Update: Christopher Evan Welch was not the voice actor for Tails in “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”

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Please read the follow-up story, we can confirmed that Christopher Evan Welch was not the voice actor for Tails in “Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog”

Variety has reported that actor Christopher Evan Welch, the voice of Miles “Tails” Prower in The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon series, has passed away at the age of 48*. Welch voiced Tails in all 65 episodes of the series alongside Jaleel White’s Sonic and Long John Baldry’s Robotnik (Baldry passed away in 2005).

Welch’s other TV credits include AMC’s Rubicon, The Sopranos, The Practice, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: SVU and The Good Wife. Welch also appeared in several movies including Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and Lincoln, Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master and Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

All of us at SEGAbits, especially those of us who grew up on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, send our thoughts and prayers to Welch’s family. He will be missed.

I wanted to add that the Seattle Times has a fantastic tribute to Welch’s stage acting career, featuring a great photo from 1993 which was around the same time he had worked on Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

* Despite many entertainment outlets stating that Welch was likely 48, this doesn’t jive with his child-like voice in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. At 48 now, Welch would be 28 in 1993. But given puberty has been the presumed cause for Welch not appearing in Sonic Christmas Blast in 1996, he would have been closer to 11 which matches with a 1983 birthdate floating around. And yet, the Seattle Times shows a photo from 1993 featuring a man much older than 11. So either Welch was much older and could do a great child voice, and did not appear in the Christmas special for other reasons, or something else is not matching up.

Yogscast DLC teased for Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed

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Recently, Sumo Digital producer Steve Lycett has been teasing a new controversial character to be added to the roster of the PC version of Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed. Nothing has been formally announced as of yet, but according to a recent stream from the Yogscast – one of UK’s top Youtube channels – it was revealed that they’re pushing for a new Humble Bundle that is currently not active, which reportedly has Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and a new racer as part of the deal. In addition, their livestream revealed not only the bundle, but that there is charity DLC on the way for the PC version of the game. They didn’t reveal what it is, but given Lycett’s comments, and what they mentioned and showed on the stream, the new racer could be Yogscast’s very own Simon.

Keep in mind it is entirely for charity and not a deal of a Lets Play “celebrity” taking away a spot of a potential SEGA character. Lycett also mentioned that there is more stuff on the way that would be bigger. But for now, this is whats set for December 6th.

More 3D SEGA classics in production for 3DS

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Video game developer M2 has just confirmed via Twitter that they are working on a second series of 3D SEGA classics for the 3DS. M2 went on to confirm that there is a good chance these games will head west if they sell well enough in Japan. M2’s first series of 3D titles is currently being released weekly on Nintendo’s US and European eShops, with 3D Space Harrier and Super Hang-On already available on the service for $6 each.

What kind of games would you like to see?

Amazon giving free copies of Sonic the Hedgehog on Android

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Hey, not all Black Friday deals make you stand in line with a super violent mob of soccer moms, at least not when you are dealing with Amazon. The online store giant really wants you to buy Android applications through them instead of Google Play Store and to show how much they want your business they are giving a slew of Android games for free. Usually the lists are full of stuff like Fruit Ninjas and some revision of Angry Birds (they’re still there) but this time they also added Sonic the Hedgehog for free.

Now you have something to be thankful for, free Hedgehog action.

The SEGA Five: Shenmue’s craziest moments

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It was a day of deathly quiet as Ryo hurried up the path to the Hazuki dojo, well aware that something was amiss. Minutes later, he would witness the murder of his father at the hands of Lan Di, an event that would forever alter the course of his existence.

Shenmue was a series that began dramatically, but quietly. Iwao’s death was one showcased with a degree of style, but the next few hours of the game saw the Hazuki dojo grieving, with Ryo searching through town for the most mundane of clues. It was a deliberately-paced start that may have mislead some into believing that they’d began a subtle and realistic experience; and to an extent, they wouldn’t be wrong. But Shenmue is, at heart, a Kung Fu epic.  And like in almost any of those, it doesn’t take long at all for the adventure to fly off the rails. In a good way.

Virtua Fighter 20th Anniversary Website Launches

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With this year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Virtua Fighter series, SEGA launches a new website with the first blog which roughly translates “20 years have passed since the release of Virtua Fighter. Thank you very much to our fans.” “This special site will be sequentially updated to celebrate this milestone, looking back at every step of the path to present day.”

In Famitsu’s article on the 20th Anniversary of Virtua Fighter, the site will update with the development of the games and tournament history.

SEGA Talks Atlus acquisition, Free to use Dormant SEGA IPs

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In a recent Famitsu interview, SEGA Sammy’s Chief Operating Officer, Naoya Tsurumi, talks a little bit more about the future of Atlus brands and its relationship with SEGA Corporation.

There are some interesting tidbits in the Famitsu interview as Tsurumi-san explains that Atlus will continue developing their brands, making them bigger and for SEGA to sell them. The interview also mentions a line of SEGA IPs such Sakura Wars, Jet Set Radio, and Space Channel 5 as Tsurumi explains that the company has just started but definitely will give it more thought.

You can read the entire interview here. What are your thoughts about Atlus using dormant SEGA franchises?

