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WaPo Shuji Utsumi interview: Sega returning to its rebellious era spirit, Original JSR devs back, VF being worked on

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
They're spending nearly $1 billion on these games. They're not low budget.

Wow................................................................................................................................................................................................................................. Not seeing where that's going yet, other than JSR hinting at a good budget (again too little seen to tell). Maybe the "more" unannounced things. Or Virtua Fighter 6 mentioned.
 
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StereoVsn

Member
I am certainly liking what I saw in the trailer. However, where is my Panzer Dragoon Saga Remaster/Remake and Skies of Arcadia Remaster/Remake!? Come on, Sega, DO IT!

t0PcoX0.gif
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I'll buy if it's good, most of it doesn't interest me or spark the feelings the classic games did. I feel like JSR only looks like it has a higher budget/effort to it but maybe not even that, we've seen too little to really tell. Shinobi I like the art style but the gameplay looks whatever. Maybe me not being into them means they'll be more successful, lol. Still, they're obviously gonna hype up everything they do regardless to help maximize its potential, whether that's 1 or 99 based on what's being put into it. They're not gonna go well, yeah, we have all this IP, we thought we'd churn out some cheap games out of em, see what sticks. Hopefully they turn out better than HOTD or Panzer Dragoon and being in house and by some of the original developers certainly gives more hope for it but that doesn't mean they're really given the necessary resources to get it right, or that the stars will align and they will get it right regardless. I don't understand why Golden Axe returns even. It was fun but very much a product of its time. There were way better hack and slah games soon after and later titles in the series didn't do much to give it some unique gameplay spin or lore I wanna revisit or anything. Hopefully they cook up something interesting this time but visually at least they don't seem to be doing anything to give it some unique spin hence my thinking of their PS3 attempt. Maybe a more brutal Conan-esque aesthetic and style so it's more like a Rastan sequel or something would fit well.
If Shinobi is from the Streets of Rage 4 devs like it looks, it will be top tier. The rest have some proving to do, but I buy most beat em ups so SoR 3D and Golden Axe are right up my alley even if its not totally amazing. JSR is the only one that looks to have a slightly decent budget but it has the original devs so I'm interested. I wouldnt expect AAA graphics from these but hopefully theyre fun.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
The problem with Sega was never guts, it was sales. People claim they want this but don't buy. Sega was always pushing into uncharted territory and trying crazy shit. People need to back them up.
No the problem with Sega was they were actually bad at running the company to make money, they ran the company like a Gaffer would
The amount of topics made by Gaffers trying to give Sony/MS & Nintendo advice which looks like it was taken right out of the playbook that ran Sega into the ground is amusing
If Sega was still making consoles they would have introduced the Midgen Refresh first and would have probably done it more then once in a generation
It was great for gamers but bad for business.
 

Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
No the problem with Sega was they were actually bad at running the company to make money, they ran the company like a Gaffer would
The amount of topics made by Gaffers trying to give Sony/MS & Nintendo advice which looks like it was taken right out of the playbook that ran Sega into the ground is amusing
If Sega was still making consoles they would have introduced the Midgen Refresh first and would have probably done it more then once in a generation
It was great for gamers but bad for business.
Sure, they had other issues. But I've always thought they never got credit for how much they innovated. They were rarely rewarded for it financially. Just Phantasy Star Online alone was so ahead of its time.
 
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stn

Member
Really hype for Shinobi, and Golden Axe. I was hoping Shinobi would be a modern-day 3D action game, but I'll take what looks like a remake of the retro version.
 

Isa

Member
I bet this is a testbed for market interest. Granted they put a lot of capital into the decision, but I bet if these do well enough then more franchises will follow. Shining needs its return as well, Phantasy Star, Landstalker, SoA. There is a lot of money flowing around in certain sectors for indie stuff that emulates the past well and I bet that plus internet demand lit a fire under their butts. I still don't get why Sega doesn't get some more collections out there. They could emulate roms and get away with it, just make 'em playable on modern hardware with ease a neat features like Trophy/Cheevos and some online functionality for mp where feasible.

