One of the big moments from last December’s The Game Awards show was SEGA’s big reveal of a five-game revival strategy which will see it release brand-new entries in the Golden Axe, Jet Set Radio, Streets of Rage, Shinobi and Crazy Taxi franchises.
The latter especially is one that fans have been clamouring for for years now, and if quotes from a recent Japan Times interview with SEGA’s recently-opened Sapporo Studio are to be taken at face value, it’s going to have the scope to match those fan expectations.
The article goes in-depth with SEGA on why Sapporo is an exciting place for new game studios and how Japan is managing to continue to bring new talent into the industry while the industry elsewhere falls apart at the seams, but of course the bit that’s stuck with fans and media is a very small mention of Crazy Taxi – which SEGA Sapporo Studio is assisting on as a satellite team.
“The studio has an R&D department that handles designing and programming games and a QA department in charge of quality control,” studio present Takaya Segawa tells the outlet. “Recruitment in R&D is progressing as expected, but for QA we received more applications than anticipated, so a second branch of Sapporo Studio opened in April 2023.”
“We’re responsible for titles such as Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis and Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage! in cooperation with the bases in Tokyo and overseas,” the executive continues. “We are also participating in the development of Triple-A titles, including Crazy Taxi.”
“At present, we don’t have any titles developed independently by the studio, but we intend to do so in the future.”
A couple of months ago, we also learned that SEGA’s new Jet Set Radio game is seemingly an open-world title, based on some official descriptions in a presentation, so the idea of these five titles having “AAA” levels of ambition could very well be the case.
