Sega developing big budget Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio reboots claim insiders

metro.co.uk:

Rumours claim that Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi are being rebooted as free-to-play live service titles and the first of Sega’s ‘super games’.

As beloved as their old video games are, Sega has never been able to recreate the same magic for the modern era and in most cases has given up trying. But apparently it’s finally thinking big again, with reboots of turn of the century games Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio.

According to usually reliable sources, these reboots are the first titles from Sega’s ‘super game’ initiative, which they’ve mentioned a few times before but never with any clarification as to what it means.

It’s still not entirely clear but, as previously hinted, the live service titles will apparently be free-to-play, multiformat, cloud-based (with help and investment from Microsoft), and probably full of microtransactions and NFTs.

Supposedly, Fortnite is Sega’s role model for the games, which are intended to focus on multiplayer and have lots of extra vehicles and items to buy, and some form of construction element.

In that sense this isn’t too surprising a revelation, but the fact that Sega is making the first two games reboots of Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio is.

As beloved as they are, Crazy Taxi in particular is extremely shallow – a fun, arcade racer where you pick up and drop off rides against a time limit.

It certainly could be expanded further, although none of the previous sequels have managed to find a way (only one PSP spin-off ever had a multiplayer option) and it’s hard to imagine any version of the game having the longevity of something like Fortnite.

Jet Set Radio was first released for the Dreamcast in 2000 and helped to popularise the concept of cel-shaded graphics, as you roller-skate around a