Rumor: Best Buy leaks Persona 5 S for Nintendo Switch early?


Its not a secret that Atlus has a game called “Persona 5 S”, they teased it and said we would get more information on April 25th.

But it looked like we didn’t have to wait too long for more information since a Best Buy employee system started listing a ton of unreleased Nintendo Switch games including Persona 5, Metroid Prime Trilogy and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. As you know, none of these titles have been officially announced.

Seeing that Joker is in Smash Bros, don’t be shocked that April 25th is the official reveal of the character along with the announcement with Persona 5 coming to Switch.

[Via: Wario64]

Project Sakura Wars Developer Interview: Project’s Beginnings, Tite Kubo, and More

In a recent interview on Famitsu, Project Sakura Wars development leads, Takaharu Terada (series director), Tetsu Katano (producer), and Tetsuya Ootsubo (development director), talks about on how the development for Project Sakura Wars began after the SEGA Fes 2016 fan poll, reaching out to Tite Kubo, known as the author of the Bleach manga series, to do character designs, enhanced gameplay mechanics taken from the original games and more.

The development team also stated that they wanted to reboot the series instead of making a sequel to the original games as the last game in the series Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love was released 10 years ago. You can check the entire Famitsu interview by hitting the jump!

SEGA Mega Drive Mini in Asia gets Sword of Vermillion and OutRun 2019 as exclusives


SEGA will also be selling the SEGA Mega Drive Mini in Asia, they promised the same amount of games as the rest of the regions. 40 games. SEGA is only planning on selling the units as one SKU in that area with two controllers. So far Japan is the only place to have a cheaper, single controller bundle.

Here are the games announced for the SEGA Mega Drive Mini Asian version will have a lot of the games found in the Japanese version including Space Harrier II, Wrestleball, Shining Force, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Gunstar Heroes, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Puyo Puyo Tsu, and Comix Zone. The two exclusives (so far) to the Asian version are Sword of Vermilion and OutRun 2019.

Yeah, I didn’t expect OutRun 2019 to be included in this collection. Very meta, considering its coming out this year… in 2019. The future is now!

[Source: Siliconera]

Team Sonic Racing releases new ‘Team Up’ trailer

SEGA Europe has revealed a brand spanking new trailer for Team Sonic Racing, this one being called ‘Team up’, giving you a overview of all the information we’ve been given the last few months including a overview at a bunch of race tracks.

“The race is about to begin! Join Sonic and friends as they speed across vibrant tracks and do whatever it takes to come out in first place. Race online with up to 12 friends, play with friends in your living room with split screen, customize and personalize your car for maximum speed, and work together as a team to unleash your Team Ultimate Boost. Gear Up. Speed Up. Team Racing at Sonic Speed. Team Sonic Racing arrives May 21st on Playstation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC!”

I will say that the game has been looking better and better each time they show it, but something about the game still turns me off. Maybe because one of the reasons I liked the All-Stars Racing series was because of all the fan service while this game is playing it more safe. I guess we shall see if it works out for SEGA.

SEGA teases footage of New Yakuza game starring Ichiban Kasuga

It looks like SEGA still has some surprises after SEGA Fes 2019, one of those is this footage they put on their twitter account showing off “Shin Yakuza” which will start new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga. The game was announced back in August of 2017 along with Yakuza Online. If you look at the footage, it seems to be taking some cues from the Yakuza Online game, which was the first time we saw Ichiban Kasuga but with real time gameplay? Hard to tell considering the person working on the game keeps stopping and skipping the fighting. Again, just a tease.

The other thing that it seems to show is turn based battles, with the bad guys having health at the bottom of the screen along with your parties health. Is this a mini-game that is being teased or will the full game change from real-time combat to turn base?

We also know that the game will be more comedic and from the footage it seems to fit the bill.

[Update] I’m an idiot and forgot it’s April 1st in Japan. Disregard all Japanese gaming news today. [/Update]

ESRB rates Yakuza: Kiwami 2 for PC release

It seems that the ESRB is good at two things: Putting logos in front of boxes and leaking games early. Good for us because now we know Yakuza: Kiwami 2 will be coming to PC very soon considering its already been rated by the ESRB.

It is sort of weird that there hasn’t been something on Yakuza 6, since that game came out first on PlayStation 4 then it was Yakuza: Kiwami 2. Plus both these games run on the new ‘Dragon Engine’. Let’s hope its not a Epic Game Store exclusive. Should be interesting. Hit the jump for ESRB’s description:

New Yakuza game with Ichiban Kasuga to be more comedic than dramatic


The SEGA Fes 2019 event had a Yakuza Fan Meeting where the General Yakuza Director and Chief Creative Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi spoke about Shin Yakuza, aka the next Yakuza game staring Ichiban Kasuga.

