Entering our contest gets you the chance to win a t-shirt (left) or hoodie (right):

The contest is limited to our SEGA Nerds in North America and will end Wednesday night. We’ll pick our winner this Thursday! Good luck!

7th Dragon III Code: VFD is now available for Nintendo 3DS.

The AnimEVO lineup has been revealed today, and for a good surprise to everyone it features 3 SEGA titles, that’s right, Fighting Climax: Ignition, Blade Arcus from Shining EX, and Persona 4 the Ultimax Ultra Super Hold (we counted the Atlus title as SEGA’s because of recent news) will be part of this year’s tourneys. Other fighting games to be featured as well will be Capcom’s Vampire Saviour, Arc System’s Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus R, Undernight In-Birth, & BlazBlue Chronophantasma Extend, Nitroplus’s NitroBlasterz, Base Son’s Shin Koihime Musou, Type Moon’s Melty Blood Actress Again, and Bandai Namco’s Mobile Suit Gundam: Extreme Vs. Full Boost.

So don’t forget to watch the streams on July, looks like both EVO & AnimEVO will be interesting this year too, watching the streams will be somehting to do when the world is not watching the 2 football tournaments of the summer. Or… you can also look forward to 7th Dragon III on July…

We’re changing things up a bit this time around, though. All you need to do is reply to the below Twitter and Facebook posts with the best Yakuza-themed haiku you can think of. We

Here’s how you can win:

1. Be sure to follow and like us on Twitter and Facebook.
2. Reply to the below Twitter and Facebook posts with your best, original Yakuza-themed haiku.
3. We’ll pick and announce the winners at 5 p.m. EST March 29!

What’s a haiku?

Don’t know what a haiku is, you ask? According to The Googlez, a haiku is a Japanese verse in three lines. Line one has five syllables, line two has seven syllables and line three has five syllables.

Oh, want an example, too? Geez, you’re such a pushy chap. Well, let’s give you an example that SEGA customer support responded with when a fan asked if they had plans to release Yakuza 5 to the West.

I cannot comment.
Stay tuned to the Sega site.
Good information.

Hint: SEGA totally did release Yakuza 5 in the West, and it’s actually on sale right now on the PlayStation Store for only $29.99. That’s 25 percent off the regular price; go buy it now!

Details:

• The contest is open to everyone worldwide.
• You can enter both on Facebook and Twitter.
• Entry is not guaranteed to win a prize.

You have two chances to win one the skins. All you have to do to enter is follow us on Twitter and retweet this giveaway tweet. On Facebook, make sure to “like” our page and share the post with your friends so they can get in on the Tembo love, too. Our contest will end at 5 p.m. EST March 18.

Tembo is currently on sale for $5.99, down from its regular $14.99 price, until 11 .m. on March 29. If you haven’t bought the game yet, click here to access its page on the PSN Store.

If you’re still unsure whether you should pick up the game yet, be sure to check out Dan’s review!

Share this post on your timeline and tell us what you would do with a free copy of the game. Be sure to include the hashtags #SNcontest, #Dreamcast and #Hucast with your post!

The results of the contest will be announced on 1st August, 2014. This contest is recommended for those who are complete novices and have little or no experience playing sh’mups. Dux 1.5 is a gateway game into that genre. Those who are looking for a moderate challenge can wait for the next contest. We will be announcing a contest for Redux next month.

Oh and here is a look at the winner of our last contest Falco Girgis of Elysian Shadows fame:

Thanks to @SEGANerds for my copy of Dux for the #Dreamcast from @hucastgames! It’s STILL thinking, bitches! #gamedev pic.twitter.com/SFobS43wtC

— Falco Girgis (@falcogirgis) July 26, 2014

The Sonic Hits Collection bundle includes 14 classic Sonic the Hedgehog titles and four game add-ons:

• Sonic the Hedgehog
• Sonic the Hedgehog 2
• Sonic 3 & Knuckles
• Sonic CD
• Sonic 3D Blast
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I
• Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode II
• Sonic Spinball
• Dr. Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine
• Sonic Adventure DX
• Sonic Adventure 2
• Sonic Adventure 2: Battle (game add-on)
• Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing
• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
• Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed: Metal Sonic & Outrun (game add-on)
• Sonic Generations
• Sonic Generations – Casino Nights (game add-on)

That’s right, you can win all these awesome Sonic titles and, as I say, we have two of these game bundles to give away!

Please note that the bundles are digital downloads from Steam – so you will need a (free) Steam account and PC capable of playing the games. For more information on the Sonic Hits Collection bundle and PC specifications needed, visit the Steam store page.

How to enter

Everybody has two chances to win one of these great bundles, so we have two ways of entering…

First chance via SEGANerds.com and Facebook:

All you have to do is leave a comment below (at the bottom of this post) or on our Facebook post telling us: your FIRST Sonic memory/experience.

