The joint SEGA-SONY hardware system - Sega of America and Sony tried to team up

[kool kitty89]

... Seriously, both of you, ignoring the fact that Senn and Alon's current engine was never seen by the SOJ guy who made the decision to force the other engine only on the project is a pretty big omission!

That's the exact argument I was making: Nakayma got a bad impression of the work progressing based on the Condor Team's progress, and didn't get to properly review Senn and Alon's (and Coffin's) work. Though I'd forgotten some details, and mis-referenced names.

Seeing the article again, it was the Saturn-specific Condor Team (led by Robert Morgan) with a poorly optimized conversion of Senn and Alon's PC engine that gave Nakayama the bad impression. Apparently Chris Coffin's boss engine was still relatively well received, but that still left Senn and Alon's work (proper) out in the cold.

After that disaster, someone (or multiple) of the developers broached Stolar about obtaining the NiGHTs engine/tools to expedite development, which he quickly agreed to, and work progressed based on that . . . later to be halted when Naka refused to share the NiGHTS documentation. (meaning they had to go back to the drawing board again -this time largely focusing on Coffin's design iirc -TA didn't post the last page of that article)
Hence my comments on how Nakayma's visit and the NiGHTS engine debacle in general, and how things would have gone a lot smoother if Senn, Alon, and Coffin's work had continued undisturbed from where they were prior to Nakama's visit. (albeit it seems that the Condor Team needed to step up their work and/or shift everything over to Senn/Alon/Coffin directly, at least as far as coding/engine design went)

In any case, the final developments being worked on after the NiGHTS mess ended up pretty good, just delayed due to the general miscommunication. Had it not been for Coffin becoming deathly ill from being overworked, the game might have even met the holiday deadline too in spite of everything else.

I mean, having only one engine may make sense in theory, but they'd made the two-engines decision some time earlier, and later deciding that the whole game had to be remade in the "bosses" engine, without ever even LOOKING at the current version of the "levels" engine but only at an old and outdated version, is a very bad move, and it's what killed the project, ultimately. Remember that after Senn and Alon's "levels" engine was canned, then they went to the NiGHTS engine and wasted two weeks before Naka's fit forced them to abandon it, and then finally to the decision to redo the entire game into the "bosses" engine. This was a huge task, and probably was the reason why Coffin got sick (likely from overwork).

So yeah, don't make that stupid, ill-informed decision to abandon the "levels" engine without even looking at the current version of said engine, and I think the game finishes in 1996, two engines or no. Both engines were making solid progress at their specific part of the game, and levels and such were in development too.

Yeah, there's nothing at all wrong with using multiple engines for a single game . . . the actual problem in development when Nakayma came to review, was NOT the issue of using both Coffin and Senn+Alon's engines, but instead a problem with the CONVERSION of their work by the Condor Team for their very problematic Saturn version. (at least as far as conversions of Senn's and Alon's engine went, while Coffin's Saturn-native "Boss engine" didn't have such problems . . . though it makes you wonder how/when/if that would be brought over to the PC end)

That's not even to say that targeting PC was a bad idea, but just that Condor's (sans Coffin) work in progress was a mess at that point, and quite possibly that Senn/Alon would have to take a more active role on that end of development as well. (comments on Condor using an outdated version of Alon's engine and editor to port to the Saturn)
Actually, going by those comments alone, it seems like they were jumping the gun on the Saturn port in general, and wasting time/resources with the Condor Team attempting to develop a flawed earlier build of the PC engine. (ie, it would have made more sense to focus on completing the PC engine and then porting over the more polished engine and editor to the Saturn) Perhaps parallel work for the Saturn prior to late-stage PC engine development was reached could have been something like building optimized libraries/tools specific for converting over the PC based engines. (and, of course, the PC engine could have focused on Saturn-friendly rendering methods in general, even if targeting DirectX/D3D, they could have set up a renderer that mimicked Saturn hardware more so, though given this was 1996, a software renderer still may have been the main target in any case, so could be even more Saturn-like . . . plus they could target Nvidia's quad-based NV-1 GPU too, like a few Saturn ports did)

So, again, the problem wasn't 2 engines for a game, but 2 separate development teams working on 2 different versions of both those engines (so at least 4 engines/variations in development), and general confusion and miscommunication on several key issues.



And hell, not only was there still merit in the game for the Saturn after missing the 1996 release, but also as a PC release.

I have no idea what you're talking about, but Senn confirmed many, many times that Nakayama never saw their most recent work on the levels engine, and based his decision on an old and badly outdated version of the engine, Remember, he was so angry at how bad the old version looked that he said "you can't use this", and then refused to listen to any entreaties to look at the newer, much better version of the engine? The decision had already been made, and so Sega mangement would not reverse it, no matter how wrong it was. Yeah, really, really bad management and decision making there!

