SEGAbits News

SEGAbits forums get streamlined with new board categories

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Whoa! Talk about exciting news! Long before the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Discord, the SEGAbits forums were the backbone of the community. Since 2010, the forums were where the SEGAbits community clicked over to when game announcements hit or company news broke. As the years went on the forum community grew and grew… and then shrunk thanks to the advent of social media and chat applications like Skype and Discord. Still, we are proud of the dedicated community that have stuck with the forums and love the work from users like Berto who continues to do a stellar job maintaining yearly topics collecting every SEGA, ATLUS and indie games planned for release.

In an effort to streamline the forums and make them easier to use in the current climate of the internet, we have decided to merge our Classic SEGA, Modern SEGA and Non-SEGA Gaming boards into one General Gaming Discussion board. We have also kept Everything Else as the go-to board for any non-gaming discussion. We do hope our forum users like the changes, and any suggestions can be shared in our feedback board.

Want to join the forums, or just lurk around? Visit the SEGAbits forums today! Hey, it’s not like SEGA is bringing their forums back anytime soon.

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Welcome your new SEGAbits writers!

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Last month, we put out a call for new writers to join our team. We received several applications from SEGA fans all over the globe, and in the end we landed on three who we think are best suited for a fan site like SEGAbits. That’s not to say that those who didn’t make the cut weren’t bits-worthy, and as with any application process we have your information on file should we ever need help in the near future.

So who are the new writers?

Continue Reading ➜

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SEGAbits & Sonic Retro to host Too Many Games 2015 “The Sonic X-treme Files” panel on Saturday, June 27th in Oaks, PA

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We’re excited to announce that SEGAbits and Sonic Retro will be returning to Too Many Games to host a panel on Saturday, June 27th at 4:50pm in Oaks, PA! Last year we uncovered the secrets of Sonic the Hedgehog 2‘s Hidden Palace Zone, and this year we return to the topic of Sonic mysteries with “The Sonic X-treme Files”. The panel is to feature Sonic Retro admin and writer David the Lurker and SEGAbits admin and writer Barry the Nomad as they embark on a chronological behind-the-scenes look back at the never released SEGA Saturn game Sonic X-treme!

Also appearing at the panel is creator of the YouTube series “Hit Reset” Adam aka Gunstar with the premiere of his latest Hit Reset episode which shines the spotlight on Wild Woody for the SEGA CD. The video is to feature special guests including Wild Woody composer Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal and Woody voice actor Joe Kerska!

We’ll also be giving away some rare SEGA prizes at the end to ensure that you don’t walk out at the halfway point!

Register today at TooManyGames.com and we hope to see you there!

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New to the SEGAbits store – SEGA Master System inspired shirts & VMU inspired designs

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Did you know that SEGAbits has a RedBubble shop? It’s true! Since December 2013, we’ve been uploading original designs for SEGAbits readers to purchase and wear to show their SEGA pride and to support the site. Recently, our own Liam Ashcroft aka TrackerTD of our This is Saturn video series created a Master System inspired design featuring the beloved 80’s console in a variety of styles – including one featuring Alex Kidd. We also have a VMU inspired shirt and phone case featuring a pixelated Ryo ready to fight. The design was built entirely in Photoshop and Illustrator from scratch, and the VMU icons were redrawn in the vector format. The VMU screen is a pixelated grid, allowing us to create whatever original pixelated images we can dream up. So head on over to the SEGAbits RedBubble shop today and check it out!

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SEGAbits to host Too Many Games 2014 panel on Saturday, June 28th at 12pm in Oaks, PA

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No SEGA Dreamcast consoles were harmed in the making of this panel.

We’re excited to announce that SEGAbits and Sonic Retro will be hosting a panel at Too Many Games 2014 on Saturday, June 28th at 12pm in Oaks, PA! Dubbed “Surviving the Dreamcast Apocalypse: SEGA Fans in the 21st Century”, the panel is to feature SEGAbits admin and writer Barry the Nomad, Sonic Retro admin and writer David the Lurker, creator of the YouTube series “My Life with SEGA” A.J. Rosa, and SEGAbits writer and The Website of the Dead owner Kori-Maru as they discuss that fateful day when SEGA discontinued the Dreamcast, and where both the company and its fans ended up over ten years later.

Highlights of this SEGA celebration include stories from SEGAbits and Sonic Retro, rare materials from the development of Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and unseen clips from the “My Life with SEGA” series! Whether you’ve lived and breathed SEGA’s blue skies since you could hold a game controller, or have just recently been welcomed into the next level, this is the panel for you. Scream it with me now: “SEGA!”

