Tag: Sega

Sega confirms what we already suspected: Persona is one of its best-selling franchises worldwide

We all know that the Persona series is making a big impact. It’s no longer what it used to be. If it was once a niche series that only a few of us played, now it’s a giant that rubs shoulders with the big JRPGs. Even with the big names in video games. But it’s one thing to know it, because you can tell by how it’s talked about and treated in the media, and another to have confirmation with data, figures, and executives doing somersaults every time they remember it’s a franchise that belongs to their company. Which is exactly what has happened in […]

We all know that the Persona saga is making a big impact. It is no longer what it used to be. If before it was a niche saga that only a few of us played, now it is a behemoth that rubs shoulders with the great JRPGs. Even with the big names in video games. But one thing is to know it, because it is noticeable in how it is talked about and how it is treated in the media, and another is to have confirmation with data, figures, and executives doing somersaults every time they remember that it is a franchise that belongs to their company. Which is exactly what has happened in this year’s financial reports from Sega.

From Sega they have confirmed to their shareholders that the Persona series has sold 23.5 million copies of its games worldwide so far. An impressive figure for a JRPG, especially considering that its popularity didn’t start until the 3rd installment and didn’t explode until the 5th. This has been confirmed by Sega itself, stating that the most popular installment of the franchise is Persona 5, being the best-selling title of the series by far at the moment. Making it one of the IPs that generate profits for Sega today.

Praising the uniqueness of its characters and setting, the overflowing style, and how easy it is to relate to its stories, they also wanted to highlight how its transmedia approach has helped. Since its emphasis on concerts, animes, and mangas of the franchise has helped attract fans who have not played the games previously.

Similarly, other franchises are proving to be profitable for Sega. Among them are Yakuza, Sonic, Hokuto no Ken, and Phantasy Star Online: New Genesis, emphasizing that they have a diverse catalog that currently allows them to work on multiple projects while ensuring economic viability and stability. With recognized IPs that are popular among the general public, among which Persona seems to be one of their main flagships currently.

That is why, in the future, we can expect to see more of all these franchises. Although they have not specified what plans they have for any of them, and it is still too early for them to talk about how they perceive the reception of their recent Metaphor Re-Fantazio, it seems that Sega is experiencing a new golden age. Something that, with Persona 6 on the horizon to be announced and Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii announced for February 21, 2025, for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC, does not seem likely to change in the near future.

Persona 5 Royal DESCARGAR
2.6
Persona 5 Royal is a roleplaying game developed by Atlus. This is the definitive edition of the Persona 5 game. Here, players can get added content to the popular 2016 action RPG. It adds an extra semester at the end of the vanilla game. This semester comes with its story segment and palace.

Hatsune Miku: Project Sekai Project has a mysterious new teaser

Sega and Colorful Palette have presented a new teaser for Project Sekai: Colorful Stage! feat. Hatsune Miku with a mysterious date: July 29, 2024.

Sega discovered they have a winning card in Hatsune Miku many years ago. Their musical games are always popular and have a captive audience that not only stays engaged, but continues to grow over the years. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise anyone that they take such good care of their vocaloid game franchises, especially their extremely popular Project Sekai: Colorful Stage! feat. Hatsune Miku.

Now Sega and Colorful Palette have presented a new teaser for Project Sekai: Colorful Stage! feat. Hatsune Miku with a mysterious date: July 29, 2024. Although they have not clarified anything about it, the video shows Hatsune Miku glitching over a Hatsune Miku advertisement projected on the facade of a building. Whether this will be a new event in the game or something else, we still don’t know for sure.

If you’re not familiar with it, Project Sekai: Colorful Stage! feat. Hatsune Miku is a free-to-play spinoff of the Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA series for mobile platforms. Released worldwide on December 7, 2021, it would be strange to announce a sequel to the game when it has only recently celebrated it third anniversary (as it was released in Japan on September 30, 2020). But one thing is for sure: something interesting will come out of this for Hatsune Miku fans.

HATSUNE MIKU: COLORFUL STAGE! HATSUNE MIKU: COLORFUL STAGE! DOWNLOAD
4.5
HATSUNE MIKU: COLORFUL STAGE! is a free-to-play music game developed by SEGA.

The new Crazy Taxi is not what we expected—for this reason

Crazy Taxi is one of Sega’s most beloved franchises by the public. There are good reasons for that. This crazy franchise put us behind the wheel of a taxi and forced us to take as many passengers as possible from one point to another in the city to earn as much money as possible. If we managed to arrive on time, we would get more time to keep playing. If not, well, tough luck: no one said being a taxi driver in this world was easy.

