SEGA is in Dubai!

I can't believe my eyes! SEGA will be coming to Dubai!

DUBAI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Dubai's Emaar Properties EMAR.DU and Japan's Sega Corp have agreed to develop theme parks in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, Emaar said on Thursday.

They will first start to develop one in Dubai Mall next to Burg Dubai (that monstrous skyscraper). Is this a comeback for the long extinct Arcade?
I used to frequent Arcades back in the golden days of the Fighters Genre. Spent hundreds of Dinars in Sindbad (now closed) on Street Fighter 2 back in '92. Later on King of Fighters series and Tekken in Ardh al sighar. Met friends and created rivals. Arcades was very much like..um.. a Gahwa of competing Carrom & playing cards players, but for this generation. A more complex and tech savvy one.
Arcades are all but dead now. The Playsttation, Xbox & Wii are doing a great job of providing quality gaming and letting people interact cyberly. What would the Emarati SEGA theme park be like? Will it bring Arcades to its next Golden Age or will it be reduced to simple kiddie rides?
Time will tell, but for now, I am ecstatic.

Smash Brothers gets a Perfect Score

Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the highly anticipated Wii game recently got a perfect 40 score by Famitsu Magazine. Famitsu is a Japanese videogames publication that has pretty much accurate scores. 4 editors rate out of 10 and their ratings are added up to form the final score. In its lifetime, Famitsu gave 7 games only a perfect score. SSBB is their Eighth.
I hear good news of it and I read only good things. This game will be fully online, which is a major turn-on on its own. It is visited by then Nintendo enemy, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Time passes and I see Sonic next to Mario on a Nintendo machine. The shame.
Another Guest is Solid Snake of the Metal Gear Solid series that Konami produces. If anything, it means that several third parties are working with Nintendo in sort of like a "handshake". I reckon we will see more offerings from them in the future.
The video shown is Solid Snake using his codec. Snake usually talks to HQ in his Metal Gear Solid games, where they brief him and he reports back. But when he sees Wario, this is what happens.
More Codec movies can be found on the Smash Bros. DOJO!

Sega: Rebuilding an Empire through ... TOYS?

SEGA is not a video game manufacturer anymore as all of you know. However, few people know that SEGA (Originally SErvice GAmes) is more than that.
SEGA is entering the TOY market with force. Probably aiming to be the next Bandai. It's next releases are toy cats and dogs.
The dogs are quite simple, unlike the robotic AIBOs, these are merely toys. They respond to touch. The "Mio pup" shows its emotions with eye animation, lights, sound, and wagging of its tail and ears. The eyes can show many different emotions with multiple animations. Look at the video.



If that's too much dog for you then you can have the ingeniously named "IDOG". A design that doesn't rip off any famous music players at all *cough* (see image). The reason why it looks this way is because it's meant to be used with Audio players. "Simply connect iDog to your audio player (any player) and touch one of its sensor buttons. Depending on where you touch, iDog gives a response by wagging its ears, and shaking its head while displaying a range of cool LED lights."
Of course, we are not all dog people. For the cat person out there, SEGA is providing you with "Yume Neko Smile" (Dream Cat Smile). Its er....well... a cat substitute, if you will. You know, when your little kid girl nags for one and you know that the cat would die within a week, well, you get the dream cat thing.


I am unsure if I should wish for SEGA to return to videogames to spare the world from these toys or wish for them to stay AWAY from videogames to spare videogames from these ideas.