Sega

SEGA plans “revival of major IPs” on its “Road to 2020”

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Sonic___SEGA_All-Stars_Racing-PCArtwork4539Sonic_Racing_GroupSEGA plans “revival of major IPs”, which is a phrase that a lot of SEGA die hard fans have been waiting to hear from the company in a very long time. SEGA revealed this strategy when the company did their “Road to 2020” business presentation. If you look at the ‘Segment / Business Strategies’ on their latest fiscal report, it highlights the following big points:

Packaged Games Field (example titles: Total War: Warhammer, Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Football Manager 2017, and Persona 5)

  • Expand existing IPs and obtain new IPs for North American and European PC games
  • Build revenue base by being entrusted with outsourced development
  • Challenge for new IPs
  • Revival of major IPs
  • Effective utilization of development engines

Digital Games Field (example titles: Puyo Puyo!! Quest, Hortensia Saga, Chain Chronicle 3, and Phantasy Star Online 2)

  • Create titles that will become global hits
  • Establish digital marketing business
  • Expand overseas publishing business
  • Maintain profits through long-term operation of existing titles
  • Develop next-generation titles

If you notice, they have a nice section where they highlight that they are planning not only original IPs but also SEGA plans “revival of major IPs”. But what would SEGA consider a “major IP”? One of the challenges SEGA has with reviving IPs is that they want them to be ‘global hits’, so what titles do you think are considered ‘global hits’? SEGA plans “revival of major IPs”, do you believe it or is it a ‘wait and see’ sort of thing?

[via: Gematsu]

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Round Table: Should the Yakuza franchise end after Yakuza 6?

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RoundTableYakuza6The Yakuza franchise has been the longest running new franchise launched by SEGA since going 3rd party, with the first one being released in Japan back on December 8, 2005. The franchise has received seven main entries, one remake, a bunch of spin-offs, and even a full featured length film. SEGA has made a huge deal about the franchise coming to an end, in the past, but seem to have continued churning out games. Yakuza 6 promises to be the end of Kazuma Kiryu’s story while at the same time SEGA has promised that the franchise would continue after Yakuza 6. On this week’s Round Table we ask should the Yakuza franchise end after Yakuza 6?

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SEGAbits presents The Top 100 SEGA Games

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At long last, The Top 100 SEGA Games list is here! Those who follow the site know that this ginormous list has been a long time coming. Back in October 2015 we began gathering top 25 lists from the SEGAbits community and the SEGA fan community as a whole for what was at the time intended to be compiled into a list of top 50 SEGA games. The reason for a list was a reaction to a certain big name gaming site that released a top 100 video games list without a single SEGA title. How IGNorant.

Seeing as a ranked top 25 list is a lot to ask, we gave fans all of 2016 to submit lists that followed strict guidelines. Games had to satisfy two of the following: be published by SEGA, be developed by SEGA, IP owned by SEGA. Also games had to be released between 1960 and October 19th, 2015. Once the lists were collected, we had over fifty lists of top 25 games. That’s over 1,250 entries covering nearly 300 games! Now, after six months of compiling, counting, sorting and writing up descriptions we are finally very happy to present to you The Top 100 SEGA Games!

Special thanks to the SEGAbits writing team for pitching in to tally votes and write descriptions when I felt that the task was impossible. And of course, special thanks to SEGA for making the games we love.

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Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone’s ‘3rd Encore Pack’ DLC now live

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Fans of Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone are in for a treat since the ‘3rd Encore Pack’ add-on has hit the game in both North America and Europe. Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone‘s last DLC will cost you $9.99 / €9.99 / £7.99.

Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone‘s ‘3rd Encore Pack’ promises a slew of new songs, accessories, costume modules and a new Extra Extreme Charts (but this requires Future Sound and Colorful Tone expansions). But have no fear, if you missed out on the ‘1st Encore Pack’ and ‘2nd Encore Pack’, you can get them with the ‘3rd Encore Pack’ as part of the ‘Season Pass’ which costs you $24.99 / €24.99 / 19.99. This will save you around $5 dollars than buying them separate.

