Back before the days of Xbox and PlayStation, the two main competitors in the console wars were Nintendo and Sega. Ultimately, Sega couldn’t compete with Nintendo’s GameCube, Sony’s PlayStation 2 and Microsoft’s Xbox, so Sega’s run in the console wars ended in the sixth generation with the Dreamcast being the last Sega console to get a worldwide release.
Despite Sega having lost the console wars, many would argue that the company produced a bunch of classic games on their consoles, back when they made games for their own consoles and not for other company’s consoles as they do now. Therefore, Sega has recently announced Sega Forever, a service that will bring classic Sega games that were originally on Sega consoles to mobile devices. Oh, and the games will be free.
The games released through Sega Forever will span every generation of console wars Sega was a part of, taking games from the Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, Sega CD, Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast. Games will be available for both iOS and Android and will support usage of video game controllers connected to your device via bluetooth. There will be leaderboards for each game and offline play will be an option. Although games are free-to-play, there will be ads in the games. You can turn the ads off with a payment of $1.99 per game.
Games that are currently available include Sonic the Hedgehog, Altered Beast, Phantasy Star II, Kid Chameleon and Comix Zone. Sega promises that more games will be added to this library every month for the foreseeable future. Below, you can watch the launch trailer for Sega Forever.