00:00Hey, hey, hey, it's time to make some crazy money. Are you ready? Here we go!
00:05Welcome to Mojo Plays, and today we're taking a look at 10 things you may not have known
00:10about the legendary Sega series, Crazy Taxi.
00:14Hey, honey, take me to Pizza Hut!
00:17Woo-hoo!
00:19Oh!
00:19Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long,
00:22so be sure to subscribe to Mojo Plays and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.
00:28Who's Ready to File Some Crazy Patents?
00:33Aren't you in a hurry? Get in!
00:35What a fool!
00:36Today, patenting video game mechanics is viewed pretty negatively by players,
00:40but if they only knew about what was going on behind the scenes way back in 2003.
00:46Crazy Taxi became a point of contention between Sega and Electronic Arts
00:51after the latter had released The Simpsons Road Rage in 2001.
00:58Run along now!
01:00Way to ignore the speed limit!
01:01Sega sued EA, as well as developer Radical Entertainment and co-publisher Fox Interactive,
01:07for patent infringement, claiming that Road Rage was deliberately made to copy and replicate
01:12the success of Crazy Taxi.
01:14Such claims stemmed from the mere concept of driving around the city,
01:18NPCs walking around and jumping out of the way from cars,
01:22and implementing a HUD icon to direct players to a specific destination.
01:26Alas, no decision was made as all parties would settle the case outside of court for an undisclosed amount.
01:38The long-lost sequel.
01:46For the longest time, people have championed the original Crazy Taxi,
01:51with some younger players advocating for the Xbox-exclusive Crazy Taxi 3 High Roller.
01:57But what about Crazy Taxi 2?
01:59Why does no one ever seem to talk about this one?
02:02Well, part of the reason why no one talks about Crazy Taxi 2
02:05may be because of its extremely limited release.
02:16This sequel only ever saw a release on the ill-fated Sega Dreamcast,
02:22before getting ported to PSP via Crazy Taxi Fair Wars in 2007.
02:27And as some of us may recall, the Dreamcast was not on the market for super long,
02:32so a lot of games like Crazy Taxi 2 wound up getting lost in the sauce,
02:36while most of us were playing our PlayStation 2s.
02:47Failed to franchise.
02:54Once upon a time, Sega had some grand plans for Crazy Taxi to become way bigger than it already was.
03:00Any company would make moves like this,
03:02after seeing how much revenue this timeless classic was bringing in at the time.
03:06One of the big moves Sega planned had involved toy company DSi Toys,
03:11which had already developed a prototype for an RC car driven by Axel.
03:16The biggest move, however, was for a Crazy Taxi movie,
03:19and it got way further along development than the toy line did.
03:23Richard Donner, who directed episodes for TV shows like The Man from U.N.C.E.,
03:27The Twilight Zone, and...
03:29The Banana Splits?
03:31Okay.
03:32He had already signed on to direct the movie.
03:35Donner even claimed to be a big fan of the game,
03:38according to Movie Insider,
03:40after the project supposedly had, quote,
03:42absence of plot elements, end quote.
03:45A second attempt was sort of made by Mindfire Entertainment,
03:48though the company never moved forward with the rights outside of its acquisition.
03:52Let's go!
03:53Okay, move on your left.
03:56Jam point!
03:57Not bad!
03:58Get up the gym!
03:59A little less Crazy Taxi.
04:01Go to the gas harbor!
04:03Okay, but don't bring down on me!
04:09Aside from those cancelled plans we mentioned,
04:12there was one foray Sega made to bring Crazy Taxi to the public in other ways.
04:16Show of hands!
04:18Anybody ever played the rip-roaring, high-octane Crazy Taxi Redemption game?
04:23No?
04:23You don't even know what the hell a redemption game is?
04:26Well, spoiler alert, it's not a super exciting concept.
04:30This cabinet simply had you roll a token past a moving taxi
04:34in hopes of landing in one of the passenger lanes.
04:36Each passenger was worth a certain number of tickets,
04:39and that's all this was.
04:41Yes, it was a pretty boring way to adapt the IP,
04:44and that's why you see people jumping onto Crazy Taxi Cabinets instead.
04:57Real 3D Innovation
05:03While most people likely played Crazy Taxi in the arcades or console,
05:08there was a way to experience the game on a smaller scale.
05:11And surprisingly, it was just as enjoyable to play.
05:14Crazy Taxi got a Game Boy Advance version called Crazy Taxi Catch-A-Ride in 2003,
05:21and it featured two cities to enjoy the core gameplay,
05:24in addition to a handful of missions and the return of the four original drivers.
