Interview

Yakuza of the End could hit the West with different name

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[Yakuza: Goro Majima the fantastic]

Of course SEGA can say yes or no on any future Yakuza games being brought over, what with Yakuza 4 coming out very soon. But the guys from Siliconera had a great interview about what it takes to bring Yakuza games to the West. When asked if SEGA would bring over a spin off like Kenzan:

“In terms of the older games, I can really speak to that at the moment. Because currently from the Yakuza franchise we have Black Panther, Kenzan, and now we have Of the End. Which all intents and purposes is a working title for the West, we don’t know what it’s going to be called. I think the possibility is there. We haven’t closed the door on any of those titles. We’re always looking at what might be the next title that will be appropriate for the Western market.” – Yas Noguchi, Senior Producer Yakuza 4

Sounds like ‘Yakuza of the End’ is leaning more towards a yes, since they are already saying it’s a code name in the West or is this just me wanting a game badly?

Read the rest of the great interview over here.

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Interview: SEGA’s stance on Digital Distribution

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MCV UK has interviewed SEGA Europe’s John Clark about SEGA’s position in the digital distribution market. John Clark was the managing director at SEGA Europe, but he is now the director of digital distribution at SEGA and has given some insight as to what SEGA thinks of digital distribution. Clark says that SEGA is still very much a boxed goods company even though they have a section of SEGA dedicated to digital distribution.

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SEGA’s Alan Pritchard “Aliens: Colonial Marines is still on”, 3DS News, Other Stuff…

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Alan Pritchard, SEGA West’s VP of marketing and Sales, had a interview with Game Informer in the latest issue. One of the questions asked was if Aliens: Colonial Marines was still coming out. The short answer? Yes.

“Colonial Marines . We’ve been working closely with Gearbox behind the scenes, and we’ll be able to tell

Pritchard also discussed SEGA’s plans for the 3DS over the next financial and calendar year. In addition to confirming Super Monkey Ball as a 3DS launch title, he discussed plans for old and original IPs:

“We have a number of 3DS titles in our line-up for next financial and calendar year. There’s four or five existing franchises, one or two from the old Sega IP locker, and we’re looking at one or two new IPs as well.

It should be noted that in the same interview, Pritchard also mentioned that at least three Sonic titles will be revealed next year. Perhaps Sonic will be one of those existing IPs.

You can read the rest of the interview from the scans below. Its actually a good interview and he is pretty honest.

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redspotgames reveal new Dreamcast game on TV

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PreOrders Started: http://www.redspotgames.com/shop/

This has been a tough year for Dreamcast owners, as we haven’t had a single game released this year and things got increasingly grim when redspotgames revealed this summer that their next game Solar Struggle was for Xbox Live Indie Games, and then at GamesCom they revealed they had started development for Nintendo Wii with the upcoming port of Rush Rush Rally Racing for WiiWare. It started to look like our Dreamcast wouldn’t be able to escape the grim reaper this year, however like Aika’s boomerang redspotgames returned  and revealed STURMWIND for Dreamcast on German television show “neues” (The rsg part starts at -5:10, Sturmwind footage can be seen at 07.45)

(Note: The above paragraph is over dramatic as NG:Dev.Team are currently porting Fast Striker and it is scheduled for release this fall, read our interview with NG:Dev.Team for more information)

Hit the Jump to See the Dreamcast Relevant Clips of the Show (with translation), Game Features List, and Screen Shots

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Shenmue 3: Choices in conversations change outcome in game

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1up has published the second part of the Yu Suzuki interview, in this second part Yu Suzuki talks more about what Shenmue 3 would have been like and where he has been these past few years.

As for Shenmue 3:

“This is not actually in the game, but as an example to give you an idea of what I mean by deeper dialogue, when Shenhua and Ryo are at home, Shenhua will ask Ryo if he would like to drink tea or coffee and the player will select one or the other. Or, Shenhua will ask Ryo a hypothetical question like: “There are four animals; a monkey, cat, dog and bird. You are crossing the river but you need to leave one behind. Which one will you leave behind?” And the player has to choose one. Shenhua will ask lots and lots of questions like these and the answers will get stored in the game and affect the outcome of the player’s relationship with other characters. It’s like a personality test. For example, the person who leaves behind the monkey is the type of person who leaves their wife.” –Yu Suzuki

Damn, the man is brilliant. Makes me want to play it now. Other stuff in the interview are comments like 360 being the Dreamcast 2 and Yu Suzuki talking about Nagoshi. Some good stuff, read it here.

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1up does a brilliant Yu Suzuki interview

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Wow, 1up is really pulling big punches when it comes to their Shenmue coverage, they even have their old editor-in-chief James Mielke doing the interview. James Mielke is now working at Q Entertainment.

