A Sega published game comes to the Nintendo Switch NES Online app!

[Sonicx9]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeuJK-ZfLr4

No Joke and if you look at the copyright at the end, it will surprise you.: https://youtu.be/LeuJK-ZfLr4?t=53

Can you guess the defunct company that made it before it rights got transferred over have a guess.

[Atariboy]

Not too surprising actually. It's well known that Sega and Sammy merged back in the early days of Sega being a 3rd party publisher after discontinuing the Dreamcast.

[Sonicx9]

Not too surprising actually. It's well known that Sega and Sammy merged back in the early days of Sega being a 3rd party publisher after discontinuing the Dreamcast.

Still, in fact this is the very first time a Sammy game has been re-released under the Sega branding as none of Sammy NES/SNES/Game Boy, etc games came to the Wii/Wii U and 3DS Virtual Console in any form. And speaking of possible unexpected Nintendo Switch NES Online app games that may come someday is this one.



Why is that you may ask it simple for the following reasons.

1. https://gematsu.com/2018/03/thq-nordic- ... itles-past if you read this article link from last year it mentions about THQ Nordic getting back the Nickelodeon license not long after Activision gave up the license in late 2017.

2. They recently announced SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated for everything except the upcoming Google Stadia and the Atari VCS systems for those that are not aware.

3. And last thing is if you look at the list of supported licenses one of them is The Ren & Stimpy Show and given that the original THQ did published NES/SNES/Game Boy Ren & Stimpy games from back in the day means it one of the very few license games from that era to be properly re-released as the reason why most old license games outside of ocasional titles do not get this treatment is for obvious reasons like licensing issues or the company that published/developed it are no longer around making the chances imposible most of the time.

[Sonicx9]

A Sega game on the NES who would have knew about it.

[Atariboy]

Does seem like an odd combination, doesn't it?

Worth remembering though that actual Sega content made it out on the NES and other consoles of the time thanks to Sega not abandoning the American console model of supporting a healthy competitor until the early 1990's. This was all done by licensing content to 3rd parties of course (Unlike those Atari published Colecovision and Intellivision games), but the NES saw several high profile Sega properties.

I bet there's more, but Tengen brought us Afterburner, Shinobi, and Alien Syndrome while Sunsoft published Afterburner II and Fantasy Zone 1 and 2 to the Famicom. And it looks like companies I've never heard of even did Space Harrier and Altered Beast for the Famicom.



I'm surprised we never saw an attempt at Outrun be made on the NES, but PC Engine fans did get that treat. At least NES fans did get Rad Racer, which was one of the best Outrun clones of the era.

[Atariboy]

An odd combination for me would've been Sega on the PS1.

It morphed into those lackluster 3D remakes on the Playstation 2 that weren't well received (Helping cement Sega's relationship with M2 when they happily took over the project), but initially the announced aim was to port Saturn games to the original Playstation which was still selling well at the time in its redesigned PSOne form.

Back in the early days of Sega as a 3rd party, that would've been an odd (And interesting) twist to have gotten things like Sega Rally and Panzer Dragoon on the original Playstation.

[Sonicx9]

Does seem like an odd combination, doesn't it?

Worth remembering though that actual Sega content made it out on the NES and other consoles of the time thanks to Sega not abandoning the American console model of supporting a healthy competitor until the early 1990's. This was all done by licensing content to 3rd parties of course (Unlike those Atari published Colecovision and Intellivision games), but NES saw several high profile Sega properties.

I bet there's more, but Tengen brought us Afterburner, Shinobi, and Alien Syndrome while Sunsoft published Afterburner II and Fantasy Zone 1 and 2 to the Famicom. And it looks like companies I've never heard of even did Space Harrier and Altered Beast for the Famicom.



I'm surprised we never saw an attempt at Outrun be made on the NES, but PC Engine fans did get that treat. At least NES fans did get Rad Racer, which was one of the best Outrun clones of the era.

and

An odd combination for me would've been Sega on the PS1.