Agree, and then the subsequent issues with NiGHTS just exacerbated things and wasted precious time.

Once again, they would not have needed an outside engine had Nakayama not already doomed the project through his idiotic decision to force them to abandon the "levels" engine.

And in the end they didn't use it anyway, but managed to make do well enough . . . just with a bunch of wasted time and resources thanks to the Nakayma/Stolar/NiGHTS screw-ups.

And second, one division of a company using an engine made by another division of the same company is how things work, at least in the West. Why in the world would you think that sharing an engine is "shocking"? Is it "shocking" to you that so many games today use the Unreal engine, or that several Bethesda games use id engines, or what have you? Stop being silly! It's not "shocking" to share an engine within your company. The only things that are shocking are that Naka was so possessive of his engines that he'd threaten to quit when he heard that another Sega division wanted to use his engine, and that Nakayama would make such bad decisions about what engine the game should use.

To be fair, there may be more context to this, like Stolar not going through proper channels to get the NiGHTS engine and/or SoJ approving Stolar's request without even notifying Naka of what was going on. Given the level of respect (or lack thereof) at SoJ given several anecdotes (including Naka's own experience with Sonic 1, and his nearly leaving Sega -saved by Mark Cerny bringing him over to STI), it wouldn't surprise me if SoJ upper management did something ridiculously disrespectful in the manner they procured the NiGHTS software, that ended up pissing Yuji Naka off. (might have been less of a problem had Naka and Sonic team still been more directly involved with SoA in general, like during the Sonic 2 and 3 days)

And finally, NiGHTS is basically a platformer in the air, so no, that engine wasn't designed for a "completely different style of game" at all.

Plus, I got the impression that it wasn't just the engine, but also the development tools that they were interested in. (I'd imagine SoJ's internal staff made some rather good optimizations for Saturn coding that would prove useful in general usage, just like what happened with AM2's additions to the Saturn SDK -ie when it actually got some tolerably decent development tools and libraries/compilers . . . forget the exact date on that, but I think it was some time in 1996)

But finally, the project was only a mess because Nakayama had messed it up! It was on track, finally, before he came in and destroyed the game with that one incredibly bad decision.

Right . . . they didn't need any intervention at that point, no need to consider NiGHTS, and no need to upset Senn/Alon's progress on the PC development. Though it may have been prudent to question just what was going on with Team Condor that was leading to such sloppy results. (and perhaps questioning the overall worth in investing in that 2nd team)

OTOH, perhaps Condor was not actively developing anything intended to directly contribute to the final version of the game, but was just using older builds to trouble shoot Saturn development tools and possibly build/improve their Saturn development toolchain. (and consider specific optimizations needed for the Saturn conversion)

So maybe I was a bit unfair with my previous supposition of Condor, and perhaps they were actively doing good work that would contribute positively to the final game. If that was the case though, that work wasn't going to be tangible progress to a non-techie like Nakayma, and thus any sort of presentation to him should have strictly been limited to the applicable current PC developments (a la Senn and Alon) and Coffin's Saturn-specific Boss engine.


However, if Condor team was really trying to directly progress with the clunky early version of the PC level engine (ie just spinning their wheels), that would seem to be a waste . . . in which case, it again would have made more sense to focus on the native versions more aggressively and then shift over to porting. (perhaps merging Senn, Alon, and Coffin into a single team would have made more sense, with Coffin's Saturn work and Senn and Alon's PC work all being shared)

I'm sure they had the sales numbers. That's no excuse.


Stop calling things which aren't shocking "shocking". Nakayama's decisions were shockingly bad. The X-Treme team's weren't.

Agree.

This is exactly what that article you posted describes. Nakayama looked at the old levels engine and then declared it must be abandoned, and Senn and Alon were not allowed to show him the current version, even though it was vastly improved. Then after that the decision was declared as made and unchangeable, Sega PC wouldn't pick up the game either (probably because of how SoJ had refused that version of it), the other version crashed with Coffin's health because of the massive overwork Nakayama's terrible decision had required, the game would have slipped into '97, and they cancelled it, stupidly (even in '97, it would have been a big boost for the system!).

Yep.

The flying plays sort of like a platformer, just in the air. You have to reach a goal, go around obstacles, move to the right parts of the screen... "platformer" is the closest genre to NiGHTS. James Pond 1 for Genesis is another game that has this issue... it's a "platformer", but you've got free movement around the screen at all times since it's set underwater. I'd still call the game a platformer regardless, ultimately. What would you call them? "Score attack" is not a genre.

