Retro Gaming Australia

Sony has revealed via their PlayStation Blog podcast that Grand Theft Auto III will be released on the US PlayStation Network as part of the PS2 Classics range this coming Tuesday (July 31st) for $US9.99.

Unlike the 10th anniversary editions released for iOS and Android last year, this version will boast no upgrades of any kind – it is quite literally the PS2 version.

Still, it makes a nice break from Sony playing loose with the definition of “classic” when it comes to PS2 digital releases.

The Sega AGES 2500 series was an interesting experiment early last decade. It started out with D3 and Sega teaming up to produce 3D remakes of classic Sega franchises like Phantasy Star, Golden Axe and Space Harrier and selling them for 2500 yen. However, after some of these remakes turned out to be terrible, Sega teamed up with M2 to produce highly accurate ports of their other popular games like Virtua Fighter 2, Gunstar Heroes and Fantasy Zone.

Today the company announced that some of these games will be coming to the Japanese PlayStation Network as part of the PS2 Classics line up. First game up is the Saturn classic Dragon Force. It will be followed by the STV brawler Dynamite Deka (or Die Hard Arcade) and Gunstar Heroes: Treasure Box

Sega’s embrace of digital distribution appears to be paying dividends – at least for Japan.

Retro inspired platformer Escape Goat will be making the jump from the Xbox Indie Games service to the PC next month.

Players control a hat wearing goat (and his mouse friend) as they go on a quest to rescue a bunch of sheep trapped in a hellish underworld.

A number of developers have experienced greater success leaving the poorly promoted XBLIG service (which still isn’t available in Australia, and probably never will be) and bringing their games to various digital download services on the PC.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. R-Type. Bloody Wolf.

Only one of these games is considered a classic, but they all have something in common – they’re no longer available on the Wii Virtual Console, or are scheduled to be delisted.

Nintendo has been doing very little in the way of updates for the Virtual Console service on the Wii in the last 18 months (though five games will be working their way towards the EU Virtual Console service this month), and now the service is arguably going backwards. The three games mentioned in the opening line are but a sample of the list of titles that will be a part of Virtual Console history.

Wasn’t digital distribution meant to put an end to discontinuation of stock?