We’ll also be hosting a SEGA trivia contest at the panel, with rare SEGA prizes to hand out as rewards for your knowledge!

Register today at TooManyGames.com and we hope to see you there!

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Celebrating a year of SEGAbits & SEGA Retro Lock-On Technology

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A year ago today, we made the late night announcement that SEGAbits would be partnering with Sonic Retro, and the expansive SEGA Retro wiki would fall under the SEGAbits banner – making it our dedicated information site for all things SEGA. Since the announcement, we’ve made the move to Sonic Retro’s servers, writers from Sonic Retro have taken on writer roles at SEGAbits, we’ve utilized the SEGA Retro wiki in articles highlighting classic SEGA games and consoles, and in collaboration with SEGAbits and Sonic Retro writer Bartman we’ve created SEGA Channel Retro – a revamped retro streaming channel for SEGA content.

While we didn’t accomplish everything that we have hoped for over the past year, we have some exciting things on the horizon! This Spring we plan to introduce SEGAbits Model 5, a website redesign that will truly bring SEGAbits to the next level. We can’t spill the beans yet, but at the very least we can say it will be wider. Also, on June 28th SEGAbits and Sonic Retro will be co-hosting a panel entitled Surviving the Dreamcast Apocalypse: SEGA Fans in the 21st Century at the Too Many Games convention in Oaks, PA. Then, of course, there are our plans for tomorrow.

On behalf of myself, George, and all the writers and contributors, I want to thank our readers and community members for their continued support in making us the number one SEGA news and information site on the internet!

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2014: The Year of the SEGA Console – join us as we celebrate SEGA hardware all year long!

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Twenty-five years ago, the SEGA Genesis graced American shores, where it would come to dominate the console market for years and make SEGA a household name. Twenty years ago, the Saturn was released in Japan and went on to become SEGA’s biggest success in their home country, though success that would unfortunately not be repeated abroad. That same year, the SEGA Pico and 32X left some US gamers scratching their heads as they introduced weird concepts of what gaming hardware could be. Finally, fifteen years ago on 9.9.99, SEGA released their swan song, the Dreamcast.

We at SEGAbits love a good anniversary, and 2014 is full of them. Throughout 2014, we intend to honor these core pillars of SEGA’s hardware legacy with 2014: The Year of the SEGA Console. We’ll be devoting entire weeks to certain games, entire months to certain consoles, and we have several special guests planned for the SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show. We’ll write about the Genesis and how it introduced many of us to SEGA. We’ll look back at SEGA’s quirky art house console, the Saturn, and the many ups and downs the console experienced. We’ll remember the Dreamcast for the good times and unique and innovative experiences it delivered in the twilight years of SEGA’s time as a platform maker. We’ll give the 32x some overdue respect. Finally, we’ll all get SEGA Picos so that we can tell you about games like Tails and the Music Maker and The Great Counting Caper With the 3 Blind Mice!

Hope you’re looking forward to 2014 as much as we are, it’s gonna be a blast!

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Check out the SEGAbits YouTube channel trailer – OutRun Edition

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To celebrate 150 uploads, nearly 1,000 subscribers, and a new addition to the SEGAbits YouTube channel team, we’ve created a special trailer showcasing all that our channel has to offer. “A new addition?”, I hear you ask? Yes, Tracker of TrackerTDGaming and Sonic Wrecks will be joining the SEGAbits team! His first contribution will be a new video series for the channel entitled “This Is Saturn” – a show that celebrates all things SEGA Saturn.

So OutRun, don’t walk, to to the SEGAbits YouTube channel and subscribe today if you haven’t already!

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SEGA Network partner site The Dreamcast Junkyard deemed “essential reading for future generations” by The British Library

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An insanely awesome bit of news dropped earlier this month, though we’ve just learned of it this weekend. The British Library has begun to digitally archive all of the UK web, meaning just about everything on the internet originating from the UK will be stored for future generations. Very cool stuff, but it gets even cooler. SEGA Network partner site The Dreamcast Junkyard, one of the first SEGA blogs I wrote for and continue to write for, was selected by curators and other experts from all the participating libraries to be essential reading for future generations researching our life and times in 2013. How many sites did these experts put on the list? A mere 100 websites. That’s right, amongst the likes of  Ebay, Twitter, Facebook and UK sites like Daily Mash, Moonpig, the official website of Stephen Hawking, the BBC and lots of political and official government websites, sits a SEGA fansite. How awesome is that? The BBC even noted The Dreamcast Junkyard by saying:

Some other lesser known ones include the Anarchist Federation, the Dracula Society and The Dreamcast Junkyard – a blog dedicated to the community of gamers who continue to play Dreamcast games online, despite the fact they were officially discontinued in 2002.