Regardless of whether it was "a platformer" or "platform like" the renderer and parts of the toolchain could still have been useful in a 3D platform game. (in fact, I'm pretty sure that parts of the NiGHTS technology ended up being used in the incomplete Sonic Adventure development for Saturn, part of which became Sonic World in Sonic Jam)

Still, that's more an argument for Sonic Team's own projects than for X-Treme, since it's pretty well established that they would have been fine on their own. (indeed, the Nakayma review and NiGHTS thing really screwed up development)

Videos of X-Treme for the 32X show levels fully populated with enemies... but as for the Saturn game, given that they had a bunch of complete levels, I'm sure adding a few enemies here and there would have been easy. We know they had enemy designs, the art exists, as do the 32X enemies. And anyway, 3D platformers often have many fewer enemies than 2d ones do, you wouldn't need all that many... Sonic 3D Blast has what, like 10 enemies per level, for instance? And it works fine.

There was no 32x version ever really started. There's an Amiga-rendered tech demo mock-up in 32x-style flat shaded 3D, but nothing to do with actual 32x software. (ie just like the Amiga demo of the SatAM based sonic game using the Brilliance animation software)

[Team Andromeda]

I'm sure they had the sales numbers. That's no excuse

Maybe they believed the hype and that it was TOM that sold the Mega Drive to the west and it had nothing to do with John Madden or Sonic . Or maybe like with many major hit games sequels to them on successor consoles don't launch with the system and come in latter . The mistake was not making it more clear that a Sonic game would appear at some point.

Stop calling things which aren't shocking

So when the head of your company pays a visit , one doesn't make sure to that every area of the place of work is the best it can be ? . Pull the other one... we've all had a visit from the higher ups and you make sure that down on the shop floor everything is the best it can be for that day. So it is shocking that the Team never had their best line of codes to present and show off.

That doesn't make Naka's throwing a fit when he heard about it any more defensible

Naka-san throwing fits was known with SONIC II . So again so called professional staff at SOA should have know, the trouble of 1) Getting Japanese Teams to share their code and 2) Naka-san childish rants after wanting to leave SOJ with SONIC 2.

I'm sure lots of teams reused their own engines multiple times on Saturn

I was on about using Middleware and 3rd party engines like id Tech engines on the consoles (at that time) . and there was no Saturn game that shared the engine between different AM# teams , even if would have made more sense to use the Rallly Engine on Touring Car and Manx TT , or VC 1 and 2 engines for HOTD and so on. It just didn't happen back then

The flying plays sort of like a platformer

Nothing like a platform game at all and most games have goals , more around obstacles, boss battles and so on;Hell even on-rails shooters like Panzer Dragoon have that. NiGHTS was a score attack based game

Videos of X-Treme for the 32X show levels fully populated with enemies

Please that versions looks utterly rubbish and a joke and nothing at all like the Saturn/PC version for starters . Now you show me a link to a video of the Saturn game or the PC version that features complete levels

If he was so wise, why did he leave the company's most important franchise to be done by Americans well into the console's lifespan? Why didn't he order Naka to cooperate?

Who saying it was wise ?. Only that ST wanted to try something different you know just like Naughty Dog make a break from Crash or Jak and work on a new IP . Sonic Team made it clear in one of the 1st NiGHTS interviews they would go back to Sonic , but they liked to try something new . They did start work on Sonic in 1996 and had their lovely trip to S.America for references and also were given the CS Sega Rally Team in 1997 so work could be done on Sonic and Burning Rangers . Sadly the Saturn project didn't have legs . Look at HALO 3 that didn't come in until way into the 360 life span some 2 years down the line , or Wipeout on the PS2 (even though the 1st Wipeout sold the PS )

The whole "Japanese teams don't share engines or code" argument holds no water, because Sega had already established a precedent for U.S./Japan sharing with the STI

Well it's what happened and Nintendo does just the same . Sonic 2,3,4 were made mainly by the Japanese staff flown over from Japan and working on their own floor at STI. Just like Die Hard Arcade 1 and 2 where Japanse staff were flown in to code the game.

then it should have done everything possible to allow another team make the game.

Yes but then you also have the other Teams that want to make and get their own new ideas and IP green lit by SEGA top brass . Anyway I doubt Sonic would have made that much difference , he didn't change the fortunes of the Mega CD/SEGA CD or the DC. In the end SEGA stupid decision to go with both the 32X and Saturn is what cost it dear and where the real mistake was made .

Saturn should have launched on the USA with a 2d Sonic game, sporting the most glorious 2d graphics ever at that time

And I can tell you it would have been panned by the press and general gamers and more proof that the Saturn couldn't do 3D which the PS loving public would have had a field day with . I would have loved to seen a 2D sonic myself , but it should have been a remake of Sonic CD ready for the western launch of the Saturn imo

[Melf]

Maybe they believed the hype and that it was TOM that sold the Mega Drive to the west and it had nothing to do with John Madden or Sonic . Or maybe like with many major hit games sequels to them on successor consoles don't launch with the system and come in latter . The mistake was not making it more clear that a Sonic game would appear at some point.

