WHAT? That’s right. According to Sega’s Japanese website a new game titled “Karous” will be released in Japan on March 8th on the Sega Dreamcast. Yes the Sega Dreamcast. Sega announced over 6 years ago on January 31st 2001 that they would cease production of the Dreamcast.

The game is a top view spaceship shooter somewhat similar to another Dreamcast game, Ikaruga, which was released in September of 2002, long after the console’s end of life. In the long period of time since the system’s death there have still been a handfull of games released for it. Could this finally be the last?

Since this game will only be released in Japan it could only be played in North America through some sort of piracy and we all know that’s not possible on the Dreamcast…

Check out the game’s official site for more information about Karous.

Thanks to Sega nerds for the scoop.

Sorry I was late this week, but I was caught up in the holiday. So without further ado, here’s the $20 GOTW.
For all of you wishing for a return to the 16 bit glory days of gaming, and don’t plan on buying a Wii (even if you are and don’t want to wait until these games come to virtual console) this one is for you: Sega Genesis Collection on PS2
If you thought system fanboy wars are bad now, you should have been there when Nintendo fanboys went head up against Sega fanboys. Even though multiplatform releases on the SNES were better most of the time, Sega had a lot of classic games as well. They pretty much had to, since they had to catch up thanks in no small part to Nintendo’s rough licencing policies. The Genesis was graphically inferior to the SNES, so Genesis game programmers had to make the most out of the hardware. When they did however, some pretty sweet games were the result. Sega has packed nearly 30 games from thier genesis catelog as well as a few unlockable arcade games into this one handy dandy PS2 disc.
Many of your favorites are here, such as Sonic, Phantasy Star, and the Golden Axe series (including 3, which was never before released in the US!). There are also several cult classic titles such as Comix Zone, Ecco the Dolphin, and Vectorman. Of course, what Sega comp would be complete without Altered Beast? Each title is accompanied by a history feature, as well as artwork and game tips.
Even though there are some glaring omissions, (NO STREETS OF RAGE? WTF?) this is an excellent alternative to shelling out the cash to grab these on virtual console or hunting them down in your favorite gaming stores. Hopefully Sega will give us a sequel with even more classic goodness.

*the above video contains language not rated E for Everyone.

Gaming Age is running a story reprinting a press release announcing Sega has grabbed the rights to make games based on Marvel’s Iron Man movie. All they’re saying now is “next-gen” which says to me “Xbox 360, PS3 if we have time, PSP port, halfassed DS, and completely different game for Wii”

But maybe I’m just a little jaded when it comes to license games. And Sega games.

Like a lot of superhero games, theres a lot of potential, especially if they draw from the vast arsenal Tony Stark’s used in comics. This will be a shooter and it will shoot everything. Press release after the jump.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

One of our forum regulars Spooie has given INTER-NET a glimpse into what game news was like before INTER-NET.
Basically its a local news report on the Consumer Electronics Show from 1990 featuring some hype on Moonwalker for Genesis, forthcoming Turbo Grafix 16 use of CD technology, and of course Super Mario 3…
Also keep an eye out for Nintendo hero Howard Phillips!

From Gaming World Network‘s coverage of a Japanese Wii press conference we learn the prices for the Wii and Wii Virtual Console games, in Yen.

The Nintendo Wii, to be released in Japan on December 2nd, will retail for 25000 yen. This is approximately 212.50$ US. This is by no means an accurate way of measuring the price of the US version.

Below shows the price of the Wii Virtual Console games:

Converting to USD that’s 4.25$ for a Famicom (NES) game, 6.80$ for a Super Famicom (SNES) game and 8.50$ for N64 games. Of course there’s no telling exactly how this will compare to US prices but this gives us an estimate.

There are to be 30 Nintendo Virtual Console titles and 30 from other systems (Sega Genesis, Turbo Grafx …) which supports the idea that the 7 Sega Genesis Wii Virtual Console titles we mentioned yesterday would be the only ones at first for that system.

Yesterday we reported a list of Sega Genesis games for the Wii as metioned on IGN. These were listed on the ESRB’s website where one can search for games by system and publisher. Today I was searching some more and found that these games had disapeared from the list. A search for games on the Wii now returns 12 titles rather than 18 and those Sega Genesis titles are missing. Yesterday a search for publisher “Sega” on the Wii platform yielded 7 results. Today 0.

Why? Could be nothing. Could be Sega doesn’t want people to know what’s out. Could be these games aren’t confirmed and they don’t want people spreading rumours like we have. We can only jump to conclusions so get your mat out!

Compare a screenshot from yesterday (left) to today (right):

IGN reports a list of Sega Genesis games for the Wii Virtual Console. These titles are listed on the ESRB website. The Entertainment Software Rating Board must rate all games before they can go on sale in the US. I guess there’s no surprising them.

By going to the website and doing a simple search for the publisher “Sega” and chosing the platform “Wii” you’ll see that the following games will probably be available:

Though with only 18 titles for the Wii listed on the ESRB site one doesn’t even need to narrow it down to Sega at this point. Kind of funny that Sega has the only exclusive Wii titles listed with nothing by Nintendo there yet.

It’s not known whether or not this is all the games we’ll be getting but if I had to guess I’d say this is probably all we’re getting in the first batch. Why submit just a few of the more reckogniseable titles for approval and sit on others? Still this is a great assortment of some of the best games the Sega Genesis had to offer and I can’t wait to see what else the Wii Virtual Console has in store.

Thanks to powet poster Spooie for the heads up.