Hit the jump to see all the breakdowns on what you get with Hatsune Miku: Project Diva Future Tone‘s ‘3rd Encore Pack’ DLC:

[Via Gematsu]

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SEGA News Bits: A Certain Magical Virtual-On Announced Reaction

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Strap into your Virturoids and drop your manga because SEGA has announced A Certain Magical Virtual-On video game, that crosses the popular light novel franchise A Certain Magical Index with SEGA’s Virtual-On. A Certain Magical Virtual-On is set to hit Japan sometime in 2018 for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. On this episode we discuss all the released news, speculate what the final product might be and if SEGA can use popular Dengeki Bunko light novel brands to resurrect other dormant franchises. Like always, let us know what you think of the newly announced A Certain Magical Virtual-On crossover game in the comments below. Thanks for watching.

If you enjoy our SEGA News Bits segments and want to support us. Give us a sub, if you are already subscribed you can always like the video.

yrt

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New Initial D Arcade Stage Zero trailer hits the net

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SEGA’s long running arcade series Initial D, which is based off a manga and anime with the same name, is ready to launch its 9th arcade release (give or take due to re-releases under new titles). But this isn’t being called Initial D Arcade Stage 9, it is being titled Initial D Arcade Stage Zero! You are probably asking yourself why this arcade game is being called Initial D Arcade Stage Zero and that’s because its being based on the New Initial D The Movie which a retelling of the early chapters of the Initial D manga. Even the designs in this game are being taken directly for the new movie which is setting to reboot the franchise for a new audience.

Initial D Arcade Stage Zero will also be the first arcade title in the franchise to feature a 6-speed gear shifter and will have completely new background music. You can check out more information about Initial D Arcade Stage Zero on the game’s official website.  While the title does seem to have some pretty low quality graphics, the game play seems fun enough. What is your take on the Initial D franchise of SEGA games? Let us know in the comments below.

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Check out SEGA & Atlus’ E3 2017 booths

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If you are going to E3 2017, you will probably want to know where SEGA & Atlus’ booths will be located and thanks to the floor plans leaking over at NeoGAF we now know where to go. SEGA & Atlus’ E3 2017 booths will be located in the West Exhibit Hall, right next to Sony and Nintendo’s massive booths. It also seems that the American SEGA & Atlus’ E3 2017 booths will be shared and SEGA Europe will be having their own booth. Oddly enough it seems that SEGA Europe’s booth is slight larger than the shared both from their American counterpart.

I’d check out the NeoGAF post showing other booths to see how SEGA & Atlus’ E3 2017 booths compare to the competition. One weird thing is that it seems most of SEGA’s upcoming games are coming out before E3, maybe SEGA has some new announcements before the show takes place. We do know they have a rumored Shenmue I & II HD Remasters. 🤔

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New Project Sonic 2017 information confirms villain, multiplayer status and genre

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The latest Nintendo Dream Magazine from Japan has revealed new information about the upcoming Project Sonic 2017 game for the Nintendo Switch, PS4 and Xbox One. The blurb states that Dr. Eggman will be the main villain, that there will be no multiplayer features, and that the genre for the game is “adventure”. The magazine also features Sonic Mania, but the information included was revealed months ago.

There will be more information on Project Sonic 2017 and Sonic Mania on March 16th during the SXSW 2017 panel for Sonic the Hedgehog, which you can learn more about here.

Update: the magazine also confirms that Sonic Mania will feature multiplayer.

 

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SEGA and Atlus Japanese creators talk 2017 ambitions

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SEGAATLUS2017CREATORSTALKSEGA and Atlus Japanese creators where a part of a series of interviews conducted by the Japanese website 4Gamer, in where they listed their favorite games of 2016 and what they thought 2017 held for them as creators. The SEGA and Atlus Japanese creators that were included in the interviews included:

  • Toshihiro Nagoshi (Yakuza series general director)
  • Masayoshi Yokoyama (Yakuza 6 chief producer)
  • Mizuki Hosoyamada (Puyo Puyo series general producer)
  • Shigeo Komori (First Production director at Atlus)
  • Kazuyuki Yamai (First Productiong director Atlus)

As a bonus, they even have Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who left SEGA over a decade ago but with the re-release of Rez Infinite it seems he can’t completely cut his ties with the company. If you didn’t know Rez Infinite is considered by many to be one of the best titles on PlayStation VR, so the game has gotten extra attention from mainstream media. Which of course is fantastic since he is a great creator.  You can read what games these SEGA and Atlus Japanese creators liked in 2016 and what they hope to accomplish next year, read it all after the jump.

