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What to expect from SEGA Forever in 2018 – Changes are coming!

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SEGA Forever, SEGA’s mobile initiative to bring classic SEGA games to smart devices, has updated the SEGA Mobile blog with details of what we can expect from the collection in 2018. Over the past 8 months, 18 titles have been released under the SEGA Forever banner, including emulated titles and native ports. Interestingly, it is noted in the post that the native ports (Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic The Hedgehog 2, Sonic CD, Crazy Taxi, and Virtua Tennis Challenge) have been the most played.

As such, SEGA has decided to make changes to SEGA Forever to appeal to gamers most interested in that aspect of the project. While emulated titles will still release, including some surprises, the main plan will be to release more native ports. As such, the amount of titles regularly released will reduce (no doubt due to the amount of work a native port requires when compared to emulation) however the next titles in the lineup will release soon. The post also notes that over the course of 8 months, there have been over 40 million downloads. Impressive!

You can follow SEGA Forever on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and check out their official website.

Read the full post here, and in the comments below let us know your thoughts on this shift in focus!

[Source: SEGA Mobile Blog]

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Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire changes its name to…

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The Crazy Taxi social media accounts have announced that Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire will be changing its name to… Crazy Taxi Tycoon. The game can now be found on the App Store and Google Play under the new name. No reasoning is given, however I’m certain it has to do with how difficult “Gazillionaire” may be for people to spell and the fact that it doesn’t quite tell you what the game is all about. Crazy Taxi Tycoon is more on the nose and a welcome change.

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Gunstar Heroes joins the SEGA Forever mobile lineup

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The Treasure classic Gunstar Heroes has been added to the SEGA Forever mobile lineup, available to download now on Google Play and the App Store. If Gunstar Heroes on iOS sounds familiar, it’s because the game released to that platform 7 years ago. Those who have previously downloaded the iOS version of the game will be able to restore their purchase for the premium SEGA Forever version. A new addition to the mobile version is cross-platform local multiplayer over Wi-Fi. You can interact with the SEGA Forever team on Twitter at twitter.com/segaforever and follow them if you’re so inclined, as they post some pretty cool stuff.

We’re a bit late in newsing this, as the game released to around the busy holidays, but better late than never!

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Bare your knuckles as Streets of Rage joins the SEGA Forever lineup

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The SEGA Forever free-to-play mobile lineup expanded today, with the classic SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis beat ’em up Streets of Rage joining the fight. Released in 1991, Streets of Rage (Bare Knuckle in Japan) was SEGA’s answer to Final Fight and Double Dragon. Players take control of Adam, Axel or Blaze in a bare knuckle battle to take down a criminal syndicate led by Mr. X. This version of the game has local multiplayer over Wi-Fi, so you and a friend can play together. We here at SEGAbits love Streets of Rage, and we know SEGA fans do too as it made #44 on our Top 100 SEGA Games list.

Streets of Rage is available now on the Google Play store and App Store. You can follow @SEGAForever on Twitter and share your thoughts on the lineup using the hashtag #SEGAForever.

After the break, give our SEGA Talk podcast a listen as we discuss the history of Streets of Rage!

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Sonic Runners Adventure releasing to the App Store and Google Play soon

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Sonic Runners, the Sonic Team developed always online 2D runner, was released in February 2015 and shut down in June 2016. While there was a good game there, SEGA made the mistake of including unfair casino-style awards and making the game always online. Since then, Gameloft has reworked the concept into Sonic Runners Adventure which received a soft launch in June 2017. The follow-up features gameplay tweaks and the ability to play offline. Now, Gameloft has announced the game will soon receive a wide release on the App Store and Google Play. You can check out the launch trailer above, which strangely is missing any mention of SEGA including the usual copyright information.

More information on Sonic Runner Adventure as we hear it!

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Sonic Forces: Speed Battle now available to download and play for mobile

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Late last night, Sonic Forces: Speed Battle left the status of soft launch and saw wide release becoming available in the App Store and Google Play store. Unfortunately, SEGA has not sent us a press release yet, so we don’t have many more details – like which regions has not yet received the game, what launch day deals there are, etc. The game, however, is now up and running and fully playable.

If you have played the past two Sonic Dash games, Sonic Forces: Speed Battle is essentially an online multiplayer version of Sonic Dash with characters and settings from Sonic Forces. Unlike Sonic Dash, hitting an obstacle does not end the stage, it just slows you down, and stages are not randomized endless courses, there are clear beginnings and ends making it more of a race.

Give the game a try and in the comments below, tell us what you think!

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Beyond Oasis joins the SEGA Forever mobile lineup

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The SEGA Forever lineup expands today as the classic SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive action RPG Beyond Oasis (The Story of Thor: A Successor of the Light in Europe) becomes the latest free-to-play mobile release. Developed by Ancient, with music by Yuzo Koshiro and released in 1994, Beyond Oasis stars Prince Ali in his quest for the Gold Armlet to save Oasis. Beyond Oasis is best played with the six-button pad, and SEGA has not forgotten this as a six-button arrangement is how the mobile port is played. Players can also utilize a rewind feature, which jumps back 15 seconds (at the cost of watching an ad).

