SEGA of Japan

Watch Takenobu Mitsuyoshi’s Dinner Event in Journey’s Canten Virtually this Sunday, August 23rd

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Although Takenobu Mitsuyoshi’s in-person dinner show was delayed up to next year in Japan, fans who are not able to attend can now watch his dinner show virtually online this Sunday, August 23rd on YouTube at 19:00 JST (6 AM EST, 5 AM Central, 3 AM PST). SEGA has even uploaded a dinner menu with a list of food Mitsuyoshi-san will be eating and encourages viewers to prepare the same food for the show as if they were attending the event.

Will you be attending Mitsuyoshi’s dinner show online this weekend, which iconic SEGA theme song would you like for him to sing during the dinner show? Leave us a comment down below.

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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 FES 2019 announced for March 30th and 31st in Japan

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SEGA FES returns this year with another fan centric event in Japan where there will surely be some big announcements. This year’s event takes place March 30th and the 31st in the BelleSalle Akihabara event hall in Tokyo, Japan. Last year we saw the reveal of the Mega Drive Mini, SEGA AGES, a new Sakura Taisen game and the Japanese release of Shenmue I & II.

This year? Who knows! My money is on a more concrete date and details of the Mega Drive Mini, a trailer for Sakura Taisen and more SEGA AGES announcements. I know it’s a stretch, but I’m hoping we see more titles from SEGA’s survey of fan favorite franchises. Remember, the only games in the top 5 not to see new titles are Jet Set Radio and Virtua Fighter. A new game for either franchise would be awesome for fans!

Until then, we can only speculate but once the event arrives we will be sure to share the news of what is revealed!

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SEGA Japan reveals Shenmue I & II special collector’s edition for PlayStation 4, with CD soundtrack, poster and box

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File this one under: “The Japanese get the coolest stuff!” SEGA of Japan has released a new trailer for the upcoming Shenmue I & II release for PlayStation 4, and in addition to the footage we got the reveal of a special collector’s edition of the game. Like the Japanese Sonic Mania Plus release, this edition will include the game in a handsome box with a special two CD soundtrack. The soundtrack will feature music from both games. Also included will be a two sided poster and, if it is anything like the other regions, a reversible cover. The special edition will retail for ¥5,990, just a little over $50, however sites like Amiami or Amazon Japan should mark it down a little.

While the game releases this month to the Americas and Europe, Japan will have to wait until November 22, 2018. You can pre-order the game now at Amiami for ¥5,300 and at Amazon Japan for ¥6,469, which includes bonus digital smart device wallpaper downloads.

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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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Sonic Forces Japanese promotion video hits, revealing new cutscenes

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A new Sonic Forces trailer has just released from SEGA of Japan featuring new footage from the upcoming game. Several new cutscenes are shown, including Eggman introducing the new enemy Infinite, the avatar character seeing Sonic and his friends, and a large scale battle featuring Sonic and friends and dozens of avatar characters. Interestingly, it is looking like Tails, Amy, Knuckles, The Chaotix, Silver and Rouge have their own base of operations and this is where the avatar character will spend some of their time. We also get a peek at a futuristic city area.

Suffice to say, a lot of fun little things are littered throughout this trailer and it’s worth a watch. Now if I only knew Japanese…

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SEGA Retrospective: An overview of Japanese only SEGA games, Part 2

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When SEGA dropped out of the hardware business, SEGA fans wanted more games than ever before. Sadly, that didn’t happen as best as it could have. While several great SEGA games came to the west, several never saw a release outside Japan. In part two of this SEGA retrospective, we go through every system’s Japanese exclusives and add our own opinions on games SEGA should have localized and how they could have handled the Japanese line-up better.

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SEGA Retrospective: An overview of Japanese Only SEGA games

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Sega is a Japanese company first and foremost, no way around it. As I did in the previous two articles of mine, I will delve into the Japanese side of Sega, and exclusively tailor this to Japanese only Sega games that have not made into the west, as well as how those types of games evolved. Read on for a retrospective look back at some games you likely never heard or about and surely never played!

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This is how SEGA’s games will start moving forward

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SEGA is synonymous with many things, but the most notable would have to be the startup logo. In the console days, systems like the Master System, SEGA CD, Saturn and Dreamcast had their own startup logo. But once the game began, you’d be treated to the SEGA logo. How the SEGA logo appeared often differed from game to game, but in the later years – especially once SEGA went third party – things became more uniform. From around 2005 to the past year we had the swoosh and deep voiced “SEGA” logo for most games. Most games featured this, though there has been exceptions (Alien: Isolation, Yakuza 0, Puyo Puyo Tetris to name a few). According to Sam Mullen, Senior Localization Producer for SEGA products at Atlus USA, the swoosh and low voice is no more and the above eye is the new logo ident moving forward.

