Press release: 1996-11-08: SEGA LAUNCHES ONLINE GAMING ON WEBSITE

This is an unaltered copy of a press release, for use as a primary source on Sega Retro. Please do not edit the contents below. Language: English Original source: Sega.com (archived)

SEGA LAUNCHES ONLINE GAMING ON WEBSITE
-- New Online Rec Room Features Sega-Style Web-based Games --

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- November 8, 1996 -- No quarters needed! Sega of America today announced it will open the doors to its Online Rec Room featuring a growing library of games on its website www.sega.com. tonight at 6 PM (PDT).

Sega's Rec Room will offer several types of games on its web site, including scaled down web versions of many Sega Saturn games using Shockwave technology. Gamers can play games based on Sega properties and original games designed specifically for the web on the new site. All games are based on score, and contests will be held monthly to rank the highest scoring players.

"Sega's bringing the Sega game style to a whole new audience," Clint Dyer, producer online games, Sega, said. "We're focusing on creating great-looking games that are fun to play. Our web site already gets more than 500,000 hits per day -- once the word gets out, the games will attract even more people to our home page."

Four games will go live tonight: an online version of the popular Sega Saturn title NiGHTS and original titles developed specifically for the web: Sega's online version of a concentration-like game, Puzzle, and Graveyard Run In addition a web version of the Sega Saturn World Wide Soccer game will be available on the Sega site within 10 days. More than 15 other games are planned for Sega's Rec Room in the next six months. To differentiate Sega's online games from the competition's, Sega paid special attention to gameplay features," according to Dyer. We've focused on sound, graphics and interaction as three main components of our online games, so that the player will get a full sensory game experience," Dyer said. "We obviously can't replicate the power of the Sega Saturn on the World Wide Web, but we have done everything possible to allow the player to get a real sense of what Sega games are all about."

The First Rec Room Games NiGHTS for the Sega Rec Room is the first hit Sega Saturn game adopted for the web. Gamers fly through five rounds picking up balls and soaring through rings to score points. Enemies ready to strip the player of all their points abound in this special online version of the game. For Puzzle, Sega has taken the intrigue of a cardboard puzzle and adopted it to the web. Ever-changing customizable pictures will keep puzzle gamers piecing for hours.

Sega's spiced up the old game of matching cards for the Rec Room. The premise is simple, but the game is not: match each of the three sides of the 3D cube with each of the sides of another cube to clear the board. The fast-paced action and 3D cubes differentiate Sega's game from every concentration game before it. In Graveyard Run, an original title developed specifically for Sega's Rec Room, the player was strolling through a graveyard, got tired and took a nap. When the game starts, the player has just woken to find himself alone, and the race is on to get out alive.

Sega partnered with Eagle River Interactive to develop the first five Online Arcade games. The first games were done in Shockwave technology implementations with robust sound and complex graphics. In future games Sega and Eagle River will take advantage of higher bandwidth technologies and programming tools such as Java and VRML to offer even greater functionality to the web page player. Sega of America is the arm of Tokyo, Japan-based Sega Enterprises Ltd. responsible for the development, marketing and distribution of Sega videogame systems and videogames in the Americas. Sega Enterprises Ltd. is a nearly $3.6 billion company recognized as the industry leader in interactive digital entertainment media, and is the only company that offers interactive entertainment experiences both inside and outside the home. Sega of America's World Wide Web site is located at (http://www.sega.com).