It took a record breaking Kickstarter and almost 15 years of fan demand for SEGA to realise that it has a rich legacy that deserves celebrating. In the wake of Shenmue III's reveal, the Japanese publisher has said that it's "looking into" bringing the first two titles in the series to the PlayStation 4. Doesn't the company know that keeping us waiting like this has been way uncool?
"We want to innovate and back smart phones and virtual reality, but our key purpose is to go back to what the brand used to stand for," European marketing director Jon Rooke told Marketing Week. "I think that the buzz around Shenmue III shows that people love our legacy. Over the next few years, we want to use engaging content and marketing to remind the public why they fell in love with SEGA in the first place."
Hallelujah!
SEGA has such an impressive back catalogue that it's been mind boggling to see the company abandon it over the past decade. Now that the firm appears to be back on track, though, we'll take a new Virtua Fighter, Jet Set Radio, and SEGA Bass Fishing if the organisation's offering. Plus, is it just us, or would a new Sonic the Hedgehog game be kind of welcome on the PS4?
[source marketingweek.com]
Comments 13
When SEGA got out of the hardware business, it should have gone on to become one of the biggest third-party publishers on PS2, GameCube, and Xbox. I'd love to read the inside report on what went wrong.
They should reboot all their greatest IPs, a few straight up polished ports wouldn't hurt either. If they don't port Shenmue I & II it would be insane.
hope the previous chapters in the shenmue saga see the light of day on pS4 . Also , I.d love to see Space Harrier .
I'd be amazed if there isn't a remaster announcement at PSX, Sony have managed to get the Yakuza games over to the west from Sega, so they clearly have dialogue going.
i hope if we get one it also has a choice of both English and Japanese Voices too
Regarding the back catalogue, I'm still waiting for anything - port, remake, sequel, acknowledgement of existence - related to Skies of Arcadia. That would be a nice step forward.
@Shillll They did a port of Skies of Arcadia on the Gamecube.
As it is I do hope that they do rerelease Shenmue I and II on the PS4 as those games can be quite expensive nowadays, plus not that many people may own a Dreamcast and in North America's case an Xbox. Rereleasing the first two would be a smart move cause that could introduce a whole new gen to Shenmue and in the end increase sales for Shenmue III.
Plus for me anyways it would be nice to have all 3 on the same system but that's just me. It's odd having a series spread out across multiple systems by multiple companies.
@FullbringIchigo there is no reason not to. It might be a risk but Sega could probably rake in a bit of cash by releasing both titles together in collectors edition
The article's premise sounds great, but the direct quote is littered with red flags - "smart phones," "engaging content," and "marketing." Color me cautiously reserved.
I hope this happens. This is one of those things that should be a no-brainer, but can just as easily not happen.
I'm still hoping for a Streets of Rage 4, but it would be nice to play these Shenmue games since I never played them back in the day.
Sega while you're on an epiphany high also begin works on reboots of
Streets of Rage - done in same style as Arkham series
Panzer dragoon - one like zwei and another a sequel to saga, bring back the andromeda staff.
Shining force IV
Story of Thor
Sonic 5 - minus the ridiculous huge cast and that sonic boom ever got made and make an actual good sonic game again.
Virtua fighter 6
Sega rally - forget everything since Saturn and model a new game on the Saturn version.
Sega sports - best none EA range of sports games ever, most were better than EA, particularly NBA Action 98, NHL all star hockey 98 and worldwide soccer. Bring that series back now!!! All star hockey 98 is actually better than NHL 16. Getting very sick of EA's monopoly on sports franchises spewing sub par titles cause they've no competition.
Golden axe 4 - modelled on golden axe II and not the appealing beast rider found on PS3.
Basically Sega, forget everything you've done for nearly twenty years, it was all crap.
Sack ALL of your current teams and most of your current decision makers.
Hire three QUALITY teams worth of staff and some managers who have a lie about Sega and video games.
Then all sit down together and really analyse ALL the IPs you ditched from the Saturn and mega drive. All the sheer quality games that have been left.
The opitomy of Sega was that a staffer put forward making streets of rage 4 for Saturn/dreamcast.
The CEO at the time said no. What he actually said, and was quoted as saying was "what the hell is streets of rage!?" If the "leader" of a company has that level of knowledge about their own product and its potential, how can anything any good ever come out from them????
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