I really liked the commercial, harkened back a lot to the past lol. I'm a little worried for the most anticipated game for me, that being Golden Axe. Tyris Flare is among my favorite gaming heroines of all time and if they do her dirty I won't be happy lol but in today's environment who knows. I will play these with my girlfriend though guaranteed. She usually plays Gilius, or the Dwarf in many games such as Baldur's Gate:DA. I thought the animations in the JSR teaser were quite nice, looks good. Can't wait to see what else they have in store. Just imagine if they delved into their Atlus catalog as well, even if only published games.
 

Alx

Member
I’m always in for a new virtua fighter, even if I’ll probably complain about all the changes they will introduce to make it different from my favourite episodes. But as long as you let me PPPK, I’m game.
As a matter of fact I had lost all hope for a revival of the Sega of old, arcade gaming has become a niche market and is probably not worth the risk, so I’ll just be happy to get whatever they’ll foolishly release. :)
 

SirTerry-T

Member
Let's fucking go Sega. You guys wrote the rulebook on being the cool games company. Like some one else said in this thread...let's get that swagger back and make this 51 year old Sega fan boy a happy lad.


 
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Kindjal

Member
They got the original JSR developers back? If Virtua Fighter is being worked on they might need some of those AM2 guys back. I think competitive fighting games are really hard to make without the experience. The other ones I'd really like to see come back are Virtua Tennis (hardly any tennis games out there for some reason) and a true successor to Dreamcast Phantasy Star Online.

I absolutely agree with you.
I've been waiting for the same thing.
 

ADiTAR

ידע זה כוח
I really wish them well because we'll all benefit from these unique experiences and experiments, and the trailer was kinda fun.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
The Dreamcast was excellent hardware, came out with 0 competition for 1 full year, and was 100 dollars cheaper than the PS2.

It wasn't the hardware. It was the games.
It's less about what was there and more about what wasn't. The what wasn't? Good third party support, EA Sports, and lack of DVD playback. Dreamcast coming off of Saturn had a lot of work to do. A year wasn't enough time to do it before PS2 hit like a meteor.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
It's less about what was there and more about what wasn't. The what wasn't? Good third party support, EA Sports, and lack of DVD playback. Dreamcast coming off of Saturn had a lot of work to do. A year wasn't enough time to do it before PS2 hut like a meteor.

Yeah, I just don't think those IP have any mainstream value today. The few people who played them back in the day have mostly aged out of gaming. If Sega modernizes their formulas I could see them working. We shall see.
 

Crayon

Member
Shinobi is made by the guys who did Streets Of Rage 4, so it will be amazing don't worry.
All the games shown are clearly in early stages, especially the Streets Of Rage one, but I am confident they will be good.

I was already figuring it'd be a pretty good game. The thing is, my reverence for Sega is probably right in the average for an enthusiast in this day. Historically they have huge significance. I know they can come out of nowhere with awesome games. And I let myself want those games to be good.

So when I see Shinobi in the mold of the 16 bit games, it's nice to see but I am not excited for that. Take for instance where they went with the PS2 game. I thought it was alright, but the point is that when I first saw it, it excited me because I didn't know quite what I was getting. They were pushing it further. Looking at this new one just makes me want to bust out shin shinobi den. I'd rather play the same thing but vintage.

In fact, that's where my prime enjoyment of Sega is over the last 15 years. Playing and collecting Saturn and Genesis in particular.
 

Dr. Wilkinson

Gold Member
The Dreamcast was excellent hardware, came out with 0 competition for 1 full year, and was 100 dollars cheaper than the PS2.

It wasn't the hardware. It was the games.

