Happenstance Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 Sega Releasing Back-Catalogue On Mobile With Sega Forever Sega has released a trailer for their Sega Forever initiative that has slowly been teased up to this point. Sega will be launching their back-catalogue of games from past consoles, including the Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, and SG-1000, a console that never made it to the West. Five games will be launched straight away, with a new game set to be released every 2 weeks. They will be free with non-intrusive ads, or $1.99, and will contain leaderboards and cloud saving. The first five games are: Altered Beast, Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star II, Comix Zone and Kid Chameleon.
S.C.G Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 Sega games, from every console including the Saturn and Dreamcast, for free only on mobile? What a waste, if they can get Dreamcast games running on a damned mobile or tablet though, they can sure as hell get them running on the Switch. A lot of people would even pay money for such a service, so let's hope this is just the "entry level" offering of the newly rebanded Sega and that there's a lot more like this to come, for more technically capable platforms actually designed with classic games in mind. I don't want to sound too down on it, on the face of it this is a good thing but limiting it to just the large but fickle mobile user-base is wasted potential.
nekunando Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 Not interested in using my mobile for this.. would much prefer it to be on Switch and pay plenty of money for the privilege! Mega Drive, Saturn and Dreamcast games on the Switch in addition to Nintendo consoles would rocket Switch into 'BEST CONSOLE EVER' territory Why can't we have nice things..?
Hero-of-Time Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 Digital Foundry had this to say about the games. [TWEET]877596180435185664[/TWEET] Nice to see lots of time and effort has been put into honouring your legacy, Sega.
dazzybee Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 Digital Foundry had this to say about the games. [TWEET]877596180435185664[/TWEET] Nice to see lots of time and effort has been put into honouring your legacy, Sega. THat's terrible... Was quite excited... What a cheap lazy cash-in... surely a proper partnership with Nintendo could've been lucrative for them?
Hero-of-Time Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 THat's terrible... Was quite excited... What a cheap lazy cash-in... surely a proper partnership with Nintendo could've been lucrative for them? That probably would have required more effort. If they can't even get Mega Drive games running smoothly I hate to think of how Saturn games will run. They are notoriously difficult to emulate.
Fierce_LiNk Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 This is a shame. If done properly, this could be really awesome. Although, I'd really want to play SEGA's games on consoles rather than mobile, but that's a personal preference for me.
Hero-of-Time Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 This is a shame. If done properly, this could be really awesome. Although, I'd really want to play SEGA's games on consoles rather than mobile, but that's a personal preference for me. It could have been a hell of a lot better but Sega cheaped out. This feels kinda like watching a trainwreck unfold. Sorry to all the people that are experiencing subpar performance with this Unity thing; they could have been using RetroArch right now if they hadn't been so stubbornly insistent on demanding we relicense our entire program to something that would strip us of all our rights, on top of some other unreasonable things like not showing any branding, etc. Hell, they could have had this running on the desktop right now on top of consoles and maybe some netplay as well. Oh well... From the looks of it the games reads a bunch of data from your phone and uses the info for marketing and other garbage. This is quite a train wreck of a thing.
Happenstance Posted June 21, 2017 Author Posted June 21, 2017 I'll still give them a try. Hopefully later releases will come out better, especially if this first lot get bad press.
Grazza Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 Bizarre. I'd rather they just signed over their arcade back catalogue to the Arcade Archives project. People are prepared to pay for this stuff if well emulated.
Cube Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 If you don't have the mobile version of Sonic The Hedgehog, then it's worth a look as it's probably the best port of Sonic. It's a shame the other ones aren't well done.
Josh64 Posted June 21, 2017 Posted June 21, 2017 SEGA have been good at making mobile specific games but porting existing titles to mobile is always a pain due to the control scheme. I heard this actually does support Bluetooth controllers so it could have been a lot of fun on my iPad... but (from the sounds of it) the emulation is rubbish. I'm not fussed with those release titles anyway as I have them on anything and everything but I have been looking for ways to play Saturn games for a while now. Aside from actually going out and buying a Saturn it seems I'm still at a loss.
Cube Posted June 22, 2017 Posted June 22, 2017 From the looks of it the games reads a bunch of data from your phone and uses the info for marketing and other garbage. This is quite a train wreck of a thing. Just tested it - you can deny the permissions it asks for and it doesn't stop the game from running.
Hero-of-Time Posted June 22, 2017 Posted June 22, 2017 Just tested it - you can deny the permissions it asks for and it doesn't stop the game from running. Indeed... ...but I still find the whole thing unnecessary. I'm completely out of the loop in terms of mobile gaming, which i'm happy to keep that way, but is this common practice in these types of games? Of course, with them being used as a marketing tool I suppose this player information may be useful in some way. It baffles me why they didn't decide to just put a bit of time and effort into this program and deliver it on consoles. This would have been a far better way to celebrate Sega's legacy. As it stands, the first impressions of the games have already tarnished this whole idea.
Cube Posted June 22, 2017 Posted June 22, 2017 ...but I still find the whole thing unnecessary. I'm completely out of the loop in terms of mobile gaming, which i'm happy to keep that way, but is this common practice in these types of games? Of course, with them being used as a marketing tool I suppose this player information may be useful in some way. In terms of some of those permissions: - Location is usually used for marketing. Still, precise location shouldn't be needed. - Phone status and identity is necessary to pause the game when an incoming call is being made, as well as a ID user number. No personal information involved with this. - The storage one is a bit of an odd one. Apps have their own storage that only it can access, so this permission should be used it it does stuff with files that are shared between apps. Sonic seems to use shared space for its save file (possibly in case they ever release Sonic & Knuckles) - The other stuff is unimportant stuff with no personal information and just accessing various phone functions that are needed to make it run.
Ike Posted June 22, 2017 Posted June 22, 2017 I was pretty excited to have a portal version of Phantasy Star II as well...
Happenstance Posted June 27, 2017 Author Posted June 27, 2017 This interview kind of feels like Sega sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "Everything is fine, the fans love Sega Forever!" http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-06-26-sega-defends-sega-forever-launch-after-fan-outcry
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