SEGA Nomad prototype shown to public for the first time ever

Hey buddy, you like SEGA handheld consoles? Remember the SEGA Nomad? It was a small size SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive that you could take on the game. Yeah, like a Nintendo Switch but in the 90s. Recently SEGA has been celebrating the companies 60th Anniversary and they posted the following video above, a class room type setting going through the history of SEGA hardware. One of the pieces shown off for the first time? The SEGA Venus, which was a prototype that became the SEGA Nomad.

Its interesting to see the early designed console, it looks cool but the color scheme seems to be very different from anything ‘SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive’ related, which went with more ‘black’ slick style, this has a more bronze/grey look. Also seems that this version had more normal looking front facing buttons compared to the final model that hard buttons that sort of reminded me of the launch SEGA Saturn buttons (on the unit itself).

[Via: SEGA-16]

The King of Fighters NeoWave ported to SEGA Dreamcast

Looks like now that the Sammy/SNK arcade board, Atomiswave, has been figured out and its actually easy to port over titles to Dreamcast, we got a slew of them. Now the latest one is King of Fighters Neowave, which also had a port on PS2 and Xbox back in the day. I never tried the game, but heard it got mixed reviews upon release.

You can download The King of Fighters Neowave GDI here

Expect many more upcoming updates of even more Atomiswave arcade ports, which of course is a good thing.

Knights of Valour: The Seven Spirits is the latest Arcade port to Dreamcast

If you guys missed the news post about the latest SNK/Sammy Atomiswave arcade ports to Dreamcast, Dreamcast-Talk user Megavolt85 has been porting the titles over. According to him its rather easy and only needs a few lines of code changed to get them working on the SEGA Dreamcast. He has ported over Metal Slug 6, King of Fighters XI, Samurai Shodown VI, and NeoGeo Battle Coliseum. Now, for his fifth title he choose… Knights of Valour: The Seven Spirits? I actually never played the franchise, so I’m interested in trying it.

I do know that the franchise has a ton of entries and this title actually is the fifth release in the franchises history.

You can download the GDI file for the Dreamcast via the Dreamcast-Talk thread. I do know a few of the last few GDI games have gotten CDI (to burn on disc) images as well.

Arcade 1up Announces Deluxe OutRun Cabinet featuring OutRun, Turbo OutRun, OutRunners, and Power Drift

It has only been a couple of months since Arcarde1up surprised us with the Golden Axe: Revenge of Death Adder cabinet and now they come and shock us again with a replica cabinet of the iconic OutRun Deluxe! Pre-orders are up on their site and will cost you a cool $499.99 USD (yo send me one for review, I’m poor!).

The cabinet will include the following games:

  • Outrun™

  • Turbo Outrun™

  • Outrunners™

  • Power Drift™

Going to be honest, this is the sickest cabinet that Arcade1up has produced and that is saying a lot considering each new cabinet gets me to want to buy one. UPDATE: Some things I wanted to update about that Sean Tagg posted on Twitter: The device doesn’t have Ferrari licenses so all the original games are going to be modified and the cabinet will omit Ferrari logos, the cabinet doesn’t have SEGA logos and the steering wheel is made out of foam.

[Via: Arcade1up]

How To Make Sega Ages Releases More Appealing

[If you want to see more content like this, I’d appreciate if you guys subscribe to my YouTube channel. Have a few interesting videos in the works!]

SEGA Ages has been the longest running retro line in SEGA’s history starting up all the way back on the Sega Saturn in 1996, the series would evolve itself into the Sega Ages 2500 series on PlayStation 2, then become Sega Ages Online in early 2012 on PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360. SEGA would later rebrand the series as ‘SEGA 3D Classics’ for the Nintendo 3DS but switched it back to SEGA Ages when they launched the series on Nintendo Switch back in 2018. Since then SEGA has announced and released 19 retro titles on exclusively to Switch with its latest one being Herzog Zwei, a real-time strategy game for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive.

During the announcement of Herzog Zwei the team mentioned that this could be the last release for SEGA AGES as they don’t have any plans for future releases. So I went ahead and asked you guys on the SEGAbits Twitter what SEGA Ages could change to make the titles more appealing and I feel like we are on the same track on changes we would love to see if SEGA continues moving forward with even more releases into 2021 and some issues with the brand that they could fix.

