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This morning, SEGA Sammy announced a few structural changes to their organizational divisions, and while this isn't likely to have huge impacts on the Sonic series itself, the Sonic series was cited as one of the driving forces in their shift. The short version is that SEGA is fusing their toy division SEGA Toys with the amusement machine parts of SEGA proper to form a new sub-company, "SEGA FAVE Corporation," with Yukio Sugino heading this company. Much as the Sonic series has seen success with its transmedia push of games/movies/cartoons/comics/toys/licensing, SEGA Sammy hopes to continue this push with other major franchises like Persona and Like a Dragon. Conceptual diagram from IR announcement. SEGA Toys, despite being a toy company in name and output, isn't a stranger to SEGA's video game business. The company famously produced the SEGA Pico interactive storybook console, and most recently, the Astro City Mini game cabinets. It's hard to predict what SEGA hopes to do with this new company structure but a transmedia strategy is clearly central to its formation. The Investor Relations statement suggests that both the amusement machines and toy divisions should have solid synergy, and the new name "SEGA FAVE" references "oshi-katsu," cultural movements within Japan focused on supporting someone or something within popular culture (such as a pop idol or series), which often have a lot of events, merchandise, and brand collaborations associated. SEGA Sammy expects this reorganization to go through "prior to the announcement of the next Medium-term Plan," or April 1 as the above diagram highlights. Original Post Content: View full story

Two obscure arcade carnival games starring some of Sonic’s animal buddies have recently been uncovered: “Air Circus,” starring the seal Rocky, and “Curling Holiday,” which features the penguin Pecky. These two machines were discovered in a high quality scan of SEGA’s 1994 Amusement Machine Guide, recently uploaded to Retro CDN. Air Carnival challenges the player to balance beach balls on an air stream coming out of Rocky’s mouth and getting it to float. “Curling Holiday,” a miniature curling game, had two players competing to toss Pecky-adorned curling stones at a target on the table. It kind of worked a bit like air hockey. Technically, a bit of Curling Holiday was uncovered last year, when another Retro forum user posted a photo of a Pecky curling stone (which could also be won as a prize) and a low quality scan of a photo of the machine. The machines were brought to the attention of the wider Sonic community thanks to a topic on the Sonic Retro forums, which was then disseminated to Twitter by Dave Luty. In addition to these high quality images, someone in the linked thread also linked to a video showing the machines in action that was posted to Youtube years ago. In addition to footage of the two aforementioned games, it also has rarely footage of the game “Sonic Canball” in action! You can check out the footage in the embed below, or here. View full story

A rare English language version of the sit-in arcade game SEGA Sonic Cosmo Fighter has been dumped and released to the public. It's not currently playable, but fans can download the ROM in anticipation of the game being operable on the MAME emulator when it is next updated. The ROM dump was provided by Twitter user "IAMAMAZING100" (which is, actually, an amazing name), who has reportedly been in possession of a legitimate SEGA Sonic Cosmo Fighter arcade cabinet since June 2021. While there is currently no way to play the ROM once downloaded, eager Sonic fans have taken to run the file through audio software regardless to see what happens... and surprisingly enough you can hear the voices of Sonic and Eggman as the game runs. SEGA Sonic Cosmo Fighter was already an incredibly rare piece of Sonic (and arcade) history, due to its extremely limited Japan-only run in the early 90s, but the fact that a legitimate English language version exists has been something of a legendary find. The fact that we have a dump that may soon be playable will go a long way for arcade game preservation efforts. View full story

English site: http://maimai.sega.jp/green/en/index.shtml Released in mid-2012, maimai PLUS (or just “maimai”) is a touch-screen-based rhythm game developed by Sega, kind of like DanceDanceRevolution for your hands. Colored circles ripple out from the center of the screen in different speeds and combinations, depending on the level and the song, and you have to either push buttons or touch the screen in matching rhythm as the rings cross a large circle on the screen to score points Gameplay is pretty simple. There are 3 kind of “rings”: pink circles, yellow circles, and blue stars. Pink circles appear individually, so you tap the button one at a time. Yellow circles appear in pairs, so you have to use two hands to push two buttons together at the same time (or do it fancy one-handed on the touch screen if you have a large hand-span). Sometimes the circles turn into long ovals, and that means you have to hold down the button a few beats, instead of just tapping quickly, until the oval disappears. Blue stars can appear individually or in pairs, and after you push the button, a dotted line appears across the screen and you have to swipe across the screen with your hand along the line, at the same speed as blue star, which will also be moving down the line. It’s a little difficult to describe how to play using only words. Just watch a person play once, though, (or search on YouTube) and you’ll figure it out immediately. There is also a tutorial mode on the machine for new players. Some players, prefer to use only the buttons and just touch the screen to swipe down the blue-star-line. Some people play entirely on the touchscreen. There are dotted points around the screen that you can touch instead of pushing buttons. I’ve found that there are pros and cons to either method. Using only the touchscreen allows greater versatility (e.g., the one-handed yellow-ring move I mentioned before) and speed when playing, but it’s often hard to get good accuracy when you want to aim for a “perfect” sync as the rings cross the line. Using buttons is more accurate since you have a larger target to push, and you get the personal satisfaction of slapping buttons, but it’s harder to do trick moves and really challenging on the fast and difficult songs. So take your pick! I’ve seen players at all levels use either method. There are dozens of songs to choose from, most of which are quite new and popular. These songs are divided into multiple kinds of Categories to choose from: POPS and Anime Niconico and Vocaloid Touhou Project SEGA Game and Variety Original and Joyopolis NEW songs can be found here: http://maimai.sega.jp/song/ The most interesting ones for me is the SEGA category and the gaming song, not only is it home to many SEGA songs, like Rhythm Thief, Fantasy Zone, Jacky’s Theme, Sega Saturn Startup Sound Remix, etc. But it also is home to Sonic songs In Maimai Green Version, there are 3: 1. City Escape: Act 1 2. Rooftop Run: Act 1 3. Reach For The Stars Since the Maimai Green Plus Update, 1 songs are added to the list 1. Windy Hill Zone 1 And added after maimai Orange 1. Back 2 Back (Modern) 2. Live and Learn An interesting little tidbit, on the options (for the Orange version beyond), you can set the speed of the rings that are coming, it goes from 1 to 10, but it could also go above 10, called Sonic speed, it’s pretty much a memory game where you have to know where the rings will be, and it won’t give you a chance to see it. So, what do you guys think, look fun? looks lame?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixels_%282015_film%29 Do you think we will see a cameo appearance of a Sonic or other Sega character like in Disney's Wreck-it Ralph? Who you would you like to see in this movie? Tell me your ideas!

