Sega Tipped To Revive Crazy Taxi And Jet Set Radio With Big-Budget Reboots
The Sega Dreamcast may have been at least somewhat responsible for the company stepping away from hardware development for good back in 2001, but there's still a lot of love for its games library even 20 years later. So much so that, according to a report from Bloomberg, we could be seeing big-budget reboots of something other than a disappointing Shenmue remaster within the next few years.
Anonymous sources within have told Bloomberg that Sega is planning to tap into its back catalog in order to revitalize both "Crazy Taxi" and "Jet Set Radio" (a.k.a "Jet Grind Radio") as part of its Super Game initiative. Though what this means for either title (or any others that may be included later) is still unclear as nothing official has been stated.
By Sega's own admission, the intention behind Super Game is to focus on four key areas: "Global, Online, Community, and IP utilization." Which means these proposed reboots might not follow the same structure as their progenitors as both examples didn't really utilize online play at the time.
What we know so far
While the nature of Sega's rumored reboots is still unclear, there were some specifics shared with Bloomberg by its sources at Sega. "Crazy Taxi" has supposedly been in the works for the past year already, and currently has a tentative expected release of sometime within the next two or three years. "Jet Set Radio" has also appeared on a short list of names that Sega is considering bringing back, but there was no indication of whether or not it had begun development.
In addition, there are still two as of yet unnamed titles that might be making a comeback (for a grand total of four reboots), though Bloomberg's sources didn't specify what the other two are. We can assume they'd have to be owned by Sega, so maybe "Virtua Cop" or "The House of the Dead" are included due to their popularity in arcades? Or, since games like "House of the Dead" and "Phantasy Star Online" have already had recent releases and remasters we might see something a bit niche such as "Seaman" or fan-favorite RPG "Skies of Arcadia."
Until Sega opens up about its plans all we can do is speculate for now, and that includes the possible reboots of "Crazy Taxi" and "Jet Set Radio" themselves. Since it's still very early days, either or both projects could still be canceled for any reason. We'll just have to wait and see (and hope).