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The story
A lengthy interview with Sega’s Akira Nishino and Takaharu Terada in the latest issue of Famitsu has become a hot topic on 5ch’s Hardware/Industry (Geha) board. In it, the pair said they “don’t want the idea of a Shin Sakura Taisen sequel to stay just a fantasy,” and also expressed a desire to “somehow make it happen” — remastering the original entries 1 through V for current hardware. In the thread, many posters pointed to a PS exclusivity deal and rights issues reportedly tied to Shin Sakura Taisen’s development as the reason remasters of the older games haven’t materialized, with plenty of comments calling for the older titles to be reassessed and ported before any new game, alongside harsh criticism of Shin Sakura Taisen itself.
The latest issue of Famitsu features a lengthy interview with Sega’s Akira Nishino and Takaharu Terada.
It also touches on behind-the-scenes stories from the past, as well as what’s ahead.
This one’s packed with stuff we’re hearing for the first time too.
Source: ryokutya2089.xn--bl;og-d41c.jp / Original article here
What people said
Sakura Wars: Shin, Continued
Developer… Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Script… Yokoyama
Something like that
Script… Furuta Tsuyoshi
Then maybe it could actually come back
Nah, Sega these days would put it on Xbox
It felt fresh for its time, but Gunparade March is still the strongest in that genre
Wasn't it from 5 onward, when Ogami changed?
Go fix the mobile game instead
Just let it stay a fantasy lol, or the company's going under lol (´・ω・`)
Maybe when they launched Shin Sakura they stripped out so many elements from the old games that it soured relations with people involved in the originals, and that turned into some kind of rights issue?
Apparently Sega has held all the rights since 2017
It's probably just low on the investment priority list, so the project never gets greenlit
To release it on Xbox they'd have to pay a penalty fee to break the PS exclusivity deal Nagoshi signed,
and that would make it unprofitable — that's the theory, anyway.
The only way it'd happen is if Microsoft covered the penalty fee themselves,
but would they really go that far for a title that basically only sells in Japan?
If it means cutting ties with PlayStation, that'd be a bargain
If even porting is this hard, sounds like every project with "Sakura Taisen" in the name is locked to PlayStation
Sakura Taisen 4: Koiseyo Otome hasn't been ported to any home console besides the Dreamcast (DC) and Windows (PC) versions.
Is even a Steam port of the old games being blocked?
That would mean the whole series IP is basically being treated as a Sony IP
Doesn't matter that it started on the Saturn if there's a later contract involved
Well, as a result, they're not exactly a major player in the mainstream market anymore
Sega of America and Sega Europe both refused to publish it themselves
Sega flatly turned down ("ongi") a Japanese release of the Wii version, but the overseas version's poster actually had the Wii logo on it — at first people on Geha were calling that photoshopped or fake
When Shin came out, didn't he say something like "I think they should release it as a brand-new title without using the Sakura name, but I'm done with it, so do whatever you want"?
I remember only reluctantly buying a PS around the time the Slim model came out and LCD displays were being sold.
Among old-school Sakura Taisen fans, I don't think a single one has a good impression of PlayStation
Slim for the PS? Are you saying you didn't buy one until the PS2? I never once saw anyone harboring hatred for PlayStation back in real time, especially with no internet around to stir it up — people who bought Sakura Taisen owned a PS too. Other folks who were specifically into anime-style games were off happily playing on the Saturn in their own way — I remember playing Mortal Kombat at one of their houses
Must be a rights thing
They've released stuff for Windows PC before,
so I don't think it's technically difficult.
Like I said earlier, it's probably a contract issue, or otherwise rights issues around the music and such.
On top of that, thanks to Nagoshi, things apparently got messy with the old series' voice actors too, so that might be tangled up in it as well
Yep, that's right — and that's exactly why the sticking point is that the Ogami arc of Sakura Taisen ended without ever wrapping up
Background and Points of Debate
The Sakura Wars (Sakura Taisen) series began with the 1996 Sega Saturn original, and Shin Sakura Taisen, released in 2019, was developed as a PS4-exclusive title, with series creator Ōji Hiroi no longer involved in production. The original entries 1 through V have so far only received home console ports in limited forms, such as the PSP versions, with no expansion onto platforms like Steam. What split the thread was whether this wall against porting comes down to technical reasons or to contractual and rights-related restrictions — and either way, none of it goes beyond speculation, since there’s no confirmed information. One point readers can easily get wrong: Sega’s comments here amount only to statements of “plans” and “intentions,” not an official announcement that a sequel or remasters are actually happening.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt/summary of the 5ch Hardware/Industry (Geha) board thread “[PS5] Sega: “We don’t want the idea of a new Shin Sakura Taisen to stay just a fantasy, and we want to somehow remaster 1 through V for current hardware”“.
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