05:33But the most impressive aspect of this game is how well it managed to simulate 3D graphics
05:39on a potato like the GBA.
05:41Only a handful of Game Boy Advance titles tried to develop games with 3D visuals,
05:46and of the few that attempted it,
05:48even fewer actually made something playable, like Catch-A-Ride here.
05:57Chasing the Next Fair
06:06Though Xbox players will long remember the days of Crazy Taxi 3 High Roller,
06:11we almost didn't get this version of the game.
06:14Instead, Sega was planning to release what was then called Crazy Taxi Next.
06:19Chasing the Next Fair
06:27Developer Hitmaker had wanted to take the franchise into the world of online multiplayer,
06:33a move that would make most gamers today utterly horrified.
06:37Yes, Next was going to focus on online multiplayer,
06:40and implement a day and night cycle using updated maps from the first two games.
06:45For reasons unknown, the project was scrapped with some elements being reused to make High Roller.
06:55Time's up!
06:57There was almost a Crazy Taxi 4.
07:05This may seem hard to believe,
07:07but we were supposed to get a fourth main Crazy Taxi sometime after High Roller's release.
07:13As to when it started, what it comprised of, and when it was axed, well, that's anybody's guess.
07:19The only reason we know about Crazy Taxi 4's existence
07:22is because a former staff member of Sega Studios Australia
07:26had included concept art for it in their portfolio.
07:29The picture shows a person jumping from one taxi cab to another,
07:33and neither of the cabs looked like snazzy vehicles we're used to seeing.
07:37Other than that, there isn't much to glean from here.
07:40Until folks start talking,
07:42one can only imagine what this was going to be.
07:53Necessary Dormancy
08:05Considering its popularity during the late 90s and early 2000s,
08:09it's hard to imagine Sega would actually drop Crazy Taxi from its portfolio
08:14for as long as it seemingly has.
08:16By the time the upcoming Crazy Taxi World Tour launches,
08:19it'll have been 24 years since the last mainline game.
08:25But the reason behind the IP's dormancy is not as mysterious or dramatic as one may think,
08:30as creator Kenji Kano explained this in 2007.
08:34In an interview with 1UP, Kano stated,
08:38quote,
08:38Basically, the whole point of the game is to have a lot of fun in a short period of time,
08:43and it's a very concentrated game.
08:45So instead of trying to evolve the series necessarily,
08:47it's more like taking that concept and putting it in different places,
08:52seeing how it works,
08:53end quote.
08:54So why is it coming back in 2027?
08:57Kano explained this in an interview with Video Games Chronicle in June 2026,
09:03stating, quote,
09:04A lot of what's in the news nowadays makes you feel not very excited to live in the world.
09:09Crazy Taxi is a game that you can play
09:11and have all these positive emotions and positive feelings
09:14without anything negative in the game.
09:16With how the world is right now,
09:18I think it's the perfect time to bring it back,
09:21end quote.
09:24I'll be the guest.
09:26Thanks.
09:27Come on, you're in a hurry, right?
09:28You nearly killed me.
09:30Life on Mobile.
09:36In between High Roller and the upcoming World Tour,
09:40Crazy Taxi did make a couple of appearances in the gaming industry.
09:44Unfortunately, those brief appearances came in the form of Crazy Taxi City Rush
09:49and Crazy Taxi Gazillionaire, aka Crazy Taxi Tycoon.
09:53Whereas City Rush was an auto-runner similar to Temple Run and Subway Surfers,
09:59Tycoon had players running their own taxicab businesses
10:02instead of furiously driving around the cities themselves.
10:06Yeah, neither of them really captured the spirit of the franchise,
10:09and both games have since long been delisted.
10:18And lastly, the dream of multiplayer.
10:27Now, some gamers may reel knowing that World Tour is going to have an emphasis on online multiplayer.
10:33It's the typical impulsive reaction folks seem to have these days.
10:37However, online multiplayer has always been the dream of Crazy Taxi.
10:41The holy grail, if you will.
10:43The idea of competing with friends to make the most money, steal passengers, etc.
10:48has always been on the minds of Kano, Sega, and Hitmaker
10:52as they developed each of the main games.
10:55In other words, the push to bring online multiplayer to Crazy Taxi
10:59has always been inevitable since 1999.
11:08Did any of these facts surprise you?
11:10Let us know down in the comments, and don't forget to subscribe to Mojo Plays.
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