In case you haven't heard yet, Sega are releasing their back catalogue as Sega Forever - a mobile gaming platform. For free. The games will be ad-supported, or you can pay to remove the ads. Features include: saving game progress online leaderboard bluetooth controller support New games will be added every month. http://forever.sega.com/ What are your thoughts? Will you be trying this out? Have you already bought games on Steam or Nintendo Virtual Console and are miffed that they're now "free"?
I think it's a pretty neat idea. I'm curious to see how invasive the ads will be. I was pretty excited when I saw Crazy Taxi running on Android years ago. It'd be nice if this was available on PC as well.
I'm guessing they'll just stick to SEGA Mega Drive & Genesis Classics with add-on packs on Steam, plus Dreamcast Classics on there, too. Talking of which, check them out in the Steam Sale: Mega Drive & Genesis Classics + 59 games 67% off (£15.83 / $20.45) Sonic Adventure DX 75% off (£1.39 / $1.99) SEGA Bass Fishing 80% off (£1.11 / $1.59) Jet Set Radio 80% off (£1.11 / $1.59) Crazy Taxi 80% off (£1.11 / $1.59) Space Channel 5: Part 2 80% off (£1.11 / $1.59)
Just tried Phantasy Star 2 and rage quit due to the sound. Sonic was alright. Mobile gaming isn't at all my thing anyway.
I'm hoping they add arcade games as well. There were plenty of great Sega arcade games that never got proper ports or any home ports at all and this is the perfect opportunity to bring them over. Even for a lot of games that did get ported back in the day the arcade version is still superior.
Good luck porting those over haha. I'm sure others are more privy regarding that, though. I think the only Saturn games I've seen them give this kind of treatment to is Virtua FIghter 2 and I believe Virtua Cop was on Sega Smash Pack Vol. 1 for the DC. We could be playing Panzer Dragoon Saga if they hadn't lost the source code.
So not every single Sega games as one news site claimed? I would be pissed if they didn't release all of Phantasy Star games. Phantasy Star Online (in offline mode) is still decent fun to play. And they better release Missile Defense 3D from SMS for my phone or I can probably sue the news site for misleading claim. (just kidding)
Gotta love how people read things nowadays.... Highly unlikely, as it says console. Didn't they lose their arcade source code, too?
I like the idea, mobile gaming isn't my thing at all, but would be cool to play these games on vacation with one of those 8bitdo controllers for example if they're properly supported. Will give it a whirl tonight.
Emulation is okay, though strangely games don't run at full speed. On average your getting 45fps. It's obvious due to the first releases being 60fps games and look more like they are running at 30fps. Sega really needs to iron out the emulation before they go further with this service.
True, they play more like the original games speedwise it seems. Some games do support the 8bitdo controller I have fully, which is nice. Some just don't properly like Comix Zone. You can't configure anything either. The ads drive you crazy and there are also notifications which are annoying so I deinstalled this stuff again. Running an emulator still seems best in my opinion.
Who says they're 60 FPS? What a surprise... annoying ads in a FREE game! How inconsiderate of Sega not to just give you their IP for nothing. Err, no. If you don't like the ads, there's an option to pay to remove them. And what do you think these games are running on? What you probably mean is that you don't want to pay the copyright holder to play the games legally on your phone.
Woah, it wasn't supposed to be so negative. I can deal with ads in free games, these just seemed to appear more often and more difficult to click away. Of course it's a nice initiative of Sega to bring these games to the mobile platform, and for free even. I do buy a lot of Sega (mostly original) games, also emulated games on for example Steam or PSN, because as I said I'm not much of a mobile gamer so I have no intentions on buying them again for my phone
Well on original hardware and most emulation the animation and background movement in those games is super smooth. Even a journalist from Digital Foundry pointed out the frame rate issue. I don't know exact frame rate but it is running choppier and lower than it should.
Saturn games are supposedly coming later on - presumably when/if Sega can make a deal with one of the creators behind existing PC emulators. I'd previously read they were keeping a close eye on the progress of both SSF and Supermodel to perhaps license these once accuracy reached a certain point, though arcade titles don't appear to be part of their current plans. Besides, I can't imagine Model 3 titles like SCUD Race or Daytona USA 2 running at anything close to full speed via this latest service. At the very least, we'll probably get old PC conversions with updated control schemes rather than the Saturn originals (for example, Virtua Fighter 2 will probably end up being several generations removed from its source code, which has been confirmed to be partly missing). Whatever the case, I don't see how this setup is any better than already existing solutions, and I certainly can't justify paying to remove adverts when the frame rates are still not guaranteed to be consistent. The only thing that may persuade me is if this turns out to be how the long-rumoured Shenmue I & II HD remasters are distributed...
No Windows Phone. IMO they are really missing something in the achievements communities. Those would likely pay. And I don't see a problem in free mobile ports because we bought some them on the VC, XBLA, etc. It could be even better if they also released all 40 games of the Mega Drive Ultimate Genesis Collection one by one.
It's not your imagination. Sega updated the iOS version of Crazy Taxi, made it free and loaded it with ads. Preferred the $4.99 version 1.3 with no ads or IAP. Luckily I was able to rollback to the old version after the update.
Rumors so take it with a grain of salt. - The reason for the unstable FPS is because they are using Unity as a backend, which is not really optimized for emulation. - Sega approached the authors of Retroarch for emulation, but they refused since Sega wanted them to change the licensing. - Sonic 1 is included in the Sega Forever series, however the reason for it's flawless performance is because it is not emulation, it is a port made by Christian Whitehead.
Unity is not optimized for anything. It's a crappy engine with the only advantage being ease of use, like people programming in Visual Basic, which sucked equally.
