A new, big budget reboot of Crazy Taxi has already been in development for more than a year, and is expected to launch within the next three years. That’s the revelation issued forth by Bloomberg today, suggesting that a rebooted Jet Set Radio is also currently gestating with a similar development timeline. Both titles are part of Sega’s Super Game project, which the company first teased back in early 2021 as a way of accelerating the developer's recovery.
Details about Super Game have been thin on the ground but Shuji Utsumi, the former PlayStation executive leading the project, has let some things slip. Back in April, he said that the project would involve a series of AAA titles leveraging cloud gaming and, deep sigh, NFTS. Late last year, Sega announced that it was teaming up with Microsoft’s Azure cloud division to help produce large-scale “global games.”
When Super Game was announced, Sega bandied around references to its Silver Age blockbusters including Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, Panzer Dragoon and Virtua Fighter. According to Bloomberg, these titles are going to be reborn in the Fortnite mould as a free-to-play, massively online title. Sega is reportedly staking its business on the riches on offer from such titles, which already have devoted cult followings. Of course, as with any title this early in its lifespan, Sega could pull the plug before it reaches players, but it's about time we had something nice in this life, and no amount of NFTs can make us hate Crazy Taxi… right?