Sega to delist their classic games

[Dreamwings]

Considering this forum has a major focus on those old 2000s vibes, I was thinking people might also like retro games from the 90s-y2k era as well so I thought I would put this here.
As announced here, Sega is going to be delisting ALMOST all of the ports of their old games from Steam, Xbox, and possibly also the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and Amazon Kindle App Store but we don't quite know that yet (just to be safe, count those as well) on December 6th. And when I say all, I mean...

SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics & Dreamcast Classics.

(Reason for the two different Ands is because "Mega Drive and Genesis Classics" is one title, "Dreamcast Classics" is another. Took me a while to get that.)
So, for Steam, this means:

• Comix Zone
• Crack Down
• Ecco the Dolphin
• Ecco The Tides of Time
• Ecco Jr
• Gain Ground
• Golden Axe
• Golden Axe 2
• Golden Axe 3
• Shinobi 3
• The Revenge of Shinobi
• Space Harrier
• VectorMan
• VectorMan 2
• Altered Beast
• Shadow Dancer
• Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
• Bonanza Bros
• Columns
• Columns 3
• Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
• Eternal Champions
• Fatal Labarynth
• Galaxy Force 2
• Kid Chameleon
• Ristar
• Super Thunder Ball
• Alien Storm
• Bio-Hazard Battle
• Decap Attack
• ESWAT City Under Siege
• Flicky
• Sword of Vermillion
• Virtua Fighter 2
• Alien Soldier
• Gunstar Heroes
• Landstalker: The Treasure of King Nole
• Light Crusader
• Shining Force
• Shining Force 2
• Shining in the Darkness
• Streets of Rage
• Streets of Rage 2
• Streets of Rage 3
• ToeJam and Earl
• ToeJam and Earl in Panic on Funkotron
• Wonder Boy in Monster World
• Wonder Boy 3: Monster Lair
• Beyond Oasis
• Dynamite Headdy
• Phantasy Star 2
• Phantasy Star 3
• Phantasy Star 4
• Sonic 3D Blast
• Sonic Spinball
• Sonic Adventure DX
• Sonic Adventure 2
• Crazy Taxi
• Sega Bass Fishing
• Space Channel 5 Part 2 (a JP exclusive outside of this port)
• Jet Set Radio
• Nights into Dreams (I Don't know why Nights into Dreams is part of the Dreamcast collection when it's a Saturn game but ok)

are all being delisted
(So... a lot of stuff)
This also isn't counting all of the games on the other console stores and the app stores exclusive to those.

If you want to get them, luckily they're very cheap right now. The games in the Genesis Collection on Steam are only 0.99 each or you can get them all in a bundle for less than if you bought them all individually. The Dreamcast (+the one Saturn game) games range from $8-$10 each or they also have a bundle). I also bolded the games in the list I really think you should check out. 
Very unfortunante personally. I really appreciated how the company was so forward thinking back in the early 2010s to republish those games to mobile and PC markets for people to enjoy. That's how I was introduced to them and Sonic the Hedgehog as a whole as a kid with the old Dreamcast and Genesis ports on the Kindle Fire. It's really strange that they would do this considering how long they've been up (some people think they're planning on reviving the properties but I am not sure if delisting the older games would be required to do that??). I am curious to see what everyone else thinks about this as well, and thoughts/recommendations on the games in the delisted catalogue.

[xXWebMasterXx_Gina]

Unless they are totally on board for just completely removing them from sale for a short term FOMO, it's more likely a marketing play to hike the prices of the games up either by re-bundling them or going down the enhanced or remake/remaster route.

In any case, I don't think it's a big loss. Due to their age, all of these games and more from their respective consoles are readily available on the high seas! Yarhar! 

[candycanearter07]

Keep in mind, they already nuked the Sonic Genesis trilogy (and knuckles) from the store, so it is definitely in the realm of possibility.

[nuclearblues]

the fact that so many companies with licenses to older games do this sort of thing so often really just serves to demonstrate the importance of piracy as a form of preservation. I'm unbelievably glad we have that option, but these are the very same companies that crack down so heavily on fangames and legal emulation. they're giving up access to a heavily profitable backlog, or worse using scarcity to hike prices even further. and then they have the gall to complain about people finding workarounds 

[foxmosis]

This does stink but it does make me think they're up to something and most of these titles will be re-released in a new Genesis collection, but it does seem a little odd for the Dreamcast (and Saturn) titles.  Maybe there's going to be one big SEGA collection or something.

