A Quick Look At The SEGA Forever Audio Tape

SEGA Forever, if you're not familiar, is a mysterious new service that Sega has been teasing for the past couple of months, and which many people have speculated will be some kind of mobile gaming platform. While this isn't specifically Dreamcast related in the slightest, it's still pretty cool and will most likely introduce a whole new generation of gamers to the classic Sega IPs of yesteryear. Also, if you're wondering why I keep jumping between writing Sega as 'SEGA' and 'Sega,' it's because it is my prerogative to be as stylistically inconsistent as I like. We only live once, after all. Well, unless you're Chakan the Forever Man...although technically he still only has one life, albeit one that can never be extinguished. But you get the idea.
"Did you just spill my pint?"
This week, we received an intriguing package at the Junkyard and at first we were a little concerned. In this era of heightened security measures, receiving an unexpected package - especially one with a Sega postmark on it - sets alarm bells ringing all over the joint. We needn't have worried though, as after the envelope had been carefully steamed open above a frantically boiling kettle, the assault droids were stood down and I personally extracted the following items from said envelope while wearing a reinforced hazmat suit (aka some fetching negligee):
Yes, a rather spiffing SEGA Forever branded audio cassette tape and a biro. This is cool for several reasons, and not least because I'm old enough to appreciate the 'biro and tape' reference - back in the 'old days' we used to use a biro to wind the tape back up if it unwound inside the tape deck or got chewed up in the player heads. It happened more times that I care to remember with my copy of Now 23, and I'll never forget the great sense of loss I felt when Would I Lie To You by Charles & Eddie ended up sounding more like an experimental Beatles track. But I digress.

Other highlights included Ebeneezer Goode and the Super Mario song. Cough.
Further confirming the speculation that SEGA Forever will be some form of 'Netflix' style gaming service for your mobile device, a note bundled with the cassette reads:

Cassette tapes changed music forever. We're about to do the same with retro gaming on mobile.
From SEGA, with love.

Here are some more images of the audio cassette and the track listing, which I'm sure you'll find interesting as the games listed are most likely going to be included in the initial batch of titles that will make up the SEGA Forever service:
The cassettes do appear to be very limited, and the one I have is marked as number 112 of 512. Also, if you can't tell from the images, the full track listing is as follows:

Side A
1. Space Harrier - Theme
2. Outrun - Magical Sound Shower
3. Super Hang-On - Outride a Crisis
4. Phantasy Star II - Rise or Fall
5. Shining Force II - Lively Town
6. Columns - Clotho

Side B
1. Vectorman - Terraport
2. Altered Beast - Rise From Your Grave
3. Golden Axe - Wilderness
4. Kid Chameleon - Opening Theme
5. G-Loc Air Battle - Title Theme
6. Outrun - Last Wave

As with the AGES II audio arrange CD we investigated recently, I thought it was worthwhile making a short video allowing you, the valued reader, to experience the aural delights of this uber-cool piece of promotional merchandising. However, before creating my own video I was directed toward Techmoan's video on the SEGA Forever audio cassette; and as I'm a) a fan of Techmoan and b) Techmoan's videos are far better than anything I haphazardly create, I thought I'd just use his. Hope he doesn't mind (although if you do mind Mr Moan, let me know):


We don't really know much more about the launch date of the SEGA Forever service, or really exactly what it will comprise or how it'll actually work (subscription model perhaps?), but it might be worth keeping an eye on the official Sega website, and the new SEGA Forever Twitter account.

What do you think? Excited for SEGA Forever? Tell us what you think in the comments below or join the discussion in our Facebook group here. Right, I'm off to listen to Charles & Eddie.

12 comments:

hoogafanter said...

Hate to be a stickler, but did you confirm this really came from Sega? A few things kinda seem sketchy...

1. Sega has yet to announce publicly what sega forever really is, and yet here they are announcing it to you?
2. Nobody else but you seems to have received this tape. Not to diminish your girth in the Sega community, but I'd figure an indy member of the press such as yourself would be one of the last to receive such a thing if this was how they planned on announcing it...
3. It's just a really weird thing to use to promote this service in general...

Part of me really, really hope this is just a hoax from either you or whoever sent you this. I was hoping if Sega Forever was some sort of classic gaming service, it wouldn't be restricted to mobile. I was hoping it was just a brand name to revamp the company's image as they start releasing and rereleasing great games again, along with the mentioned newsletter to keep us updated on what's coming. But only time will tell...

Tom Charnock said...

http://www.seganerds.com/2017/06/13/sega-teases-sega-forever-in-the-most-awesomely-retro-way-possible/

Tom Charnock said...

http://segabits.com/blog/2017/06/14/sega-sends-us-a-love-note-and-a-retro-sega-forever-mixtape/

hoogafanter said...

Again... more indy news outlets lol. And no didn't watch the video yet or get to click those links as I'm stuck at work. For some reason almost every game related site is blocked except this one lol

doceggfan said...

*reads blog post*
*eats breakfast*
*walks dog*
Oh! Chakan the (Sega)Forever Man, I get it now. Funny.

Unknown said...

So what do you consider a non indy news outlet? This site has been solid. I wouldn't doubt this site. You have got to remember that SEGA or Sega does some weird shit. They are known for that.

hoogafanter said...

So no info from any of the major news outlets, just fan made retro based websites? Suuuuure lmfao...

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

From the looks of things, it's only being sent to those whose social media presence is dedicated to Sega, if this is 100% legit

hoogafanter said...

But then there's that techmoan channel...

Unknown said...

Ashens recently had one sent to himself, and Techmoan also and I don't see any correlation between the two content-wise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zLN7RjY2FU

TomTom said...

so many incredible themes! That's really some cool promotionnal stuff!