It could be the first time you played a Sonic game, watched a Sonic cartoon or saw and stole your friend’s Sonic plushie because it was just so damn cute and fluffy!

And they don’t have to be ‘happy’ memories either – maybe the first time you experienced Sonic was because your brother’s friend brought the game around and they wouldn’t let you play.

Just let us know your first Sonic memory.

Second chance via Twitter:

Your second chance comes via Twitter and because you have fewer characters at your disposal we are going to make things simpler – just tell us: your favourite level from ANY Sonic game and include the hashtag #Sonic23Giveaway.

For example: @SEGANerds Green Hill Zone! #Sonic23Giveaway

Or feel free to be a bit more descriptive: @SEGANerds I love Green Hill Zone because it reminds me of running wild through fields – naked! #Sonic23Giveaway

Well… you get the idea.

Anyway the competition will run for one week and closes on Tuesday 1st July at 11:59pm GMT – soget your entries ASAP!

And don’t forget to the Ts&Cs below for more information and any additional rules…

Terms & Conditions:

• Competition closes on Tuesday 1st July at 11:59pm GMT. Any entries after this time will not be counted.
• Entries on the website/Facebook will be kept separate from the Twitter entries and two prize draws will occur.
• Winners will be picked at random from all the entries.
• Only one prize (Sonic Hits Collection) available to individual entrants – should one person win both prize bundles, the second draw will be take place again (so that first person will still win – but someone else will get a chance too).
• Prizes are not exchangeable for cash, other games or any other prize.
• Both game bundles are digital titles for the PC, gifted to the winners via the Steam download store. All entrants are responsible for setting up their own (free) Steam account and ensuring their PC specifications meet the minimum game requirements.
• In the highly unlikely event this should occur, SEGA Nerds takes no responsibility for any loss of data or damage to equipment caused by installing or playing the game bundle.
• In the very likely event this should occur, SEGA Nerds takes no responsibility for any game addiction that may be caused by playing such awesome Sonic titles.
• Competition not open to members of the SEGA Nerds team or their families.

Not long after the games release NG:DT’s lead artist Rene Hellwig launched his own separate independent studio Hucast.Net created solely to develop Dux exclusively for Dreamcast. To promote the game, he set up a beautiful blog where he routinely shared his unique vision for his upcoming space sh’mup. The concept art was breathtaking and beautiful. It emphasized a stylistically simple aesthetic, lending an almost serene vibe to everything.

It took two long years of development for Dux to finish development, and the game was finally released on July 17, 2009. The game came in a packaging that adhered to the zen design philosophy. To the best of our knowledge, Dux is the only Dreamcast game to date that comes in a white DVD case and does not even mention that it is a Dreamcast game anywhere on the packaging.

Unfortunately, Dux, like Last Hope before it, was given a limited print run restricted to a 1,000 units (Just for the sake of sharing, Last Hope initial print consisted of 2,500 units). The game sold out as fast as lightning; hence, why we weren’t able to play it back then.

For the next few years, Hellwig remained busy with his commitments at NG:DT, and the Dreamcast-Scene had to wait patiently. Three years later, in the summer of 2012, Hellwig re-branded his studio simply as Hucast. He kicked off a Kickstarter campaign, announcing plans for Redux: Dark Matters, a game intended for multiple next-gen consoles; however, backers were only given the option to pre-order the Dreamcast version.

Meanwhile, Dux was given a re-release via hucast.com, and this time we were not going to let it escape, and we ordered both games. Unfortunately, Redux: Dark Matters took two long years to finish development. It was not released until Jan. 27, 2014. Since our order was bundled with it, we had to wait until April to finally get our hands on Dux (it got lost in shipping when it was first mailed).

To celebrate my younger brother’s birthday on April 27, we finally decided to play Dux. Since we had been waiting for so long, common sense sort of took a back seat. As we quickly tore through the packaging of the game and popped it in, gloom and doom, death and despair soon followed. We could not even get to the second checkpoint on our first stage. My younger brother had enough. He thanked me for his birthday gift and left me alone to play the game.

I finally did the intelligent thing and opened the game’s manual and educated myself on its intricacies. It immensely helped to clarify the game design. I also looked at the brief tutorial that displays after a period of inactivity on the main menu.

I also rummaged through the option menus and adjusted the visibility. Apparently, setting the visibility to perfect eliminated the background. One would think that would make the game look baron, but on the contrary, it accentuated the feeling of tranquility.

It’s funny that when I started playing the game, I had to shut off the awesome soundtrack by Andre Neumann and wiped off the distractedly dynamic backgrounds so that I could give my full attention to the gameplay. I played the game for about 30 minutes, and I finally had to stop playing because of an excruciatingly throbbing pain in my thumb. I had not experienced since my time playing button mashing beat ’em ups in the ’90s.

