As part of its most recent investor report, Sega shared that it is looking to revive some of its “major” inactive game series. While Sega’s “Road To 2020” business plan—which includes such brilliantly simple goals as “create titles that will become global hits“—didn’t name any particular games from Sega’s vast catalog of beloved releases, it specifically cites the “reutilization of dormant” properties as one of the company’s strategies going forward, adding these revivals to the handful of series it’s already focusing on, like Persona, Sonic The Hedgehog, Total War, and Football Manager.
As of late, Sega has drummed up a lot of goodwill by reviving recent cult classics from PlatinumGames, like Bayonetta and Vanquish, and bringing them to PCs. But Sega is a publisher with several decades of history to pull from and no shortage of acclaimed series that would be worth revisiting. Considering the state of the industry, some of them make more sense than others. Any of its famous light-gun games, like Virtua Cop and House Of The Dead, would fit right in on virtual-reality headsets. The Virtua Fighter series of 3-D fighting games would give Sega a foothold in the burgeoning esports scene that Capcom and Namco are tapping with Street Fighter V and Tekken 7, respectively. And the youthful hyper-color rebellion of Jet Set Radio would speak just as loudly today, if not moreso, than it did in 2000.