Beyond Oasis will release to the App Store and Google Play store later this afternoon.

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SEGA News Bits: SEGA to Shut Down Sonic Runners

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Sonic Runners has traversed a rocky road, after personally disappointing us in 2015 and ending up a financial failure in SEGA’s eyes. Now, SEGA Networks has confirmed that the game will be shutting down in late July. In this SEGA News Bits, Barry and George break down what they think caused Sonic Runners to be killed, if we can expect to ever play the game after its servers shut down and what lessons SEGA could learn from the game’s failures. It’s not all negative, as we also talk about what we liked about the game and give it a fitting eulogy.

If you enjoy the SEGA News Bits video formats make sure to like, share and subscribe to our YouTube for more.

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Mobile game Sonic Runners to shut down on July 27th

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Sayonara, Sonic Runners. According to the Sonic Runners official site, the mobile experience from SEGA’s Sonic Team is coming to an end on July 27th, 2016. Released in late February last year, Sonic Runners made waves as being the first smart phone Sonic game to carry the Sonic Team label and seemingly be developed by members of Sonic Team themselves. Unfortunately, one year later it was revealed that SEGA Japan deemed the game a failure. While it was raking in over 30 million yen per month, it wasn’t enough to keep it afloat as SEGA has announced the game’s service will close on the aforementioned date of July 27th.

After this date, the game will no longer be playable at all as it relies on a mobile connection to the game’s servers to operate. There has been no word of an offline version being available. After the break, check out the full announcement.

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SEGA pulls Jet Set Radio from the App Store and soon from Google Play

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Jet Set Radio has vanished from Apple’s App Store, and is soon to be pulled from Google Play as well. Don’t blame the Golden Rhinos, as SEGA says the game is being pulled for compatibility issues with iOS 8. I noticed the game disappeared from the App Store a few weeks ago when I attempted to launch the game and it crashed, I navigated over to the App Store to read user reviews to see if crashing was a common issue and the game was nowhere to be found. I assumed the game was temporarily pulled due to stability issues, and it looks like my assumptions were correct. As SEGA told Droid Gamers:

Showed some minor compatibility problems [with iOS 8]. Ensuring that all of our fans have a quality game experience is paramount to us, therefore we’ve decided to take the game off the store. We don’t have yet a fixed date to communicate regarding their return to the App Store and Google Play. – SEGA

Of course, Android does not use iOS 8, so pulling the game from both stores is a bit odd. Perhaps SEGA wants to make additional changes to both games to improve stability? In any case, if you want to snag the game before it is pulled, head on over to Google Play and give it a download before it’s gone.

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Super Monkey Ball Bounce now available from the App Store and Google Play

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SEGA has just released Super Monkey Ball Bounce to Apple’s App Store and to Google Play, along with the above launch trailer. The game, which was revealed back in May, received the SEGAbits hands-on treatment in June at a special SEGA mobile event outside E3. Described as “Super Monkey Ball meets Peggle”, Super Monkey Ball Bounce is (as described by our own nuckles87 in his preview) a free-to-play game in which you launch a ball into a 2D course, try to bounce it off of various objects in the environment and hit specific targets marked with stars. There are bumpers and curved surfaces to bounce and roll the ball off of, as well as special “power up” blocks. This game is all about using physics and objects in the environment to hit all the targets before you run out of balls. It’s a fairly simple concept, but a fun diversion.

So if you have an iOS or Android device, give Super Monkey Ball Bounce a try and let us know what you think about it in the comments below!

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After Burner Climax mobile update adds new plane and in-game cinematics

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The SEGA Blog has announced that After Burner Climax for iOS and Google Play will be receiving a free update which will add a new playable plane as well as in-game cinematics. The plane, dubbed the X-47B, is desribed as being “the latest in stealth technology from Northrup Grumman”. The in-game cinematics come from the arcade and console versions, which until now were lacking from the mobile versions. All-in-all a great update, which gives app owners a reason to replay the game again. And again.

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Patch released for Sonic Jump on Android

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A patch was released today for Sonic Jump on Android devices. Fixes the text scaling issues that caused microscopic text, among other issues. So if you were having issues with Sonic Jump on your device. Go download the patch from the Play Store and see if it fixes the issues you were having. Let us know in the comments if the patch fixes the issues you were having or not. It fixed the issues I was having with microscopic text.

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Zaxxon Escape is out now for iOS and Google Play devices

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That was fast! Just this past Tuesday, Zaxxon Escape was announced for smartphone devices, and only two days later the game has released! This has to be a world record in game announcing and releasing. SEGA has put together a launch trailer showing off the gameplay, and released some screens. You can download  the game on iPad and iPhone here or download the game for Google Play devices here. I’ve just downloaded it and will share my thoughts on it in an eventual review.

After the break, screens!

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