Hot on the heels of the recent news that SEGA Japan was selling all its Japanese arcade venues to Genda Inc, SEGA Japan have committed to a new Joypolis venue that will open in March 2022 in Sendai, North Japan. The Joypolis chain of in-door theme parks continues to be owned and operated by SEGA Japan and this new venue will be entirely sports focused and called Joypolis Sports.
The aim of the Joypolis Sports venue is to offer far more physical amusements to play and the venue is promising patrons access to ping pong tables, basketball courts, climbing walls, trampolines and much, much more.
The Joypolis Sports venue is located at the 1st floor of the Aeon Sendai Nakayama Store, Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture 981-3213 and will open in March 2022. Sendai is located 3+ hours away from Tokyo by train.
SEGA Japan have sold their remaining stocks in their Japanese arcade locations to Genda Inc and will stop operating arcades themselves going forward. While the company will continue to produce arcade games, these will simply be sold to any Japanese arcade operators and all SEGA-branded arcade locations will now be rebranded as GiGO arcades. SEGA had already sold the vast majority of their operations to Genda Inc back in November 2020 with the remaining stocks being sold only amounting to 15% of their total arcade business.
It’s another big loss to SEGA Japan’s arcade business which has been one of the country’s strongest up until the COVID-19 pandemic forced arcade operators to close their doors and limit indoor capacity. Back in September 2021, SEGA Japan closed its flagship Ikebukuro arcade which ran for an impressive 28 years.
It’s been a long old time since we last heard about Two Point Campus. Originally announced back in June 2021, this sequel to Two Point Hospital moves the action from healthcare to higher education and puts you in the hot seat as the designer of your very own university. A firm release date has now been set for May 17th 2022. Check out the new trailer by clicking the embed below:
Two Point Campus is releasing on a huge array of systems on May 17th 2022. The game will launch on PC via Steam, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. The game is being developed by Two Point (who could have guessed!?).
The kings of prototype game preservation Hidden Palace have returned with another massive update of unreleased and prototype game dumps. Among the extensive update are a few unreleased SEGA titles with the most interesting being a 32X port of Spot Goes to Hollywood – the isometric sequel to Cool Spot. Check out some in-game footage below which also showcases a deleted stage based on the Aliens franchise:
In addition to the 32X Spot Goes to Hollywood discovery, we also have an interesting Time Warner 32X CMD Download Cartridge dump – a piece of software used to download programs onto a flash cart for testing on real 32X hardware.
On the Mega Drive side of things we have a dump of RBI Baseball 95 which was eventually cancelled. We also have a prototype version of Race Drivin’ that would see release on the system in March 1993. This prototype appears to be quite late in the game’s development.
A new version of the Astro City Mini has been revealed by SEGA Japan’s SEGA Toys division. Called the Astro City Mini V, this new version of the mini console features a vertically-orientated screen made for games that play in TATE mode. As a result, the system’s games library is specifically focused on TATE games, with a large amount being vertically-scrolling shoot-em-ups. Check out the reveal trailer below:
The Astro City Mini V will launch in Japan in 2022. There is no firm release date available at the time of writing. See below for a full list of included software:
A handful of SEGA Xbox and 360 games have been added to the Xbox Series X|S backwards compatibility list. The main highlight comes in the form of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s 3rd person shooter Binary Domain which also gets a 60 FPS boost with its arrival. See below for the full list of SEGA/Atlus additions:
– Binary Domain (with FPS boost)
– Gunvalkyrie
– Otogi: Myth of Demons
– Otogi 2: Immortal Warriors
– Rock of Ages (with FPS boost)
An additional handful of Sonic games that were already backwards compatible have also received a 60 FPS boost. The most interesting of these is Sonic Unleashed which has only ever been playable in 30 FPS. The full list of FPS boosted titles now follows:
– Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed FPS boost
– Sonic Generations FPS boost
– Sonic Unleashed FPS boost
All of these updates are available to Xbox Series X|S owners now. Series S owners will need to own the games digitally in order to play them.
Habit Soft have produced a new Mega Drive version of their Game Boy Color game Repair Chan’s Repair Strategy and the game is available to order now. Unfortunately, the game is entirely Japan exclusive at the time of writing and will only ship to Japanese addresses.
Repair Chan’s Repair Strategy is a puzzle game where you must fly Repair Chan to various platforms around a stage and charge them up to beat the stage. The game has an interestingly flying mechanic where you need to flap Repair Chan’s 2 pigtails independently in order to control her in the air. You can check out some footage of the game in action via the embed below:
Strictly Limited Games have secured the rights to the cult classic Mega Drive shooter Panorama Cotton and are producing a limited edition version of the game for PS4, Switch and Mega Drive. The Mega Drive version will be available in PAL or NTSC formats with matching artwork based on the regions priced at €49.99. This will be the first time the game has been officially released outside of Japan and also the first time the game has been made available in English.
If you’re interested in pre-ordering any of these ports then direct links to each version can be found below. Pre-orders have not gone live at the time of writing but are “coming soon”:
Panorama Cotton is infamous for being one of the most visually impressive games on the Mega Drive. Click the embed below to see it in action courtesy of World of Longplays:
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio have revealed that long time leads Toshihiro Nagoshi and Daisuke Sato have left the company and the studio has undergone a restructure as a result. Masayoshi Yokoyama will now take over from Nagoshi as the studio’s Director and Executive Producer.
Toshihiro Nagoshi has been a SEGA mainstay since 1989, starting as a designer and director on games like Virtua Racing, Daytona USA and Shenmue before finding fame as the lead director of the Super Monkey Ball and Yakuza franchises.
Daisuke Sato is also a long-tenured SEGA employee starting his career on field map production for 1995’s Magic Knight Rayearth on the Saturn and having designer credits on games like SEGA Super GT, Virtua Fighter 3tb and Shenmue. Sato’s career highlights also include directing duties Yakuza 3 and Binary Domain.
You can read the full story on RGG Studio’s restructure by clicking this link.
A surprise re-release of Advanced Busterhawk Gleylancer is heading to Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S next week. This digital re-release of the Mega Drive shoot-em-up classic arrives on October 15th 2021 and is available in English for the first time ever in an official format.
The port is being handled by Ratalaika Games and boasts enhanced accessibility features and fully translated cut scenes. You can watch the game’s launch trailer by clicking the embed below:
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