Just a heads up though that Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 are not being delisted thankfully.

[Dreamwings]

Unless they are totally on board for just completely removing them from sale for a short term FOMO, it's more likely a marketing play to hike the prices of the games up either by re-bundling them or going down the enhanced or remake/remaster route.

This does stink but it does make me think they're up to something and most of these titles will be re-released in a new Genesis collection, but it does seem a little odd for the Dreamcast (and Saturn) titles.  Maybe there's going to be one big SEGA collection or something.

Possibly. Some of them are already enhanced remakes/remasters, like in the case of Nights into Dreams, so it would be weird to do that again though, nor would it be feasable to do it for every game. So maybe it is some sort of super-bundle game, like Sonic Gems Collection or those old Namco Arcade Museum games, where they put them altogether into one. The company's 60th anniversary is coming up next year (technically 65th if you count it's previous name before it went by Sega), so it could be something special for that. But I guess we'll just have to see.

In any case, I don't think it's a big loss. Due to their age, all of these games and more from their respective consoles are readily available on the high seas! Yarhar! 

Yeah, of course.  Though it is still a bit bothersome that piracy is the only way in this situation to play a game now that the legal way to do it is disappearing shortly. Now, I don't have any gripes about that personally, I grew up doing that and still do on the regular (love me some Pokeman ROM Hacks despite never even owning a GBA Pokemon Game, much lesso a GBA), but a lot of other people do. And also, as I sort of touched upon in the post, I originally discovered these older games and became a fan of the company's work in the first place from them being openly avaliable on the legal storefronts. Not that it's even difficult to find them, even with Nintendo being Nintendo and shooting down as many sites as they can shake a stick at, I guess it's moreso the idea though that they wouldn't be as easily promoted to a normie as they would if they were outside of it. But whatever, I get what you mean though. The games themselves are preserved. It's not like any of these are some super rare arcade title that has never been able to be emulated properly or something.

the fact that so many companies with licenses to older games do this sort of thing so often really just serves to demonstrate the importance of piracy as a form of preservation. I'm unbelievably glad we have that option, but these are the very same companies that crack down so heavily on fangames and legal emulation. they're giving up access to a heavily profitable backlog, or worse using scarcity to hike prices even further. and then they have the gall to complain about people finding workarounds 

Sega was always one of the companies that was a lot more lax on fangames and emulation and the like. The only time they really have cracked down is when there was genuine violations like people making money off their work, trying to impersonate them, or crimes going on in the projects (last one has happened more than once) but even they have been started to get more pushy like Nintendo has as of late (like with Vimm's Lair).

Just a heads up though that Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 are not being delisted thankfully.

Are they not? I don't have a very clear answer on it. Because both of those are part of the Dreamcast Collection that is said to be delisted but apparently there are versions of the post in other languages that list out the individual games and some of them list Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and some of them don't? (Source: this reddit post) So I'm not sure.

[garystu]

Space Channel 5 Part 2 rules, but I played it in this PC version and its kind of a bad port. I had issues with the backing audio desyncing which made the game unplayable when they occurred, and had to restart levels due to no fault of my own.

And, like, these old ports are gathering crust, right? They wouldn't be unplayable on modern PCs, but they were behind the curve of fanmade emulation when first released and have only gotten further behind. The Dreamcast ports were a slightly different story, as DC emulation wasn't great IIRC, but that's way a different story now.

I want to emphasise that part, that these were behind emulations when first released. Company-made emulation has always been behind the curve forever.

Don't buy these shit ports, that were shit on launch. Don't fall for FOMO. The devs got paid to make the games while they were developed and do not receive royalties, residuals, or other such from your purchases. There's not even a "support the devs" reason to buy these bad products.



OP's recs are solid, lots of fun games you should play. I got a good experience with DC emulation using Flycast, I don't know if its 'the best' but it worked good.

Companies have tried to erase ROMs off the internet, and it's never succeeded. Nintendo can hit a few sites, but Nintendo ROMs are still trivial to find. Yandex is a search engine that doesn't filter results for DMCA compliance.