Yet more Zach Morris rumours surface

Just as a disclaimer, I do not believe what Zach Morris is saying, and I am reporting on these "rumours" to show to others that they are not true.

On FGNOnline there have been yet more false rumours surrounding a possible Sega console, as well as apparent details on the next Yakuza game.

The follow-up to the original "new console" article, which was supposed to give details on a handheld based on RingWide technology, has been "cancelled". According to Zach Morris, Sega-Sammy themselves have requested that he does not publish the article. How very convenient.

A new rumour has surfaced from the same site, outlining concepts for the next Yakuza game. It will apparently be more Grand Theft Auto-based, to avoid a possible GTA: Tokyo taking away Yakuza sales. I suspect this article was posted to draw attention away from the consoles and make the website more credible.

I have personally been sent "tips" about FGNOnline from the Zach Morris hoaxer himself. Both Zach Morris and the sender of the tips have an email address ending "@email2me.net", which seems rather uncommon. This proves further that all the rumours are false.

[Source: FGNOnline]

More speculation about Sega's 2010 consoles

Throughout the Sega community it is now the general consensus that Sega's 2010 consoles are fake. First posted on an unknown news blog, the stories detailing new Sega consoles based on their new arcade hardware have been almost entirely rubbished.

There are some reasons why the stories are believable - the blog has posted previous news about Sega-Sammy prior to this, many of the hardware facts are true and the idea of producing two consoles based on new arcade hardware is plausible.

But there are other reasons that show the stories are almost certainly fake. The first is the name of the reporter - "Zach Morris". This was a well-known character in the sitcom Saved By The Bell, and was the same name used in various Sega hoaxes in 2004. It is unlikely that the names are just a coincidence.

Another point is the blog itself - it takes the name of a previous blog, FGNOnline, which shut down in the early 2000s. The layout is dated and cheap, and the previous news about Sega-Sammy is probably there to make the "exclusive" news look legitimate.

One other extremely suspect point about the website is the forum. The administrator refers to "Mr. Morris" in the third person, when it is extremely likely that they are same. Some of the members, namely "Digi", "Crackdude", "Omega" and "Realgamer" all seem to be the same person as well, agreeing with each other in quick succession and rubbishing other speculative members' posts (including a member from Sega Nerds). The last name, "Realgamer", is the most suspicious - the previous "Zach Morris" Sega hoax was posted on a website entitled "Real Games Players". It is therefore extremely likely that Zach Morris, the administrator, all the aforementioned posters and "BIGGER" on the SoA Boards are indeed the same person.

One theory as to all of this could be that someone has actually discovered all of this information. The whole thing could be true, designed to look fake by using past hoaxes as inspiration. Then when the real thing was announced, there would an "I told you so" from FGNOnline. I severely doubt this, however.

Aside from this, people have been wondering why Sega would even enter the hardware market at this stage - 2010 is far too early to produce a "next-gen" console, when the "current-gen" hasn't even seen its peak. Going directly against Nintendo seems like a ridiculous idea as well; people would be unlikely to switch brands for a new casual console.

There has been a new post on the website regarding the next part of the story:

"Earlier in the week we provided you part 1 of our world exclusive report where we brought to light top secret details of SEGA SAMMY's plans of introducing a next generation HD capable casual console based around the RINGEDGE arcade hardware.

Next week FGNOnline shall present to you part 2 of our world exclusive where we discuss SEGA SAMMY's plans of yet another consumer hardware product this time based around the RINGWIDE arcade hardware.

Stay tuned.

- Zach Morris"

I would say to ignore whatever is said as the entire thing, with the help of the Sega community, has been almost completely rubbished.

Have Sega got two new consoles in the pipeline?

Sega's new arcade boards, the RingEdge and RingWide.

Yesterday I reported Sega's apparent plans to release a new casual console next year, as announced on an unknown blog. The article outlining Sega's plans was Part 1 of a series, with Part 2 still to follow.

The blog, FGNOnline, also has a forum. The administrator has said today in one of the threads that Part 2 will be up next week with an announcement based on Sega's RingWide arcade architecture.

With a new console announced based on the RingEdge hardware, the next article will announce a new handheld based on the RingWide hardware. This means Sega could be releasing two consoles next year, both around the Holiday Season.

Here is what was said on the forum:

"Part 1 = World exclusive details on a SEGA SAMMY consumer home system based on the RINGEDGE architecture.

Part 2 = World exclusive details on a SEGA SAMMY consumer portable based on the RINGWIDE architecture.

Part 2 should be up sometime next week."

