A few years back, Sega launched its Sega Forever series – a range of free-to-play smartphone releases of its classic titles from yesteryear. It was seen as Sega's way of reconnecting its fans with its esteemed back catalogue, and, despite some teething issues, it became a valuable way of keeping the memory of classic Sega games alive.
With the company's 60th anniversary looming, it has been announced that Sega Forever's social channels are being released from their smartphone shackles and will start covering Sega's retro catalogue across all platforms, as well as the history of the company itself. This means the social media accounts for the service will be posting a wider variety of content from many more games – some of which may not have been seen before. It also means that we'll be seeing more exclusive video content along the same lines as the excellent 2018 interview with the one and only Yuzo Koshiro.
Here's an official statement from the Sega Forever team:
The SEGA Forever social channels will now be supporting SEGA's retro-related releases like SEGA AGES, as well as celebrating SEGA's wider history. This is a great time for it as 2020 marks our 60th anniversary year. We'll be sharing lesser-known and previously unseen artwork that we've uncovered, and reliving some of our favourite SEGA moments and characters with fans. Down the line we'll also be making more video featurettes like the Yuzo Koshiro interview we published a while back. We look forward to hearing from our fans and seeing which content they enjoy most!
Sega clearly has some big plans for this year – it has already announced a special campaign in Japan as well as a new mascot character to accompany it.
Comments 32
Well it looks interesting, I wonder how I forgot about all of this. I don't even remember the original announcement.
Well, Sega, how about actually releasing some of those old classics, instead of only showing us videos and pictures of them, huh?
Is the Sega Saturn controller backwards in the picture above or is it just me being crazy?
@ThanosReXXX Because that would make too much business sense and we all know that’s beyond management at Sega.
@CurryPowderKeg79 It's not just you.
@FragRed Indeed...
For a moment there, you made me think they were going to add a new game to the service.
What has it been a year since the last one?
The big thing to take note of here is that Sega Forever's library includes the Christian Whitehead Sonic ports, and, more importantly, Crazy Taxi. That means that Dreamcast and possibly even Naiomi games are on the table. We could see stuff like Jet Set Radio and original Monkey Ball on this, if this means that this is going beyond mobile, which it sounds like it might.
Just release some Saturn related games please.
@CurryPowderKeg79
Saturn
And, yes it is mirrored.
Took Sega long enough to take this step
Here is hoping it wont be even more 16 bit and more Sanic.
Please, Sega: quality over rushing to market! If the sonic is worse than Mania or generations, don’t put it out! If the emulation is worse than retro arch, don’t put it out! And let’s dig a little deeper into the catalog than Out Run
SEGA has got to start re-releasing more of their Saturn and Dreamcast games already. The Genesis has gotten more than enough love at this point.
Cmon Sega!!! I wanna see a steady stream of Sega classics to celebrate!!! The Sega Ages line is cool but slow as molasses and limited to the Switch!! I suspect You’re missing much $$ by not releasing classic games on ps4 and Xbox!
@NinChocolate What's wrong with retroarch? That's the only thing I use for unofficial emulation.
PSO2 for Switch or PS4 please.
@Superzone13
I'd be happy with just the Dreamcast
Saturn and 90's arcade ports, now that would be amazing.
@CurryPowderKeg79 That's crazy, isn't it, man? It only goes to show how much Sega overlooks some of their gems...
When Sega says "retro", they usually mean releasing the same 30 Genesis and early arcade games. I would love to see some actual support for Saturn, Dreamcast and later arcade games. Sega has such a strong backlog of games that they choose to ignore for whatever reason.
@BlueNitrous
Sadly.
Its always the same 16 bit and Sanic games, we all bought at least 8 times by now.
@ThanosReXXX
Yeah, but that wont happen.
It wil be Sanic again and Megadrive and business as usual.
Cause Sega hates money and has no business sense.
I'd kill for some Saturn or Dreamcast games to make it over to Switch or PS4, but I'm expecting the usual slew of Sonic, Golden Axe, and Streets of Rage ports.
Although the Sega Ages line of releases has actually been really cool, so maybe I shouldn't be so cynical.
@Onion
Yeah, but we know what Sega is like.
What is with these Japanese developers and having great hair? It's like they could all be in rock bands.
Please can we have Bug! on Sega Ages?
Sounded fairly exciting until the article mentioned this "celebration" is apparently going to be limited to the likes of videos and blog posts. I think Sega's higher-ups could use a heavy course in what "fan service" truly consists of (that or a pink slip so somebody who'll give the fans what we want...THE GAME FRANCHISES NOT NAMED SONIC THEY'VE BEEN SITTING ON FOR DECADES...would hopefully take over).
More of Sega nothing? C'mon Sega you had lots of IPs in your back catalog, time to start bringing those back from their grave. Panzer Dragoon and Streets of Rage are great but we need more.
Many gamers weren't even born yet when Sega last made an installment of most of their greatest franchises (both Arcade and consoles). As for those of us who were fortunate enough to experience them and have been asking for their return for years, videos and featurettes feel a lot more like a slap in the face than a "celebration". I seriously doubt that I've ever seen a company as either clueless or dismissive of what their consumers want. If Sega waits too long to actually bring the actual games and IPs back, they're going to wake up too late one day to find that nobody remembers their heyday enough to care, let alone celebrate.
@AtlanteanMan
Resurrecting Streets of Rage and Panzer Dragoon is a step in the right direction.
Oh who am I kidding, Sega wouldn't recognize common sense if it punched them in the face.
Sega has done a poor job of utilizing their IP. Why we still don't have Dreamcast or Saturn ports is beyond me and their reluctance to port Persona to PC, Switch and Xbox is baffling when there appears to be no exclusivity deal. Hell, why did it take them so long to port Yakuza to Xbox and why did they choose not to also put those games on Switch?
@alexybubble retro arch is great. I consider it the standard for acceptable emulation. But loads of paid content comes out that runs worse when it shouldn’t
If I was in charge of sega I would release a master system collection, a Saturn collection, a Dreamcast collection, a coin op collection, and a mega drive collection last cos that’s all we ever get, I do love mega drive tho! All these games are done please release them! I want alien storm arcade please and turbo outrun arcade which was on Japanese 3ds shop but not here ahhhh! X x x x x x x x we can all dream x x x
Oh man I hope they re-release Sonic 2 and/or Space Harrier! I also hope that somebody else didn't make the same joke as me already.
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