Sonic 2 ex-artist shows off unapproved SEGA pitch for ‘Spellcaster’ fighting game

We have been covering all the SEGA Technical Institute pitches that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 artist Craig Stitt has been posting over at the SEGA Retro Gaming group on Facebook. First he showed off his pitch for Sonic’s partner called Boomer, then he showed off Astropede and now he is showing off a pitch Craig Stitt did with programmer Dave Sanner back in SEGA’s 16-bit days. The game was set to be called ‘Spellcaster’ and was meant to be a two player combat game based around the use of magic. The gimmick would be that the game would have a musical component in that players had to press button combinations to cast a spell but each button would play a musical note.

The idea would be that players would have a easier time doing complicated button combinations if they were based around sound. According to Craig Stitt, the pitch was put together after Sonic Spinball was completed and was rejected, this is when Craig Stitt began working on his Astropede pitch. Check out some of the artwork Craig Stitt did for Spellcaster below:

Sega Technical Institute’s Canceled “Treasure Tails” For SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive Screenshots Hit The Net


We have been posting a lot about Sega Technical Insitute’s canceled projects including Boomer an unused Sonic 2 side kick, Astropede a canceled pitch 16-bit game and now we have Treasure Tails which was a cancelled pitch by Sega Technical Institute. While these screens is all we have, at first, it was said to be pitched by Bill Dunn but Craig Stitt has come out and said its not true.

Check out what Craig Stitt had to say:

SEGA announces Astro City Mini Arcade, To Get 36 Classics


Out of the blue SEGA Toys has announced the Astro City Mini Arcade via a interview with Game Watch Impress in Japan. You can read the interview where they talk about a lot of the Astro City Arcade cabinet history which was a cabinet released only in Japan so forget about this coming to the States (Hey, Sega!).

Some of the confirmed titles already include:

  • Alien Syndrome
  • Alien Storm
  • Golden Axe
  • Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder
  • Columns II
  • Dark Edge
  • Puzzle & Action: Tant-R
  • Virtua Fighter
  • Fantasy Zone
  • Altered Beast

The cool thing about these titles is that this will be the first time Dark Edge and Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder will get home releases! According to the interview this project started at SEGA back in 2018! It has also been confirmed that SEGA-AM 2 legendary composer Hiro will be making the sounds for this Mini console. There will also be support for HDMI out, microswitch joystick, replaceable balltop and even support for external controllers. The device will be pricey coming in at 12,800 yen ($119 USD), but according to the interview its made out of the same material as the actual cabinet. What do you guys think?

[Edit: Looks like Game Watch took down the interview because it was accidentally shared early. Oops.]

‘TMNT of Rage – The Final Shell Shock’ the ultimate Streets of Rage TMNT rom hack arrives


The modding community for retro games is great and now we have a new project released by eskayelle which includes a final set of modes for the long modded ‘TMNT of Rage’ series. The game’s story has you playing an alternative universe where you have to take down Mr. X and the Syndicate as everyone’s favorite turtle brothers.

According to Romhacking.net the game features:

  • A throwback to the old 90’s arcade splash screens starts off your gaming experience.
  • A six sequence ending specific to this game, the first for any SoR2 hack out there, incorporates redesigned images from the classic TMNT II and III NES games. These images also put some artistic spins on the palettes / color schemes for a bit of extra fun.
  • Those bumbling buffoons, those moronic mutants, Rocksteady and Bebop, have now joined the Syndicate! Dumber than advertised, but stronger than ever, get ready to go toe to toe with them, Bebop making his first appearance in a Genesis / Mega Drive game.
  • An updated story in attract mode complements the new ending sequence.
  • A new title screen takes greater advantage of the Genesis / Mega Drive’s palette options.
  • Thanks to Yoni, gone are road apples in favor of a nice slice! Try not to smile the first time you hear Mikey calling out “Pizza Time!” as he grabs some grub.
  • With the additional Re-Shelled patch, play the game on a Terraonion MegaSD (or with any emulator that supports MD+ functionality) to enjoy that sweet soundtrack from eskayelle’s TMNT MD+ Remix. Grab that soundtrack here!

You can also check out the post by eskayelle here talking about what he changed and added.

