Sega Ages rejected for release by Sony: Double pack replacements loom

Sega falls foul of SCEA' s policy shift - follows SNK…



We can reveal today that Sony Computer Entertainment America has rejected all Sega Ages titles at point of submission by Conspiracy Games, a harsh blow to the perceived credibility of the series and the profitability of Sega' s US retro IP push.

All games have been knocked back for stand-alone release in the US, falling foul of SCEA' s recently implemented crackdown on smaller already-released titles hitting shelves as stand-alone software units. As you will be aware, SNK' s US office was forced to bundle its King of Fighters and Metal Slug offerings into two double packs due to the same policy.

It is believed that Sega and Conspiracy are currently at the point of deciding which games will be released as part of which packs. Sega historians will be aware that the Sega Ages games of old featured up to four games on a single cartridge, with even the offering for the Saturn delivering three massive Sega hits - namely Outrun, Space Harrier and After Burner.

Expect a revised US and possibly European Sega Ages announcement at this year' s E3.

Exclusive: Sega Ages Bumper Packs for US – Europe Likely
Key titles bumped by SCEA – a bonus for gamers.


Regular readers will have noticed that we have been following the exploits of Sony Computer Entertainment America’s submissions department with great interest of late. Our interest was initially raised when we caught wind of the QA department rejecting Metal Slug, Samurai Spirits and King of Fighters titles for stand-alone releases.

We then reported on Sega’s Ages retro range being rejected outright for single game stand-alone release despite SCEJ green-lighting all releases offered.

Well that story comes to rest today, with the news that an impressive bumper pack is planned for the US, with a European mirror offering expected.

The games - all on a single disc, carrying the tentative title Sega Ages Volume One - are Golden Axe, Columns, Virtua Racing and Space Harrier. Dependant on sales success, another quadruple pack will be released in the US, tidying up the seemingly endless stream of Ages titles, which have been - to put it kindly - of variable quality to say the least.

Stay tuned for further news and European confirmation of Volume One in the coming weeks.

Just wanna say that I have NO high hopes for the Sega Ages turn out of Streets of Rage. Other than Fantasy Zone, I can' t think of a single Sega Ages remake of a 2D game that actually turned out good...

So far the only games that seemed to have benefitted from the polygonal treatment were Sega' s pseudo 3D games like Outrun, After Burner 2, and Space Harrier..

Virtua Racing was bound to turn out good since it was using early generation polygonal graphics, so there really wasn' t much of a technological shift in creating a remake.

I swear If they f**k up ALEX KIDD IN MIRACLE WORLD I' m flying to Japan and gonna force them to redo it at laser GUN point!!!

Are there any extras that will have to be sacrificed for these " Bumper Packs" ? Who thought up the term " Bumper Pack" anyway? It makes no sense! What do they bump? That person should be shot as well as their entire family. :)

Anyway I remember people who bough Sega Ages on the US Saturn (like me) got screwed over from Working Designs because all 3 games were on a single disc. The US missed out on all of the cool arranged music that was on the original discs in Japan. Working Designs even admitted that in the manual. Usually WD adds cool stuff, not takes it away. I just hope something similar does not happen with the PS2 versions.

Guys - please note, when you post stories please credit the source, in this case, www.spong.com

Depends on if you can consider Spong a source.