SEGA has created some highly popular and cult classic series of games that have stuck with people over the years. While most of you guys already know that Sonic the Hedgehog is celebrating his big 25th Anniversary this year, many other games get ignored because they aren’t as relevant as they used to be. Today we will list those mostly ignored video game franchises we all love. Did your favorite game make our list?
SEGA has revealed during their Tokyo Game Show panel, oddly enough named ‘Sega feat. Hatsune Miku Project’, that Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone will run at 1080p at 60 frames per second on the Playstation 4. If you didn’t catch the announcement for this title, its a console port of the long requested Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Arcade game.
SEGA also confirmed that Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone will be coming out after Hatsune Miku: Project Diva X (yes, there are two Hatsune Miku games in the works) which is due out on out for Playstation Vita in March.
Another small mention was the Playstation VR enabled ‘Sega feat. Hatsune Miku Project: VR Tech Demo’, which SEGA says if there is enough positive fan feedback that they will consider making it a full product.
[Source: Gematsu]
While the fact that Sonic Dash Extreme, the arcade port of the hit mobile game Sonic Dash, isn’t new. It has been spotted in the wild multiple times. The reason we decided to post it now is because we finally got a press release for the game. .
The cabinet for Sonic Dash Extreme will be housing a monster size 55 inch display and use an oversized ‘d-pad’ controls instead of touch. If you ever wanted to play Sonic Dash on a big screen, this is your chance. The game is set to get a official release this October and the other Sonic redemption machine that was spotted before (see photo below) will be coming out November.
Want to read the press release? Hit the jump.
[Source: Arcade Heroes]
Welcome to another unexciting episode of The Weekly Five where we create top five list on all things SEGA. I’m your host George and this week we will be talking about Virtua Fighter facts. This is a weird thing to do considering anything can be a fact, so I’ll try to keep it interesting. Who knows, maybe you’ll learn something new.
This will also be my last AM2 related Weekly Five for the rest of the year, so I hope you guys enjoy it! Let’s dive right in.
The arcades were a big part of Japan’s youth group up in the 80’s and 90’s, so its no surprise that a Japanese drama show based around these time periods would be created. No Continue Kid: Our Game History (ノーコン・キッド ～ぼくらのゲーム史～) is a TV show revolving around Reiji Watanabe, who in 1983 isn’t very interested in arcade games. The only reason he has to put up with them is because his father owns a game center. Reiji sees a girl he likes come in daily named Fumiyoshi Takano, she usually plays Xevious and leaves. Reiji decides to give this Xevious game a try to impress her and gets the best local player, Akinobu Kido (who goes by ‘Kid’, his high score handle) to teach him.
The show focuses on the friendships of these characters along with a new ‘Game Center’ trends throughout the decades (this show spans from 1983 to 2013 in 12 episodes) and even some console gaming love. Today we will be looking at some of the SEGA centric episodes including one for Columns, Fantasy Zone and two whole episodes based around the Virtua Fighter 2 fighting phenomenon. Let’s take a dramatized trip to the arcade scene in Japan from the 80’s through the 90’s, SEGA style!
SEGA AM2 has a huge library of developed games, but nothing is more shocking at how much they change genres and still delivered a game that would defy that same genre. For example, Virtua Cop which in my opinion is one of the best light gun shooters around.
Nothing has a bigger impact on you than the first stage’s music. Its the song that draws the player into the game and Virtua Cop succeeds with its Stage 1 Theme: “Arms Black Market”, giving you that feeling that you and a buddy really are taking down this black market gun rig.
The SEGA Saturn turns 20 years old today and I thought it would be a good time to discuss the popularity of the Saturn in the land of the rising sun because if we did this article on its life in America it would be a very depressing and frankly this means I can write about Segata Sanshiro which is always fantastic.
So let’s get to it and if you like this article you might want to also check out a similar article I did on the Dreamcast for its 15th year anniversary.
It seems that the last major update for Virtua Fighter 5, known as Final Showdown wasn’t so final after all. SEGA has just announced a new update to their 2006 award winning fighting game, Virtua Fighter 5.
