First it was the Shenmue franchise being "rented" out to the Korean company (name escapes me) and now we have news of SEGA going the same with more of it's franchises...

quote SPOnG.com

We can reveal this morning that Sega is currently in the process of licensing out a massive range of its key intellectual properties, in some of the biggest news regarding the firm since the Sammy buy-out from earlier this year.

Sources at various development studios in the US and Europe have been privy to an invitation to tender for the rights to create updates to some of the biggest Sega franchises, though the full story is slightly more interesting.

One source told us, “Sega of America has pitched the concept of westernising these franchises. So the ITTs have been given solely to studios in the States and Europe. The idea is to broaden the appeal of some under-exploited IP or to achieve greater sales of certain franchises outside of Japan.”

The list of IP that has been designated for western third-party development reads as follows:

House of the Dead
NiGHTS
Golden Axe
Virtua Cop
Streets of Rage
Shinobi
Crazy Taxi
Altered Beast

Of the above, Sega designated House of the Dead as being the most important franchise. Golden Axe had the lowest priority. We can confirm that Travellers’ Tales is in talks with Sega right now concerning one of the firm’s franchises that is not listed above.

There are two more games on the list from Sega, making a total of ten. At time of press, these were not available to SPOnG.

Expect updates and a slew of outsourcing announcements from Sega as the months roll on.

quote LanDi Sama

The one causing me the most worry is NiGHTS not being developed by Sonic Team/SEGA... it's quite a special game, I just hope if this does go through that those who get their hands on it will do it justice...

Yeah I know It's just wierd though that SEGA won't be producing it, although I'm sure they would oversee it. Again, like with Shenmue Online, it'll be a time will tell kind of thing.