At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, Sega announced that they acquired all the intellectual properties of defunct development company Technosoft. Back in the day, Technosoft was a second party developer for Sega during their console days. To celebrate this, Sega is re-releasing Thunder Force III as part of the final Sega 3D Classic Collection game.
Personally, I’m glad that Sega has acquired this company. They’ve got a small pool of IP’s, however, those IP’s are strong in their own right. This means that these intellectual properties won’t be lost in Sega’s vast library of software. Here are the franchises that Technosoft are known for.
[Games summary by TechRaptor]
Thunder Force: A side-scrolling shoot ’em up that has had 6 main entries starting in 1983, with the most recent being a PlayStation 2 release in 2008.
Herzog: This series is best known for its sequel called Herzog Zwei, which is considered to be the world’s first real-time strategy game and was cited by Dune II as one of their influences.
Plazma Line: A first-person space racing game released in 1984. Its claim to fame is being the first computer game with 3D polygon graphics.
Elemental Master: A top-down shoot ’em up for the Genesis/Mega Drive released in 1990 that got rated over 9 out of 10 by several critics.
Now people may be curious as to what happened to this company? Well, they were purchased by a Pachinko company called Twenty-One in 2001. This pachinko company closed down Technosoft. I find it all the more ironic that a Pachinko company brought them back to relevance again… well technically, their intellectual properties.
Sega have mentioned that they will be re-releasing Technosoft games under the Sega banner. I personally can’t wait to experience these games for myself. On a separate note, Sega seems to be The Walt Disney Company in terms of gaming acquisitions lately...