Last December, during the Game Awards celebration, Sega announced that they were working on reviving some of their old franchises. Confirming that there would be new installments of Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Golden Axe or Shinobi, the other series they said would return is Crazy Taxi. But since then, Sega has not said anything about the future of these franchises. At least until now, we have discovered some new details about the company’s new driving title. Which, if we’re honest, is not what we were expecting.

Thanks to a video to hire new talent published by Kenji Kanno, director of the original game, we have been able to learn new details about the reboot of Crazy Taxi. The most interesting thing is to discover that, far from being a single-player experience, it will be a massive multiplayer driving game. Using the Unreal Engine, they aim to create a large realistic city, in the style of the United States, that has a map that gives the feeling of being in a large amusement park.

The most peculiar thing about all this is that they define the game as having driving elements. Which makes us suspect that, despite Crazy Taxi being a franchise that has always been exclusively based on driving, this time there may be some other kind of interaction with the world. Maybe even as pedestrians. Something that doesn’t sound very safe considering our experience with previous games.

While it’s not what we expected from a new Crazy Taxi, it’s also not a lie that the idea of a Crazy Taxi where you compete for customers with other players doesn’t sound bad either. And while a traditional installment wouldn’t be exactly unwelcome, we’ll have to give this peculiar twist they’ve come up with a chance.

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3.7
Crazy Taxi is an arcade driving video game by Sega, where we emulate a taxi that must pick up customers and reach their destination within the assigned time limit in the craziest way possible.

That time when Sega decided to reject ‘Yakuza’ convinced that it wouldn’t sell

Nineteen years have passed, with 9 main games and a good handful of spinoffs and variants. Together, they have sold over 21 million units. However, as we have now learned, initially they were on the verge of canceling it before it even had a chance.

On December 8, 2005, a game by Sega was released in Japan, destined for greatness. However, at that time, they had no idea of what was about to be unleashed: 19 years have passed, 9 main games, and a good number of spinoffs and variations. And among all of them, they have sold over 21 million units. However, as we now know, initially, they were on the verge of canceling it before even having a chance.

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Brawling in Dotonbori

Apparently, Sega didn’t have confidence in ‘Yakuza’ (or, as it’s called now, ‘Like a dragon’). The problem? Of course, the adult theme, which prevented children from playing it and therefore was immediately rejected. It’s important to note that at that time Japanese games had stopped dominating the world and the studio wanted titles that would appeal to the widest possible audience, that could be sold at any time and to anyone.

And that wasn’t ‘Yakuza‘. Think about it for a moment: it is a game that is inherently Japanese and not intended at all for audiences from other countries, it was not intended for women or children, and it certainly didn’t come cheap: approving it was commercial suicide. In the end, it was a relative hit in Japan and sold over a million copies on PS2. Now it’s its own empire.

However, Toshihiro Nagoshi needed to present the game three times to Sega to obtain their approval, and he was forced to emphasize that this is not a story of violence between yakuza, but rather that of a poor man trying to live day by day. A piece of advice: if you ever go to Dotonbori, try at least not to hit anyone. It’s not as easy as you think after a few hours of playing.

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Google makes the strangest mistake in Sonic’s history: not even SEGA understands what’s happening

The problem is that already from the first image, where they were supposed to talk about the ‘Sonic’ of 1991, they included Tails, who didn’t appear in the saga until the sequel. But the errors were just going to pile up one after another. One. After. Another.

There are times when the Internet gives us moments of absolute wonderful incomprehension, as if all the errors in the world came together in one gigantic and impossible to avoid. This is the case of what Google Play has given to the world today with its particular tribute to ‘Sonic’, taking advantage of the success of the Knuckles series on HBO Max. And I assure you that you didn’t see this coming.

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Cute Sonic

The idea was that the more you scrolled, the more the character would age over the years, and it was fun. The problem is that from the first image, where they were supposed to talk about Sonic from 1991, they included Tails, who didn’t appear in the saga until the sequel. But the errors were just going to accumulate one after another. One. After. Another.

Just to give a few examples: to illustrate the Sonic Frontiers, they uploaded an image from season 3 of ‘Sonic Prime’, which appeared this year; the illustration of Sonic from 1993 was from ‘Sonic Boom’ (2014); the one from 1996 was from ‘Sonic Dash’, the mobile game from 2013 from which the terrible image from the movie was originally taken (and modified) in 2020; the one from 2003 was a promotional image from ‘Sonic Jump’, from 2005… Well, you get it.

So much so that even the official account of the blue hedgehog replied to them saying “What are you doing”. Some believe it was a thread written by artificial intelligence, and that even ChatGPT provided the links to the images, and some think it was a strategy to anger the fans (for some reason) taking advantage of the character’s popularity.

