Jet Set Radio - History

History

Jet Set Radio was announced at the Tokyo Game Show in 1999 and generated a prodigious amount of press attention due to its use of the then revolutionary rendering technique, cel-shading. Now commonplace in game design, cel-shading allows for a "cartoon-like" appearance of 3D rendered objects. Jet Set Radio was released in Japan on June 29, 2000. The graffiti featured in the game was the work of a variety of artists. Most notably Eric Haze, who provided a number of pieces used in the game by the player, the game's logo, and other incidental art. Other graffiti contributors include Edge, Uecho, Enas, Higuchin, Chikpon, K-Chap.

The US release, re-titled Jet Grind Radio because of trademark issues, contained two new maps, various new songs, and other in-game content designed to increase the game's appeal to Western audiences. This version also allowed the user to connect to the Internet via SegaNet and download user-created graffiti tags, or upload tags of their own, as some could also be used to promote other Sega games. Sales of the game were relatively low, but it has gone on to achieve a cult following in the gaming community.

On February 22, 2012, Sega announced on their YouTube channel and blog with a video titled "Guess who's back?" that Jet Set Radio will be the next in their planned line-up of Dreamcast re-releases for the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade, and a Microsoft Windows version was also confirmed later on the blog. The game was released in mid-September 2012 (November 2012 for the PlayStation Vita version) and retains the title of Jet Set Radio in North America.