A big congrats to The Dreamcast Junkyard writing team including the site’s founder Tomleecee and writers fatherkrishna, The GagaMan(n), Barry the Nomad, Caleb, and NebachadnezzaR.

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SEGAbits to partner with Sonic Retro and SEGA Retro, creating the ultimate SEGA and Sonic fan resource

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No fooling! SEGAbits, Sonic Retro, and SEGA Retro welcome you the next level of SEGA fansites.

We’re excited to announce that SEGAbits will be partnering with Sonic Retro and SEGA Retro! Yes, we know, it’s April Fools day, but we are not joking. Administrators from both SEGAbits and Sonic Retro have made the decision to join forces to create the ultimate SEGA fan resource. Let’s get the big questions out of the way:

Will SEGAbits be drastically changed? No. SEGAbits will continue to bring readers news, reviews, original content and more. No design changes will be made, aside from our usual improvements as well as some additions mentioned below.

Will communities remain separate? Yes. We realize that both Sonic Retro and SEGAbits have their own communities and we do not want to merge either one into the other. SEGAbits.com and SonicRetro.org will remain.

What are the plans for Sonic Retro? Sonic Retro will continue be the Internet’s ultimate Sonic the Hedgehog resource. The Sonic Retro forums will still be home to the vast Sonic Retro community. As for the home page, SEGAbits and Sonic Retro staffs are hard at work on redefining Sonic Retro’s home page goals and once we have a plan set, you can expect it to be a change for the better.

So what’s the big deal? For starters, the plan is to integrate the expansive and informative SEGA Retro wiki into SEGAbits. We don’t want to give too much away, but expect to see SEGA Retro content improving and expanding on SEGAbits content. For example, a SEGAbits review of a game will be greatly enhanced with the integration of SEGA Retro information.

With the integration of SEGA Retro, SEGAbits will offer news, reviews, original content, a forum for SEGA fans to interact in, as well as a hugely informative wiki packed with SEGA information. Have more questions about the partnership? Comment below or visit our dedicated forum topic. We can’t wait to see where this new future for SEGAbits and Sonic Retro leads – we assume to blue, blue skies.

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Announcing the SEGAbits Third Anniversary Contest winners!

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On February 1st we announced a contest to celebrate our third anniversary. Since then, we’ve received several awesome entries, and while we loved each and every submission, in the end we had to select three winners. As per the announcement article, third place wins a copy of the official “SEGAbits Presents My Life with SEGA” DVD – and third place goes to: nikibaby19! nikibaby19 sent two awesome pieces of fan art, which we’d love to share now, but instead we plan to post them in their own dedicated “Fan Made” article on April 10th. The second place winner will receive AJ’s copy of Outlander for the SEGA Genesis as well as a copy of the official “SEGAbits Presents My Life with SEGA” DVD. And second place goes to: Nicholas C. for his written review of Zombies Ate My Neighbors. We’ll be posting Nicholas’s review on April 17th. Finally, first prize, which includes AJ’s personal copy of Technocop for the Genesis, a Genesis model 2 and a copy of the official “SEGAbits Presents My Life with SEGA” DVD goes to: TrackerTD for his video review of the SEGA Power Base Converter. TrackerTD’s entry will be posted on April 24th.

Again, a big thanks to all who entered. We loved reading and watching what you had to say, it’s great to see so many passionate SEGA fans out there. Stay tuned to SEGAbits for more contests, as well as our usual SEGA-centric content!

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Today marks our three year anniversary!

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The number three is quite an important one for SEGA fans: the highly successful Mega Drive/Genesis was the third SEGA console (excluding the many variations of the SG-1000 and Master System), Sonic 3 & Knuckles is considered to be Sonic’s greatest 2D epic, and fans often request Sonic Adventure 3 and a Shenmue 3. It is fitting, then, that we make such a big deal of our three year anniversary. While three years may not seem like a long time, for a website it is quite a feat. For three solid years our writers, admins and mods have strived to bring SEGA fans the best general SEGA fan site we can. We’ve done our best to keep up to date on SEGA news and reviews, from official stories to fan projects, and strived to create as much original content as we can. As such, we are very proud of our many features including the My Life with SEGA video series, Tuesday Tunes, writer round tables, the Friday Five (which will return soon), the Sonic Talk podcast, and our general SEGA podcast the SEGAbits Swingin’ Report Show. We have also redesigned the site a number of times, but always for the better, to give readers and followers the best visual experience we can.