I think that by Sonic & Knuckles, SOJ had a pretty solid idea of how important the franchise was to moving hardware. There was simply no excuse by this point to not have a Sonic game under development for the Saturn from the get-go. SOA messed up by not pressing that point harder, if it even did so at all.

Naka-san throwing fits was known with SONIC II . So again so called professional staff at SOA should have know, the trouble of 1) Getting Japanese Teams to share their code and 2) Naka-san childish rants after wanting to leave SOJ with SONIC 2.

So you fault SOA for letting Nakayama rant? He was the head of the company, and if he wasn't able to see the importance of Sonic by 1996 or even let others illustrate it for him, then he shouldn't have been in the job. I think that given what they had to work with, the "so-called professionals" at SOA did the best they could at trying to get a Sonic game out. At least they were trying! The "true" professionals didn't do anything to that end.

Who saying it was wise ?. Only that ST wanted to try something different you know just like Naughty Dog make a break from Crash or Jak and work on a new IP . Sonic Team made it clear in one of the 1st NiGHTS interviews they would go back to Sonic , but they liked to try something new . They did start work on Sonic in 1996 and had their lovely trip to S.America for references and also were given the CS Sega Rally Team in 1997 so work could be done on Sonic and Burning Rangers . Sadly the Saturn project didn't have legs .

Sonic Team should have made Sonic a priority, and Japan should have made it clear that no Sonic = no chance at new IP. Who was in charge, Nakayama or Sonic Team?

Look at HALO 3 that didn't come in until way into the 360 life span some 2 years down the line , or Wipeout on the PS2 (even though the 1st Wipeout sold the PS )

HALO 3 was a totally different story for three reasons:

1. The Xbox 360 was selling like hotcakes and there wasn't as much pressure to bring the franchise out quickly.
2. HALO 2 sucked and Bungie was going to make sure that the new game was great.
3. Microsoft filled the gap with Gears of War, specifically to alternate between that series and HALO. So it was giving fans another major franchise in the interim.

Sega had none of these benefits. The Saturn was being outsold by the Playstation and the N64 was doing well, the Sonic games had all been of great quality, and there were no other franchises to fill the gap. Sonic 3D Blast was no Gears of War.

Well it's what happened and Nintendo does just the same . Sonic 2,3,4 were made mainly by the Japanese staff flown over from Japan and working on their own floor at STI. Just like Die Hard Arcade 1 and 2 where Japanse staff were flown in to code the game.

But Americans worked on all those games as well. And that was when Sega was #1 and had no reason to share anything. By 1996, things were quite different and Sega should have been doing everything possible to change the situation. To stubbornly decide not to share code while not developing a game of their either was just stupid.

Yes but then you also have the other Teams that want to make and get their own new ideas and IP green lit by SEGA top brass . Anyway I doubt Sonic would have made that much difference , he didn't change the fortunes of the Mega CD/SEGA CD or the DC. In the end SEGA stupid decision to go with both the 32X and Saturn is what cost it dear and where the real mistake was made .

Sonic CD was a different situation altogether. First off, it was released on an add-on that most Genesis owners didn't have. Second, its hype and release were overshadowed by Sonic 2's success. Those two points themselves prove why Sonic should have been a priority on the Saturn. Everyone who owned a Saturn could have played the new Sonic game, and those who wanted to play it needed to only buy a Saturn. The Sonic game that sold best was the one released for the platform that everyone already owned or wanted. It would actually have been easier to market Sonic Saturn than it was Sonic CD. You didn't have to convince anyone to buy a $300 add-on to play it.

[Team Andromeda]

So you fault SOA for letting Nakayama rant?

No SOA fault for having a team split in to 2 completely separate different teams working on 3 different platforms all for the same game . A total mess from start to finish in anybody's book . Any half decent producer should have known that wasn't going to work and then should have done the producer roll of getting a single team up to task and giving them the cash and resources they needed , every early in . Instead of leaving the team split in to 2 and wasting overs a years worth of work on a engine that then wasn't up to scratch . No different from how SEGA Japan and Sonic Team Japan get all the flack for the mess that was Sonic 2006 .

Btw It was Naka-san that did the childish rants , not Nakayama-san .

Sonic Team should have made Sonic a priority, and Japan should have made it clear that no Sonic = no chance at new IP. Who was in charge, Nakayama or Sonic Team

Easier said than done and you make Teams do something they don't like and then see stack loads of staff leave to work on new stuff for another corp . Which is what happened to Sonic Team it's self and the likes of Core Desgin.