The article outlining Sega's new consoles has been open to much speculation as to its authenticity. Many of the hardware facts are completely true, but it is unknown whether Sega really are going to produce consoles based on their Ring arcade boards.

The article mentioned a "Game Gear 2" was in the works at one point, so this could be a continuation of that project. Nothing has been said about possible features yet, such as a touch-screen. Details are to be expected next week.

The name "Zach Morris" has been tied to a "new Sega console" hoax from 2004, posted on a website called "Real Games Players". This is what was said:

"Hajime Satomi Interested In "home Hardware" (7th June 2004)

Today I have some earth shattering news

A close colleague of RGP who has connection with people within Sega of Japan has informed us that Hajime Satomi the Chairman/CEO of Sega Sammy has "serious" intentions towards the "home console market front".

It has been said that Satomi has some "serious serious plans" for "rapid expansion" into businesses which would lead to an "explosion of income".

Our informant tells us that Satomi is watching the current hardware scene with a "Hawks Eye"

Our colleague continues-

"A major factor in deciding whether to release the soon to be unvieled Naomi 3 arcade board based console would be on what Microsoft and Nintendo are up to"

Apparantly Satomi-san believes their chance will come if Nintendo and Microsoft team up, so that Sega can slip in as the third entrant.

This is all the news which is available at this moment in time.

Stay tuned...

Industry Insider - Insider scoops EIC"

This makes these announcements even more unlikely - Real Games Players had multiple Sega-based hoaxes in 2004:

"New Sega titles revealed! (Exclusive)

Today, we can exclusively reveal to you the games Sega will showcase to the world for the very first time on the 29th.

Here they are!

Shenmue III (XBox)

Panzer Dragoon Saga II (Xbox)

Crazy Taxi 4 (Xbox/PS2/GC)

Super Monkey Ball 3 (Xbox/PS2/GC)

OutRun 2 (Xbox/PS2/PSP)

Virtua Fighter 4 Final Tuned (Xbox/PSP worldwide) - PS2 Japan only

Shinobi 2 (PS2)

Spikeout X-treme (XBox/PS2)

Sega Superstars (PS2/XBox/GC)

Sonic the Hedgehog No Ones (PS2/XBox/PSP/NDS)

Sega Superstars will be a sequel to Fighters Megamix. Outrun 2 will have a total of 12 cars compared to the arcade versions 8 and will support online play. Crazy Taxi 4's launch will coincide with the release of the movie. Sonic No Ones will consist of Sonic1, 2, 3, & Knuckles, CD, Spinball, and the new Advance 3. Both Shenmue III and Panzer Dragoon Saga 2 will be funded and published by MS as 2nd party titles.

Sega's conference will take place on the 29th of April, where all these games will be shown for the very first time.

-- Zach Morris

editor-in-chief"

FGNOnline was quick to deny that this was the same Zach Morris, however:

"We directed this post to the attention of Mr Morris, who stated that he has no knowledge of freewebs.com/realgamesplayer and that particular Zach Morris is not he.

FGNOnline is Mr Morris's very first online portal.

Hopefully that has clarified any misconceptions you may of had."

As I said before, I'll wait for further information about these articles. Are they real, or just an elaborate hoax? I'll be sure to read the second part of the article when it is published next week.

[Source: FGNOnline Forums]

Is Sega planning to release a new console in 2010?

Could all our dreams finally be coming true? Probably not.

A website, entitled "Fast Game News Online", has posted an article apparently revealing Sega's plans for a new console. The blog has posted previous news articles such as Sega-Sammy's corporate restructuring, with the writer, Zach Morris, being "in the industry for over 30 years" and "a business associate of industry legends such as Hayao Nakayama, Isao Okawa, [and] Hajime Satomi".

Sega has recently dispelled rumours of a possible Dreamcast 2 announcement at this year's E3.

The post, with the title "Sega-Sammy Consumer Hardware Roadmap", outlines Sega's console plans made since the Dreamcast, including a "new Game Gear" and an upcoming casual gaming console based on the RingEdge arcade board.

Here is the article in full, interesting points in bold:

"Today we would like to present to you part 1 of our world exclusive report in which we shed light on SEGA SAMMY's plan for a HD casual system in development since 2007 and scheduled for worldwide release for the holiday season of 2010.