Of course, all of the above means nothing without a crucial element: our readers and community members. Without all of you, SEGAbits probably wouldn’t have lasted as long as it has, and would be nowhere near the success that it is. As such, we want to give a huge “thank you!” to our readers. Thank you for frequenting the site, thank you for the comments and news tips, thank you for the hours spent in our forums and thank you for making us the number one general SEGA fan site on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr. Also, a big thank you to the many members of SEGA’s staff who helped us out with articles, interviews, contests, and events. You know who you are, and you’re awesome. So here’s to three years, and here’s to many more!

Check out these notable articles from our past three years: our first post, our second anniversary post, our exclusive preview of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, our interview with Steve Lycett, our interview with Nagoshi, that time we got angry at Kotaku, our incredibly long special edition podcast looking back at ten years of SEGA games, our Dreamcast marathon, why we’re glad to be SEGA fans.

 

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Contest: The SEGAbits 3rd Anniversary My Life with SEGA Giveaway!

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While SEGAbits.com doesn’t officially turn three years old until February 6th, we were too excited to wait and want to officially announce the SEGAbits 3rd anniversary My Life with SEGA contest! AJ lays out all the rules and prizes in the video above, but to nail the details into your heads here is a recap:

WHAT TO DO:

Create a review of a SEGA game, a game on a SEGA console, or a piece of SEGA hardware. The format is up to you: written, video, a drawing, a photo of a sculpture. As long as it is a review of something SEGA, and you’re able to share it with us, you’re in the running.

WHAT YOU GET IF YOU WIN:

The top three winners will be featured in a SEGAbits.com article. First place will receive AJ’s personal copy of Technocop for the Genesis, a Genesis model 2 and a copy of the official “SEGAbits Presents My Life with SEGA” DVD. Second place will receive AJ’s copy of Outlander as well as the My Life with SEGA DVD. Third place will receive a copy of the DVD. The best runners-up will also be featured in an article.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE:

Submissions must be sent to us by the end of February (the 28th). Winners will be announced the second week of March and prizes will be sent out at the end of March.

Written reviews can be submitted via the contact button in the navigation bar at the top of the site, or emailed to us at: SEGAbits@gmail.com

Drawings can be submitted the same way, either as a link to a page where your drawing is hosted or by attaching the drawing to an email.

Videos can be shared by being posted to your personal YouTube account and then shared with SEGAbits as a video response to the above video, or by emailing us a link.

GOOD LUCK, SEGA FANS! We can’t wait to see what you come up with.

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Happy Holidays from SEGAbits – deck the halls with SEGA ornaments!

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Happy holidays from all of us at SEGAbits! We’re truly thankful the have such an awesome community, and look forward to what 2013 will bring. As a special holiday treat, we’ve made some SEGA themed ornaments for fans to print, cut out, and hang on their Christmas tree, or whatever plants they may have sitting about their house. Directions: Below are the two pages in thumbnail form. Open both in new tabs, hit print, glue them back to back and cut out the four ornaments. Using a hole puncher, or the pointy end of an ornament hook, make a hole in the top of the ornament. Then, if you did it correctly, you’ll have four cool SEGA themed ornaments. It’s that easy!

Again, a very happy holidays and all the best in 2013 and beyond.

– The SEGAbits Team

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SEGAbits contributes to 1UP.com cover story – “A Dream Deferred: When Sega Got Out at the Right Time”

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Gaming website 1UP.com has posted their cover story for the week, entitled “A Dream Deferred: When Sega Got Out at the Right Time”. The story covers the Dreamcast’s exit from the market, and argues why it might have been a good decision in the long run. 1UP writer Ray Barnholt reached out to SEGAbits earlier in the month for our thoughts on the Dreamcast’s demise, and the finished article features quotes from our very own Shigs and -nSega54-! Head on over to 1UP.com to read the article, and feel free to share your thoughts both there and here.

Again, a big thanks to 1UP and Ray Barnholt for thinking of us when it came to the opinions of SEGA fans!

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