Bloomberg is reporting this morning that SEGA is currently in the process of rebooting two classic Dreamcast games which will be big budget reboots. The news publication says that this is all a part of the company’s Super Game initiative. The reboots are being made as an effort for then Japanese company to develop recurring revenue sources and build online communities around its software portfolio. It’s mentioned in the Bloomberg report that SEGA is chasing global hits like Fortnite, so the games could be free-to-play with in-game microtransactions and will be a live service.
The new Crazy Taxi has already been in development for over a year and the Tokyo-based entertainment group aims to release it within two to three years, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is not yet public. It was named alongside Jet Set Radio in Sega’s annual report a year ago on a list of intellectual property assets that Sega wanted to recapitalize by bringing them up to date. Both new games are in the early stages of creation and could still be canceled, the people said.
Bloomberg
Alright!. Crazy Texi and Jet set Radio are being resurrected from beyond the grave. ^0^
Yup, two great games :)
If SEGA creates new AAA-titles based on Crazy Taxi or Jet Set Radio I’ll buy them day 1! But if they include any combination of the phrases “free to play” , “live service” and/or “microtransactions” I won’t buy/download them at all, ever.
Mood on the news of possible return of JSR = 😊
Mood on the possiblity that, as part of Sega’s “Super Game” plan, it could be a F2P live service game with microtransactions = 😱🤬
Very glad to see interest in these Dreamcast games, but the business models doesn’t sound too promising to me.
I just wish for Panzer Dragoon Saga Remake
Makes sense. Neither game could possibly hope to run at a profit with a traditional $60 standalone content release. After all, they weren’t especially successful at their respective heights at releases at those prices. They are unlikely to turn around and sell 20 million copies with new games a couple decades later.
Shame about the cancerous monetization plan, but until gamers are willing to accept that inflation means that standalone games can’t stay at the same price for 40 years, this is what we’ll continue to get.
A new Crazy Taxi game does sound interesting especially if it’s going to be online with multiplayer, but I wonder if a Jet Set Radio reboot might clash with a spiritual successor like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk; I’d hate to see competition between the two.