SEGADriven is a SEGA news and information source that focuses on SEGA's console history, retro games and new software hitting the shelves. We want to share a love of great, quirky, clever and down-right fun games - something that SEGA have always specialised in. See below for the latest news, reviews and features added to the website.
Jun Senoue’s legendary Sonic Adventure custom ESP guitar is now being mass-produced!
ESP’s Japan site has just unveiled a new page featuring the guitar’s specs and further details. We can’t read Japanese, but we’re guessing that the details in the giant, red box mean the guitar is only available between 25/08/2011 and 31/12/2011 due to this year being Sonic’s 20th.
Jun’s Twitter also recommends that if you are interested in owning one and you’re not in Japan, you should talk to your local ESP retailer for additional details. This could mean that ESP Japan are willing to ship the guitars worldwide.
EDIT: UK price confirmed! Lick Library have announced the UK price of the Jun Senoue signature ESP guitar will be £1299. Better start saving those pennies! (thanks to Sam Manojlovic)
VG247 have unveiled an exclusive interview with SEGA boss Mike Hayes that reveals the company is constantly looking back at its’ catalogue for IPs to reinvent.
Hayes said, “We constantly review the IP we’ve got in the locker because that’s one of Sega’s big advantages, and when we bring it out and do it properly, like re-imagine Sonic or doing Sega Rally Arcade Online and stuff like that, we have success. Some of it when we try and do it, like Golden Axe on PS3 and 360, it didn’t do so well. So we carefully look at each IP and every month, we review the locker of IP and think, ‘how could we release those and if so, what are we going to? Will it be a big game, digital, free-to-play?’ We constantly look at it. What I can say is that you will continue to see a reinvention of classic Sega IP coming to various platforms over the next three-five years.”
VG247 also asked whether Shenmue City, the mobile game from Yu Suzuki would be making a Western appearance. Unfortunately the answer was “There are no plans for Shenmue City.”
The other little tidbit we’d like to bring up is in this little comment, “Shinobi on 3DS is a good example and some of the digital games we’re releasing are good examples, like the Golden Axe redux and stuff like that. So you’ll see more of it, but we literally look at it all the time.”
Golden Axe Redux? Did we miss something here? Is Hayes referring to the SEGA AGES version of Golden Axe, Golden Axe: Beast Rider or a new Golden Axe remake that we’ve yet to hear about? Intriguing!
The ridiculously titled Rhythm Phantom Thief R: Inheritance of the Emperor Napoleon (what a mouthful) that was announced earlier today now has screenshots. Andriasang released a set of screens giving us the first insight into this game’s graphical style.
We’re still on the fence regarding this 3DS title. The graphics are a little poor and we’re getting a distinct whiff of the ‘meh’ PS2 Shinobi, but gameplay trailers have looked quite fun. Come on SEGA, don’t muck this one up! We don’t want to see the Shinobi series go the way of the dodo!
SEGA have just uploaded some new screenshots to their Flickr set for Sonic Generations. The 2 new stages that are heavily featured are Seaside Hill from Sonic Heroes and Spagonia’s Rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed.
SEGA of Japan have revealed they’re developing a new IP for a 3DS rhythm game. The game is literally translated from Japanese to English as “Rhythm Phantom Thief R: Inheritance of the Emperor Napoleon”. Catchy.
The game will mash up rhythm gaming with adventure elements. You play as Phantom Thief R who wanders Paris with his dog Fondue, stealing treasure from historical landmarks like Notre-Dame and The Louvre. The rhythm part of the game kicks in when you are sneaking into these landmarks to steal their treasure. Tilt controls have also been confirmed.
The game will get a proper announcement next week and Famitsu are reporting that the game is half-finished at this time.
In a recent interview with Eurogamer, Toshihiro Nagoshi has stated that the Yakuza series will likely never get ported to the X-Box 360.
Nagoshi explains, “At the beginning of the project we spoke to all the platform holders including Sony and Microsoft. Every platform holder was negative about this prospect, but we kept on pushing because we believed in the potential, and as we kept going one platform holder that showed interest and saw the prospects of this title was Sony. That’s how we started working with them, and that’s probably not going to change.”
Nagoshi added, “The basic style and mechanics is really an old game that started on PS2 and continued on PS3. Times keep changing, and if we started on some new games they would be in a very different shape – so the last game was the end of one particular era.”
End of an era, eh? Can we expect more from the Yakuza series on different platforms? Only time will tell!
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