When SEGA was on its last legs in the console market, it famously put as many resources as it possibly could into what ended up being its final console, the Dreamcast. It was a neat little console that had a lot of unique features and felt ahead of its time, but it failed to catch on and was overshadowed by Sony’s PlayStation 2. Before the Dreamcast was discontinued, it built up a small and very strong library of games that many fans fondly remember to this day.
Two of those games, Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio, are reportedly both receiving reboots. In what Bloomberg says is an attempt by SEGA to tap into previous franchises to find a Fortnite-level hit, these two remakes are the first in a new initiative to create a “recurring revenue” source.
Sega Sammy Holdings Inc. is developing big-budget reboots of its Dreamcast games Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio as it taps its back catalog in search of global hits like Epic Games Inc.’s Fortnite, according to people familiar with its plans.
The two titles would be the first entries in Sega’s Super Game initiative, which the company announced a year ago as an effort to develop recurring revenue sources and build online communities around its software portfolio.
How SEGA plans on using reboots of these two games to create a community is uncertain, but it is at least exciting that we’re going to get the opportunity to play some of the best games of the early 2000s again. Games like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio don’t get made all that often, and it’s a shame because both of those games are classics of the early ’00s and are still an absolute blast to play. Their focus on fun and addicting gameplay over a story, or multiplayer, are a novelty today, and hopefully, the reboots don’t stray too far away from that.
If SEGA is planning on rebooting more games from their previous era as a console developer, then they have a deep library to choose from such as Streets of Rage, Phantasy Star, and of course, Sonic the Hedgehog.