I'm a huge fan of lost media, the fact that something got released, or was shown in some capacity only to disappear forever is fascinating to me. There's a huge list of games which we're all well aware of, however one I had not heard of until recently was Jet Squadron by Sega. It's featured in a few YouTube videos after a post on Lost Media Wiki surfaced details it's partial existence. A Sega game? Shown in the Year 2000? Sign me up
So, where does it all begin? Well, it starts with here with the Lost Media Wiki post. So what do we know? It's an AM3 game shown of in Alpha form at the AOU Amusement Expo in 2000 and was the third in the Gunblade series. Okay, so a bit of information to go off, even if there's no images. Now let's look at the references. There's three references for this: a NeoGaf post, a post on Arcade-History and finally a mention on System16 - an excellent database for Arcade hardware and software I sometimes frequent.
Let's start with the Arcade-History page. So it has the name, a mention it's a prototype and that is running on Naomi 2 hardware. The link on the wayback machine only goes as far back as 2019 and the website itself was made around 2003. This would have had to be retroactively added sometime in latter half of the 2000's as even their full database listed here from February 2006 does not mention the game.
Next we have a very old NeoGaf forum post from 2005 discussing the game. What makes this a little bit note worthy aside from the baseless speculation is a user links to a Fortune City site saying screenshots of the game existed. Unfortunately, the site not only doesn't work anymore but wasn't archived either. The only page you can get to is their home page archived in 2012 in which they talk about a PS1 title (still using the PSX moniker) and states "last updated April 23 1998".
Finally we have the System-16 link, which is where the bulk of the information is found for the Lost Wiki article. This is where we learn the game may never had left production after appearing in Alpha form at AOU 2000 and is listed as 'prototype'. Looking on the way back machine, the earliest version of this article is 2006 meaning the NeoGaf predates it by a year.
However if you some digging, the first mention of this game I can find is System16's upcoming Sega game list from as far back as 25th May 2001. The game is also not mentioned in the 11th Feb 2001 list which confirms as seen here that the game was added on the 16th May 2001. There's no information or further context to go off other than it's been added to various pages on the site.
So from what we have gathered above, It's safe to assume the source of this information comes from the System 16 site itself. When looking through their news reports, there are no hints or mentions of the game nor does it mention AOU 2000, only the 2001 event as see here. This confirms that the game was added retrospectively a year after it was shown. Interestingly, it not showing on the 11th February makes sense if the game was shown off at AOU on the 15th February. Despite this, we still don't know who or where the source is when this was added to the site.
I did look through as many archived reports and even found some first hand blogs of people attending the various OU 2000 events, none of which mentioned or alluded to the game in anyway (links below). Even the game listing for the event does not mention the game existing (amp.tri6 link). Managed to find the floorplan and a large article about the event, but as the text is in vertical, a lot of translation software fails.
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| Sega's AOU floorplan for the 2000 event |
On the arcade heroes forum, there was an interesting comment made in 2012 - "GunBlade was a little too repetitive for my liking and Jet Squadron was just flawed.". Who is this person? Well from what I gather, he is in someway linked to the 'Stinger Report', a source for arcade/amusement gaming news, info and interesting leaks. However as great as the Stinger Report is for archival news, it only seems to go as far back as 2001, anything predating the site does not seemed to be archived if it exists.
One recent update was what was mentioned on the lost media wiki was a mention on DC Extreme which reads "Sega AM3 is also working on the sequel to the 3D light gun shooter, Gunblade NY. It will be named Jet Squadron, and this time the game will be on Model 3". The notable thing about this? It was dated 1998.
So here where we're at:
- A lot of the sites referencing the games existence seem to be just regurgitating the same talking points with no frame of reference.
- There doesn't seem to be any evidence it was at AOU2000 and seemed to have stemmed from System16. Curiously it was added shortly post AOU2000 onto the site, coincidence?
- The earliest mention is a 1998 magazine referencing the game which is just before the L.A Machine Guns arcade release and 2 years before it was allegedly seen
- A reputable figure for someone in the arcade/amusement scene references seeing the game first-hand and references the game in separation of Gunblade NY and L.A Machine Gun.
- There doesn't seem to be any evidence it was at AOU2000 or AOU2001
So did the game exist? Did it exist but was it a prototype version of L.A Machine Guns, or separate game shown of at AOU2000? I guess we will never know
- https://arcadeheroes.com/2012/09/06/mounted-to-blast-the-resurgence-of-mounted-light-gun-games/#comment-24602 (Author of Stinger mentions Jet Squadron, maybe source of info)
- https://web.archive.org/web/20020116071319/http://www.segaweb.com/News/0200b/16.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20001022175531/http://www.gamasutra.com/newswire/mgt_report/19990226.htm
- https://web.archive.org/web/20000308060427/http://www.sega.co.jp/sega/arcade/naomi/main/sche.html
- https://shugai.haun.org/diary/200002c.shtml#26
- http://www.yanagie.sakura.ne.jp/game/aou2000.html
- https://onitama.tv/gamemachine/pdf/20000215p.pdf
- https://www.bridgemanimages.com/en/noartistknown/boy-tries-out-pocket-monsters-pikachu-game-at-amusement-expo-in-makuhari-2000-02-26-photo/photograph/asset/7806711
- https://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/307/307993/
- https://ascii.jp/elem/000/000/307/307999/
- https://web.archive.org/web/20000408185338/http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/15835.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20000304053417/http://dreamcast.ign.com/news.html
- https://web.archive.org/web/20000302092151/http://headline.gamespot.com/news/00_02/console.html
- http://amp.tri6.net/AOU2000.html
- https://xtreme-video-games.tripod.com/news/022800/aou.htm
- https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/02/09/new-naomi-games-set-for-aou2000-arcade-show
- https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/02/29/aou-2000-the-full-report
- https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/02/26/aou-2000-the-sega-booth
- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/collector-finds-gamecube-apparently-used-for-spaceworld-2000-reveal/1100-6513870/
- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/aou-2001-sega/1100-2689460/
- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/aou-show-coverage/1100-2452320/
- http://miya3511.web.fc2.com/aou.html
- https://forums.lostmediawiki.com/thread/3323/squadron-lost-sega-arcade-game
- https://web.archive.org/web/20051119042744/http://www.sega-rd2.com:80/week/2000_02/vol012.html
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