HALO 3 was a totally different story for three reason

At the start of the 360 life it wasn't selling like hotcakes at all and while not in major trouble wasn't selling that hot and having a real hard time in Europe and Japan

3. Microsoft filled the gap with Gears of War, specifically to alternate between that series and HALO

Yes and SEGA thought the likes of NiGHTS, Clockwork Knight would fill Sonic gap until ready . Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't . After all Brute Force was meant to be the next HALO must have, Sudeki was to show the Japanese how RPG's should be made and part of a trilogy of games for the XBox and show the world you didn't need FF . In the end the public decides what they like

Sega had none of these benefits. The Saturn was being outsold by the Playstation and the N64 was doing well

SEGA had Japan ; Where it was out selling the PS and N64 very easily and also seeing games like VF II break Pre Order records and become the 1st game in Japan to have 1.2 million pre orders . Shame SEGA America and Europe messed all that hard good work up with that god awful 32X

But Americans worked on all those games as well

bit part rolls . The games were made by the Japanese and they called the shots on the development and pretty much worked just amongst themselves

Sonic CD was a different situation altogether. First off, it was released on an add-on that most Genesis owners didn't have.

Sonic CD was made to make people buy the system and guess what it didn't have the impact . Sonic Adv didn't give the DC much of a fighting chance either. So why you think it would have been any different for the Saturn I don't know .

To stubbornly decide not to share code while not developing a game of their either was just stupid

Well its happens now with the X-Box 360 . Fair play to SONY they seem to be the only ones that 'make' all their In-House Teams share the code pool

[A Black Falcon]

So when the head of your company pays a visit , one doesn't make sure to that every area of the place of work is the best it can be ? . Pull the other one... we've all had a visit from the higher ups and you make sure that down on the shop floor everything is the best it can be for that day. So it is shocking that the Team never had their best line of codes to present and show off.

There were two teams, and Nakayama refused to even LOOK at the second team's actual work before throwing away everything they had done. That is shocking. Nothing STI did was.

[Aang]

http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/200403-xtreme.shtml

Any ideas of grand destiny for the project were soon to fade. While the team was happy as it was, insular and locked-in to the design process, outside influences were coming onboard that would alter the course of the project. It all began in March with a visit from the head of SoJ, Shoichiro Irimajiri, who wanted to see the progress on the game; what he would end up viewing were two incomplete builds of the game, missing out altogether on a third version of the game (the PC version, elaborated upon below) that may have been farther along than what he saw. When the main team showed him the main game engine, he “was outraged to see how much was left to be done” (in Senn’s words); the project looked to have a long way to go to reach completion. Before he left, however, he was shown the Chris Coffin build of the boss levels. Seeing this, his mood changed, and he made a fateful decision that would change the lives of the designers and lead to the game’s ultimate demise: he wanted the whole game made using that engine, rather than the main game engine. With that, he promptly left.

Unfortunately, that same day, Senn and Alon, working on the PC version, had gotten a few levels roughly half-completed and wanted to show him their progress. “We had hoped to show him and get the go-ahead to finish... but due to yet more politics, (he) was carted away before we had a chance to show him... he only saw what the ‘other’ group had made (based on a much older game engine with many new project recruits who were just learning the tools and what the game was all about).” The two would continue their project without any guidance.

[A Black Falcon]

There, that's the quote I was thinking of when I first posted. Thanks for finding it.

[Aang]

No problemo!

[Vector2013]

Okay so Sonic Mars. Then Sonic Crackers = Chaotix ? Sonic X-Treme then what was other Sonic game (or 2, Sonic Blast), I posted pictures in this thread if anybody is interested, any more Sonic Adv like planned Saturn games ?

Post 107

http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...o-engine/page8

Well at least I played 3D Sonic in Sonic Jam and in XMas NiGHTS and Sonic R on Saturn um, oh, meh.

[Melf]

No SOA fault for having a team split in to 2 completely separate different teams working on 3 different platforms all for the same game . A total mess from start to finish in anybody's book . Any half decent producer should have known that wasn't going to work and then should have done the producer roll of getting a single team up to task and giving them the cash and resources they needed , every early in . Instead of leaving the team split in to 2 and wasting overs a years worth of work on a engine that then wasn't up to scratch . No different from how SEGA Japan and Sonic Team Japan get all the flack for the mess that was Sonic 2006 .

The problem with your argument is that you begin your point AFTER the game has already been put in American hands, without accounting for why it was there in the first place. How can you blame the U.S. developer for having to scramble to get a game together at the last minute when no one else did anything for close to three years? If Japan had actually cared about Sonic, the whole debacle with two teams wouldn't have happened AT ALL.

Btw It was Naka-san that did the childish rants , not Nakayama-san .

Sorry, I confused Nakayama's indifference with Naka's immaturity.

Easier said than done and you make Teams do something they don't like and then see stack loads of staff leave to work on new stuff for another corp . Which is what happened to Sonic Team it's self and the likes of Core Desgin.

