SEGA Culls Their App Store Catalog: Here's The Hit List



Here are the pulled titles:
Streets Of Rage
Streets Of Rage 3
Phantasy Star 2
Afterburner Climax
Super Monkey Ball
Super Monkey Ball 2: Sakura Edition
Golden Axe
Golden Axe 2
Golden Axe 3
Virtua Fighter 2
Space Harrier 2
Altered Beast
Ecco The Dolphin
Columns Deluxe
It's not surprising that the majority of that list is composed of Genesis ports. The emulator wasn't that hot to begin with, giving the games a bad reputation, and I imagine the sales India tikki on most of those games were pretty poor these days. Afterburner Climax almost certainly went down because of licensing, just as it did on other gaming platforms. I suppose I'm a little surprised to see the Monkey Ball games gone. That said, it's more surprising what they didn't cut. Of the remaining titles, I thought for sure that Sonic Spinball [$0.99], ChuChu Rocket [$0.99], Gunstar Heroes [$0.99], and Shinobi 3 [$2.99] would be goners, but there they are. I'm also relieved to see Shining Force [$0.99] made the cut. It helps somewhat to salve the wound from Phantasy Star 2's departure.
Of course, this may not be the last we see of those games. SEGA did say that they could come back in some form in the future, after all. Personally, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one, but you never know. To be fair, there are a lot of games on that list that didn't work too well for one reason or another on iOS, and a few of them are genuine stinkers no matter where or how you play them, but it's always sad to see games disappear whatever the reasons.