SEGA Forever has recently just launched on IOS and Android devices and in all honesty, the initial news did not even hit my radar. As much as I enjoyed SEGA games when I was younger, my stigma surrounding mobile games has resulted in an almost impenetrable ignorance to anything related to playing games on a phone. Despite some exceptions to this, namely Pokemon Go, I have had my head turned and now my opinion of mobile gaming could be significantly altered, should other mobile game developers start to take SEGA’s lead.
What Is SEGA Forever?
SEGA Forever is a free classic game collection ranging from games from the SEGA Master Systems to the Megadrive/Genesis and beyond! The games released as part of this service will be free to play but also ad-supported with an option to pay $1.99 to remove the ads. Whilst SEGA have a great back catalogue of games only 5 have been made available now including Sonic The Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Phantasy Star 2, Kid Chameleon and Comix Zone. There is also the suggestion that the games for SEGA Forever could stretch all the way up to the Dreamcast which means the beloved Crazy Taxi could make an appearance along with other classics such as House Of The Dead, Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter or Outrun! Now this makes the prospect of mobile gaming look a lot brighter, providing these games handle in a similar way to their original counterparts.
One thing that does suggest that we may have some more traditional gaming on mobiles is that the controller set up for these games does not have to be the standardised tap and drag movements you already get on mobile devices.
Over Joy-Coned!
Nintendo have looked at the mobile gaming world, especially with their success with the 3DS and 2DS and have decided to tap into the mobile gaming market by making their Joy-con controllers compatible with mobile devices. Well, at least for the SEGA Forever games for the time being but that is not to say they couldn’t open this up to their small list of Nintendo titles on mobiles too! There is absolutely no reason that mobile game developers couldn’t include configuration for the Joy-con controllers and if they do then maybe this could offer Nintendo a route into these mobile players, with a view of bringing these gamers onto Switch.
You could argue this would be a strange move since the Switch console is a rival to mobile phones since they are both in the ‘handheld’ bracket. If you had a phone that could play ‘console’ games, even if they are from over a decade ago, then is that not muddying the water. You may even ask the question, why doesn’t Nintendo just bring these games to their online service in their free classic games selection? Well, whatever the reason, it is possible for these two things to work in tandem and help expose the Nintendo brand to new players across the world.
It is yet to be seen whether Nintendo will use this method to their advantage and it is also yet to be seen whether mobile gamers will buy Joy-con controllers at a value of £80 to play their F2P mobile games but word of mouth and just knowing one person with a Switch console may be enough! Nintendo have been making smart moves since the launch of their console and this could be a great move in consolidating their places as a key player in the Video Game War.
TJSimpsonz Gaming 
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