Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio big budget reboots in works at Sega
Planned as part of "Super Game" project with Fortnite model.
Sega is creating "big-budget reboots" of past hits Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio, it has been reported.
Bloomberg states these projects are the first to come from Sega's myserious "Super Game" initiative - and that two more, one a first-person shooter, are also in the works.
Development on all the above is still early, with Crazy Taxi reportedly still "two to three years" away despite being in development for "over a year" already.
Sega's ambition here is to create live-service games which can live on for years, amass large communities of players, and be relied upon as a recurring source of income. In other words, Sega wants its own versions of Fortnite.
To what extent these reimaginings will satisfy older fans of these dormant franchises remains to be seen.
Sega first mentioned its "Super Game" project to investors back in May last year, when it dubbed the initiative a "priority strategy" for the next five years.
Last November, Xbox and Sega announced a "strategic alliance" for the Super Game project, which will utilise Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.
Super Game will be a "a key part of Sega's mid to long-term strategy", the company said at the time, with games "where the key focuses are 'global', 'online', 'community' and 'IP utilisation'".
Will these games include NFTs? Sega appeared to put its NFT scheme on hold last year following negative reaction to its initial plans, but this month described both "cloud gaming and NFTs" as a "natural extension" for future games.
Sega has declined to comment on today's report.