Salutations folks. I originally started this thread just before the board had a heart attack, but it looks like it wasn't salvageable. More to the point, do any of you fine folks know of SEGA's current position in the Japanese arcade industry? I've heard Gareth Spriggs of Findthecomputerroom and Hellfirecomms state that most arcade hardware is manufactured by SEGA for developers, but I haven't been able to find any documentation for his claim.

So I was combing the Japanese corner of the internets, when I came across something amazing on a Japanese blog. The blogger had been posting pictures she took at various small arcades she had been to, and look what she saw: AMAZING. A 1991-era redemption machine, with adorable SegaSonic artwork! I love the design on this. There's Sonic, Eggman, and a few Flickies, with rings in the background. And, in a baffling twist, it was made by Konami. I don't know what this machine does, but there were many similar ones with different characters in the G-Baoa-go arcade where it was found. It appears to work like a roulette wheel. Hopefully someone with a better knowledge of Japanese arcades can fill us in. I'm amazed that stuff like this has managed to fly under the radar for 20 years. I suppose not many were made. Cool, huh?

I'm trying to start a fan-driven campaign to get an official SegaSonic the Hedgehog port for the Nintendo DS consoles. In case you didn't know, SegaSonic the Hedgehog was an arcade game which had a very limited release, mainly in Sega Worlds and Japanese arcades. The game has an isometric viewpoint, like in Sonic 3D Blast, and was controlled with a trackball and a single button for jumping. In the game, Sonic, Ray the Flying Squirrel, and Mighty the Armadillo are captured by Dr. Eggman and are forced to escape his trap-filled island, grabbing rings along the way. This game is so special and important to Sonic history, and we can't let it be forgotten. It was the first to feature voice acting for the characters, and the first appearances for the "forgotten" characters, Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Flying Squirrel (who hasn't been seen since). It's pretty fun too, which is why it's a shame that so many can't play it. Sonic Team actually wanted to include the game in Sonic Gems Collection, but was unable to properly emulate the trackball control scheme with a control stick. Without a trackball, it's impossible to play properly. Now, thanks to the Nintendo DS, a virtual trackball can be properly emulated and manipulated on the touchscreen, a technique that has been used successfully in several other DS games, like Looney Toons Galactic Taz Ball, and The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. Translation of the in-game text would be wonderful, and a replication of the arcade version's multiplayer capabilities via Wi-Fi might also be possible. If ported to the 3DS, even the illusion of depth can be included! The technology is here, and the time couldn't be better as we celebrate Sonic's 20th Anniversary. The inclusion of Ray and Mighty posters in Sonic Generations' City Escape proves that Sonic Team still remembers the game. Whether it's an unlockable in a future Sonic game, part of a compilation, or even a standalone downloadable title, we need to tell SEGA that we want a DS port of SegaSonic the Hedgehog! Because really, who doesn't? I've started a Facebook page for the campaign. Here's where you come in: you need to like the page, and tell all your friends, too. If enough of us speak up, SEGA will listen. Also, feel free to copy my new sig if you like. Use it proudly on the forums you frequent, and include a link to the campaign page. Before you know it, we just might have a proper, official port worthy of such a great game.

SEGA may have given up the home console race, but it's still finding ways to surprise us in the hardware scene. And this latest news may shock you - the company is going to be collaborating with Nintendo and Namco on a unique arcade board called Triforce. Does the name sound familiar? It's also the name of the iconic emblem that can be found in Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda series. And that's significant, because the hardware itself will actually be based on Gamecube architecture. This triple-company team-up will allow for projects originally intended for the arcade to be easily ported to Nintendo's blocky home console. The stated goals are also to help bring about a 'creation of a high cost-performance game development environment' - basically meaning that producers can cut costs by working on code that can run easily across arcade and console platforms. A working prototype was unveiled at the AOU 2002 Amusement Expo in Japan's Makuhari Messe, on 22 February. SEGA's own World Cup Champion Football Series A 2001-2002 was used as a test case - that game was made by Amusement Vision of Super Monkey Ball fame, so could this studio be one of the major players working on this? And could we see Sonic Team doing something similar soon? Source: Cloudchaser View full story

Sonic makes an appearance in Virtua Striker 3! This arcade rendition of the Beautiful Game includes a secret team called 'F.C. SONIC' that features Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Eggman and a squad of Chao. They're even sporting their Sonic Adventure 2 designs. Check out the screens below. Source: Sonic Team View full story