Kotaku Australia » outrun

Shenmue Creator Yu Suzuki ‘Retires’ From Sega

Michael McWhertor — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 00:40:00 +0000

The creator of titles like Virtua Fighter, OutRun and Shenmue has retired from his Creative Officer position at Sega of Japan, Sega announced this week. But the company isn’t done with Yu Suzuki just yet.

While Sega-Sammy announced that Suzuki had “retired” from his role as Creative Officer of the AM Plus R&D department, he’ll still have some influence at Sega. The developer will continue on as manager of that group, in a role that GameSpot, by way of Sega reps, says is of “diminished capacity.”

Suzuki’s employment at Sega was called into question last year, when Sega of America boss Simon Jeffery indicated that the creator was no longer working for the company. Jeffery later corrected that, placing Suzuki in a Creative Officer role.

While Shenmue fans should really have given up hope of seeing Shenmue III a long, long time ago, we’d have to think that those still holding a candle for a third chapter should extinguish those hopes.

Yu Suzuki retires from AM plus [Sega Nerds]
Shenmue creator steps down at Sega [GameSpot]

Outrun To Splash Wave Your 360/PS3 In January

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:40:00 +0000

When Sega said the new Outrun was due for release in “early 2009″, they weren’t kidding around, as posters thrown up at the Asia Games Show last week tell us it’ll be out in January.

Spencer from Siliconera snapped the above pic, and while it doesn’t actually show the date clearly (it’s the fuzzy bit of text next to the Sega logo), we’ll take his word for it. January being only a week away and all, that means the longest you’ll be waiting for 2009’s driftiest arcade racer is five weeks!

Outrun Online Arcade Zooms Into January [Siliconera]

Outrun Brings Its Magical Sound Shower To XBLA, PSN

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 01:00:00 +0000

Great, unexpected news, Sega (and good times) fans: Outrun returns. And it’s not the retro OutRun, nor the wonderful Sumo Digital arcade port from a few years back. It’s something in between.

Called OutRun Online Arcade, Sumo are on development duties, with the game due to hit both Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network in “early 2009″. The game brings the handling and sexy minigames of the 2003 version to the courses of the original, with a dash of HD thrown in for good measure.

No mention of price just yet, but it’ll support up to six players online.

Sega (And THQ?) Planning New OutRun Game

Michael McWhertor — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 22:40:58 +0000

According to a new rating from Australia’s Office of Film & Literature Classification board, there may be a new OutRun game in the works. The OFLC has rated a game titled OutRun Online Arcade for a multi-platform release, one published by Sega and, oddly enough, “produced” and “authored” by THQ. The two companies had enjoyed a publishing agreement on Game Boy Advance titles in the past, but development duties on the OutRun series has largely been handled by internal Sega teams and UK-based indie studio Sumo Digital.

The last entry, OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast, will hit the PlayStation 2, PSP, Xbox and Windows PCs. Whatever OutRun Online Arcade is — we see no mention of it in our web snooping — we hope it showers us with magical sound.

OutRun Online Arcade [OFLC]

Yu Suzuki Still Gainfully Employed At Sega

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Sega president Simon Jeffery appeared to have misspoke on the employment fate of famed game designer Yu Suzuki when he told Gamasutra that the Outrun creator was no longer employed at the company. Turns out, he is! Hooray! Said to be bearing the title Creative Officer of Sega Corp., Suzuki may be (extremely) low profile and the opposite of prolific, but it appears he’s still getting his checks signed by Sega.

In Jeffery’s defence, the man isn’t in human resources. And no one wants a second visit from Sega of Japan’s correction ninja squad. They’ll cut ya.

Jeffery: Yu Suzuki Still With Sega As ‘Creative Officer’ [Gamasutra]

Do You Love Outrun This Much?

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 01:30:01 +0000

Yes. More shirts. Man up, you can take the load. These are a limited run put out by a UK-based consultancy firm, just as a hobby, but if you feel like you could actually pull off wearing a shirt bearing Outrun’s arcade board number, there’s ordering details for the general public at the link below. Two other shirts are available, one for LocoRoco, one for Mario Kart.
[Never Mind The Polygons]

The Video Where HL2: Episode 2 Meets Outrun

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:30:00 +0000

All it needs now is some Magical Sound Shower wafting in over Gordon’s post-apocalyptic AM/FM radio and a palm tree or two and we’d be set. Plus I doubt Alyx would be the type to get all slappy if you crashed. Which is nice. You don’t need the threat of a smack from your lady hanging over you when you’re trying to save humanity.