The head start had nothing to do with it. The PS2 soundly trounced the competition, including Nintendo. Sega had terrible timing and they were already mostly dead before the Dreamcast even launched. The failure of the Saturn had financially crippled them and they hobbled into the Dreamcast generation half-dead. The quality of the games didn’t matter. They simply didn’t have a chance against PS2. The games weren’t the problem.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
The head start had nothing to do with it. The PS2 soundly trounced the competition, including Nintendo. Sega had terrible timing and they were already mostly dead before the Dreamcast even launched. The failure of the Saturn had financially crippled them and they hobbled into the Dreamcast generation half-dead. The quality of the games didn’t matter. They simply didn’t have a chance against PS2. The games weren’t the problem.

Well, best luck the the new Jet Set Radio game. Maybe the 3rd time is the charm.
 
“We are evaluating right now. Virtua Fighter doesn’t use so many tricks, special moves like in Street Fighter, it’s very realistic,” Utsumi said. “How can we make it more dramatic? It’s something we’re working on.”
I would say the biggest changes need to be sound effects and content. I hope they don't shit it up like Tekken 7 with dumb shit like armor/invincibility and instead augment the combat like Dead or Alive 6. I would also love it if they loosened the input stringency of while rising and on-hit follow ups as well as removing on-block limitation to combos. Still can't do Akira's rising knee combos or stun palm combo with any consistency. Need my downed attacks to be usable most of the time and the opponent to take hits after being knocked unconcious. Since Final Shodown every victory as Lau has felt hollow without pouncing on opponents from the air like a vulture. I would love it if they removed sideturned state as well.
 
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Sephimoth

Member
Really great news, my highlight of the show. I just hope they're good games.

Wishlist would be a remake of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shenmue 4 (with Yakuza team involved), Shining Force 4, and a new Outrun.
 
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I'll buy if it's good, most of it doesn't interest me or spark the feelings the classic games did. I feel like JSR only looks like it has a higher budget/effort to it but maybe not even that, we've seen too little to really tell. Shinobi I like the art style but the gameplay looks whatever. Maybe me not being into them means they'll be more successful, lol. Still, they're obviously gonna hype up everything they do regardless to help maximize its potential, whether that's 1 or 99 based on what's being put into it. They're not gonna go well, yeah, we have all this IP, we thought we'd churn out some cheap games out of em, see what sticks. Hopefully they turn out better than HOTD or Panzer Dragoon and being in house and by some of the original developers certainly gives more hope for it but that doesn't mean they're really given the necessary resources to get it right, or that the stars will align and they will get it right regardless. I don't understand why Golden Axe returns even. It was fun but very much a product of its time. There were way better hack and slah games soon after and later titles in the series didn't do much to give it some unique gameplay spin or lore I wanna revisit or anything. Hopefully they cook up something interesting this time but visually at least they don't seem to be doing anything to give it some unique spin hence my thinking of their PS3 attempt. Maybe a more brutal Conan-esque aesthetic and style so it's more like a Rastan sequel or something would fit well.

I'm giddy as fuck when I watch the trailer but yea really reserving judgement until we see more. The games do feel a bit 'b-tier' in their looks and aesthetics. I'm a massive jsr fan and I'm not wowed by those character models.

If they gave it any real budget they could've outsourced golden axe to platinum. Fucking imagine.
 
It also had EA boycotting it and an entire year of FUD before the PS2 release.

In its short life the games were outstanding and we unfortunately never got to see more. Honestly we would've seen even more original ip then we got instead of just sequels on competitors hardware.
 

Power Pro

Member
The problem with Sega was never guts, it was sales. People claim they want this but don't buy. Sega was always pushing into uncharted territory and trying crazy shit. People need to back them up.
I did my part for a long time. I was so into my Dreamcast, and was buying so many games for it that it was like the best console to me. I was actually confused why it was discontinued because it seemed like the best thing on the market up until I realized no more games were coming for it. I wasn't quite as wired into the news online yet, so I didn't know why, but with the way I supported it, I figured it had to be doing fine with how good the games were.
 

Crayon

Member
It also had EA boycotting it and an entire year of FUD before the PS2 release.

