The game will be available as a digital download only and will cost $19.99. Those who buy Valkyria Chronicles 4 through the eShop will receive a 25% discount towards Valkyria Chronicles. The game will be available on October 16th. You can watch the announcement trailer above.

The pre-registration is now live in Japan, it is unclear if the game will be localized for western audiences. If the ballots reach 100,000 people, those who voted will receive an “SSR Idol Haruku”.

Ryu Ga Gotoku: ONLINE will be available for iOS, Android, and PC. It will be free-to-play and will include micro transactions.

Team Sonic Racing will be playable at Gamescom 2018, so give us your thoughts on the game so far.

Team Sonic Racing will be available for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC this coming winter.

Press Release

Looking at SEGA Sammy as a whole, we can see the they have accumulated ¥68 billion ($617 million) in total net sales. That is a 35.8% drop from last years sales. Operating income also took a steep 94.4% decrease with ¥935 million ($8.38 million).

Taking a look at the entertainment section (games, arcades, toys), SEGA launched a new mobile game called Kotodaman which have exceeded 7 million downloads in the first two months of release. They also released a new soccer manager simulation called SEGA Pocket Club Manager. No numbers have been reported on that.

Moving to packaged games (catalog titles), Yakuza 6: The Song of Life, Persona 5: Dancing Star Night, and Persona 3: Dancing Moon Night have exceeded 5 million units sold. That is an increase from the 4.5 million units sold from last year’s report.

The results from the entertainment business are that sales have reached ¥45 billion ($404 million) which is a 10.5% decrease from last year. All three catalog games were not enough to help SEGA’s sales, even with an impressive number of units sold.

SEGA is looking forward to the coming two quarters, as they will come out of the gates with the remastered version of Yakuza 3, Shenmue I & II, and Team Sonic Racing.

Source: SEGA Sammy

But today, SEGA officially announces that Ian Curran will indeed become SoA’s new COO.

He will also serve on the board of Atlus USA, a SEGA subsidiary.

Here is what he had to say:

“My thanks and gratitude to Mr. Miyazaki and the entire company leadership for this opportunity to lead our operations and executions in the Americas and EMEA. I appreciate all of the incredible efforts Mr. Hiraoka has made to lay the groundwork for our operations in the Americas. Coming off the success of Persona 5, Sonic Forces, Sonic Mania Plus, and the Yakuza series, and with so much more on the horizon, including Valkyria Chronicles 4, it is an incredible time to join the team. As part of the SEGA family, we are inheritors of an expansive body of work and opportunity which I plan to help reach its full potential.”

Curran will take this position effective August 1st.

Here is the entire press release:

In this “Part 1” video, he explains the story of Ryo and how he goes on a revenge quest for his father’s murder, as well as the mystery around the Dragon Mirror that his father died to protect. Ryo’s quest leads him around from Yokosuka to many locations in China.

He explains how the obsession of finding clues, getting lost in the immersive world, and becoming Ryo Hazuki helped the games define modern gaming as it is today.

Shenmue I & II will be available on August 21st for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The current state of TSR is that it will come out in the Winter of 2018, which is right in the range of the date. However, it is odd that it is set this late in November, considering that most Sonic titles are released before Thanksgiving holidays.

We will probably get an actual date in the coming months, but at least we have some sort of time frame for when this game will come out.

Now, all of the Sonic Mania Plus games came with a very nice holographic cover, a reversible Genesis/Mega Drive cover (sorry Xbox One buyers), and a 32-page art book covering many different details of Sonic Mania Plus’ story through development.

With all that out of the way, there is one particular thing we are going to be looking at, the art book. The book itself has very detail descriptions about Sonic Mania’s development from 2016 and how the transition from dedicated fan-game to mainstream game came to be. It is full of amazing concept art of characters and zones, but were not here to talk about that.

Hidden at the very end of the book, there is a line of Morse Code on the very top.

For those who can’t see the code:

– — –. . – …. . .-. –..– / .– . / .- .-. . / –. .-. . .- – . .-. / – …. .- -. / – …. . / … ..- — / — ..-. / — ..- .-. / .–. .- .-. – … .-.-.-

It is indeed filled with mystery. After consulting to the finest of Morse Code convertors on the internet, this is what the code translates to:

TOGETHER, WE ARE GREATER THAT THE SUM OF PARTS.

That’s a very odd quote to put on the back of an art book. After doing some more digging, it turns out that this is loosely based off a quote by famous Greek philosopher, Aristotle.

“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

― Aristotle

Not to get into too much philosophy here, but Aristotle is referring to synergy, and synergy is the cooperation of two or more organizations that put a combined effort that will be greater than the effects of the organizations themselves.

So tying this back to Sonic Mania Plus, this is basically telling everyone that none of this, the physical copy, would be possible without the help of the Sonic community and quite possibly, everything else that has happened within the Sonic community, such as a Sonic toaster being developed.

This is just a nice way of SEGA telling us thank you for the support we have given them over the past year. So how can we repay them, by playing Sonic Mania Plus.

And always remember: Fun is Infinite.

A photo shared on Instagram, named Aaron Stone, shows a group of producers huddled together as they scout the area for potential filming spots. This photo was taken in Ladysmith, BC, which is 65 miles from Vancouver, in which they have permission to film in.

View this post on Instagram

Film folks. #Sonic the Movie! #paramount #sonicthehedgehog . . . . . #paramountstudios #film #ladysmith #ladysmithbc #filmcowichan #cowichan #herotown #location

A post shared by Aaron Stone (@theslystone) on Jul 10, 2018 at 1:02pm PDT

The Sonic the Hedgehog movie is set to release on November 15, 2019. It will star James Marsden, from HBO’s Westworld, and Jim Carry. Filming will begin on July 31st.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 won’t be available to buy for another month, however, SEGA has graciously given us a demo to help us in the long wait. It is unknown if you can transfer data from the demo to the actually game like they did with the Yakuza 6 demo. The demo is free and only for the PlayStation 4.

With that said, a new “Special Item Pack” pre-order bonus is also available. The special will come with the following items:

• Demonfire Blade weapon
• Hostess Ono Michiyo
• Sotaro Komaki R Clan Card
• Jo Amon R Clan Card
• The Comedian Suit Outfit
• 1 Million Yen

Have some more screenshots provided by SEGA.

Yakuza Kiwami 2 will be available on August 28th exclusively for the PlayStation 4.