SEGA Japan

SEGA Japan contest giving away Sonic Mania art by Ken Sugimori of Pokemon fame

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SEGA Japan’s Sonic Channel is holding a pretty awesome contest giving away original artwork by Ken Sugimori (known for Pokemon, art director at Game Freak). According to SEGA Japan’s tweet it will be given to someone on twitter and they did link to this write-up with Ken Sugimori giving his impressions on Sonic Mania and its features. I do love the ending where he asks SEGA to do a ‘Space Harrier Mania‘, ‘Phantasy Star Mania’ and ‘Altered Beast Mania’. Hey, I wouldn’t complain if SEGA had a Retro line of older games coming back like Sonic Mania.

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SEGA teases new game reveal at Taipei Game Show [UPDATE]

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SEGA has attended the Taipei Game Show, which is a huge gaming convention set in China. SEGA Japan brought all their big Japanese titles to show off at the event, as you can see above.

[UPDATE] The game announced at the event? …. Utawarerumono is coming to China. Utawarerumono is a “adult tactical role-playing visual novel” that was published in the West by Atlus in 2017. [/UPDATE]

According to their list, they showed all the following games off at the event:

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Puyo Puyo Anniversary TV Show 2018 broadcast announced, could reveal new title

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Puyo-Puyo-Stream

SEGA has announced that they will be holding a Puyo Puyo event titled “Puyo Puyo Anniversary TV Show 2018“, which will go live on February 4 at 20:00 JST. According to the blog post about the broadcast: “During the broadcast, we will introduce new information on [smartphone game] Puyo Puyo Quest! Of course, we will also announce Puyo Puyo series news, so please look forward to it.” 

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Valkyria Chronicles 4 getting limited edition PS4 in Japan

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Valkyria-Chronicles-4-PS4-Model

Sony Interactive Entertainment Japan Asia and SEGA have teamed up to announce the Valkyria Chronicles 4 Limited Edition PlayStation 4, which will come on March 21st.

The Valkyria Chronicles 4 Limited Edition PlayStation 4 is now up to pre-order at the Japanese Sony Store and will cost you 33,480 yen (about $302 USD) for the 500 GB model or 38,480 yen (about $347 USD) for the 1TB model. The Valkyria Chronicles 4 Limited Edition PlayStation 4 will come with a Valkyria Chronicles 4-themed top cover, Valkyria Chronicles 4 original theme (see it below), and of course Valkyria Chronicles 4 themed packaging.

[Via: Gematsu]

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SEGA teasing another arcade game announcement with countdown page

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SenkiArcade

While SEGA has just announced House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn, that doesn’t mean its everything they have up their sleeves for their arcade division. SEGA has also launched a site teasing an upcoming arcade game announcement. So far the only clue on the site is the word ‘senki’ which roughly translates to ‘military campaign’. This countdown is set to finish on January 19 at 15:00 JST, so we will know what it is in a few days.

The unannounced game seems to be fantasy themed since we see an hour glass and a king’s throne with floating islands. At first I thought this could be a sequel to an old arcade game like SEGA-AM2’s Quest of D, but I’m pretty sure their new arcade game Soul Reverse is suppose to be a spiritual successor. If I had to take a guess, I can see this being a arcade sequel to Shining Force Cross (also a lot like Quest of D) which came out in 2010. The image just gives me the vibe from that game. But who knows, could be a new IP.

I guess we will find out soon enough. What do you guys think this upcoming SEGA arcade game will end up being? Let us know in the comments below.

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House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn announced for arcades

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SEGA Interactive has just announced House of the Dead: Scarlet Dawn for arcades. They have confirmed that there will be location testing from January 19 to the 21st at SEGA Akihabara Building 3 in Tokyo, Japan.

This release will mark a return of the franchise to the Arcades, the last main entry being The House of the Dead 4 back in 2005. In 2009 we got the console exclusive The House of the Dead: Overkill, which was mean’t to be a prequel and had a different take on the series.