It morphed into those lackluster 3D remakes on the Playstation 2 that weren't well received (Helping cement Sega's relationship with M2 when they happily took over the project), but initially the announced aim was to port Saturn games to the original Playstation which was still selling well at the time in its redesigned PSOne form.

Back in the early days of Sega as a 3rd party, that would've been an odd (And interesting) twist to have gotten things like Sega Rally and Panzer Dragoon on the original Playstation.

True, lots of great points about licensed Sega ports and post 3rd party era Sega.

[Matchstick]

None of this strikes me as strange. Not in the least.

I had the NES version of After Burner when I was a kid. It came in one of those black unlicensed Tengen cartridges. Right there on the title screen, clear as day, was a copyright date with Sega's name:



Funny thing is, it never struck me as odd. That game came out right about the same time the Genesis launched, and I think Sega was just happy to be making money one way or another, whether it was from their home console, the arcade, or from licensing their IPs out to other companies.

I still don't think it's strange to see VICE on the Switch Online service. Sure, it's a weird-ass choice, but I think it goes to show how little Nintendo cares about what NES games show up on the service. For every title like Punch-Out!!, we're given complete bombs like Clu-Clu Land or City Connection. No. Thanks.

The fact that VICE was originally published by Sammy, which is now owned by Sega, just doesn't mean much. Sega didn't publish the game on the NES. They had no hand in its development or distribution. Nowhere on the title screen does it have a copyright by Sega, unlike After Burner, Shinobi, Fantasy Zone, and whatever other games were licensed out to Tengen. Even then, Sega didn't publish those NES versions, but they still had their copyright on the title screen. To me, that carries much more weight than seeing VICE show up on the Switch with a Sega re-branding.

What's the bigger deal: Sega acquiring a company years down the line and re-releasing their back catalogue decades later, or Sega licensing their games during their initial release cycle for then-current sales on non-Sega platforms?

TL/DR - None of this matters. Segs's games have been on Nintendo systems, complete with their company name and trademark date, a fully thirty years before Sammy's VICE was re-released on the Switch with a Sega re-branding. This topic of Sega being involved in the release of NES titles is, quite frankly, very, very old news.

[Sonicx9]

None of this strikes me as strange. Not in the least.

I had the NES version of After Burner when I was a kid. It came in one of those black unlicensed Tengen cartridges. Right there on the title screen, clear as day, was a copyright date with Sega's name:



Funny thing is, it never struck me as odd. That game came out right about the same time the Genesis launched, and I think Sega was just happy to be making money one way or another, whether it was from their home console, the arcade, or from licensing their IPs out to other companies.

I still don't think it's strange to see VICE on the Switch Online service. Sure, it's a weird-ass choice, but I think it goes to show how little Nintendo cares about what NES games show up on the service. For every title like Punch-Out!!, we're given complete bombs like Clu-Clu Land or City Connection. No. Thanks.

The fact that VICE was originally published by Sammy, which is now owned by Sega, just doesn't mean much. Sega didn't publish the game on the NES. They had no hand in its development or distribution. Nowhere on the title screen does it have a copyright by Sega, unlike After Burner, Shinobi, Fantasy Zone, and whatever other games were licensed out to Tengen. Even then, Sega didn't publish those NES versions, but they still had their copyright on the title screen. To me, that carries much more weight than seeing VICE show up on the Switch with a Sega re-branding.

What's the bigger deal: Sega acquiring a company years down the line and re-releasing their back catalogue decades later, or Sega licensing their games during their initial release cycle for then-current sales on non-Sega platforms?

TL/DR - None of this matters. Segs's games have been on Nintendo systems, complete with their company name and trademark date, a fully thirty years before Sammy's VICE was re-released on the Switch with a Sega re-branding. This topic of Sega being involved in the release of NES titles is, quite frankly, very, very old news.

Still interesting as this is the first time in a long time a Sammy game gets re-released under the Sega Branding and if we start getting license games on Nintendo Switch NES Online app, that would be the next milestone.