I do not remember any of this fud. It surely existed somewhere but I remember a resounding positivity and hope leading up the Dreamcast. I'm afraid an example of fud is going to be some reasonable concerns of the time but maybe I'm wrong.
 

yurinka

Member
So happy to see all these series back. I also want to see back next:
  • Out Run 3 + arcade version
  • After Burner Black Falcon 2 + arcade version
  • Virtua Tennis 2024 + arcade version
  • Panzer Dragoon VR friendly new sequel
  • Virtua Fighter 6 + arcade version
  • Virtua Cop VR friendly new sequel + arcade version
  • Space Channel 5 VR friendly new sequel + arcade version
  • House of the Dear VR friendly new sequel + arcade version
They're making remakes, so edgy !
Not sure if any of them is a remake. Maybe only Jet Set Radio, I'd bet the other ones are brand new sequels.

They're spending nearly $1 billion on these games. They're not low budget.

These are not the "super games".

"Super games" is Sega's name for AAA MP GaaS with customization. In the same way that MS calls AAA GaaS titles "platforms".

Jet Set Radio seems to be a remake. Shinobi seems a SoR4-like 2D HD game by Dotemu. Golden Axe, Crazy Taxi and SoR seem to be brand new AA-ish / small AAA-ish games. I'd bet (and hope) none of them is going to be GaaS.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Hope they don't fuck up VF with Tekken Rage bs. Wonder if they could do something with blocking animations/functions not being some generic stance that makes you invulnerable but looking like your character actually deflects/dodges the blows so it looks like a fun back and forth, like snappier counter animations. I think all they need to do is just give it some in game lore that's never shown and barely hinted at so far, Lau is some evil (or not, it's only in the last game he looks kinda like it) grandmaster, Pai his pupil, Akira is a Ryu-like etc., but nothing is told. Give it a bit of a story but not cinematic Mortal Kombat shit, just like Soulcalibur or at best Soul Blade/Edge or Tekken 3, just one intro and arcade mode endings, character bios etc. to give it some meat for people who don't see the series and characters as the pioneers they once were so they look generic and lifeless. The less supernatural shit the better, what the fuck was up with adding those demon and zombie looking characters in later games. I guess Dural can remain, AI is all the rage nowadays so they can work it in as part of some organization a la the Mishimas. And also add all kinds of additional modes which they already did great with VF4 Evolution and other series copied since even if it didn't take off for those games themselves, from the customization and grading to the arcade tournament campaign (way better than mission/quest modes from Namco). Don't go back to barebones games/ports.
 
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jayj

Banned
As a Sega fan this brings much joy to me, I think this is what Sega fans like myself have been begging for, for what feels like decades now. Sega finally going back to what made them who they are, remembering how it isn't just Sonic that helped them establish themselves among their fans.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I do not remember any of this fud. It surely existed somewhere but I remember a resounding positivity and hope leading up the Dreamcast. I'm afraid an example of fud is going to be some reasonable concerns of the time but maybe I'm wrong.
Probably doesn't mean negative Dreamcast fud (though there was plenty of that too with overly critical reports on the likes of Virtua Fighter 3tb just because it wasn't 1:1 with the arcade while still being well beyond anything else at home, then never reporting equally loudly on the games showing it can indeed match/top Model 3) but the overly positive of the unreleased PS2 is the second coming of gaming jesus that makes everything else obsolette and looks like CG in real time and next gen starts when it releases and so on and so forth fud, so folks waited for that instead of the DC which was seen as a half step because of it. Which proved to be way better than that and it took years and millions poured in AAA development for PS2 to really get ahead and start showing better results long after DC's death. Not that different to how Saturn was treated vs PlayStation when they were actually quite close in results in the first years (I mean, Tomb Raider launched on it even if considered a tad worse yet is one of the pillars of PS success) and Saturn had its strengths too. But marketing and hype and movie playback chose not only the victors but also the degree of humiliation.
 