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Japanese Sonic Forces “Introduction” trailer gives us our most comprehensive look yet at the upcoming game!

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If you follow our SEGA News Bits videos, George and I have been quite critical of how little SEGA has been showing of Sonic Forces. The latest trailer to release from SEGA of Japan, however, abates this feeling some as in over three minutes we get a good look at the game. From the three playable characters to the Sonic and avatar combo mode to switching avatar characters on the fly to peeks at new stages and cutscenes, there is a lot to take in! Most notably, we get a good look at Modern Sonic’s Green Hill stage, with open spaces (exploration?) as well as an outer space stage.

What are your thoughts on the trailer? Sound off in the comments below!

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SEGA 2017 calendar celebrates their retro console releases

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tumblr_ohc0435I8N1qzp9weo2_1280SEGA Japan has released a new SEGA 2017 calendar being themed after their multiple consoles they have released in the past. While the SEGA 2017 calendar is exclusive to Japan, they do show that May will feature the SEGA Master System (released in Japan as the Mark III), which was the brand new for western markets. The SEGA 2017 calendar is available to buy via Amazon.jp, for those of you interested in purchasing your own.

What is your opinion on the way SEGA of Japan has been releasing a lot of merchandise relating to their past consoles? Is this something you would like SEGA West to do as well? Let us know in the comments below. tumblr_ohc0435I8N1qzp9weo1_500

[via: TinyCartridge]

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SEGA bringing Zero Latency’s VR multiplayer game to Japan

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It seems that SEGA of Japan is showing some interest in the world of Virtual Reality. SEGA Live Creation announced on Tuesday that it will be bringing Zero Latency (and its technology) to Japan. The VR system including software was built by a Melbourne-based company and features a free-roaming virtual world with built-in multiplayer.

So what is SEGA going to do with the game? Well from July 16th the game will have a permanent home in SEGA’s Joypolis in Tokyo. This isn’t just software as the team created its own VR headset that allows for players to roam huge warehouse sized areas, unlike something like HTC’s Vive that only does smaller rooms. SEGA seems rather impressed by the technology:

“When we first tried the Zero Latency experience we were blown away. We are only at the early stages of understanding what free-roam VR is capable of. It’s one of the most exciting technologies coming to market today.” – Kazuhiko Hayami of SEGA Live Creation

Zero Latency announced they are developing a shorter, more arcade-style version of their zombie shooter for SEGA’s Japanese launch. The team still has deals to bring the technology to USA, China, Europe, and Australia but isn’t ready to talk about that.

[Source: Mashable]

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SEGA News Bits: Sonic Fan Event 2015 Recap

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SEGA has held another Sonic Fan Event this year announcing a few surprises for Sonic fans, especially those that are huge fans of Sonic music. On this episode of the SEGA News Bits we recap the event, give you our thoughts on the announcements.

Like always if you like our recap make sure to like, share and subscribe to us on YouTube if you haven’t already. Thanks for the support!

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Yakuza: Kiwami 8-minute story trailer brings nostalgic memories

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Hard to believe that the Yakuza franchise is already celebrating its 10th year anniversary. It feels like just yesterday I eagerly awaited the first title to be released on the Playstation 2 and now we are here almost 10 years later looking at a trailer for the upcoming Playstation 4 and Playstation 3 remake.

SEGA plans to release the remake in Japan on January 21st, this release is set to feature additional and even updated scenes, new and update systems, new battle styles and new mini-games like “Insect Queen Female King”. Oh, did I mention you get the ability to fight Majima anywhere? No western release has been announced for this title yet, but we just got Yakuza 5 (go buy it!) and SEGA recently revealed they are bringing Yakuza 0 over.

Fun fact, Yakuza: Kiwami in Japan will come with a code with a demo of Yakuza 6.

[Via: Gematsu]

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The History of Sega Japan R&D, Part 4: The Current Sega

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A NEW STRUCTURE, A NEW SEGA

The executive team, Hideki Okamura (Left), Hisao Oguchi (Middle) and Takayuki Kawagoe (Right). These men have been responsible for risque games such as Segagaga, Jet Set Radio and also Sega Saturn and Dreamcast marketing in Japan. With these man, the unique corporate culuture of Sega would continue.

