Archive Page 4
In 1996, Sega officially pulled the plug on their 16 bit console, known as the Mega Drive in European and Japanese markets, and as the Genesis in the American market.
The machine had been a success, in general terms. During the 8 bit era, Sega had been at a distinct disadvantage to Nintendo holding less than 10% of the worldwide market. This had all changed by 1992, when, thanks primarily to the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise (and in particular Sonic 2) their market had grown to 65% of the worldwise console market.
This would all change again within only a few years though - Nintendo fought back with games like Donkey Kong Country and, combined with the failures of Mega Drive add-ons Mega CD and the 32X, had pushed Sega’s market share back to 35%. This, and the recent release of their next-generation Saturn console, prompted the company to officially cease support for the ailing Mega Drive. The final game available commercially in the American market was released in 1998.
However, August of 2005 saw the following reported in Tips and Tricks magazine:
“…a brand new cartridge for the Sega Genesis system: Beggar Prince is a newly-translated version of a role-playing game called Xin Qi Gai Wang Zi…”
For the first time in over eight years, the Mega Drive would see the release of an actually cartridge based game. Super Fighter Team, a San Diego based company known previously for their work bringing Taiwanese company C&E Inc.’s game Super Fighter to a western audience as a freeware game for PC. In continuing their business partnership with C&E, Super Fighter Team picked up the rights to Beggar Prince, a role playing game C&E had released for the Mega Drive in 1996.
” Beggar Prince first caught my eye because of how intricate and beautiful it is. Many role-playing games have been produced in Taiwan for the Sega Megadrive, but few of them are as fun to play as Beggar Prince,” Says Brandon Cobb, president of Super Fighter Team. ” We were very lucky to secure the legal rights to Beggar Prince from our business partner, C&E Inc., with the purpose in mind to release the game much to the surprise and interest of Sega fans worldwide.”
The game was officially released for sale through www.beggarprince.com as of the 31st of December 2005. “Super Fighter Team is handling distribution directly through our website,” Explains Brandon. “Wholesalers are welcome to step up and offer their interests,and some have done just that. We especially appreciate the efforts made in Europe by some distributors, to secure bulk orders for customers who are more comfortable ordering off a website in their own country.” Little Mathletics spoke to Brandon and lead translator Yu-Chen Shih just after this. Continue reading ‘Brandon Cobb Interview’
Whilst talking to Brandon Cobb, president of Super Fighter Team, Little Mathletics was lucky enough to be given the chance to conduct an exclusive interview with Yu-Chen Shih, the lead translator on Beggar Prince.
