Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi reportedly poised for big comebacks
Sega is reportedly bringing back two classic franchises from the Dreamcast era with big-budget reboots: Jet Set Radio and Crazy Taxi.
That news comes courtesy of a new report from Bloomberg’s Takashi Mochizuki, citing unnamed sources familiar with the projects.
According to Mochizuki, the two games may be the first releases planned as part of Sega’s Super Game initiative.
As you may recall, Sega announced Super Game last year alongside a “strategic alliance” with Microsoft. The effort will see the Japanese publisher make use of Microsoft’s network technologies, possible including the Azure cloud platform that helps power Microsoft Flight Simulator, to build a new generation of games.
Buzzwords aside, the main focus of Super Game approach appears to be on building live-service games that can bring in recurring revenue, an idea backed up by the Bloomberg report. As such, online play will likely be a big factor in these new releases.
It’s been quite some time since either series graced home consoles. We last saw Jet Set Radio in 2012, when a remaster of the original game landed on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, alongside PC, Vita, and mobile ports. Crazy Taxi got mobile games in 2014 and 2017, as well as handheld spin-offs in 2003 and 2007, but there hasn’t been a proper home console game since 2002’s Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller came to Xbox.
Given that long absence, it’s no surprise if you’ve forgotten either series. Jet Set Radio centers on rollerblading around a cel-shaded city to throw up graffiti and face off against the cops and rival gangs. Crazy Taxi sees you driving around a city, shuttling fares to their destinations as fast as possible, traffic laws be damned.
Sega declined to comment on the report, and it sounds like we may have to wait a while for official info. Bloomberg reports that the new Crazy Taxi revival has been in development since at least early 2021 and could be out “within two to three years.”
