IMPORTANT UPDATE! SEGA’s video game ports on Amazon’s Fire TV are a bit disappointing

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: It ends up the Ouya controller WAS the problem of my control woes as I got the Fire Controller from Amazon today and I can say that Crazy Taxi works just fine on it. The drive/reverse buttons are in their proper place and we have brakes! The gas and brakes or on the R and L triggers respectfully, so while still not that comfortable, work much, much better than before. I owe an apology to Sega for blasting their port when it was poor bluetooth controller support that was the main culprit.

Last week, I picked up the new Fire TV as a mini console for my living room. I like the idea of playing some mobile games on a full blown console but sadly, the Ouya just wasn’t what I wanted out in that regard. Fire TV solves that by not only having a ton of video apps, but much more popular mobile games rather than the overload of weak indy games the Ouya consists of. Very fun games like Asphalt 8, Rayman Fiesta Run and Riptide 2 occupy a decent launch library. Those games include some of Sega’s more popular titles. I tried out four of the eight Sega games available and sadly, the porting of those titles from seems to not have gone over as well as hoped. My impressions after the jump.

SEGA’s launch lineup for Amazon Fire TV

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Amazon’s new Roku/Ouya killer Fire TV was announced yesterday with a lineup of software partners including SEGA themselves. We didn’t really know what the lineup of games were until the system got shipped to the public today. Here’s Sega’s list of games along with their prices.

  • Sonic CD ($2.99)
  • Sonic 1 ($2.99)
  • Sonic 2 ($2.99)
  • Sonic 4 Episode 1 ($3.99)
  • Sonic 4 Episode 2 ($4.99)
  • Crazy Taxi ($4.99)
  • The Cave ($4.99)
  • Virtua Tennis Challenge ($4.99)

Since the Amazon Fire TV doesn’t make use of Google services, some of the games won’t have Google Play Achievements or use Google’s leaderboards. That will also mean that Sonic 2 doesn’t have multiplayer since it used Google’s services. According to Taxman, the developer, Sonic 2 won’t even have a splitscreen mode due to ‘the projects scope’. The Amazon Fire TV is already shipping and you can purchase on here. Gaming controller sold separately.