Today the house of Sonic has announced the development of a new collection of classic first-party games from SEGA’s 16-bit Mega Drive years, 8-bit Master System years and even the classic arcade years. Not to be confused with similar collections before, which also span the huge SEGA library, like the SEGA Genesis Collection and Sega Classics Collection among others, this new collection is meant to be the definitive collection. Nay, the Ultimate collection. PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners prepare for the SEGA Mega Drive Ultimate Collection, coming out worldwide in early 2009.

We’ve all seen SEGA collections before, so what makes this one special and why isn’t it coming out for every system possible like PS2, PSP and Wii? Well, Ultimate Collection games have actually been redeveloped by Backbone Entertainment to make the games run in 720p, which is why they aren’t bothering with lower quality ports (yet). Seeing some of our favorite classics in glorious HD is the first reason this may be worth picking up. Remaking games in HD seems to be the new trend anyway.

The second reason Ultimate Collection might live up to its name is that it will sport over 40 titles. Previous collections never came close to that. Sure, mixed in there with the greats may be titles like Flicky or Ristar, but guaranteed goodness so far includes Sonic the Hedgehog 1, 2 and 3, Columns, Alien Storm, Ecco the Dolphin, Space Harrier and Streets of Rage 1, 2 and 3.