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.