Sega has reportedly begun work on big-budget remakes of two cult games: Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. According to a report cited by Bloomberg, Japanese gaming giant Sega is looking to create new games like Fortnite that could become global hits and generate recurring revenue.
Fortnite has of course built its success on a number of features. It's cross-platform, free-to-play, and makes money for publisher Epic Games through the use of cosmetic microtransactions. Bloomberg doesn't state that Sega is following that pattern exactly, but it's hard to predict how Sega will create a Fornite-like hit without duplicating Fornite's core features.
Vague hints of Sega's plans in this department have been around for a while. There were points in the company's annual earnings report for the year ending March 2021 that indicated it wanted to use certain games like Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi through remakes and remakes. (Other titles included Rez, Panzer Dragoon, and Streets of Rage.) The same report cited an internal “Supergame” initiative, which Sony's manager Shuji Utsumi later announced, and later to create multiplatform AAA games with global releases. It was said that he wanted
Earlier this month, Utsumi said that several SuperGaming projects are currently underway, and Bloomberg said they now include Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. Bloomberg says the new Crazy Taxi game has been in development for a year, targeting 2024 to 2025. There's no mention of such a timeframe for Jet Set Radio, and the broadcast "emphasizes that both new titles are in the early stages of the game, meaning the games may be canceled anyway."
The games are still in development, but it's encouraging to imagine what Sega could do with these features. Both games landed on Sega's Dreamcast in 2000 (Crazy Taxi appeared in arcades the previous year) and gained cult following thanks to their stylish graphics and music. Crazy Taxi tasked players with getting customers to destinations as quickly as possible on a fictional San Francisco map, while Tokyo-based Jet Set Radio offered a series of game modes focused on skating and graffiti.
Both games focus more on gameplay than story, but Jet Set Radio's use of factions and competitions seems particularly appropriate for the multiplayer genre that has helped make Fortnite so popular. Who knows, maybe the remake of Crazy Taxi could mean a new theme song from The Offspring? This will definitely grab the attention of anyone playing these games when they are released.