The executive team, Hideki Okamura (Left), Hisao Oguchi (Middle) and Takayuki Kawagoe (Right).

In 2005, Sega was back in the black in all areas for the first time in a long time. The Sega Sammy structure was completed, and the next generation home consoles were ahead. Like in the formation of twelve new R&D studios in 1998, executive management had a reset. Long time executives Hideki Sato and Hisashi Suzuki retired from Sega, after their thirty – or even in Suzuki’s case – forty years of service.

Masano Maeda & Naoya Tsurumi
Masano Maeda & Naoya Tsurumi

As mentioned in Part 3, Hisao Oguchi would atain the highest executive position which he held until 2008 where he received even wider responsibilities as Chief Creative Officer of Sega Sammy.

Then there is Masano Maeda, who joined in 1991. Madea was responsible for building a new Western management team that made crucial partnerships and buyouts of Western companies, like Creative Assembly, Sports Interactive and Secret Level On a side note: the amount of games developed for Xbox 360 amount to roughly forty games, and on PC to about sixty games. On the Dreamcast, the amount comes to fourteen, and old PC releases amount to sixteen.

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The History of Sega Japan R&D, Part 3: Innovative Heights and the End of an Era

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REUNIFICATION AND TWELVE INNOVATIVE R&D STUDIOS

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Playing up an executive managing director and joking about the state of the Dreamcast at the time, says a lot about Sega’s attitude at the time.

In Part 2 we covered Sega’s golden age, but great heights inevitably can bring great lows. Sega had lots of up and downs throughout their history. They also had great games, lots of them! But ultimately Sega did not make that much money from the Saturn. However, in the arcades they did absolute gangbusters. Sega needed to change their approach in regards to development and also their hardware. The solution was to make the Dreamcast and NAOMI arcade hardware the same and have all of the internal studios make games for it,in turn allowing them further grow and prosper. Twelve R&D studios in total were established, and the nine software studios were not split into arcade and console divisions – they made games for everything. Hisashi Suzuki and Yu Suzuki would manage the arcade business, with Hisashi putting in his final stretch at Sega before retirement.

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SEGA Japan launches teaser site for upcoming Hatsune Miku game

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Next39
[This article has been edited with newly found information. This is almost 100% a Hatsune Miku game]

SEGA Japan has now launched a teaser site for an upcoming unannounced game that will most likely be unveiled at this year’s Tokyo Game Show (which starts next month). So what do we know about it so far? SEGA is calling this tease ‘neXt39‘ which is what we will be referring to the game until we find out the official name. The teaser page has the following numbers: “3939.00 / 3939” since the slash usually means division in math, it would equal to 1. Is this a clue? The screen also has strands that move in the background, 6 of them to be exact (with the only color repeating being yellow).

But Hatsune Miku also has a long series of using the number 39, specifically having a song named that. Not only that, Sam Mullen, the localization producer even explained the significance of Hatsune Miku using the number 39. Not only that a twitter user by the name of @Rorru pointed out that the teaser page’s timer ends minutes before Hatsune Miku’s birthday and that the color strands each represent a Cryptonloid. Hopefully this isn’t the only game announced at TGS, considering that Yakuza Team was teasing a new game.

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SEGA announces Phantasy Star Online 2 anime TV show

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phantasyStaronline2animation

During a event in Okinaway on Sunday, SEGA announced that its 2012 Free-To-Play online RPG Phantasy Star Online 2 will be getting a television anime adaption. The anime, being called Phantasy Star Online 2 The Animation, will have a completely new storyline and take place on Earth in the near future.

During the event SEGA also revealed that Phantasy Star Online 2 has had over 3.5 million registered users. Sadly the only thing we know is that it will be coming out sometime in 2016. Now if we can get a release of the game over here in America and Europe, that’d be great!

[Source:Famitsu]

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