In any case, Google has not given any explanations or deleted the thread, so we can only assume that someone on their team is really enjoying the chaos. The community manager is a fan of Nintendo. It couldn’t be anyone else.

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The writers of Star Trek Lower Decks and Father Made In USA are making a series based on a SEGA classic

Golden Axe, one of SEGA’s great classics, will arrive on the small screen in the form of an animated series by two big names in current comedy.

Not long ago, the possibility of watching good television series was a real utopia. There were hardly any video game adaptations, almost all of them were for the cinema, and it’s hard to remember any that were good. But in the last four or five years, something has changed. Good adaptations have arrived for the cinema. Television has shown that good video game series can be made. And it seems that this has not been just a good streak.

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The next video game that we know will receive an animated series is Golden Axe. With 10 episodes already ordered by Comedy Central, Deadline has stated that it will be “hilarious and respectful” to the game it adapts. Because, in addition, they have good material to make something funny.

If you don’t know Golden Axe, it is a long beat ’em up franchise, heavily inspired by Conan the Barbarian, where we have to advance through a harsh fantasy land, defeating all kinds of evil monsters and enemies. You can choose between a barbarian, an amazon, and a dwarf warrior, and all the games in the franchise have consisted of advancing by slashing, hacking, and occasionally well-placed magic shots. All this in a world where people don’t ride horses, but cockatrices. A creature with a dragon body and a rooster head.

If we say that it can make an excellent comedy, it’s not because we think it can’t also be a good drama series. It’s because the producers of the adaptation are known for being outstanding comedy writers. Not for nothing, behind the Golden animation series are Mike McMahan and Joe Chandler. Two names you may not know, although you have seen their work. McMahan is the creator of Star Trek: Lower Decks and Chandler is a veteran writer of Father Made In USA. Something that ensures that the series will not only be hilarious, but probably much better than we expect.

With McMahan and Chandler writing the first episode and Chandler serving as showrunner, we have some details about the cast. Matthew Rhys will play Gilius Thunderhead, the dwarf warrior. While Lisa Gilroy and Liam McIntyre will play Lisa Gilroy and Ax Battler, the amazon and the barbarian respectively. And no. We still don’t have a release date and it’s not a joke that the barbarian is named Ax Battler, but we eagerly await this unexpected adaptation.

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The gameplay of an unannounced new Sonic game has been leaked and it is… peculiar

Everything points to Sonic about to receive a new game, heavily inspired by Fall Guys, although with its own unique touch.

Sonic is one of the most peculiar video game mascots. As recognizable as Super Mario, no one would be offended if we said that his video games have never had the consistency of the plumber’s. Capable of the best and the worst, always in the middle of the most peculiar experiments possible, it seems that his streak of strangeness continues.

On March 24th, the YouTube channel named The Sonic Show released the trailer for a new supposedly leaked Sonic game called Sonic Toys Party. In the trailer, we could see different characters from the Sonic franchise, controlled by different players, competing in an obstacle race with the classic mechanics and level design of the franchise. Like a kind of Sonic’s Fall Guys.

Although it has not been confirmed to be official, as it has not yet been announced, Sonic Stadium, a site specialized in Sega and Sonic games, has confirmed that Sonic Toys Party is a game developed by Sega’s Division 4. They also added that it will include collaborations with other franchises, such as Persona or Knights of the Zodiac, in addition to having a monetization system based on cosmetics and skins.

Although SEGA has yet to officially confirm the existence of the game, it seems that Sonic Toys Party is a reality. And while we wait for confirmation, Sonic Toys Party would be released this coming summer for mobile platforms for free.

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Talking about “console wars” in 2024 is not realizing the reality

Nintendo isn’t trying to compete with Sony, but Microsoft is also doing its own thing with Game Pass and building a catalog with a slew of titles.

90s. Sega and Nintendo are neck and neck in video game and console sales. If one has Sonic, the other has Mario. If one releases the Game Boy, they counter with the Game Gear a year later. If Sega launched the Mega Drive, Nintendo did the same with ‘Super Mario Bros 3’ and, months later, with the Super Nintendo. The swords were constantly raised and exclusives were vital to win a war that defined the gaming audience of that decade. Thirty years later, still talking about “console wars” is simply… ridiculous.

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Watered War

The battle in the mid-90s was for exclusive games: Mega Drive had ‘Sonic’, ‘Altered beast’ and its own version of ‘Aladdin’ while Nintendo stood up to it with, of course, ‘Super Mario World’, ‘Donkey Kong Country’, ‘Super Mario Kart’ or… its own version of ‘Aladdin’. Nowadays, exclusives no longer define a console: not only do most games end up being multiplatform, but the same companies… don’t even compete with each other.