[Source: Gematsu]

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SEGA survey results reveal what franchise fans want to see return

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Sonic___SEGA_All-Stars_Racing-PCArtwork4539Sonic_Racing_GroupHave you been looking forward to the SEGA survey results for the brand Japanese consumers want to see revived? If you guys didn’t know about the SEGA survey, we did a post about it earlier this week. SEGA has revealed not only what franchise fans want to see revived, but also what brand their most invested in and their favorite characters. Get ready for some unexpected results!

So hit the jump to see all the answers, including how many people voted for each brand, after the jump.

[Via: NeoGAF]

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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 establishes SEGA GAMES CS in Taiwan, localizing select games in traditional Chinese

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SEGA Taiwan

SEGA establishes a new division in Taiwan called SEGA GAMES CS. The goal of the division is to push localizations in the Taiwan region in traditional Chinese. During a meeting, many titles have already been announced to be localized by the end of 2016 and the start of 2017, with some having a tentative release date sometime in 2017. Notably, it contains games that have not been announced for a western release as of this writing, for example Puyo Puyo Chronicles and Yakuza 6. This move to push for a Taiwan market with SEGA GAMES CS is likely a result of SEGA (specifically SEGA of Japan) prioritizing the Asian market, with SEGA Taiwan specifically existing since at least 2014.

Click below to see a list of every title.

[Source: GNN.Gamer]

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SEGA News Bits: SEGA & Atlus Talk Nintendo Switch Support

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Welcome to a new episode of the SEGA News Bits, this time we will be talking about SEGA & Atlus pledging support for the Nintendo Switch console. We discuss what type of Nintendo Switch support we will like to see from both publishers, discuss what we thought about the announcement trailer and what this means for us SEGA fans. One thing we do know, Nintendo Switch support from 3rd parties is one thing they need to get right with this console. How would you want SEGA & Atlus to deliver Nintendo Switch support? What type of games will make you purchase on the console? Let us know!

Like our SEGA News Bits segments? Click here to subscribe to our YouTube channel to never miss an episode. Read more about Barry’s thoughts on the console here.

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SEGA confirmed to be making games for Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics

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2887958-mariosonic_004SEGA has confirmed today that it has picked up the 2020 summer Olympics license games license. SEGA has had a long relationship with the Olympic Games committee on using their license and was one of the main reasons behind the creation of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic  Games series of games. That means that Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games will be happening and when it does it will be a Nintendo Switch exclusive. SEGA has full reign on the license, so a more realistic Olympic title could also be in the works. I can see their offerings being rather good if they start development this year, 2020 summer Olympics will be a huge event for Japan.

“It is truly an honor for us to be granted this Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 sub-license from [International Sports Multimedia],” – SEGA CEO Haruki Satomi

You can read the press release after the break, but at this point the only reason SEGA has held on to the Olympic games license is to churn out more Mario & Sonic games. 2020 summer Olympics will run from July 24-August 9 in Japan.

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SEGAbits at New York Comic Con 2016 impressions

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New York Comic Con is an annual event at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York, hosting varies booths and panels for comics, movies, television shows, anime, and video games. SEGAbits writers Kori-Maru and FlareHabanero visited the New York Comic Con to hunt down SEGA-related products, cosplays, and artists, but at the same time looking at the event in general. SEGA nor Atlus themselves were present at the event, but that didn’t stop them from hunting down SEGA for all it’s worth. Notably, artists who worked on the Sonic Archie comic series were present at the event, along with miscellaneous merchandising like Figma and CharaGumin.

If you want to hear impressions from both FlareHabanero and Kori-Maru, please click below.

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