In news that will no doubt carry some irony – not just because SEGA and Nintendo have been rivals for years, but because Sonic’s fast and SONIC NEWS isn’t in this instance – Satoru Iwata, president of the house of Mario, has revealed the Nintendo Revolution will include the facility to download SEGA Mega Drive games.
At his keynote speech during the Games Developers Conference in San Jose, Iwata went on to say that the next Nintendo console will include an online download service, where players can access a huge back catalogue of past Nintendo titles (Warning: Rare may not be included).
There had been rumours abound that SEGA were up for presenting some of their past titles on the Revolution, but this has been the first official announcement regarding such a thing. It would seem SEGA and Nintendo have been in talks regarding specifics for quite some time, and although this list only focuses on Mega Drive games at present, the SEGAhead can dream of Master System and Saturn re-releases, right?
At the very least, it will give gamers a little more freedom to cherry pick single titles that they want to buy – the download service has been said to carry a small charge per game – as endless Sonic the Hedgehog and SEGA compilation titles keep haunting our doors. It perhaps wouldn’t be so bad if the compilations were either worth the asking price or in fact not useless 3D-y remakes.
The NEC’s PC Engine/Turbo Grafx 16’s list of games was also announced to be included in the Nintendo Revolution download service. But, seeings as the PC Engine was, dare we say, complete bollocks in Europe, there’s little chance that many outside Japan or the niche US audience that had one will care. It’s all about the Streets of Rage, baby!
No games were mentioned during the announcement, but we’d put big money that chart-toppers of the 1990’s will be included, such as Ristar, Gunstar Heroes, Ecco, and of course, the Sonic series.
SONIC NEWS will keep a considerably quicker eye on this story’s updates, as more details may come during May’s E3 event in Los Angeles.