SEGA News Bits Live: Jet Set Radio 3 & Knuckles

On the season finale of SEGA News Bits Live, Barry dishes on the Jet Set Radio 3 leaks, talks about the Knuckles Paramount+ series and covers the past month of SEGA news.

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SEGA News Bits Live: Sonic Origins Revealed + Jet Set Radio Rebooted

WAKE UP! There’s a lot to talk about this morning as Sonic Origins has been officially revealed and detailed. Let’s run through all the features, digital bonuses and prices. Also, we run through the past week of SEGA news including reboots of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio and a Streets of Rage movie from the John Wick guy.

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SEGA reportedly working on new Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi games as part of Super Game project

According to a report from Bloomberg, SEGA is in the process of developing big budget reboots of Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi, as part of the previously reported on Super Game project. For a refresher, the Super Game project is SEGA’s attempt to basically have their own Fortnite. Meaning a recurring revenue stream with a large online community built around it. SEGA already has released Phantasy Star Online 2 globally, but reboots of Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi would hopefully garner a larger audience and even more sales in SEGA’s eyes.

According to the Bloomberg report, the Crazy Taxi game has been in development for over a year and should release in two to three years. Jet Set Radio was named alongside Crazy Taxi on SEGA’s annual report listing IPs SEGA wishes to bring back.

The writer for the Bloomberg piece stressed that these projects could still be cancelled. In my personal opinion they could just be covering their butt should this report prove false. Also, in my opinion, the use of “reboot” here could be incorrectly used, as writers in the past referred to any sort of followup as a “reboot”. More news as we hear it!

[Source: Bloomberg]

Jet Set Radio’s Art Director Ryuta Ueda Working at SEGA Again!


SEGA’s Ryuta Ueda left SEGA back in 2014, we even did a post. Back then he worked at SEGA for 19 years being the chief ard designer for Jet Set Radio, doing enemy art for Panzer Dragoon Orta and also directing the first two Yakuza games on PlayStation 2! At the time, he left the company to work at Yahoo, but according to Ueda’s Facebook page, he has been back at SEGA since May of this year:

“I have decided to resign from Yahoo Japan and return to my old company, Sega. I am very grateful for the many people I met and the many lessons I learned through various projects at Yahoo!

From now on, I will focus on making games again. Not only do I feel the excitement of making things, but I am also smiling a little at the thought of seeing old friends and meeting new people. I would like to fully demonstrate what I have cultivated through experience.

PS: I’m going to try to update my Facebook page a bit more. Oh, and if you are going to ask what I’m making, I can’t answer that.

What is Ryuta Ueda working on now? I guess we don’t know, maybe he will rejoin Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios on upcoming projects? As of right now, that remains a mystery!

Beat from Jet Set Radio joins Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania in the latest trailer

It’s time to get funky as one of the iconic GG members, Beat, from the Jet Set Radio series makes his way into the Super Monkey Ball world as a free and unlockable character through normal gameplay in Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania. If you’ve been a fan of Jet Set Radio since it’s launch on the SEGA Dreamcast, then this is a treat for you. Happy to see that SEGA and RGG Studio were able to pay tribute to such an awesome classic SEGA video game series into another franchise.

Glide, grind, and roll your way through the wondrous worlds of Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania as the iconic rebel graffiti artist when the game launches for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox One, and Xbox Series S|X on October 5, 2021!

PRE-ORDER

Steam | PlayStation 4 | Xbox One | Nintendo Switch | PlayStation 5 | Xbox Series X/S

New Dreamcast documentary speaks with Masayoshi Kikuchi (Jet Set Radio), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez), Rieko Kodama (Skies of Arcadia), and more

To celebrate the upcoming 20th year anniversary of the SEGA Dreamcast, the Japanese YouTube channel Archipel has decided to go talk to Japanese creators that worked on software for the Dreamcast. This is just the first part and the people they got from SEGA is pretty crazy:

Hiroshi Iuchi (Ikaruga), Kenji Kanno (Crazy Taxi), Masayoshi Kikuchi (Jet Set Radio), Rieko Kodama (Eternal Arcadia/Skies of Arcadia), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Space Channel 5 / Rez), Tetsu Okano (Segagaga), Yoot Saito (Seaman), and Hiroaki Yotoriyama (Soulcalibur)!

Its nice to see some of these creators sit down and talk about their time working on the very iconic Dreamcast, pretty excited to see part two of this documentary series. If you haven’t seen Archipel’s content, you should totally check out other documentaries they have done.