He talked about how the team has been changing what it means to be a Yakuza type game, they said Judgement is the first experiment. The only specifics he gave was that the game will now aim less in ‘having teary moments’ and more comedic and goofy scenes that interconnect at the end of a story, which will have impact on player’s emotion. Hit the jump for the full quote:

[Source: Gematsu]

SEGA Genesis Mini details revealed, price and first ten games announced

Yesterday, SEGA FES revealed the SEGA Mega Drive Mini. Today, SEGA of America and SEGA Europe revealed their versions of the plug and play console. Like the Japanese version, the console will include 40 games. While Japan has two versions, one with one controller and another with two controllers, the western versions will include two controllers with price points of $79.99/£69.99/€79.99 and a worldwide release date of September 19, 2019.

We have learned since the SEGA FES presentation that emulation is handled my M2, of SEGA AGES and 3D Classics fame, and the menu music will be created by Yuzo Koshiro!

Unfortunately, unlike the Japanese version the western releases will not feature the superior six-button pad. Instead the original three button pads will be included. If I had to guess, SEGA is hoping fans will buy the recently released officially licensed Retro-Bit controllers (should they work with the plug and play console).

SEGA FES 2019: Six new titles announced for the SEGA AGES series

More news has dropped regarding to the SEGA AGES series, this time a lot of announced titles coming to the series sometime in the future. These titles are Puzzle & Action Ichidant-R, Shinobi, G-loc Air Battle, Fantasy Zone, Herzog Zwei, and Wonder Boy in Monster Land. Each title will be based on their original arcade version, with the exception being Herzog Zwei instead being based on the Mega Drive version. No other information such as pricing, release date, or any other additional features have been revealed.

This announcement notably means that G-loc Air Battle will have the original arcade version ported to a home console for the first time, while this will be the first time SEGA used the Herzog IP after the acquirement of Technosoft’s library. What is your thoughts on these titles coming to the SEGA AGES series?

[Source: Twitter]

SEGA confirms that ‘Project Sakura Wars’ is coming West

SEGA has updated their twitter letting their fans know that the new Sakura Wars project, that just got a trailer at SEGA Fes 2019, will be coming West. Can I just say how much I love these sort of announcements that go along with Japanese reveals? I hope we have more in store.

It looks like SEGA’s Zack Reese had some tweets on how he will be working on Project Sakura Wars:

SEGA FES 2019: New Mega Drive Mini information revealed

SEGA FES 2019 had more news about the Mega Drive Mini! Sadly, we don’t understand Japanese but this is what we saw:

A trailer kicked off, showing the classic console telling of its history. 2019 will see the release of the Mega Drive Mini. HDMI input, USB cable input for controllers(?). You can take screenshots! And… the trailer ends. Then the console was revealed with the Green Hill music playing. The six button controller is included. Two versions are releasing, one with two controllers and one without(?).

SEGA FES 2019: Multiple Olympic games announced for 2020, including Mario & Sonic

SEGA FES has kicked off in Japan, and a slew of games for the 2020 Olympics in Japan has been announced: TOKYO 2020 for Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo Olympic Games for Switch (due out in 2019) and arcade and Sonic at the Olympic Games for mobile. The event is live as we write this, so we will share more news as we hear it! On to the next story…

If SEGA had to go console exclusive, which console would you choose?

SEGA used to have their own platform, their own console and ecosystem that a lot of SEGA fans still fondly remember. Since the death of the Dreamcast SEGA fans have been nomads, seeking SEGA software on other platforms and for some its a big investment to play all their favorite SEGA games.

I posed this question to our audience on Twitter and this is the results:


As a joke I added the Google Stadia, but I should have really added the PC as a platform.Quite frankly I still think the PC would have lost to Nintendo. Seems that a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog fans have had fond memories with the franchise on Nintendo hardware that it swayed the results in a predictable manner. I think SEGA fans worry about going exclusive with Nintendo because they aren’t known for pushing hardware like SEGA tries to do. I mean, the new Dragon Engine in Yakuza 6 is gorgeous and is up there with Capcom’s RE Engine and Square-Enix’s Luminous. 

But what is your take? What console would work out best for SEGA in your opinion and why? Let us know in the comments below.

SEGA News Bits: Sonic the Hedgehog’s Next Game

At SXSW’s 2019 Sonic panel, Sonic Team head Takashi Iizuka dropped some big news. Another Sonic game is being developed! Okay, so it’s not groundbreaking but it does confirm that SEGA decided that after Sonic Forces the franchise should continue. On this SEGA News Bits, Barry and George discuss what worked and what didn’t work in past 3D Sonic games and what they would like to see from the next Sonic game in development.

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