Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments

SEGA is one of the latest video game publishers to have reported its financial results. Between April and September, the company’s sales saw a bit of a dip while profits increased year-over-year.

SEGA’s net sales landed at $1.2 billion for the period, which is a 2.5 percent decrease compared to the same period last year. However, profits were at $7.9 million, a significant improvement given last year’s loss of $23 million. One reason for the decrease in sales is because SEGA didn’t bring out any major titles.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 19 Comments

SEGA has once again commented on the Sonic franchise, plus what fans can expect in the future.

Chris Olson, SEGA of America’s chief operating officer, highlighted two key points while speaking with Polygon. He pointed to “a greater focus on quality” as well as interest in appealing to new and old fans. Additionally, SEGA isn’t looking to rush Sonic titles out the door.

Olson’s comments in full:

“(SEGA) wants to bring Sonic to where gamers are. …there’s still a very large-sized audience with old-school Sonic fans who grew up with the Genesis. We have an obligation to the fans of Sonic and the consumer.”

“The business is always a conflict of weighing bringing a title to a market and making the yearly plan versus maybe waiting and bringing something else. You can see that on the mobile side of things. In the earlier day of mobile development, there was a tendency to bring things out immediately. Those days are … gone. Consumer expectations have been raised.”

“Video game development is a pretty chaotic thing, and it’s important not to rush things, because we want to be sure we’re bring out the most polished thing. When we look at bringing Sonic to modern-day gamers, we … obviously want to appeal to as many people as possible but still focus on what it means to be Sonic and a Sonic game. Maybe that might lose some fans along the road, but we’re picking up new fans that will hopefully grow with us as Sonic grows.”

Olson also said SEGA will continue to “[evaluate] different ways to bring cool experiences” based on Sonic, it will do so with an increased emphasis on combining “cool” with “quality.”

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Posted on 8 years ago by Matt(@OnePunchMaz) in News, Wii | 17 Comments

Famitsu has revealed that SEGA will pull both Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 from the Japanese Wii Virtual Console service tomorrow, October 30th. Again, this is the Wii Virtual Console, not the Wii U Virtual Console (because they aren’t available on the Wii U). If you want to own those two games for your Wii, today is basically your last chance. It is currently not known if the game will become unavailable in other regions as well.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 0 comments

7th Dragon III Code: VFD made its debut in Japan on October 15. Up through October 18, Media Create reported that the game sold 75,477. Further information about the game’s performance has since been published.

Media Create notes that 7th Dragon III sold through 77.05 percent of its initial shipment. To compare, 7th Dragon 2020-II – the latest entry in the series for PSP – moved 73,697 copies in its first week. That title sold through 68.93 percent of its initial shipment. 7th Dragon III on 3DS did actually see higher pre-orders than its predecessor.

The 7th Dragon series has appeared on a few platforms over the years – DS, PSP, and 3DS. Still, Media Create points out that fans have continued to remain interested in the series.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Videos | 0 comments

Last week, SEGA held another live stream recording for its Japanese 3DS game 7th Dragon III Code: VFD. You can check it out in full below.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Dennis Gagliardotto(@LyonHart_) in 3DS, Videos | 0 comments

7th Dragon III Code: VFD has a new trailer out showcasing some of its battles with the Rune Knight class. Check it out!

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, News | 0 comments

After a slightly longer-than-expected wait for 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it’s now out on the 3DS eShop. The game will only take up 313 blocks of space on an SD card. That amounts to roughly 40MB.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, Videos | 0 comments

3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is available today on the 3DS eShop. View the game’s launch trailer below.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 5 Comments

A 3DS theme based on the Game Gear came to Japan back in February. In the near future, this will be made available in the west as well.

SEGA posted the following on Twitter a short while ago:

I imagine we’ll be seeing the theme within the next few weeks! We’ll let you know if the other SEGA themes are releasing overseas.

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Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS eShop, General Nintendo, News | 16 Comments

SEGA and M2 have worked together to recreate many classic titles on 3DS. We’ve seen the likes of 3D Sonic the Hedgehog, 3D Gunstar Heroes, and 3D Streets of Rage – among many others. But there’s one title the two companies wish they could have recreated for the handheld: the arcade version of Virtua Racing.

Take a look at this excerpt from an interview with SEGA producer Yosuke Okunari and M2 president Naoki Horii:

Is there a title you wish you could have converted?

YO: That would have to be the arcade version of Virtual Racing for me. It hasn’t ever been faithfully ported. There’re four ports to date: Mega Drive, 32X, SEGA Saturn, and Playstation, but none of them stayed true to the original.

The Mega Drive and 32X versions were amazing at the time, but I wish more attention went to Virtual Racing rather than Virtual Fighter. I wasn’t too impressed with Winning Run (racing game developed by Namco at the time), which was released earlier, butVirtual Racing really caught my attention. The 30 FPS framerate gave it a smoother effect compared to other games like Hard Driving and Winning Run.

There was also a Grand Prix mode, where people could play 15 rounds for 200 yen when popularity started to die. I remember having so much fun playing with three other people and figuring out when to replace the worn out tires at the pits. I do feel that I want to re-experience that some day. Many have told me that there’s no reason to bring it back when there’s so many amazing racing games out there, but I’ve got a lot of great memories associated with that game, so I’d love to bring it back if I had the chance.

NH: I got to say, I agree. I’d say Virtual Racing since I like to work on those primitive era games.

– Despite this maybe being the end of the SEGA 3D Remaster Project, I really hope you can make those happen.

YO: Seriously! But I wonder how many of these “final episode” interviews we’ve had regarding this project. Back during Batch 1’s 3D Streets of Rage episode, I was the one who suggested to put “Farewell!” as the title! I thought that was going to be be the end of the interviews.

You can read up on the full interview here. There are lots of interesting comments about the development of 3D Sonic the Hedgehog 2!

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