History

At the end of 1999 SEGA held a press conference where they laid out their hardware ambitions and talked extensively about broadband and a whole host of future technologies. Shoichiro Irimajiri was stated here as saying that SEGA would strike back with a vengeance in the next millenium. By Spring 2000 Irimajiri-san was already tasked with heading the development of SEGA's next console, Irimajiri was stated as saying that it would be a joint venture with numerous companies because the future box would do more than just play videogames thus they had to partner with cable companies, telecommuncation companies and Hollywood conglomerates. The aim for the design was a single chip solution measuring in at 250 million transistors ready for a Q4 2004 worldwide release. What is not known by the mainstream is that SEGA at this time was also in early stages of development for a 3D handheld which was to be based on the chip that went on to be known as the MBX developed by Imagination Technologies PowerVR division. The PowerVR MBX hit silicon in 2002 about the time SEGA had initially planned on launching a new Game Gear. This device would have beaten the PSP to market by 2 years. All of these plans where scrapped however by Isao Okawa who foresaw a software future for the company, the rest of the company however where vehemently against the idea of software only.

Fast forward a few years to early 2003 when Hideki Sato and the rest of SEGA's high level executives were desperately in search for either a merger or even a sale of the company. The discussions where being held with Sammy, Namco, EA and Microsoft. Again what is not known to the general public is that the reason for SEGA's desperation was that at this very moment SEGA had yet another system in development which had a worldwide target ship date of Q4 2005. This system would have competed against what went on to be known as the XBOX360 and Sony's PS3. The system was designed around a PowerVR Series 5 GPU and an unknown CPU, using standard DVD it was to be a cost/performance solution targeting a $300 launch price tag whilst simultaneously incorporating equal 3D throughput as the higher priced offerings by the competition. SEGA and Imagination Technologies on the 18th of March 2004 released a press release regarding the development of the chip for arcade use. Come Jamma 2005 when the world was expecting SEGA to unveil it's PowerVR based arcade board everyone was shocked to learn of the LINDBERGH which was basically a PC tower with an nVidia 6800GT and a Intel Pentium 4 3GHz Prescott. Whatever happened to the PowerVR based integrated silicon arcade board? Simple, the console that was to be based on the arcade board was scrapped by the newly formed SEGA SAMMY. With no console counterpart for the arcade board it wasn't financially feasible to spend tens and indeed hundreds of millions of dollars on integrated silicon thus SEGA quietly without telling anyone just took a mother board and slotted in components from a mid range PC from 2004 and called it "LINDBERGH". The PowerVR Series 5 whose development SEGA funded lived on however as the PowerVR SGX series of mobile GPU's. The Series 5 architecture was designed to be highly scaleable, low end parts for mobile phones and high end parts for arcade boards and consoles, unfortunately the world never got to see the performance of the higher end variants.

So to recap -

There was a next gen system in development in 2000 which was scrapped by owner Isao Okawa and there was a next gen system in development in 2003/2004 which was scrapped by Isao Okawa's friend and new owner Hajime Satomi.

Present and Future

With the Nintendo Wii hitting retail and gaining worldwide superstardom of the likes never witnessed SEGA SAMMY once again immediately got to work on another system with orders from the boss himself Satomi-san. This system shall be a HD casual console and is designed to compete with the successor to the Wii. The design of the system FGN can officially confirm was finalised in late 2008, it's arcade variant goes by the name "RINGEDGE" the specifications of the system are as follows.

The chosen CPU is the Intel Pentium E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz Dual-Core Processor, the GPU of choice is the Shader Model 4.0 compliant 9600GSO with 384 MB GDDR3 RAM, System memory measuring 1GB DDR2-800. Other features include an onboard HD audio DSP, 32GB SSD, standard DVD, and WiFi connectivity. SEGA SAMMY plans on shipping the system with two controllers, a motion sensing remote and one which looks similar to the Saturn 3D controller. One for casual gaming the other for non-casual. To top this off SEGA SAMMY shall be using a stripped down version of Microsoft's Windows Embedded Standard 2009 for ease of development. This particular version differs from the standard version where only the DirectX functionality is included, the standard edition costs $90 per shipping device. As SEGA SAMMY's version doesn't include the non gaming features SEGA SAMMY has managed to get a hold of the OS for less than half of that cost.

SEGA SAMMY plans on launching the system in time for the holiday season of 2010 for no less than $200 and no more than $250. The company doesn't plan on publically acknowledging the project this year, thus an official announcement won't take place until 1H 2010.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our world exclusive where we shed light on SEGA SAMMY's consumer plans for the "RINGWIDE" ."

People in the games community are suspicious about the article, especially when someone called "BIGGER" posted the link on the Sega of America forum as their first post, then promptly disappeared.

It should be noted that "Zach/Zack Morris" is a character on many sitcoms, including Saved By The Bell; and that "FGNOnline" is the name of a previous games website, shut down in 2001.

