Sega Zone: Is this the Start of a Comeback?

It has been a long time since Sega put an end to its hardware development endeavors. The last year the company supported a console platform was in 2001 with the Sega Dreamcast. Aftwards, Sega dropped out of creating and developing hardware and went completely with developing third party software for other systems headed by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.

Well apparently Sega is making some baby steps back into the Hardware focus of the game industry. According to some sources, Sega has offered its license to a lower end game system created by the Zone company which is associated with making family games. They also are known for making game playing devices that have many games built into the devices chip architecture. With Sega’s license the device is called the Sega Zone.

Judging from the design of the actual console and the controllers, it looks like a Nintendo Wii with a curvier design aesthetic. In fact, the controllers have motion sensing capability and console itself is the receiver. Beside that, it is unclear what the graphical limits of the system are.

However, it can be assumed that it is able to harness 16-Bit graphics since the system contains around 20 classic Sega Genesis games along with some other games that utilize the motion technology.

Is it a small glimpse of things to come from Sega as a hardware company, or is it just fan service? It is very difficult to know for sure at this point, but there are some comments or rumors floating around the industry about Sega and an arcade hardware called RingEdge. When more information about this comes forth then people will know for sure.