SEGA’s Sonic the Hedgehog in the 2013 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade

SEGA returned to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2013 with their signature Sonic float. Back in 1993 Sonic was the parade’s first video game character to make the transition to parade balloon, even beating his rival Mario who by our knowledge has yet to even appear as a balloon in the parade. Unfortunately 1993 was a windy day and several balloons, including Sonic, popped as they ran into street lamps and buildings. Thankfully, 2013’s parade had no such occurrences despite returning windy conditions.

From all of us at SEGAbits, have a very happy Thanksgiving!

SEGABits Gaming Community NiGHTS featuring MODEL 2 Collection

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Featured in our next gaming community night on SEGABits is AM2’s finest arcade fighters supported by the SEGA MODEL 2 hardware. We will hosting each game on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on XBLA this week after Thanksgiving. During the event, we will be posting references of each game including Fighters Megamix on Twitter. Just add “KoriSX15” on Xbox Live and I will be sure to add you. Want to suggest some more SEGA titles to play in our next Gaming Community NiGHTS? Be sure to comment below or visit our forums. Hit the jump for the schedule.

SEGA trademarks Shenmue III UPDATE: HOAX

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UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that this copyright is almost certainly fake. Apparently, the dead giveaway is the lack of an application reference number. We’ve contacted the company listed on the trademark to confirm this, but in the mean time we’d advice you now take this news with a moon sized grain of salt. It should be noted that a fake copyright for Fallout 4 was registered with this same organization on November 14th. The registration has since been removed. We’ll be keeping an eye on this registration and we’ll bring you updates when we can, but now this trademark should be considered a hoax. To check out the original story, go below the fold. To get an overview of the rash of trademark hoaxes and how they’ve been happening, check out this CVG article.

The Dreamcast Junkyard Top 200 results are here – Happy 15th birthday to the SEGA Dreamcast!

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SEGA Network partner site The Dreamcast Junkyard, specifically the hardworking site contributor The Gagaman as well as myself who built the original poll (my fingers still hurt), have been busy the last few months polling SEGA fans to select their favorite Dreamcast games from a list of every single title. The end result would be a top 200 of the best Dreamcast games as selected by the fans! The polling has now ended and the results are live just in time for the Dreamcast’s Japanese release anniversary. Yup, that’s right, the SEGA Dreamcast is 15 years old today! Celebrate by checking out the Top 200 results and of course play some of your favorite Dreamcast games.

My Life with SEGA proves that white men can’t jump in Jammit on SEGA Genesis

It’s another sport’s edition featuring Lauren Buckler. This time, she’s going head-to-head with A.J. Rosa in GTE Entertainment’s Jammit; an arcade-style one-on-one street basketball game developed by GTE Vantage.

Will her winning streak continue after trouncing A.J. Rosa’s sorry ass last week with NHL Hockey ’94?

This episode also includes a teaser for No Limits: My Life with SEGA, the thrilling sequel to The Next Level! Like this video? Subscribe to the SEGAbits YouTube channel!

EA admits defeat to SEGA’s Football Manager, no more FIFA Manager series

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Before SEGA owned Sports Interactive and the Football Manager series, SEGA fought against EA Sports with their brand called ‘SEGA Sports’. Seems that SEGA finally gets a small victory (especially after they took the NFL license and was forced to sell Visual Concepts and its 2K brand of sports titles to Take Two). EA Sports has announced that they will not longer publish their own FIFA Manager series.

FIFA Manager 14 will be the last entry in the franchise, here is lead designer Gerald Köhler explaining the reason for leaving the Football sim market.

“The football manager genre at this level of sophistication is highly specialised and primarily played in two countries (England and Germany), in which – on top of everything – one game has practically dominated the market in recent years. The niche market and general trend toward online and mobile games were also contributing factors. Moreover, FM had reached a crossroads at which a new engine and/or corresponding online technology would be the only way to give the series a boost. When all these factors were evaluated, it led us to the decision to blow the final whistle. We hope you’ll keep playing FM as long as possible, and that the fan sites will go all out to expand and improve the game wherever they can. For all your years of support and all your passion for our game, we thank you.”

I hope the FIFA Manager team finds jobs developing other games, I don’t like people losing their jobs. But hey, at least SEGA didn’t pull a grimy move and buy some sort of sports license to kill the competition, right?

Yu Suzuki to deliver a postmortem for Shenmue at GDC

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[SEGAbits at the GDC 14 event]

SEGA legendary developer Yu Suzuki is set to deliver a postmortem on Shenmue at this upcoming year’s GDC. GDC says that the creator will be talking about the classic game for the first times, starting from its origins as a Virtua Fighter based RPG for the SEGA Saturn all the way till its release in 1999. But that isn’t all, Playstation 4 lead system architect and game designer Mark Cerny will be translating the presentation! I guess that was what talked about last year?

Sadly for people like us that aren’t invited or can’t make it to the the event, good old GameSpot will be live streaming the event, so we don’t miss on any ‘surprise announcements’. So, who’s excited?

Sonic Dash is out now on Android

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For those Android users that waited forever, you can now download Sonic Dash from the Playstore! So what’s the skinny? Well, you will need to have at least Android 2.3.3 and over to play the game! The download size for this game is only 42mb.

It seems that the main complaint in the game are the ads, which are annoying. I guess that’s the small price you pay for having a free game. What are your thoughts?