Sega Looking To Revive 'Idle' Franchises, Wants Worldwide Releases

Over the past few months, Sega has shown a renewed interest in reviving a number of its classics, between both Sega Genesis Classics and digital releases in the Sega Ages collection. But that could be just the beginning of its plans, as it has some big things in store.

In a new report revealed through its Sega Sammy division, the company laid out its plans for the "Road to 2020," in which it has a pretty bold set of objectives. Amongst them, it plans to release games on a worldwide scale, instead of region by region; and it's also looking to revive "idle" IPs and franchises for a new generation to enjoy.

Here's the portion that talks about worldwide releases:

Before a Japanese game is released overseas, it is localized into the language of each country and region. For example, Persona 5 has been translated into three languages (English, traditional Chinese, and Hangul). No matter if a game is popular in Japan, it is unlikely to win over fans around the world if the localization is insufficient.

The Sega Group has localization studios that make a huge difference when games are sold overseas. Atlus became a member of Sega Group due to the transfer of business in 2013, which has a studio located in California, U.S.A. The studio understands both Japanese and American games very well, and is able to localize Japanese games in a way that accurately conveys the unique world views of Japanese titles to local gamers. The studio is able to maximize the entertainment value of localized games that reflect these unique world views, and this has led to very positive reviews from local gamers. During the product development stage, game content is shared with the localization team for translation before the development is finished, facilitating the rapid release of foreign language versions of the game.

We will strengthen such collaboration further with the aim of simultaneously releasing games around the world, which is an objective of Road to 2020."

As far as franchises go, only one specific one came up thus far -- Sakura Wars. But it sounds like plans are being made for others as well. "In addition to re-releases, we are also working on completely new games using idle IP like New Sakura Wars (working title), which was announced in April 2018." (Keep in mind this doesn't include the recently announced Streets of Rage 4, which is being handled by DotEmu.)

We'll see what Sega has in mind over the next year, and wish them the best of luck. (Also, can we get Vectorman back?)