During Sega’s E3 Press Event, “Sega Unleashed” presidents of each development team (with the exception of Smilebit) took the stage to discuss & show off upcoming projects. It was both a historic and exciting event at this point of transition in Sega’s career.

While only two of Sega’s development teams, Sonic Team and Amusement Vision, showed off projects for GameCube, there was one other team that mentioned GameCube plans were in their future (albeit in passing) during their presentation. Was it AM2? Nope! It was none other than Hitmaker, developer behind Crazy Taxi and Virtua Tennis.

Hitmaker’s Hisao Oguchi took the stage and after introducing himself, ran a montage of Hitmaker staff and projects. Among clips of Crazy Taxi 2, SegaGaga and Virtua Tennis, Hitmaker also showed off clips of another exciting project. There was footage of a horse racing game, a sequel to Hitmaker’s Derby Owner’s Club.

After the demo footage concluded, Oguchi-san mentioned that the horse racing game will have online aspects & be released on multiple platforms; Windows machines, Microsoft X-Box and Nintendo GameCube were all mentioned and the plan is to have the various versions play together online. (Yet even more evidence games with online play are already being planned for GameCube). An even more surprising statement followed: After the game is released & tested in Japan, it will be brought to America.

The comment made was quick and overlooked by many. Though it is an unusual announcement (horse racing as a sport and genre of video games is really popular in Japan, not so in North America) that’s apparently what Hitmaker’s long term goal for Derby Owner’s Club is. Could it feature International online play similar to Phantasy Star Online? We’ll have to wait and see.

The first Hitmaker game to hit GameCube will be Acclaim’s port of Crazy Taxi. Its sequel, Crazy Taxi 2, was released for Dreamcast just last week.