Well, when the team is called SONIC team and is most regarded for that franchise, there has to be a sense of priorities. They could have agreed to do a Sonic game first then whatever they wanted to work on after, and it was just irresponsible for SOJ to debut new hardware without its key franchise. Nothing else ST did during the Saturn's life (or really ever since) has EVER been as successful or well regarded as the core Sonic games, and Sega should have made sure to get at least 1 game out of them before they let them go make new IP. That lack of foresight ended up burning them in the end.

At the start of the 360 life it wasn't selling like hotcakes at all and while not in major trouble wasn't selling that hot and having a real hard time in Europe and Japan

MS has never really cared about Japan (the Xbone isn't even going to launch there at its debut); North America has always been its priority. The 360 sold well enough during its debut - far better than the Sega CD EVER did - so there was no real pressure for a new HALO instantly. The launch library was also large and balanced enough to give consumers something they wanted until HALO was ready.

Yes and SEGA thought the likes of NiGHTS, Clockwork Knight would fill Sonic gap until ready . Sometimes you get lucky and sometimes you don't . After all Brute Force was meant to be the next HALO must have, Sudeki was to show the Japanese how RPG's should be made and part of a trilogy of games for the XBox and show the world you didn't need FF . In the end the public decides what they like

True, but the public wanted Sonic, and Sega didn't give it to them.

SEGA had Japan ; Where it was out selling the PS and N64 very easily and also seeing games like VF II break Pre Order records and become the 1st game in Japan to have 1.2 million pre orders . Shame SEGA America and Europe messed all that hard good work up with that god awful 32X

Ah, so you're saying that since Japan didn't need Sonic for sales, screw him. Let America and Europe fumble about for something that sells. That's excellent leadership and wonderful business. It's a good thing those massive Japanese sales saved the Saturn - oh wait, they didn't. Telling your other territories, the ones that respond to YOU, that they're on their own because you don't need Sonic is not only incredibly dumb, it's practically spiteful.

Sonic CD was made to make people buy the system and guess what it didn't have the impact . Sonic Adv didn't give the DC much of a fighting chance either. So why you think it would have been any different for the Saturn I don't know .

Sonic Adventure is the best-selling DC game of all time, selling more than a million units in the U.S. alone. It played a huge part in making the DC launch the most successful of all time up until that point. It's also the best example of why your argument is wrong. If Sonic was so unimportant for selling hardware, why did SOJ make it a point to have a new game available for launch? Why did it make sure Sonic Team did a Sonic game before anything else? Why didn't it just release another Virtua Fighter game instead? And SOJ's interest in only Japan during the Saturn era bit it square in the ass with the DC, which sold very well everywhere BUT Japan. I don't think you can blame the 32X for that.

Well its happens now with the X-Box 360 . Fair play to SONY they seem to be the only ones that 'make' all their In-House Teams share the code pool

Sony is also trailing behind the competition, much like Sega was in 1996, which means it has more to lose. Unlike SOJ did back during the Saturn's struggles, Sony is making moves to bring in consumers and give them what they want. Massive hubris and arrogance is what caused MS to get slapped right in the face with the Xbone at the unvieling, and it's been back-pedaling ever since.

[kool kitty89]

http://www.lostlevels.org/200403/200403-xtreme.shtml

Any ideas of grand destiny for the project were soon to fade. While the team was happy as it was, insular and locked-in to the design process, outside influences were coming onboard that would alter the course of the project. It all began in March with a visit from the head of SoJ, Shoichiro Irimajiri, who wanted to see the progress on the game; what he would end up viewing were two incomplete builds of the game, missing out altogether on a third version of the game (the PC version, elaborated upon below) that may have been farther along than what he saw. When the main team showed him the main game engine, he “was outraged to see how much was left to be done” (in Senn’s words); the project looked to have a long way to go to reach completion. Before he left, however, he was shown the Chris Coffin build of the boss levels. Seeing this, his mood changed, and he made a fateful decision that would change the lives of the designers and lead to the game’s ultimate demise: he wanted the whole game made using that engine, rather than the main game engine. With that, he promptly left.

Unfortunately, that same day, Senn and Alon, working on the PC version, had gotten a few levels roughly half-completed and wanted to show him their progress. “We had hoped to show him and get the go-ahead to finish... but due to yet more politics, (he) was carted away before we had a chance to show him... he only saw what the ‘other’ group had made (based on a much older game engine with many new project recruits who were just learning the tools and what the game was all about).” The two would continue their project without any guidance.

There, that's the quote I was thinking of when I first posted. Thanks for finding it.

Wait, so was it Hayao Nakayama or Shoichiro Irimajiri? Shoichiro Irimajiri wasn't "head of SoJ" at the time, though I think he was vice president, so it could have been him.

There were two teams, and Nakayama refused to even LOOK at the second team's actual work before throwing away everything they had done. That is shocking. Nothing STI did was.

