Sega Sonic
The Sonic the Hedgehog character is seen behind a video game screen showing a Sega Corp logo at a game arcade in Tokyo. Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon

SEGA Europe Ltd. announced today that it is collaborating with GameSession. The collaboration will provide gamers a smarter choice when purchasing a game by allowing them to download full games for free. Users will then be given a few hours to try out the game, after which they will choose whether to purchase it or not.

"GameSessions’ unique technologies let you start playing sooner, benchmark your hardware against available releases, and then let you purchase instantly whilst keeping your saved progress right through to receiving the final Steam copy,” Ed French, CEO of GameSessions, said, as quoted by PCGAMESN.

Business Development Director for Technology and Services at SEGA Europe Ltd., Peter Chan, said that the partnership with GameSessions will make Sega products accessible to players for free for a limited time. He added that the partnership will give SEGA a larger audience base as GameSessions will allow them to reach rising gaming markets like Brazil and Mexico.

The idea of the service is for players to be given a full and free copy of the game they are interested in. This is unlike other trial versions that give players access to the game but with less content. Players will then be given an allotted time to try the game; the time will vary depending on the title. Once the allotted time is exhausted, players will be given the option to fully purchase the game while keeping their save file from the demo.

There are a few hit SEGA titles that can be tried out by players currently. The first set of games includes "Football Manager 2014," "Compan y of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault," "Sonic Generations" and "Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine."

Back in July, Sony released a similar service in Playstation Now that provides players with digital video games that could be rented. Rented games can last up to a week; from there players can opt to fully buy the game. In an interview with Polygon, Senior Director of Playstation Now, Jack Buser, said that their service will have more options in the near future. Players will soon get to choose from more flexible options when renting a game.

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