SEGA Shop adds Jet Set Radio merchandise

SEGA’s own online merch store SEGA Shop is now a year old. Since the shop’s debut, they’ve expanded beyond Sonic and SEGA Genesis themed items to include Yakuza, Altered Beast, Shinobi and others. The latest addition is a lineup of Jet Set Radio themed merch. Items include a t-shirt, a denim jacket, hoodies, patches, a water bottle, glasses, a graffiti stencil and a smart tablet case.

SEGA Franchises That Need A Smash Bros Ultimate Roster Spot

A few weeks ago we asked our twitter followers what SEGA franchises or characters deserve a roster spot in the upcoming Super Smash Bros Ultimate. While its cool that SEGA has great representation with Sonic the Hedgehog and Bayonetta, but what if they could squeeze in one more? What franchise should get in? Something more obscure? Something Iconic? In this video I go over the franchises you all asked for and give my two cents on each choice.

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Support SEGAbits, be entered to win a Jet Set Radio hoodie

Just giving you guys an update on our SEGAbits Patreon,if you want to support our site at any level (lowest being $1), you will automatically be entered to win this awesome Jet Set Radio limited edition hoodie. The hoodie was previously only available as a promotional item for Jet Set Radio HD!. If you donate $5 for the month, you unlock the ability of watching our Patreon exclusive web show “SEGA News Bits Extra” which rounds up bits of SEGA news from the week! The winner will be picked at the start of June, hoodie size is large. Winner to be chosen at random.

Click here to support SEGAbits on Patreon!

All the money we get from Patreon will be re-invested into making more quality SEGA content. One thing I want to personally do is get a set up to record various retro game footage directly from hardware so we can do more retrospects and other type of videos on obscure SEGA games (and some takes on popular franchises as well). So, if you’ve enjoyed our free content throughout the years, don’t hesitate in supporting us.

 

Unboxing: Jet Set Radio Beat action figure

Let’s unbox the brand new Jet Set Radio Beat action figure which is part of the GAME CLASSICS line from Union Creative! Unlike the long running Figma line from Max Factory, GAME CLASSICS is just two figures deep with Arthur of Ghosts ‘n Goblins being the first. While GAME CLASSICS has room to improve, this is a really cool figure. Watch the video above to hear my thoughts on it, and if you like what you see you can own one yourself!

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Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works teases never before seen production materials from Jet Set Radio, Shenmue and more

Screen Shot 2018-01-08 at 9.26.52 AM

Sega Dreamcast: Collected Works, an upcoming book from Read-Only Memory, is the followup to SEGA Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works. Successfully backed on Kickstarter late last year, Read-Only Memory sent a new years update to backers and boy is it an exciting one! Read-Only Memory received a large amount of production materials from SEGA of Japan, including several never-before-seen pieces from popular Dreamcast games. Included in the haul are:

  • Game mechanic sketches, environment concepts and high end renderings for Sonic Adventure
  • The complete design document for Jet Set Radio/Jet Grind Radio, including some amazing graffiti artwork concepts
  • A very early proof of concept video for Space Channel 5
  • Character studies and production artwork for Phantasy Star Online
  • Storyboards, character designs and environment artworks for Shenmue

Read-Only Memory will spend the coming weeks sorting through all the materials and identifying pieces to include in the book, with the final cut of the book to be laid out in a few months. Also revealed is that photoshoots for the Hardware Showcase chapter of the book will be taking place in the next few weeks, featuring everything from consoles to the fishing controller to the Samba de Amigo maracas. If you’re the proud owner of a Dreamcast hardware rarity you think should make the final cut, please do drop Read-Only Memory a line!

We here at SEGAbits can’t wait to get our hands on the book, and in the meantime we’re working to get Darren Wall of Read-Only Memory back for another Swingin’ Report Show podcast.

SEGA News Bits: Jet Set Radio Evolution, A Rejected SEGA Pitch Discussion

The other day Dinosaur Games put out their Jet Set Radio Evolution Visual Proof of Concepts, showcasing what the studio wanted to do with SEGA’s IP. According to the studio, SEGA rejected the pitch without a explanation and they’ve now posted up their pitch online for fans to see. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we go over all the news details regarding Jet Set Radio Evolution, talk about the team behind the pitch and give you our nitpicks on the pitch trailer.  Let us know what you think of the Jet Set Radio Evolution pitch in the comments below.

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