There's some indication that things at STI were a bit sloppy, but even that's not really clear and may have ended up totally fine in the end. (at worst, Condor staff were spinning their wheels a bit working on conversions of Senn/Alon's earlier builds, while the latter were making good progress on PC and Coffin was as well with his Saturn "Boss Engine" -and it's assumed that Condor would have eventually moved on to the finalized versions of Senn/Alon's engine, likely with at least some benefit from working with their earlier builds)

I think that by Sonic & Knuckles, SOJ had a pretty solid idea of how important the franchise was to moving hardware. There was simply no excuse by this point to not have a Sonic game under development for the Saturn from the get-go. SOA messed up by not pressing that point harder, if it even did so at all.

It was pretty obvious to anyone paying attention just how import Sonic was . . . and how importantly SoA treated an annul Sonic update too, given the push for the Sonic Spinball "filler" title in 1993 lacking a proper MD installment that year. (albeit you'd think they'd have pushed Sonic CD harder at that time too . . . odd)

Sonic Team should have made Sonic a priority, and Japan should have made it clear that no Sonic = no chance at new IP. Who was in charge, Nakayama or Sonic Team?

You could also argue, on this point, that Knuckles Chaotix was diverting resources from "mainstream Sonic" as well . . . except that started as a mainstream Sonic game as well, and got repurposed as it was felt to be too different to be branded as such. (the fact it didn't get a Saturn release was a problem though)

But Americans worked on all those games as well. And that was when Sega was #1 and had no reason to share anything. By 1996, things were quite different and Sega should have been doing everything possible to change the situation. To stubbornly decide not to share code while not developing a game of their either was just stupid.

Interesting to note, but there's still the point that the Nights engine never needed to enter the picture either. STI teams were good enough off on their own and certainly would have been better off had the Nakayma/Stolar/Nights things not happened. (in the end they had to make do on their own anyway, just after having a bunch of time and resources wasted prior to that)

Sonic CD was a different situation altogether. First off, it was released on an add-on that most Genesis owners didn't have. Second, its hype and release were overshadowed by Sonic 2's success. Those two points themselves prove why Sonic should have been a priority on the Saturn. Everyone who owned a Saturn could have played the new Sonic game, and those who wanted to play it needed to only buy a Saturn. The Sonic game that sold best was the one released for the platform that everyone already owned or wanted. It would actually have been easier to market Sonic Saturn than it was Sonic CD. You didn't have to convince anyone to buy a $300 add-on to play it.

Still, Sonic CD was very oddly marketed given SoA's standards . . . not heavily pushed and not made a pack-in standard either, in spite of delaying the release to add their own spin on the soundtrack at that. (albeit I'd also argue it would have been significant if they took that time to also rework the FMV using the just completed "Cinepak for Sega" which would have dramatically improved video quality over the JP original -provided that SoA was afforded the original source video animation- hell, even using SoA's older compressed video formats would have improved things a fair bit if Cinepak wasn't ready in time)

Oh, and the Sega CD 2 was out by the time Sonic CD arrived, so that's $230, not $300. (still should have been a pack-in)

[Team Andromeda]

The problem with your argument is that you begin your point AFTER the game has already been put in American hands, without accounting for why it was there in the first place. How can you blame the U.S. developer for having to scramble to get a game together at the last minute when no one else did anything for close to three years?

One can have a go at SEGA Japan for not getting another Team to make Sonic, to make it more clear that a Sonic game would come . One can't really have a go at a Team that worked on a yearly sequels and worked on nothing but Sonic for 4/5 years for wanting to try something new , before they go back to Sonic . SOA and STI Producers are to blame to the development of Sonic X and the complete mess that was in; just like Sonic Team Japan and SOJ were souly to blame for the mess that was Sonic 06.

Well, when the team is called SONIC team and is most regarded for that franchise, there has to be a sense of priorities

Naming a Team after a Hit or a major turning part in that Team/company fortunes is sometimes what happens. That wouldn't change the fact that now and again the Team would like to try something new.

MS has never really cared about Japan (the Xbone isn't even going to launch there at its debut); North America has always been its priority.

That's why it spent Millions on Mistwalker, allowed Square to use its own servers , paid Capcom, Team Ninja and the likes millions for timed rights . C'Mon MS wanted too and needs to do better in Japan and Europe .

The launch library was also large and balanced enough to give consumers something they wanted until HALO was ready

Sorry it took months and really until GRAW and Fight Night 3 before we started to see what the 360 could do with the 2nd wave of software . HALO 3 came some 2 years into the life cycle of the 360 and well if the Saturn numbers had held up in , that's more or less the time Sonic would have launched as he was meant to go in 1997

The 360 sold well enough during its debut - far better than the Sega CD EVER did

In fact,the 360 didn't sell that great at the start - I think its launch numbers and sales numbers for the months afterwards were way behind that to what the DC or the Cube were able to boast , MS were then hit by the three Rings of Death issues too .

