Sega Has Sold Over 350,000 Mega Drive and Genesis Games on Steam

Over 350,000 Mega Drive and Genesis games have been purchased on Steam since they were made available on April 28, Sega has announced.

"We're really chuffed that the fans have got behind this update," said James Schall, director of digital distribution for Sega of Europe.

Valve's digital store features a Sega Mega Drive and Genesis Hub, where ROMS for various Sonic the Hedgehog games can be bought, along with other classics such as Streets of Rage, Alex Kidd, and Golden Axe, among others.

In addition to playing the vanilla versions of its games, players can mod titles thanks to Steam Workshop support. This has resulted in weird and wonderful experiences such as the version of Streets of Rage 2 that replaces death cry sounds with Tim Allen's grunt from Home Improvement.

"350,000 sales is a phenomenal achievement for content which is over 20 years old! It shows that there's still a huge following out for the Sega Mega Drive and Genesis, reinvigorated by the fantastic community of modders out there uploading great content."

In October 2015, Sega said it is planning to release more older titles for the PC in the "coming months and years."

It followed this by announcing Sega 3D Classics Collection for the Nintendo 3DS in January 2016. The anthology collects a number of classic titles from the Japanese publisher, including Altered Beast, Thunder Blade, and Fantasy Zone 2.

In July 2015, Haruki Satomi, chief executive of Sega Games, said Sega is now aiming to improve the quality of its new games in hopes to make itself a valuable brand to video game audiences again.

"I've been talking to employees about how [Sega] should start putting serious consideration into quality from this point on," he said. "Particularly in North America and Europe, where it's always been more of a focus on schedules ... I believe that if we can't maintain quality, it would be better to not release anything at all."

He continued: "Sega in the '90s was known for its brand, but after that, we've lost trust, and we're left with nothing but reputation ... We'd like to win back the trust and become a brand once again."

One of Sega's biggest upcoming games is Persona 5, which is published by Atlus, a subsidiary of the company. The Persona 5 release date has been confirmed as September 15 in Japan. Another big Japanese RPG, Square Enix's Final Fantasy 15, will also be available in September worldwide.