Panzer Dragoon Saga source code

I know this has been brought up in how the source of the game has been lost, but something occurred to me. Most software titles that undergo copyright procedures usually have the source code given as a proof. Is it possible then that the source may exist in some form at the copyright office, either in Japan or the USA? May be possible to salvage it through these means if it was suggested to SEGA or someone involved in game development and re-releases of classics at the company, without SEGA having to reverse engineer it. Of course, the idea of simply emulating is much easier, yet being able to retool it from sources would make it easier for a remaster ala the PS2 Panzer Dragoon port in the Sega Ages collection.

Uhm how many Saturn games that weren't PC ports been released on the Sega Ages for the PS2? Outside of what Treasure has done with Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun for the 360 i really honestly think that SoJ doesn't give 2 fucks about the Saturn.

And people say I'm downbeat. That the saddest thing I've read on Sega 16. Mods. Halp. My feelings have been crushed. Protect me from words.

If you want to play Saturn games you're better off just buying a Saturn.

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Originally Posted by Gogogadget

If you want to play Saturn games you're better off just buying a Saturn.

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When a game goes for 400 or so USD, it makes sense to hope for a re-release, especially something like PDS that would benefit greatly from some higher powered hardware.

Although at this point, I think it would benefit most from a ground up remake.

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Originally Posted by Tower of Power

When a game goes for 400 or so USD, it makes sense to hope for a re-release, especially something like PDS that would benefit greatly from some higher powered hardware.

Although at this point, I think it would benefit most from a ground up remake.

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I'd love to see a ground up remake... but I'd be afraid to see what crap they would do to it these days.

Too many games have the same generic plastic looking appearance now... I'd hate to see a game like PDS that has such an excellent visual style to it reduced to some generic CGI crap.

Bluepoint Games could do it - from what I've heard (and don't quote me on this), they reverse engineered a few of the games they ported and remastered to newer consoles without the source code, namely MGS3: Snake Eater and the Ico/Shadow of the Colossus pack to PC first in a working state, then fixed them up when they ported them back to PS3/360.

I'm sure they could the same with Panzer Dragoon Saga, although the issue of Sega Saturn emulation could be a problem.

EDIT: There's an article here that supports what I'm saying: http://www.polygon.com/features/2015...the-last-of-us

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Teams tasked with the restoration of older titles will often use emulators: ‘wrappers’ of code that mimic the software’s original environment. The computational power of modern consoles can make this approach impractical for recent titles, though, and consequently developers must re-engineer these games to run natively on new hardware. For Bluepoint and certain other developers, this process begins not with source code, but with a retail disc.
"We always try to get the data from the retail disc [and] reverse engineer the formats," says Thrush. "That way, we have a 100% known data set that we can use to replicate the original game." Source code archives, he explains, often don’t match the final shipped assets. One need only look at the problems encountered by Konami during production of the Silent Hill HD Collection for a demonstration of these risks; the archived code with which the team worked came from an incomplete, buggy beta.

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Layman's terms: They take a retail copy, pop it into an emulator, reverse engineer what they can, build a functional PC version, then use that as a base to port the game to whatever system.

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Originally Posted by Gogogadget

If you want to play Saturn games you're better off just buying a Saturn.

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Or emulation. SSF works really great.

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Originally Posted by EclecticGroove

I'd love to see a ground up remake... but I'd be afraid to see what crap they would do to it these days.

Too many games have the same generic plastic looking appearance now... I'd hate to see a game like PDS that has such an excellent visual style to it reduced to some generic CGI crap.

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I so totally agree with this. Freaking hate this bubbly plastic art style.

Saturn emulation is pretty shaky at best, and with the whole SD card loading thing it's best to buy in now, a Saturn is hardly gonna break the bank.

I picked up mine plus about 8 games for £50 or so. Not at all a purchase I regret making.

I've said it before. If Sega had spent as much time actually working to reverse-engineer the game as it has telling people it doesn't have the source code, it would have finished the game a decade ago.

I swear the whole "eh we lost the source code" is just something they say because they don't wanna give it out. (looking at you ed boon, saying the mk2 source is lost)
I bet they curse the day when id software started releasing their source, it set a precedent.

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Originally Posted by Gogogadget

Saturn emulation is pretty shaky at best, and with the whole SD card loading thing it's best to buy in now, a Saturn is hardly gonna break the bank.

I picked up mine plus about 8 games for £50 or so. Not at all a purchase I regret making.

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Shaky emulation I would call PS2 and Dreamcast emulators.

I'm still looking to replace my first Saturn that got lost in a move. But not much in a hurry until I move into a bigger place to be able to actually set if up. And last I checked games on SSF, seemed like I could pretty much play anything without any serious issues.

I remember reading an article/retrospective on the series where the creator implied that due to in-office politics at SEGA, they would never release the source code or the game short of a full remake. The patent office or whatnot is interesting, but I have to wonder if it was stored at all, and if it was, if it would not be under copyright lock-and-key.

Luckily, we are at the point where the crappy 5-year-old laptop I am writing this post with can effortlessly play PDS through SSF, so there is that option. Not to mention the new breakthroughs in Saturn reverse-engineering.

What article was that?

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Uhm how many Saturn games that weren't PC ports been released on the Sega Ages for the PS2? Outside of what Treasure has done with Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun for the 360 i really honestly think that SoJ doesn't give 2 fucks about the Saturn.

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They did make a solid effort of making an HD version of REZ for the Xbox 360.