The eye first appeared in a SEGA of Japan video titled “Branding Movie”, seen after the break, which should have a subtitled version coming soon according to Sam. The video shows SEGA’s Chief Product Officer (and Monkey Ball and Yakuza creator) Toshihiro Nagoshi on a computer looking at the human eye. He then reflects on SEGA’s games and identity as he drives around Japan looking out the window. We see people interacting with SEGA products in their daily lives. We then see Nagoshi analyzing the brand with staff through meetings and tests and then the words “Amazing SEGA” appear on screen before the eye ident closes things off.

Clearly SEGA of Japan have put time and energy into this new startup, the question is what is the reasoning for the change? What do you think of the new startup? Sound off in the comments below.

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SEGA News Bits: SEGA Plans Revival of Major IPs

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On this SEGA News Bits, George and Barry discuss the recent news of SEGA of Japan announcing the revival of major IPs during their “Road to 2020” business presentation. What franchises could they be referring to? Find out as we dig through the news archives to uncover an old survey that just might hold the answer!

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us: Give us a sub and give this video a like so it shows up on more like minded fans YouTube recommendations. You know, how that new YouTube algorithm is.

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SEGA SAMMY offices consolidating and relocating in Fall 2018

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According to a recent press release, big changes are coming to SEGA in Japan. In the fall of 2018, SEGA SAMMY and its group companies located in the Tokyo metropolitan area will be consolidated and relocated to a business building in the “Nishishinagawa 1-chome District Type 1 Urban Redevelopment Project” now being developed in an area south of Osaki Station. Osaki Station being in Shinagawa, Tokyo, Japan. The SEGA SAMMY group companies include SEGA SAMMY HOLDINGS INC., Sammy Corporation, SEGA Holdings Co., Ltd., SEGA Games Co., Ltd., ATLUS. CO., LTD., Sammy Networks Co., Ltd., DARTSLIVE Co., Ltd. and others.

The move is said to promote cooperation among the companies, creating synergy and more active interaction of personnel while pursuing efficient group management. To do this, SEGA SAMMY plans to consolidate currently scattered head office functions. The new office space will occupy 8 floors and 43,891 square meters (472,439 square feet).

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SEGA’s Toshihiro Nagoshi takes the stage at Nintendo Switch conference

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SEGA game designer, producer, director, as well as the current Chief Creative Officer of Sega Corporation Toshihiro Nagoshi took the stage at Nintendo’s Switch presentation to… well, say that he was there and that SEGA had Switch on their radar. Nagoshi said: “SEGA sees a tremendous amount of appeal in Nintendo Switch and will intend to be present on the platform, and similarly I as an individual creator sense a new kind of appeal with this game hardware. We will consider new games for Nintendo Switch and will present them soon. This new hardware is taking on a new challenge and has a lot of appealing points and I would like to take advantage of this new concept and I would like to create a new interesting game.”

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SEGA News Bits: SEGA Survey Results for What Franchise Fans Want Revived

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This past week, SEGA of Japan put out a survey asking fans what brand they are most invested in, who their favorite character is, and which franchise they want to see revived. Now that the survey has ended, the results were posted and there were quite a few surprises! In this SEGA News Bits, George and Barry discuss the results and share their thoughts on the fan submitted entries. Did your favorite franchise make the cut? Check out the video above and once your done sound off in the comments below.

If you like our SEGA News Bits segments, make sure you subscribe to us on YouTube. Thanks for watching!

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New SEGA survey asking fans what franchises they want to see revived

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skiesofarcadiaarchieSEGA of Japan has launched a new SEGA survey asking fans various questions including what past franchise are they fond of, what character in a particular franchise is important to them and what franchise they’d want to see SEGA revive. This new SEGA survey isn’t surprising seeing as the company promised back in 2015 to be going in a new ‘fan oriented’ direction. With projects like Sonic Mania, Daytona 3 Championship USA, and even bringing back Valkyria Chronicles (not exactly how i’d want but whatever) its easy to see that SEGA will be leaning more towards what fans really want from the company. SEGA Japan says they will announce what games and characters got the most votes on November 20th, 2016. We will of course post the results on the blog, so check back on Sunday.

This new SEGA survey is obviously for a Japanese audience, but regardless of that I think everyone should let their voices be heard, so I encourage all of you to click here and take the survey for yourselves. Please make sure you have a moment to sit and ponder because picking one SEGA game and character to pick is harder than you might think.

If you had to pick one SEGA franchise that was published before 2014 to resurrect, what game would you pick? Let us know in the comments below!

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SEGA News Bits: Tokyo Game Show 2016 Impressions

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Another Tokyo Game Show 2016 has passed, and in this SEGA News Bits your hosts George and Barry are joined by SEGAbits’ Tokyo Game Show 2016 correspondent Steve aka ap0c. Steve shares with us his firsthand impressions of what SEGA had to show at the event. Yakuza 0, Valkyria: Azure Revolution, Puyo Puyo Chronicles and more are covered in this special SEGA News Bits!

In the comments, let us know what SEGA or Atlus titles you are most excited for from the event.

You know the drill. If you like our SEGA News Bits segments, please give us a like and subscribe on our YouTube page. Thanks!

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