Space Channel 5 Started Life As “Eye” a “AKIRA” Like Hacking Game Starring a Boy Protagonist


In a new 4Gamer Japanese 20th year anniversary Space Channel 5 interview with some of the original members of the team, which most are now working on Space Channel 5 VR over at Gounding Inc (A team made up of ex-SEGA employees including some from the Panzer Dragoon Team) the team discusses the origins of Space Channel 5 and even the project before the game was even thought of.

During the interview they asked the team about the game that came before Space Channel 5, which was at the time called “Eye” (Using Google Translate, so bear with me):

Takumi Yoshinaga: “(Eye) was an adventure game set in the near future, with a setting like “AKIRA” and you progressed through hacking. The main character was a boy, which is completely different from Space Channel 5. Actually the icon of “Eye” project is included in the end credits for Space Channel 5, which is a secret to the game’s origin!”

You can see the Project “Eye” logo from the Space Channel 5 credits after the jump:

SEGA Genesis Classics hits Nintendo Switch on December 7

It looks like the Nintendo Switch version of the SEGA Genesis Classics compilation will hit the console hybrid portable this December 7, 2018. Looks like they really wanted to hit that holiday period. The collection will feature over 50 SEGA Genesis era titles.

Hot on the heels of the Sega Ages titles announced last week and set to launch during the Tokyo Gaming Show, SEGA continues a winter of bringing great classics to the portable Switch. Retro fans can now finally play the Genesis / Mega Drive collection on their way to school or work, in their lunch break or basically anywhere on the go! Sega Genesis Classics / Sega Mega Drive Classics has over 50 retro favorites to experience across every genre: arcade action, shooters, beat’m ups, puzzlers and hidden gems, with a raft of modern features. Exclusively for the Nintendo Switch players can now compete in same-screen local coop mode and use each Joy-Con individually if desired. Familiar features like online multiplayer, achievements, mirror modes, rewind and save states are all part of the collection for everyone to revisit and enjoy.
You can check out the list of games included after the break.

SEGA News Bits: SEGA Kicks AtGames Off The Mega Drive / Genesis Mini

It was just announced the other day that the SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive Mini will be delayed into 2019 as SEGA shifts the development in-house instead of using AtGames. On this episode we discuss the news, what it we think of the revelations and discuss what games should be on the SEGA Genesis / Mega Drive when it finally comes out. Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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SEGA shows off what they have in store for SEGA Fes 2018

event_ufo
SEGA will hold a big event, partly to celebrate its history as a gaming company and another part to show off what they have in store for the future. SEGA Fes 2018 is mean’t to run from April 14 to 15 in Tokyo. One of the big events they will be holding is allowing vistors to play SEGA Mega Drive classics on a big Mega Drive controller. The big Mega Drive controller play will take place on the first day of the event.

April 14 games playable:

  • 10:00-13:00 JP time: Sonic the Hedgehog
  • 13:15-16:00 JP time: Puyo Puyo
  • 16:15-19:00 JP time: Bare Knuckle II (aka Streets of Rage 2)

On April 15, you will be able to replay these games on the big Mega Drive controller, but they will start in backwards (Streets of Rage 2 at 10, ending with Sonic the Hedgehog at 18:00). But that isn’t all, this is just one floor, the next floor they have is the ‘SEGA logo monument floor’.

SEGA Games CEO talks to CNBC about demand for retro SEGA consoles

SEGACEORetroConsoles
CNBC had a interview with SEGA Games young CEO Haruki Satomi where he discussed what SEGA was up to in modern times and talked about fan demand for SEGA retro consoles. According to Satomi, he specifically gets a lot of demand for the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive. We know the company just announced SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive Classics for PS4, Xbox One and PC. When pressed by the interviewer if SEGA had plans for a retro console, he said:

“Depending on fans request… if we hear more request and its a reasonable business for us then it might happen in the future.”Haruki Satomi, CEO of SEGA Games

A really cool part of the interview is Haruki Satomi discussing what ‘Nintendo has done right with AR, like Pokemon Go’ (which is weird because Pokemon Go isn’t created by Nintendo), then Satomi goes into talking about SEGA doing VR first back in the mid-90s. While its cool to see CNBC do a interview with Haruki Satomi, I would have loved if they had someone that knows more about SEGA interview him. You know, like us?