“We scour the Earth web for indie, retro, and niche gaming news so you don’t have to, drebnar!” – your faithful reporter
(I decided to get some use out of the old news roundup post template for this item.)
News comes from Ars Technica‘s Kevin Purdy, and was announced on Sega’s website, a large number of items will be removed from Steam and all the major console storefronts with the end of the year, although as Ars points out, the Playstation and Switch storefronts are only seeing the Sega Classics Collection removed. Steam is seeing the most removals. Items on the Nintendo Switch online compilation will not be affected. Nothing removed will disappear from your library of online purchases (unlike what happened with Oxenfree on itch.io when it was picked up by Netflix), so if you want to play these items, in this form, later, buy them now, and you’ll “always” be able to download them again later. (Always deserves scare quotes because nothing online is forever, but you’ll be able to play them some while later at least.)
Why are they being removed? Purdy speculates that, like how Sonic the Hedgehog titles were removed in advance of the release of Sonic Origins, there’s probably some new collection of Sega classics in the works that these items will be a part of, or maybe they plan on bundling a bunch of them with a Yakuza game or something.
Sega’s website lists them all, but the great majority of them are Genesis titles, along with Nights Into Dreams for Saturn, and Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5 Part 2, and the Dreamcast Collection, originally for Dreamcast of course. I personally recommend Crazy Taxi, of course.
