Sonic turned 35 years old yesterday, and SEGA celebrated with a live charity stream that was part fundraiser, part showcase and part fan event (I guess our invite got lost in the mail?). In any case, a LOT was revealed yesterday. So much so that instead of making a dozen articles I thought it would be easiest to present a handy list of everything we learned yesterday, from game reveals to brand partnerships and more! So read on to see what Sonic and SEGA have planned for fans!
We’re back, and so is Crazy Taxi but not without controversy! Also, Tupac is alive and well and in an upcoming SEGA game and Sonic is turning 250 years old next week!
If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a thumbs up so it shows up on more like-minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that YouTube algorithm is.
Following the reveal of Crazy Taxi: World Tour, a cool bit of news about the game was lost in the shuffle that I thought deserved its own news post. Crazy Taxi series creator Kenji Kanno has been revealed as helming the new game! Kanno joined Sega AM3 in 1993 and his works included Jurassic Park, Funky Head Boxers, Top Skater, and of course the Crazy Taxi series.
Back in 2015 we learned that SEGA Studios Australia had created artwork for a Crazy Taxi 4 pitch that had likely taken place years earlier. Just this week, with the announcement of Crazy Taxi: World Tour, a former SEGA Creative Assembly staffer who worked at the Brisbane, Australia offices from 2009-2010 revealed details of a Crazy Taxi: World Tour pitch that may have tied in with the previously revealed pitch art.
Update 6/8:Kotaku has asked series creator and the lead of Crazy Taxi: World Tour what exact role AI played in the game’s development and this was his answer: “We used it as a reference. So our artists would pull up [and] generate some of their ideas and then they would look at that, you know, generated image and then they would draw the actual thing. So actual creators, everything from programming to assets, everything is made by an actual human. It’s only used as a reference for them to look at and then they would actually create the actual thing that would go into the game.”
Original article:
SEGA has officially announced the next entry in the Crazy Taxi franchise: Crazy Taxi: World Tour, coming in 2027 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC.
The trailer (shown above) was revealed during this year’s Xbox Showcase, three years after the game was first announced back in 2023.
So, what do I think of the trailer and gameplay? Incredible. It looks amazing, and I can’t wait to play it.
So what’s the controversy? If you check the Steam page, there’s an AI Generated Content Disclosure at the bottom of the game’s description:
“At SEGA Corporation, we utilize generative AI as a support tool for developers, aiming to provide better content to our users and enable developers to focus more on creative tasks.
We have used such generative AI support tools during development of Crazy Taxi: World Tour. No AI was used in reference to the performers in the game”
This disclaimer has caused a huge uproar within the anti-AI community and it’s a complex issue. Some point out that these tools are used to speed up repetitive coding tasks, and as you can read here, SEGA has been fairly open about not using AI to replace creatives, including voice actors and artists.
