21 years later, 2001 continues to bring back bad memories for long-time SEGA fans. Indeed, in late January 2001, SEGA announced the cessation of production of the Dreamcast and its intention to focus on releasing games for competing machines. Obviously, this type of change didn’t happen overnight. And after new revelations, some at Sonic wanted to stop spending long before the official announcement.
SEGA games like Virtua Fighter 3 and Crazy Taxi could have been ported to Nintendo 64. That reveal, as surprising as it is unlikely, comes from the website NintendoLife. The latter actually got the information from James Mielke, a former journalist, now a producer at Limited Run Games. According to him, Bernie Stolar has reached an agreement with the CEO of Acclaim to port a selection of SEGA games to other consoles.
For the record, Bernie Stolar was President of SEGA of America from 1996 to late 1999. And obviously he quickly had the feeling that SEGA’s days as a console manufacturer were numbered. James Mielke explains how he discovered the thing back then:
I was in charge of the previews at Gamespot in San Francisco and had a trusted source at Acclaim. One day at the beginning of the Dreamcast era, my behind-the-scenes source told me about a crazy day he’d spent in the office. A day on which everything degenerated because Bernie Stolar made an agreement with Greg Fischbach (co-founder and CEO of Acclaim, editor’s note) to port Virtua Fighter 3 and Crazy Taxi to Nintendo 64. It sounded completely insane technically as this platform would not have been able to produce anything similar to the quality of Model 3.
SEGA Japan’s Opinion: Definitely not Jose
Some of the Dreamcast games were ports of arcade games that ran under Model 3. These games included Virtua Fighter 3, for example. Crazy Taxi ran on Naomi in Arcade, a system that was made even more advanced than Model 3, were therefore necessary in order to offer these games on Nintendo 64.
As everyone knows, neither Virtua Fighter 3 nor Crazy Taxi were released on Nintendo 64. And it wasn’t until 2001 that SEGA games were released on consoles from other manufacturers. Why didn’t things happen? Simply because Bernie Stolar signed this agreement behind the back of his Japanese superiors. And as you can imagine things didn’t go well:
The craziest thing about it all is, as far as I know Bernie simply made this arrangement with Greg Fischbach without seeking SEGA Japan’s consent. A contract has been signed, etc. As far as I can remember this story, SEGA got wind of it and said, of course, “We definitely don’t do that. “ I don’t remember if that rejection came from management or from the developers who said:it’s not even possible. ” But in short, they told Stolar that he had to break the contract because there was no way things could be done. One of his colleagues at SEGA of America, who worked two floors above us in San Francisco, also confirmed this story to me. (Gamespot and SEGA of America were both based in San Francisco at the time, note).
No SEGA games for Nintendo 64
The intention of SEGA of America and Acclaim to release Crazy Taxi and Virtua Fighter 3 on Nintendo 64 could have caused a lot of noise at the time. However, the information was never published as it was on Gamespot. James Mielke explains that his then boss wanted him to tell her about his source at Acclaim. What the journalist refused, as good journalistic practice requires.
The breach of contract by SEGA of America and Acclaim obviously had ramifications. The latter, however, are not known. It can be assumed, however, that Acclaim has acquired the publishing rights to several SEGA games in return. For example, F355 Challenge was published on Dreamcast and then on PS2 by Acclaim. Crazy Taxi has also been ported and edited on PS2 and GameCube by the same recognition. And there are only two examples of SEGA games released by the American publisher.
Nonetheless, there is no categorical indication that these porting and release agreements are related to the Nintendo 64 affair. At the time of writing, neither Bernie Stolar nor Greg Fischbach have commented on this story. Whether they do that remains to be seen.
What do you think of this revelation? Would you have believed the information if it had been published back then? Do you think the Nintendo 64 could have run satisfactory versions of Crazy Taxi and Virtua Fighter 3? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
