on any other console, and I’m totally cool with that. It’s a perfect reason for my Dreamcast to remain hooked up next to my current generation consoles.

But as time goes on, SEGA has been porting more and more Dreamcast classics to other consoles. Great for the gaming community, bad for the Dreamcast. Less exclusives mean less of a reason for gamers to pick up a used console. I know it sounds like I’m being overly dramatic, however this past May I did witness a kid turning down the purchase of a Dreamcast due to SEGA’s recently released Dreamcast Collection. As such, I thought I’d share five lesser known Dreamcast games that remain exclusive to the console and show no sign of receiving a rerelease. If you want these, you need a Dreamcast.

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The Weekly Five: The Best Unseen SEGA Characters

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SEGA has a massive stable of iconic characters. From the normal (Ryo Hazuki) to the bizarre (ToeJam and Earl) and everything in-between. But what about the characters you never see? They’re just as iconic, yet they have never had a face to put to the voice. In this week’s five, we will be shining the spotlight on the best unseen SEGA characters. The characters who can define a game without the need for a visit to SEGA’s character design department.

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Clockwork Knight

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Clockwork Knight and Clockwork Knight 2 were both games that were released early on in the Saturn’s life. Since the Saturn didn’t make too big of a splash, these games aren’t well known to most mainstream gamers and that is a shame.

So what is Clockwork Knight and why does it deserve a new entry? Well, hit the jump and find out.

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The Weekly Five: SEGA PSP games that should be ported to PS3

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SEGA has had some highly rated games released on the PSP, sadly mostly everyone outside of Japan has decided to ignore the platform. Sony recently announced the ‘PSP Remasters’ series. Games from PSP ported over and enhanced on the Playstation 3.

One of the first games to get this treatment has been Monster Hunter Freedom 3, which looks great. I decided to put together 5 games that deserve the PSP Remasters treatment.

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The Weekly Five: Game Inspired Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

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Next to the games, perhaps my most favorite Sonic thing of the 1990’s was the cartoon series Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (AoStH). While Saturday morning’s Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic SatAM) had stronger plots and more polished animation, AoStH was just too damn fun to be deemed the lesser cartoon. To me, AoStH was a much better adaptation of the games, and when I say games I mean the only two that were released by that time: Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2. Every episode featured Sonic and Tails playing cat and mouse with Robotnik and his gang of badniks, just like in the Genesis games. Even better, the show kicked off with an awesome mix of the original Sonic theme song, “Flight of the Bumblebee” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King”.

While I was satisfied with this amount of video game fan service, every so often an episode would air that would give the video game fans a little bonus. Something that would make us sit up and pay a bit more attention. Sonic might traverse through a zone from Sonic 1 (gasp!) or Robotnik might make reference to a Chaos Emerald (Hey, I know those!). In celebration of Sonic’s 20th, and my favorite 90’s cartoon series, I present five game inspired episodes of Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog!

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SEGA Sequel Saturdays: Skies of Arcadia

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For Episode 23, I thought I’d go back to in-house SEGA: a fan favorite, and one of the many greats to come from the Dreamcast era. Of course, you can see from the picture that I’ve picked Skies of Arcadia. As an RPG it was, in many ways, as traditional as they get. It had turn-based combat, it had a lack of voice overs, it had chirpy characters, and it had a bright and colorful world much more reminiscent of Japanese RPGs out of the old days than the much darker turn they took with the likes of Final Fantasy VI and VII. That said, Skies of Arcadia also took place in a world in the sky, a truly incredible setting which remains one of the most impressive worlds created for a Japanese RPG that I’ve ever experienced.

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The Weekly Five: Overthinking Sonic

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In his 20 years of existence, Sonic has not only appeared in dozens of games, but he has also introduced a ton of irregularities. The irregularities I’m referring to are the things that exist within his video games that support the gameplay and the player playing the game, yet don’t make a whole lot of sense within the context of the world within the game. For example, it’s a ton of fun to run through a twirling highway in Sonic Adventure, but why in the world would such a highway even exist? Or what about all those springs and item boxes? Surely Eggman didn’t put them there, because they assist Sonic. So just how and why do elements like that exist in Sonic’s world? In this week’s weekly five, I’m going to attempt to explain five oddities of Sonic’s world. Most of my explanations will probably be complete bullshit, but that’s the fun of over-thinking!