The fact that that I had to hold down the main shot button to charge its power, forced me to rapidly mash it for successive shots. Thirty minutes in, I couldn’t endure it anymore and neither could my trusty controller that has been with me since 2001. The X button on the controller got indented, and now, the button stays down for a second after I move my thumb off it.

In conclusion, there are two ways to look at Dux.

The game is designed by hardcore sh’mup fanatics for hardcore sh’mup fanatics, and you have to be worthy to experience the game. If you don’t have the skills, you don’t deserve to play. It is a gameplay choice the developers have chosen to make. The game is obviously designed for a specific demographic.

The other way to look at it is make a small game ridiculously hard to increase replay value. It is a well known cheap trick in game development to make a game nonsensically difficult to compensate for its short length. Fortunately, Hucast realized that they may have gone over board with the difficulty; for even the best of players, hence they released Dux 1.5, which was initially released as a free upgrade to anyone who owned Dux. The director’s cut of Dux 1.5 is a story for another time.

CONTEST TIME

As of press time, I have beaten Dux 1.5 and Redux: Dark Matters multiple times. Yet, I still haven’t managed to get beyond the fourth stage of the original Dux.

So if you think you have the nerves of steel to beat this game, Dreamcast-Scene is teaming up with SEGA Nerds to give away a copy of Dux! Tweet to us @SegaNerds and tell us why you have what it takes to beat this game. Be sure to include the hashtags #SNcontest, #Dreamcast and #Hucast with your tweet!

For more information on Dux, check out DCS’s Game Page

Most fans are aware of the talent, in the eighties Yu Suzuki was known for his ground breaking Arcade games; Yuju Naka gained recognition in the nineties for Sonic the Hedgehog, this past decade Toshihiro Nagoshi has attained some notoriety for his dating sim brawler Yakuza.

The house of Sonic is unarguably best known for their home consoles which have all been designed by Hideki Sato starting with SG-1000 to Dreamcast. Lastly the word SE-GA is an acronym for Service Games. Most aficionados are aware of the history from the designers perspective but not the executives perspective. So with our good friend David Munoz co-author of Service Games: Rise and Fall of Sega we will be attempting to encourage our audience to get to know a little more about the executive side of the legendary company.

SEGA’s roots can be traced back as early as the 1940s. However “SEGA” was only a brand name for Nihon Goraku Bussan. SEGA Enterprises formally came into existence in 1965 with the merger of Rosen Enterprises and Goraku Bussan. Hence the reason David Rosen is regarded as the founder of the company.

An American Air Force officer stationed in Japan during the Korean War. After completing his tour, he decided to restart his life there. In 1954, he married Masako Fujisaki and created Rosen Enterprises, an export company that sold Japanese art to America. Up until the merger with Goraku Bussan, Rosen Enterprises business focus changed quite vividly. In 1957 the company was importing Photorama Photo Studios to Japan with notable clients being the American Military. Simultaneously Rosen was leveraging profits into importing Coin-Op Arcade Machines, though his vision of original games was not realized until 1966.

Rosen’s designed his first game a submarine simulator called Periscope, though it was not really an arcade game by today’s standards. It is important for all stake holders to know that Rosen designed the first game, however it is even more crucial to understand that the man’s legacy and the company’s legacy hinges on executive decisions and Rosen was a fine Chief Executive Officer . Many fans are bewildered when their favorite corporation buys a studio instead of developing games with inhouse talents. I am not making light of the Sammy merger of SEGA, it gave rise to an uncanny exodos of talent from the comapny with many aficionados regarding SEGA as nothing more than a logo, drained of all talent. Though said, fans maybe oblivious to the fact that Rosen sold his company to Gulf+Western (now known as Viacom) after meeting with American Industrialist Charles Bluhdorn, who would eventually found Viacom.

This deal made Rosen a millionaire and he remained as the CEO of SEGA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Paramount Pictures, which was itself a wholly owned subsidiary of Gulf+Western. With the influx of capital SEGA started importing Atari games such as Pong. In 1978, Rosen designed the blue SEGA logo that we all love so much. Can you believe that? During the time the logo was created, the company wasn’t even independent!

If you think this is an eye opener get this; With the capital from Gulf+Western, Rosen was able to buyout a Japanese distribution called Essco Trading. Essco was owned by Hayoa Nakayama. The focus of this report is on Rosen, and while it may appear that Rosen bought out Essco Trading but in reality it was Nakayama buying into SEGA and it was Nakayama’s vision to make the company a home console manufacturer, Hence Nakayama is regarded as just as much of a founding father as Rosen himself.