Here is what you can expect to read from Yu Suzuki:

“It cost $2 million dollars to use the chip. It was part of flight-simulation equipment that cost $32 million. I asked how much it would cost to buy just the chip and they came back with $2 million. And I had to take that chip and convert it for video game use, and make the technology available for the consumer at 5,000 yen ($50) per console or else nobody would buy the hardware. But I did it. And because I was able to do that we were able to put textures on the Virtua Fighter 2 characters.”

Now that is some god damn dedication. This is what made SEGA, SEGA and why I love them. Then again, this is probably why they where in debt all the time…

Read the 1up interview here…

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Interview: Corey Marshall, voice of Ryo Hazuki

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Courtesy of our awesome community member Supa comes a great interview with the English voice actor of Ryo Hazuki, Corey Marshall! Fittingly, this interview comes the day after Ryo’s fictional birthday. Ryo would have been forty-two years old. Check out the interview to see what Corey has been up to, hear some great stories from the days of Shenmue 1 and 2 and his thoughts on Shenmue City!

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Yu Suzuki: Shenmue City is not Shenmue 3

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Yu Suzuki sat down for an interview with Famitsu, to discuss the origins of Shenmue City and the future of the Shenmue franchise. He stated that Shenmue City is not Shenmue 3, so this should make most Shenmue fans breath easier.

“Shenmue has the image of grand scale.”But making something of grand scale requires appropriate preparation. I want to make 3 with the same volume as in the past. There have actually been a lot of requests from fans for 3 as well. There were even petitions signed by by tens of thousands of people. I wanted to carry out my obligations for the series.” – Yu Suzuki

So what made Suzuki interested in making Shenmue City a social game? Mafia Wars, the popular social game you might have heard of? Well, he said he tried the game, didn’t understand it then came to enjoy it after awhile. He said that having Shenmue in this perspective was odd since it didn’t require top notch graphics and sounds, two things the Shenmue series is known for.

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GameKings Shogun 2 Total War interview

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Here is a video interview with Kieran Brigden, communication manager for Shogun 2: Total War. The video interview was for GamesKings, a gaming show from Holland.

Even though the questions aren’t in English, the answered are. You know, the answers are that matters.

[Thanks: CrazyTails via e-mail]

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Shogun 2: Total War, Battle Types Interview

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Start building your strategies now as Shogun 2 ups the ante with new game modes, bigger scale battles and deeper game play!

I’m totally pumped for this game. I’ve always been a fan of this series, from the first ever Shogun all those years ago, to this very day. I can safely say this is the most excited I’ve been for any Total War game yet, this game is just stunning. Any Sega fan that hasn’t given this game a try yet is doing them self a great injustice!

I think it was a mistake not showing this at Tokyo Game Show, I think this is the one Total War game to break into Japan with.

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NiD.com interviews Yuji Naka

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That’s right! The great people over at nightsintodreams.com have scored an interview with the man behind some of the most beloved Sega characters such as Sonic, Ristar and of course NiGHTS.

Being NiGHTS fans and not just the normal everyday press tools they got in some pretty good NiGHTS related questions that I recommend giving a good read over.

Like, did you know Steven Spielberg was the first person to play NiGHTS out side of Sega staff? What?

Find out everything HERE!

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G4TV: Sonic Colors Interview

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Not really an interview, since you have to ask questions. More like someone at the SEGA booth telling us what the game is about, while she can barely talk due to screaming at Sonic fans all day because they were doing odd stuff at the booth.

Like always, the game is looking rather fantastic in my opinion.

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Mike Hayes on Sega Wests OnLive plans

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In an interview published today over at GamesIndustry.biz, Mike Hayes was questioned about On Live and how it would fit into Sega’s strategy.

According to Hayes, Sega West currently have three titles in the works for OnLive although all are ports of existing games. Alpha Protocol, Sega & Sonic All-Star Racing and an unspecified Virtua Tennis title were the games mentioned.

“We’ve got three titles with OnLive – Virtua Tennis, Alpha Protocol and Sonic and Sega All-Stars Racing. Those would be managed out of the USA as part of the digital business. If we were starting from scratch we’d run it all out of the US but the heritage of electronics sales just happens to be in Europe, and it doesn’t make sense to move it across.”

I think this is a good way to start… I honestly don’t see this technology going anywhere fast and Sega would be silly to make games specifically for OnLive. Personally I was expecting Aliens vs. Predator and Napoleon: Total War to be among the first on the service, they seem like games that could benefit from OnLive more so than something like Sega All-Star Racing.

For anyone that isn’t familiar with OnLive it is a device that essentially lets you stream games from another computer to your own so there is no need for you to have a top of the line PC and you can still play games with high end graphics… Although many are skeptical about the delay in button commands when streaming a game, you also need a constant internet connection.

You can read the entire article HERE.
(Note: you must be a registered member.)

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