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Classic SEGA Magazine Corner: SEGA Visions introduces us to Sonic 20 years ago

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Oh snap, is this magazine already 20 years old? SEGA Visions magazine was the first official magazine of SEGA of America. It was launched to compete against Nintendo Power. It was actually free for a year if you owned a SEGA console. Not bad, not bad at all.

In this issue we will be looking at SEGA of America talking a bit about their new hero, Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s so odd reading their description of what Sonic is like, since we have known him for 20 years.

The other scans show SEGA’s Game Gear US launch and profiles of people that used to work at SEGA… 20 years ago. Interesting indeed.

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Sonic Generations demo impressions

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Happy Birthday, Sonic. I think it is fair to say that many of us can thank the blue hedgehog for who we are today (in a sense). I know that part of the reason I work on this site has something to do with the blue blur’s influence on my early life, and when I look at how many comments we get on Sonic articles compared to most other Sega games it’s evident that there is still a lot of passion for the character 20 years on.

My first Sonic game was Sonic the Hedgehog, the original Sonic game. I got it as a pack in with my Sega Mega Drive and I was hooked right from the start. For me, it took what Mario was doing and made it faster and gave it some attitude; it was like a roller coaster and I’ve stuck with the character through the years. Whilst Sonic went through a really rough patch where even I stopped playing his games, I’m happy to report that I absolutely loved Sonic Colours and as I type this, I’m playing the Sonic Generations timed demo which, despite a few hiccups, I’m enjoying quite a bit.

Sonic Generations demo impressions after the jump:

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Let’s Take a Look at Sonic #226 – The Genesis Saga Part 1!

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Just a day until Sonic’s 20th, and this arrives in the mail: Archie’s Sonic the Hedgehog #226. This issue is better known as being part one of the hotly anticipated Genesis saga, which throws the main cast of the Archie continuity back into the SEGA Genesis days of Sonic. In the previous issue, #225, the Eggman of the Archie continuity (who looks like the modern Eggman of the games but has a back story so complicated I’ve yet to wrap my head around it) unleashed a resurrected Death Egg on the Freedom Fighters. After a bit of fighting, Eggman killed a well known character from the SatAM days and powered up a device that enveloped the universe in white (hmm, sounds like something that is happening in Sonic Generations) and rebooted the entire universe. As such, when issue #226 kicks off, Sonic is acting as though he is from the Genesis era (with a modern design), running through Green Hill and bopping badniks which he seems to be encountering for the first time.

Click here to read more

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SEGA Sequels: MadWorld

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For the 22nd episode of SEGA Sequel Saturdays and following my feature from a couple weeks back on a potential sequel to House of the Dead: Overkill, I thought I’d take a look at another game that targeted the same demographic, MadWorld. It was the first release from the newly-formed Platinum Games, it’s still one of the only games to feature a black and white (and red, of course) color scheme, and it also happens to be one of the funniest games on the Wii system. It was definitely not a game without its share of flaws, but it was what could have been the start of a very promising franchise and it’d be great to see a sequel that expanded on the many great ideas that were only teased in the original.

(Note; We all of course know that MadWorld characters are slated to appear in Platinum Games’ next title, fighting game Anarchy Reigns, though it’s too early to tell whether that actually makes it a sequel to MadWorld or an entirely different type of game that just happens to feature its characters. This feature won’t be about Anarchy Reigns.)

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E3: Sonic Generations Q&A With Takashi Iizuka

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(NOTE: Because this is a Q&A with questions taken from staff from both Sonic Stadium and Segabits, this article will be posted on both sites simultaneously.)

On the Tuesday afternoon of E3, Alex (nuckles87) and I got the privilege of seeing the first new footage of City Escape from Sonic Generations played by Takashi Iizuka himself. Seeing little classic Sonic going through the famous SA2 level was a thrill. We saw as the large GUN truck made every attempt possible to run down the roly-poly hedgehog as two new remixes of “Escape from the City” played through both levels. As he played through he told some interesting tidbits, including the fact that outside of Green Hill zone, all stages on the 3DS will be different from the HD versions and will have levels based on the portable versions of Sonic’s games. Also, voice overs will be done for all nationalities. Not just Japanese and English. He quit the last level as the GUN truck with it’s giant sawblades ran over modern Sonic as he ran out of boost. Here, our Q&A commenced.

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