The Master System version of Forgotten Worlds too: https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1314809763016830976 And the Japanese 32X version of Space Harrier: https://twitter.com/VGDensetsu/status/1314868241945288711
So I've been working on Sega Retro for about 11 years. I guess that means "Sega" is my specialist video game subject, right? Well yeah but no - as evidenced by my latest folly, Japan likes to release things behind our backs. We're always playing catch-up when it comes to documenting it all - I tend to gravitate towards pre-internet topics, but obviously there's language and geographical and cultural barriers too. It's the reason we need more contributors. Alongside all those other reasons. Here's some things we missed: Sega (Logistics Service) builds driving simulators. As in, proper ones: https://slds.jp/ You may be able to run over children. But it looks like there's a Japanese insurance company on board so maybe that would push up your premiums. Or push them down, who knows. We have one listed for 2002, but it makes me wonder if they've been steadily improving on this formula ever since. Ninja Trainer Arcade It's darts, but with shurikens. Throw them at a screen, stuff happens. Endorsed by actual ninjas (no joke). The Sega-Sammy group own "Dartslive", which specialises in making the game of darts "electronic" and "complicated". Plenty of mysteries there too. The machines turn up in Yakuza games. "Who are You?" Who who, who who. It's big ball of fluff and then you put it in some water and it becomes an animal somehow. Or a Pikachu. Not really surprising we missed this - we've missed most of Sega Toys' produce. Well okay I knew this one but I still don't know where to begin with it. Sega makes Taiyaki in the shape of fish, Mega Drive six-button controllers or Sonic's laughing bonce, but there's something wonderful about being able to eat official Sega logos. I am not in a good position to document food.
There's a Dartslive machine in a pub near me apparently. Of course I also live in a place where they've shut all the pubs for now so investigating further might be tricky at the moment.
I used to work for a company that produces driving simulation software, and at no point when talking about clients or competition did SEGA ever come up, so I don't know if this is still in active development or it's just not competitive as a driving simulator. The SLDS-3G, as shown on the website, was developed in March 2013 according to SEGA's history page, and judging by the graphics shown in the video I'm surprised it's that late. It also mentions that a two-wheel driving simulator was revealed in April 2017. It seems to be designed around teaching people basic driving before they actually get on the road; the only other reason you'd have kids running into the world is for car manufacturers to test features like auto-braking, and this isn't nearly advanced nor flexible enough to simulate sensor data and allow custom plugins, especially given the date.
Another one for the collectors: An elusive Portuguese variant of FIFA Road to World Cup 98 (Saturn). Most Saturn games in Portugal are bog-standard European ones with extra stickers (and a translated manual) - looks like EA made a full cover for this game. FIFA 98 is one of the more worthless Saturn games because nobody cares about sports... but this variant will be super rare. Take that, capitalism!
The cover was probably made by Ecofilmes... like those Genesis cartridges sold in Portugal... most of them were sold with adulterated european covers (adulterated covers because instead of featuring text in several languages, it was printed only in Portuguese) ... in some of those, the seal "Garantia Sega Portugal" it's not a sticker, but rather a printed seal...
Andre Agassi Tennis Game Gear was due to get released in the UK by Tecmagik in September 1993. It never did, and Tecmagik stopped publishing games after 1993, with Pink Goes to Hollywood getting published by Time Warner. Yet, here it made an appearance in the Gallup Game Gear charts for the week ending 15th July 1995, published by "Playtime". For a game to be eligible for the charts publishers had to send the game packaging to Gallup in order for it to be recognised from the barcode when stores sent the data from their EPOS systems. Pretty much all publishers did this. This had the affect of excluding grey imports sold through independent stores (although they probably wouldn't sell enough to make the charts anyway). Here are the stores tracked by Gallup as of September 1994; Pretty much all national chains except for Toys R Us. And here we have it, in December 1994 Future Zone were advertising "exclusive to Zone" Andre Agassi Tennis for Game Gear @ £19.99. Unlike the other games they don't show any discount, so presumably this was a new release (it originally released in the US nearly two years prior). Looking on Ebay UK I can only find US copies of this game, so presumably Future Zone were selling excess US stock supplied by Playtime. Game Gear was of course region free. "Playtime Software" developed Fantasy Manager for the Amiga in 1994, it's unclear if they're the same company or not, and whether there is any conection to Tecmagik. Another question is what happened to Tecmagik as a publisher? As the packaging seems to be identical to the US version I guess I shouldn't give it a UK release on the wiki (that would be in line with Thunder Force III which just got the US version in the UK, whereas France and Germany got additional localised manuals).
Textless version of the Shin Souseiki Ragnacënty box art: https://twitter.com/ekaki_samu/status/1318008139598327808
Category:Sega x Retro-Bit media kit files Category:Sega x Retro-Bit EU media kit files Category:Game Pink media kit files I'm in the process of uploading the contents of Retro-Bit's press kits for its Sega controllers. The confusing ones from a year or two ago. I would make pages... but I don't know what to call them. The company is horrendously inconsistent, with slightly different names depending on whether it's the box art, website, press release or region. Let us also take the time to note the difference between its "2.4GHz Wireless" and "Wireless Bluetooth" options. Bluetooth also operating in the 2.4GHz range. In fact I bet there's plenty of Bluetooth-compatible products that just refer to the radio frequency so they don't have to get a license for the logo. Great marketing!
https://twitter.com/yuzokoshiro/status/1321383403489406977 32X Story of Thor game, that never happened. Would have been different from the Saturn game.
http://www.nisamerica.com/games/neptunia/ https://www.compileheart.com/neptune/ These are the English and Japanese websites for Hyperdimension Neptunia. These websites were made in Flash and Flash dies at the end of the year. How do we backup and save these websites?
A Sega Retro Halloween special: Sega-Yonezawa, the old Sega toy division, was briefly into battery powered train sets. A possible sequel to Sonic & Knuckles; "Sonix9" (ソニックスナイン) apparently has 25 different trains - go find them all and make a wiki page. They also sold track. There is no documentation.
https://twitter.com/kakikukecat/status/1317856004416008193/photo/2 This is why it's good practice to have scans of box spines. There's an alternate version of Game Gear Columns that isn't on Sega Retro. The only differences appear to be the Game Gear logo on the spine and the model number above the bar code (671-0674 vs 671-0674-01). Aren't a bunch of official game-specific Sonic websites Flash-based as well? They definitely need archiving in some way.
Correct, although those are relics and should have already been archived to be honest. Someone on the forums produced either the SA2 website or SA2:B website in full somewhere though.
Hey look I found a new old Sega console: A device that plugs into a television that (presumably) has games on it. Video games. テレビといっしょにあいうえお "TV to Issho ni Aiueo" From Sega Toys, maybe around 2000-ish? Those blocky head characters tend to be associated with the Sega Pico, but they're practically forgotten mascots at this point. It's the dangers of image searches - one thing leads to another and another, and then I'm left with something I don't understand. Not that the company ever stopped making interactive TV things, but I just wanted to let you know I fell down a rabbit hole and i'm wasting my life help me
Great news - this seems to be a thing with Super Monaco GP and Pengo as well. Possibly other early Game Gear games. joy
Also, I've just noticed that the list of Game Gear games we have on SegaRetro has JP catalog numbers, but doesn't account for the Meisaku Collection releases, which have different numbers. There's a list of them here (not sure if it's comprehensive).
