SEGA Japan

SEGA cancels “Super Game” while continuing to commit to previously announced legacy sequels

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After years of speculation and zero concrete reveals, SEGA has officially pulled the plug on its mysterious “Super Game” initiative. Originally announced in 2021, SEGA described the project as a major next-generation effort reportedly backed by a huge $882 million budget. At the time, many assumed “Super Game” referred to one massive AAA release. As the years went on, SEGA later clarified that the name actually represented several large-scale projects and long-term business plans rather than a single title.

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SEGA Retrospective: The Life of Hideki Sato

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The video game industry is only coming about to being 60 years young, which means the pioneers of this industry are slowly but surely no longer going to be with us. The passing of Hideki Sato on February 13th at the age of 77 was announced via the online fanzine Beep21, a successor to Japan’s official Sega Mega Drive magazine. This sad news, following the death of David Rosen on Christmas Day, elicited numerous tributes from across the industry, including official social media accounts for Sega of Japan and its Western branches, and figures like composer Yuzo Koshiro. Fortunately, Sato gave several interviews in his later years, providing a opportunity to reflect on his life and career.

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SEGA Sapporo Studio Launching, Hiring Local Talent To Handle Game Development & Debugging Work

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SEGA has now established SEGA Sapporo Studio, which is located in Sapporo city and is looking to hire local talent. According to SEGA’s new press release, the team was created due to the rapid progress of digital content in the recent years and is centered around increasing ‘game content’ for software manufactures.

The idea will be that SEGA Sapporo Studio will hire high-quality (according to their press release) and stable development production line. It seems that the studio will be debugging games for other studios and even program their own game software. Oddly enough, SEGA’s press release also includes a message from the Mayor of Sapporo (using Google Translate):

“We are delighted to open the SEGA Sapporo Studio. We are very reassured to welcome everyone who is active at the forefront of the game industry to Sapporo City, which is working to promote the creative industries. We hope that it will be the goal of students studying CG / programming and children who yearn for game creators, while working together to develop the industry and create a town. We pray for further development in the future.”

It also looks like the company is still hiring, as it has only existed since December 1st, 2021.

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SEGASonic Railway in Japan closes down

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Another SEGA attraction is now closed down after about 7 years of service. The Sonic Railway in the Lalaport Fujimi City shopping center in Saitama, Japan is no more after January 10. The train station had a miniature sized train cart (fully operational with buttons and lights for kids), affixed with blue and yellow and had Sonic pictured on all sides (with the front and back doing the pose from Sonic 1). It also showcases a small track with crossings, make-shift bridges, and a garage which houses additional carts. Some additional carts were used as collaborations as well, such as Gautama and Hello Kitty. The attraction (also loosely named “Sonic Station”) was for all ages and gives you a small introduction on how train carts and stations operate on a basic level in Japan.

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SEGA’s New RPG Being Teased for TGS 2021 Is a Smartphone Game

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We got the news the other day that SEGA had planned on announcing a new RPG during Tokyo Game Show 2021 livestream. Of course, the internet went ablaze with them listing older RPGs they’d like to see revived, some even said they’d be open to a new franchise while many long term SEGA veterans wisely gave up early suggesting it was a mobile game. Guess what? The vets are right, SEGA has opened and teased the game via their Twitter account. The game also got a brand new teaser website as well.

A rough google translation makes it seem that the game’s tag line will be something along the lines of: “Not a straight road, let’s make a one-time trip”. The teaser on the other hand confirms, within its Japanese text that its a mobile game plus shows off some really incredible artwork.

The one complaint I see from mobile fans is that SEGA shut down the Sakura Wars mobile a game within 6 months of launching, now the company is asking gamers to trust that this new RPG will last longer? I guess we shall see, full information will be coming out on the first of October.

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SEGA Japan announces its selling NFT digital content, upsets the internet so much they start trending

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It really looks like the years of hard work to create good PR has all gone to waste, maybe! SEGA Japan announced it was going to partner up with ‘double jump .tokyo’ to create NFT digital content and utilize blockchain technology this upcoming summer. This obviously caused a huge uproar, so much so that it sent SEGA to trending on the front page of Twitter. Oh boy.

For those not in the know and never heard of “NFT”, it stands for ‘Non Fungible Token’. So that doesn’t explain much, but what does it do and what does this have to do with ‘blockchains’ and Crypto? Basically NFT’s right now are a digital way of buying a painting or piece of artwork that only you own and will forever live on the blockchain. For example if SEGA puts an official Sonic piece of artwork, they can allow users to bid with Crypto to see who ‘owns it’. Right now the biggest NFT market is ‘Open Sea’, which lets you browse and explore how the whole thing works.

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SEGA Japan officially allows Japanese users to monetize videos on YouTube and Twitch

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SEGA Japan has released new streaming guidelines for Japanese audiences, which will now allow individual users to monetize videos and streams of SEGA owned games through YouTube and Twitch.

Its actually kinda crazy that SEGA didn’t allow this before considering how games like Yakuza got huge brand awareness in the West due to streamers and YouTubers making videos on the games. But it seems that SEGA in the past allowed users to create videos, but not profit from them. It seems that SEGA is also encouraging players to add reaction faces and comments, but also asking for spoiler tags on videos that ruin story moments. They have also asked not to do unrelated edits that would obscure actual gameplay, which seems a bit vague?