Not much is known about what this new update will bring to the game. But one detail we do have is that it isn’t going to support SEGA’s ALL.Net network. That means no more software updates, online multiplayer, no national leaderboards or the ability to save data on the cloud. It sounds like this is finally the ‘final’ update for Virtua Fighter 5, which turns a decade old come 2016.
The new update is set to hit Japanese arcades in March of 2015. Here is hope we get a update for the console versions, right?
It seems that Square Enix’s manga branch is in a bit of trouble with companies for using copyright characters in their video game themed manga ‘Hi Score Girls‘. It seems that they used Virtua Fighter characters in the manga before SEGA actually granted them permission to use them and even though SEGA didn’t take legal action they did use them for a couple of years and that they ‘strongly objected’ the use. The weird thing is now they are OK with the usage of their characters in game if they are allowed to OK it before publishing and if it works for their PR for a game. The revelation comes in that ‘Hi Score Girl‘ manga was using copyright characters for years before getting permission.
This isn’t the only company to come out of the wood work years after the manga used their characters, SNK Playmore stated they where never asked if they could use their characters and showed 100 instances that characters from The King of Fighters, Samurai Showdown and other franchises where used in the manga.
The editor-in-chief of Squar-Enix’s Monthly Big Gangan has posted a message stating that the magazine will be put on temporarily halt due to alleged copyright violations. The manga launched in 2010 and the complaints are barely coming in, what are your thoughts on the issue?
Do you love Altered Beast? Nothing like punching strange ghouls and collecting power ups that make your shirt rip due to your outstanding muscle tone. Remember the first stage’s boss named Aggar? Now you can get an toy replica so he can sit on your desk.
“Welcome to your doom!”
The figure is available to pre-order through the Japanese website called: Geek Life. A bit pricey for 11,88o yen (aka $116.74 USD), but you can’t put a price on nostalgia sometimes. They even have a full print Altered Beast shirt to go with it.
EAG Expo 2014 is a new trade show that will be held on January 21st to the 23rd in London. SEGA has announced that they will be showing ‘14 exciting new titles plus 11 current hit games‘ at the show. One of those titles? Storm Racer G!
Storm Racer G is not being developed by SEGA, but by a Chinese company known as Wahlap. SEGA will be bringing and representing the game for the Western markets. Developer Wahlap describes the game as:
“Storm Racer G is a Classic Arcade Racing Game. The game contains of 12 Tracks with 6 Hidden Tracks; a Total of 14 Cars with 7 Hidden Cars. With full force feedback steering wheel and vibration speakers to simulate car response, it brings you a real racing car driving experience.”
The game, if you see the trailer above is looking a bit old school with those graphical effects. Who knows, maybe its a good thing?
Sadly not much is known besides the image above. We do know this is an arcade game and the name could refer to the mini-game from the series called ‘Last Stand‘.
Arcade Heroes says that this will be IAAPA 2013, along with Transformers: Human Revolution.
This isn’t the first Plants vs Zombies related post on SEGAbits, did you guys miss the first game running on the SEGA Genesis?
Tecmo used to have a healthy arcade business, but did you know they haven’t released an arcade game since 2001’s Monster Farm Jump? That is crazy and it seems that Tecmo has recently been planning on returning to the arcade business with the help of SEGA.
Part of the plan was to deliver a “flagship fighting game arcade for 800 stores in Japan from the end of the year in collaboration with Sega.” and it seems that arcade game is a port of Dead or Alive 5, which features Virtua Fighter characters.
How exactly SEGA is helping them, is unknown at the moment. Could be handling the hardware side of things.
There was a lot of excitement about Code of Joker when little was known. Many users wanted it to be a new console game that would come out in the west. In the end it turned out to be a digital card arcade game that will probably only come out in Japan. Doesn’t mean we can’t see what it plays like. SEGA showed off the game at JAEPO 2013, here is someone playing it at the event.
I know that SEGA has done other digital card arcade games and they have done well, I just don’t know why they always have to change the IP every few years. Maybe Japanese people are attracted to new IPs?
SEGA has finally revealed their picks for their SEGA Memorial Selection, basically giving Playstation 3 owners some SEGA AGES re-releases on PSN. But what five games will be in the bundle? Hit that jump.