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CGNoire

Member
“We really want to show edginess and a rebellious mind-set,”

I never thought Id hear something like this from a gaming company in this year in this current climate. Super refreshing. Lets go full 90's edge shall we.
 

Geometric-Crusher

"Nintendo games are like indies, and worth at most $19" 🤡
I would trade all post Dreamcast games for a new Sega console. Sega without a console is like life without salt and sugar.
 

Needlecrash

Member
This is something I DID NOT expect. I kinda wonder if Streets of Rage 4 was the catalyst that starred this. Think about it. A beloved franchise lying dormant for 26 years and it took 3 Western developers to make the game and it's garnered Universal Acclaim across the board. Sega of Japan wasn't exactly thrilled that a trio of western studios created a banger of one of their older franchises instead of themselves. Perhaps, they realized that they need to capitalize on their dormant IP's for sales and to return to an era where games (complete or near complete, not saddled down with so much DLC and other issues) meant something and you had a quality product from the jump.

  • Golden Axe looked good, sounds like it's more of a 3D action title.
  • Streets of Rage looked promising. I will say that. All games are in development and the prototype ain't looking bad.
  • Jet Set Radio was legit refreshing to see. Knowing that some of the original developers are on board is not only unexpected, but promising.
  • Shinobi literally had me hollering. Maybe Lizardcube is doing the visuals? It looked slick.
  • Crazy Taxi looked damn good.
And to think, there are MORE projects that aren't announced yet! Maybe we'll see...
  • Skies of Arcadia
  • Outrun (if they can get the Ferarri license)
  • Space Harrier (if Yu Suzuki is involved?)
  • After Burner
  • Juuoki/Altered Beast
  • Gunstar Heroes
 

Crayon

Member
Probably doesn't mean negative Dreamcast fud (though there was plenty of that too with overly critical reports on the likes of Virtua Fighter 3tb just because it wasn't 1:1 with the arcade while still being well beyond anything else at home, then never reporting equally loudly on the games showing it can indeed match/top Model 3) but the overly positive of the unreleased PS2 is the second coming of gaming jesus that makes everything else obsolette and looks like CG in real time and next gen starts when it releases and so on and so forth fud, so folks waited for that instead of the DC which was seen as a half step because of it. Which proved to be way better than that and it took years and millions poured in AAA development for PS2 to really get ahead and start showing better results long after DC's death. Not that different to how Saturn was treated vs PlayStation when they were actually quite close in results in the first years (I mean, Tomb Raider launched on it even if considered a tad worse yet is one of the pillars of PS success) and Saturn had its strengths too. But marketing and hype and movie playback chose not only the victors but also the degree of humiliation.

I don't think any of that is needed to explain the outcome. It was PS1 and Saturn, not individually but in contrast to each other, that killed the DC. If I was 18 (er... I guess I was) and I wanted every console but they represented major purchases, I don't need any persuasion to wait for PS2 aside from what I saw with my own eyes in the 32bit era. I remember mad hype for DC but my own assessment at the time was that it was a losing horse to bet on.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I don't think any of that is needed to explain the outcome. It was PS1 and Saturn, not individually but in contrast to each other, that killed the DC. If I was 18 (er... I guess I was) and I wanted every console but they represented major purchases, I don't need any persuasion to wait for PS2 aside from what I saw with my own eyes in the 32bit era. I remember mad hype for DC but my own assessment at the time was that it was a losing horse to bet on.
Well that's like your opinion, not exactly what was discussed. I'll at least say if "it's just the established status quo" was good enough then Sony would have never done so well in the first place. But sure feel free to believe all Sony marketing/media relations PR blitz was wasted & they'd win anyway.
 
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Puscifer

Member
I am craving for an SSX game that goes back to its swagger roots. Whatever they decided to do with the franchise after PS2 was insane in the wrong way.

SSX 3 was just perfect in every way. If the reboot took the attitude and style of the Mt Eddie DLC the game would've been a lot better in my eyes because the actual gameplay was awesome but the entire style and presentation was just so damn unnecessarily serious
 
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