Through all this corporate trading, SEGA’s annual income was rising sky rocketing from 32 Million US$ to 100 million US$ (1979)! The company was worth this much in the 70s, do you know how much a dollar was worth in the 1970s! Information on Rosen’s business methodology is sparse. He is a private man who does not appear to be very public and also the era that I am covering was very different. We didn’t really have the internet 4 decades ago. But somehow Rosen was ready to buy his company. In fact, he had already bought most of the company’s Japanese assets in 1979 via an investment group that he formed with Nakayama.

That said, Rosen and SEGA remained with Paramount until Bluhdorn passed away in 1983, roughly around the same time the video game market crashed due to over saturation. I am sure you are aware of what happened next. Paramount decided to sell its stock in Sega. Rosen and Nakayama had accumulated enough wealth over the years however their investment group was not in the position to own SEGA and the companies history and success are entrenched in partnership hence they presented Sega to friend Isao Okawa, head of Japanese conglomerate CSK to buy the controlling shares in the company. Isao Okawa like Bludhorn was not just an investor waiting to cash out dividends he remained committed to the company until he passed away in 2001. Ironically history repeated it self and CSK decided to sell their stock in Sega but I digress.

Once Sega was purchased by Japanese conglomerate CSK, Rosen decided to formally expand the company on western shores. Rosen along with his family moved back to Los Angeles, becoming the first president of SEGA West/SEGA of America. Although SEGA West would continue to partner with other companies like Tonka and TecToy to market their home consoles in Western territories, it wasn’t until 1989 when Rosen recruited friend Michael Katz to succeed him as president of SEGA of America that the company started marketing its own consoles.

While Katz handled day-to-day operations, Rosen remained on the board of the company until he retired in late 1996. Rosen appears to be a very private man and ever since he has retired he has maintained radio silence aside from a brief interview discussing the future of SEGA after the fall of the Dreamcast.

As with many of my articles, it is impossible to cover the entire subject in a blog post. However, if you want to experience the enduring legacy of David Rosen, you can order Service Games: The Rise and Fall of SEGA or take part in our contest and win a free copy.

Join us next week when we discuss the career of Rosen’s successor, Michael Katz.

Editor Note:

• Service Games served as our primary reference for this article.
• We know that the brand name SEGA was conceived as Standard Games by Martin Bromley (who was actually at Pearl Harbour when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941), Irving Bromberg, and James Humpert and they were key players at Goraku Bossan however the focus of this article was primarily on David Rosen, hence the Rosen Report.
• Most of the pictures were found via Google Images. The one with Stefan Arnhold (Tectoy), David Rosen, and Sakurai San was taken by a blog called Hardcore Gaming 101.

In case you missed out on the first opportunity to get the book, Pettus has went back to Kickstarter to fund a reprint and an audiobook version.

To support their Kickstarter, they gave us two softcover books and a T-shirt to giveaway! We’ll give a book away on Twitter, the other one on Facebook, and the T-shirt on our upcoming Nerdcast episode!

Rules will be the Following:

TWITTER

• Send us a tweet (@SEGAnerds) about a good SEGA memory you have and be sure to include the hashtag #SNcontest
• The best 140 character SEGA memory will get the book, and we’ll announce the winner on our month’s last  Nerdcast episode.

FACEBOOK

• Share this Facebook post : https://www.facebook.com/theseganerds/photos/a.10151335970647544.1073741825.47163832543/10151970190157544/?type=1&stream_ref=10 with the Kickstarter link including a good  SEGA memory or anecdote on it.
• The best or most creative memory will get the book, and we’ll announce the winner on our month’s last  Nerdcast episode.

NERDCAST

• Tweet a creative way to promote the book including the hashtag #SNcontest and the  following Book’s Kickstarter link . The most creative tweet will be the winner and we’ll announce him or her at the end of our month’s last  Nerdcast episode.

You can support their “Service Games: Rise and Fall of SEGA” Hardcover version on Kickstarter.

But like all good things, this too must come to a fantastic end. So here’s our last giveaway for the series: The SEGA Mega Drive (yes, the Japanese version) iPhone case by Tommo giveaway contest!

Like the other contests, we’ll be doing this one via Twitter. Since it’s our last contest, we’ll do it on EASY MODE, but please remember to read the rules.

Rules are the following:

• Take a picture of all the SEGA stuff you have, it can be swag, games, merch, whatever that is SEGA related that is on your possesion.
• Tweet that picure to us at @seganerds with the following phrase and Hashtag: “Life should be the @SEGA way like the @seganerds to get a console case by @tommoinc! #SEGA”.
• Try to include as much SEGA stuff on the picture as possible!
• The most creative picture voted by the SEGA Nerds staff on the upcoming Nerdcast episode in the first week of March will get the prize. The contest is open to all countries!

Do your best! This is our last iPhone case giveaway!