This whole guideline sadly isn’t applying to Atlus or western developed titles such as Total War, but if its a success for SEGA; we can all assume this will all change.

[Via: Siliconera]

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More SEGA Astro City Mini Games Revealed – Plus Accessory Kit Announced

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When we first shared the news about SEGA’s Astro City Mini, it was revealed that the plug and play would include 36 arcade classics. At the time, 10 were revealed, and today we learned of an additional 13 games! The newly announced titles include:

  • Cotton
  • Shinobi
  • Shadow Dancer
  • E-SWAT
  • Crack Down
  • Gain Ground
  • Puyo Puyo
  • Columns
  • Bonanza Bros.
  • Puzzle & Action: Ichidant-R
  • Wonder Boy
  • Wonder Boy in Monster Land
  • Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair

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SEGA’s Aaron Webber Accepts Role at SEGA of Japan as Director of Strategy, Studio & Community Relations

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Aaron Webber, longtime friend to the site and a legend among Sonic and SEGA fans, has had a long career with SEGA of America. Joining SEGA in 2008, Aaron worked as a Game Master for Phantasy Star Universe, an Assistant Community Manager and then as Associate Brand Manager before a brief departure from the company in 2014. Then, in 2015, Aaron returned to act as PR & Social Media Manager and then Senior Social Media Manager for the Sonic the Hedgehog brand. It was during this period that Sonic saw a social media EXPLOSION with national attention on how he and his team handled the brand’s social media accounts.

Now, Aaron has accepted a role with SEGA of Japan as Director of Strategy, Studio & Community Relations. While not much has been said of Aaron’s day to day responsibilities, he has said “besides Sonic, this means I get to support a lot of great SEGA teams – first up is PSO2 which just launched on Steam!”

We here at SEGAbits congratulate Aaron and wish him luck on his new role at SEGA’s Japan offices.

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SEGA Akihabara Arcade, Building 2, Closing Permanently on August 30

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Earlier this month it was announced that SEGA Building 2, a Japanese SEGA arcade in Akihabara, will be closing its doors for good on August 30. While no official reason has been given, some speculate that SEGA are competing with themselves as the 1st, 3rd, 4th and recently opened 5th SEGA arcades in the area draw much more foot traffic thanks to being near stations and busy roads. It has also been said that Building 2 is cramped and is difficult to navigate.

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Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix will launch west on May 15 for Nintendo Switch, demo out now

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SEGA has confirmed that the Nintendo Switch game Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Mega Mix will launch May 15th in the west. The company has also confirmed that this title will launch as digital only, at least for now.

SEGA has already opened digital pre-orders for the game which includes two versions: The base game for $39.99 (101 Songs) and a Mega Pack for $59.99 which includes six downloadable content packs. Five of the six downloadable packs have already been released in Japan. But that isn’t all, SEGA has confirmed that if you pre-order the game you will also get early access to the “Theme Song DLC Pack” which includes playable versions of previous Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA theme songs like (will be free to all users after June 12th):

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Super Monkey Ball coming back? SEGA Japan trademarks Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball

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SEGA Games has just trademarked the name Tabegoro! Super Monkey Ball in Japan, if you didn’t know Tabegoro means ‘ripe, ‘in season and/or ‘good to eat’. Makes perfect sense for a brand new Super Monkey Ball game, considering how delicious those bananas look.

Its crazy that the last ‘non-mobile’ title was Super Monkey Ball: Banana Splitz on the Playstation Vita way back in 2012. I remember one of the first titles we reviewed for this site was Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll on the Wii, so its been a long, long time since we had a new Super Monkey Ball. Are you excited to go ape around in the Super Monkey Ball world?

[Via: Gematsu]

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SEGA trademarks the English ‘Sakura Wars’ name in Japan

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If you missed the news, last year SEGA announced at SEGA Fes 2018 that there will be a brand new Sakura Wars title and so far we haven’t heard much about it. But SEGA has now filed for a new trademark in Japan for the name ‘Sakura Wars’. That’s right, the English version of the name has been trademarked and not ‘Sakura Taisen’. The application was filed by SEGA Games on February 26, 2019 to be used in video games, music, movies, streaming services, and more. Expect SEGA to have more Sakura Wars news at SEGA Fes 2019 this upcoming March 30th.

Outside of this Sakura Wars will have a couple of art exhibits this year, but what I really want is for a new modern take on the series and a re-release of the originals (that finally come to America!).

[Source: Siliconera]

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SEGA shows off ‘Remote Reality RPG’ attraction in Japan called ‘Jungle Treasure’

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Picked up by Arcade Heroes, SEGA has unveiled a new concept in ‘kid-taintment’, called ‘Jungle Treasure’. If you check out the SEGA website, you can see that the game uses miniature vehicles that the kids control with a tablet, which means this sort of set up is way too expensive to work in America. I’m pretty sure there is way more to the game than that, but that’s all I’ve gathered from their official site.

SEGA is calling this type of game a ‘Remote Reality RPG’ because we all know that SEGA loves to create brand new genres. Like Arcade Heroes has stated, this isn’t the first time SEGA has created something like this, back in the late-80s they did the Sega Super Circuit attraction that was quite insane. But if you are in Tokyo, you can give ‘Jungle Treasure’ a try at the Musashi Murayama Aeon Mall.

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