In the past, being a Nintendo or Sega fan implied a certain personality. The child against the adult, the popular or the underground. The one who knows what is good. However, what does it mean to “be an Xbox fan”? And “be a PlayStation fan” or “be a Nintendo fan”? Nothing. Emptiness. Absurd shouts about Twitch. These are absurd and meaningless childish fights between platforms that don’t even seek confrontation. PS5, Switch, and Xbox Series each play their own game, regardless of what the others do.

Nintendo is not trying to compete with Sony, but Microsoft is also doing its own thing with Game Pass and creating a catalog based on big hits. It’s not a war, not even a tense calm: each one goes about its business, knowing that, except in the case of the big N, their success or failure does not determine the future of the company: Microsoft and Sony have their video game departments, yes, but they are not, by any means, the center of their companies. If tomorrow Microsoft decides that it’s over for Xbox, it won’t go bankrupt. And that’s why there’s no need for a war.

In order for there to be a “console war”, there must be companies that need the consoles to survive, forced to fight not only to have more benefits than the other, but to be the one that remains standing. Taking the fanaticism for a controller or an operating system to the limits of madness, in 2024, it goes beyond ridiculous. There is no war: there are only soldiers loose in search of a nonexistent conflict.

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You have Sonic inside you, and it’s not a metaphor: it’s science

Many doctors have complained that they can’t tell families that their loved ones have “a mutation in a sonic hedgehog gene.”

You and I may talk about Sonic always referring to the blue hedgehog that runs very fast, curls up into a ball, and gave us two amazing movies, but in the world of science it’s something completely different: it’s the protein that, among other things, makes our teeth grow, develops our lungs, and regenerates hair. So, literally, we couldn’t live without Sonic. And I mean it: it’s not a metaphor.

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The need for speed

Interestingly, this gene is linked to a disease that causes defects in the brain and face known as holoprosencephaly. And, for whatever reason, many doctors have complained that they cannot tell families that their loved ones have “a mutation in a sonic hedgehog gene”. The solution for a while was to try to change its name, but they finally decided to call it by its initials: the SH gene.

The name, by the way, has nothing to do with the game itself nor is the scientist who discovered it a big fan of Knuckles and company: Robert Riddle was at home after work when his wife, Betsy Wilder, came home with a magazine that had an ad for ‘Sonic’. The light bulb went off: he already had a name, although he didn’t know that it would still be standing in 2023.

And what do we call the inhibitor of this protein? Well, it’s clear, isn’t it? Robotnikinin, in honor of Robotnik. It’s not the only case of a protein with a geeky name: there’s also Pikachurin, whose name was based on the fast and electric movements of Pikachu, or the protein product Zb7b7, which might not sound like anything to you at first, but maybe it will when you know that it was originally called simply “Pokémon”. When The Pokémon Company threatened legal action for associating cancer with their game, they backed down. Science, once again defeated by Nintendo.

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SEGA reveals all the details about the new installment of Yakuza

SEGA reveals all the details about the new Yakuza installment, emphasizing all the changes in combat to make it more dynamic

Barely has the latest Yakuza installment come out, and we’re already anticipating the next one. That’s the pace Sega has decided to maintain with their flagship franchise. And it’s alright. While their games are indeed vast and full of possibilities, Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name was an excellent game, much more contained than usual. It served as an excellent prologue for the next numbered installment in the franchise. Even though, as fans already know, in the West, we won’t be able to find the 8 unless we pay very close attention to the cover.

Precisely because we’re close to the launch, Sega has revealed a lot of new information about everything that’s coming in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. Especially, details related to the combat system.

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Perhaps the most striking aspect is that, although the game remains an RPG, our characters can now move during their turn. By doing this, we can team up with other characters to perform combos or approach objects in the environment to use them as weapons. Additionally, thanks to this feature, some attacks have an area of effect that we can use to our advantage to attack multiple enemies at once, although our enemies can also exploit it against us. This aspect also applies to environmental elements and other enemies.

Another element they’ve added, addressing a classic issue in RPGs, is the ability to skip battles against weaker enemies. At the cost of earning less experience, we can automatically defeat groups of enemies much weaker than us and continue our game as if nothing happened.

In addition to that, they’ve also showcased a new glimpse of the game’s new classes. With each character being able to have an exclusive class, and with six new classes added to the game, three of which are locked initially, it seems there will be even more possibilities to customize our playstyle than in the first game. This is something to appreciate, especially since the studio has confirmed that this will be the longest game in the franchise to date.

Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth will be released on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, and PC on January 26, 2024. And if you can’t wait until then, the spinoff Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name, which was recently promoted with a wrestling combat theme, is already available for purchase.

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