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Could there be a more perfect example of Nintendo's philosophy than the NES Mini? To Nintendo, video games exist somewhere inside the relationship between hardware and software, so even if you're offering a bunch of emulated classics, you should make sure the box that they come is fit for purpose. Yes, Nintendo might have released a ROM for Super Mario that it nicked off the internet, but the Virtual Console has never felt like the company at its most thoughtful. The NES Mini, though: that shrunken grey brick, that gloriously boxy controller attached. 30 games, and that's it. No tinkering. No roster updates. This is how Nintendo curates its own history when it's really paying attention to it. So it's fascinating to see Sega considering some of the same problems that Nintendo's been navigating. How to do your history justice? Or, as I suspect Sega might put it, how to make the most of one of the greatest back catalogues in all of gaming? A few days back, a cassette tape arrived for me at Eurogamer's office. Printing on the side to look like Biro, a highlighter pen swipe across the spine label that reads, SEGA FOREVER Vol 1. Space Harrier - Theme, Outrun - Magical Sound Shower. Aside from the hashtag at the bottom, it's a nice piece of work. I particularly liked the odd crossing-out on the tracklisting. All told, it's as good an authentic imitation sentiment as I've received in the post. But here's the point, of course: I can't play this cassette tape. I don't have a tape deck anymore. I don't even have a CD player these days. "Cassette tapes changed music forever," reads the accompanying note. "We're about to do the same with retro gaming on mobile."
That's a pretty grand ambition, and it's attached to a project that feels fairly grand when viewed in the right light. A few weeks back I went to London to hear about Sega Forever, an initiative that will see Sega releasing a load of its classic games onto mobile platforms - iOS and Android - over the course of a few years. These games will be free, and surprisingly lightly monetised. You can play them forever without paying, or you can spend a one-off fee of £1.99 to ditch the ads, which appear on the start screen, the save screen, and I think at launch, but will not interrupt play in anyway. The games are emulated or, in the case of Dreamcast titles, ported, and they'll have virtual buttons, but you can use a controller if you have one, and while each game is its own download, its own app, there are commonalities uniting them all: leaderboards, cloud saves - local saves if you pay that £1.99, although you can play the game offline for free - and, at some point after launch, multiplayer, initially over wi-fi but eventually over 3G and 4G if Sega's hopes pan out.
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