Here is the rundown of this alleged upcoming console:

• Based on Sega's RingEdge arcade board
• Aims to compete with the Wii's successor
• HD Graphics
• Comes with two controllers: One motion-sensing for casual games and the other, based on the Saturn's 3D controller, for "hardcore" games
• First announcement expected early 2010
• Release date Holiday Season 2010
• Price range $200-$250

What has also been pointed out by members of the community is that a wireless, motion-sensing 3D-esque controller has recently been trademarked by Sega. Could this be the "hardcore" controller mentioned in the article?

I suspect this is completely fake, but even if it was true I would be severely disappointed. Another casual games console is not what we need, and is certainly not what most long-term Sega fans would want.

I'll wait for further news on this - probably confirming that it is indeed a hoax.

[Source: FGNOnline]

Ringedge and Ringwide arcade boards showcased in Japan

Recently, a trademark application for "Ringwide" and "Ringedge" was filed by Sega, sparking rumours that they were returning to the console business. The trademarks applied to both arcade hardware and home consoles.

Today Sega have shown off their new arcade hardware, entitled Ringwide and Ringedge, at the AOU Show in Japan. The first game to use the new technology will be Border Break, a robot fighting game.

Both boards have online capabilities, with parts from Intel and Nvidia. Although this announcement has confirmed the boards' existence, it hasn't yet confirmed whether the technology will be used in home consoles. We can still hope!

[Source: Intergame]

Could Sega be returning to the console market?

A few days ago you may have read about Sega's latest trademark applications for the names "RingWide" and "RingEdge". This is now fuelling speculation that they may be names for Sega's next console.

The trademark application says that it applies to "arcade game boards... stand alone video game machines, [or] arcade game machines with built-in screens". This could mean that Sega are not just developing new arcade hardware, but technology that would transfer to a separate games console or handheld.

Perhaps the console would launch to compete with the next generation. I don't see them doing another Dreamcast, whereby they release the console halfway through a generation when people aren't ready or are waiting for a previously established brand.

Also trademarked was a logo, which is extremely small and looks vaguely ring-like.

All I can say is that I really hope Sega are making a new console. I would certainly buy it, Goatse puns aside!

[Source: CNET]

Sega Body Trainer coming to US

Stylish!

Earlier this year Sega announced the Sega Body Trainer, a Japan-only fitness gadget. Itami USA has recently announced that they will market the device in the US under the Itami brand.

The gadget is placed in the ear and tells the user exactly how to achieve the best results whilst exercising. You can also attach your MP3 player to it to listen to music whilst you exercise.

Pricing and release dates should be released soon.

Sega Vision video disappears off YouTube

The video showcasing the new Sega Vision has been taken off Youtube, say SegaVision.info. The video was originally uploaded by Sega Prize Europe, with many people believing it was a hoax. This adds more speculation as to whether or not the Sega Vision actually exists.

Despite sightings in a London arcade and apparent official confirmation, the existence of Sega's new PMP is still debatable. Personally I think it would be better if Sega worked on a handheld console to challenge the PSP and DS rather than releasing a PMP in an already saturated market, although I still find the Sega Vision appealing.

Will we ever be able to play the Java mini game and more?

New "Sega Vision" handheld announced

I'm sure most of you will have heard by now, but Sega is making a return to the hardware market with the announcement of the "Sega Vision" on Friday. It is to be a Portable Media Player, or "PMP", and will boast a number of features: a portable TV tuner, movie player, music player, digital camera and video camera, an e-book reader, voice recorder, and the ability to play Java games.

WANT!

It's not all that exciting though. Touted by the press as a "PSP beater", the Sega Vision is apparently just a rebranding of an existing Chinese PMP. However, according to SegaVision.info, there is the possibility of Java versions of Sega's classic games coming to the Sega Vision. The system will have the power of a top mobile phone, so hopefully it will be able to handle these conversions.

With only 2GB of space, the Sega Vision's storage is small in comparison to the latest iPods (or iP3 players as they are called by adults), but is perfect for the people like me who struggle to fill their ancient 256MB MP3 Players.

The name "Sega Vision" conjures up images of the early 1980s to me, where all consoles/companies had "vision" in their name, for example "Colecovision", "Microvision" and "Activision". At least it's better than "iSEGA".

The Sega Vision will launch in the UK next year, with some already being available in a London arcade. People are speculating that the price will be around the same as the Nintendo DS. Although Sega's reëntry into the console market remains in the distant future, this is still an exciting announcement. I'm sure a lot of Sega fans have exclaimed "WANT!" at their computer screens already.