True, but the public wanted Sonic, and Sega didn't give it to them

Really ? Is the same public that turned it back in the best 2D Sonic they was (Sonic CD) the same public that never really gave the DC much of a chance ?

Ah, so you're saying that since Japan didn't need Sonic for sales, screw him. Let America and Europe fumble about for something that sells.

No you let SOA and SOE make the game they see fit for their Market place . Just like what happened with the Mega Drive;Very few Japanese SEGA games sold the Mega Drive to the West other than Sonic I thing you find

If Sonic was so unimportant for selling hardware, why did SOJ make it a point to have a new game available for launch

It didn't launch in Japan , VF 3Tb was in fact the launch game for the DC .

And SOJ's interest in only Japan during the Saturn era bit it square in the ass with the DC, which sold very well everywhere BUT Japan.

Nope it was the silly focus on the 32X that cost SEGA dear in the West . And sorry for the DC was a flop in Europe and sold worse here than in Japan, where monthly sales, it couldn't outsell the N64 , never mind the PS.

[Melf]

One can have a go at SEGA Japan for not getting another Team to make Sonic, to make it more clear that a Sonic game would come . One can't really have a go at a Team that worked on a yearly sequels and worked on nothing but Sonic for 4/5 years for wanting to try something new , before they go back to Sonic .

You can when you're launching new hardware 4 months ahead of schedule and into a three-way race.

Naming a Team after a Hit or a major turning part in that Team/company fortunes is sometimes what happens. That wouldn't change the fact that now and again the Team would like to try something new.

I'm not against trying something new, but I think that securing the platform comes first. If the thing doesn't sell well, you won't get a chance to try all those new things, and the ones you do have little chance of selling because of a poor installed base. A new, true Sonic could have pushed hardware on name recognition alone at the time.

That's why it spent Millions on Mistwalker, allowed Square to use its own servers , paid Capcom, Team Ninja and the likes millions for timed rights . C'Mon MS wanted too and needs to do better in Japan and Europe .

MS of course tried to break into Japan, but that's become less and less relevant as time progressed. MS has outsold Sony pretty much consistently this generation and has done so WITHOUT Japan. I don't think the Xbone is going to be targeted there much at all, especially when western gaming tastes have moved away from Japanese games for the most part.

Sorry it took months and really until GRAW and Fight Night 3 before we started to see what the 360 could do with the 2nd wave of software . HALO 3 came some 2 years into the life cycle of the 360 and well if the Saturn numbers had held up in , that's more or less the time Sonic would have launched as he was meant to go in 1997

Again, the difference is that MS was coming off a well-regarded platform, while Sega was not. Moreover, and probably the biggest factor you're omitting, is that MS had literally billions of dollars to toss at the Xbox to make it work. Sega was in no such position, which made it even more necessary to have a killer app available early with the Saturn. Instead, it put all its hopes on new IP that it didn't have the money to market against two competitors with Scrooge McDuck-sized bank accounts.

In fact,the 360 didn't sell that great at the start - I think its launch numbers and sales numbers for the months afterwards were way behind that to what the DC or the Cube were able to boast , MS were then hit by the three Rings of Death issues too .

Again, this is where the money issue is apparent. MS weathered the ROD storm with little damage because it had the cash to cover the costs.

Really ? Is the same public that turned it back in the best 2D Sonic they was (Sonic CD) the same public that never really gave the DC much of a chance ?

The public turned its back on Sonic CD because they had to buy a $300 add-on just to play it. Only a tiny fraction of Genesis owners even had a Sega CD. The machine has a lot of quality games no one played because Sega split its user base. It had a chance to fix that by releasing a Sonic title on Saturn but failed to capitalize.

No you let SOA and SOE make the game they see fit for their Market place . Just like what happened with the Mega Drive;Very few Japanese SEGA games sold the Mega Drive to the West other than Sonic I thing you find

Really? Golden Axe wasn't Japanese? Streets of Rage? Heck, Sonic 1 itself was a Japanese title. Aside from sports titles, most of what fueled the early success of the Genesis were Japanese games. SOA's western game development was still in its infancy at this stage and didn't really take off until AFTER Sonic.

It didn't launch in Japan , VF 3Tb was in fact the launch game for the DC .

And it makes sense to you that SOJ would consider the company mascot to be a western franchise? I think Sonic's delay in Japan had more to do with Sega having to basically support the still-successful Saturn and the DC simultaneously. There was no need there for Sonic at the time. I understand the whole VF craze there, but to downplay your own mascot's importance just seems really dumb to me.

Nope it was the silly focus on the 32X that cost SEGA dear in the West . And sorry for the DC was a flop in Europe and sold worse here than in Japan, where monthly sales, it couldn't outsell the N64 , never mind the PS.

The Japanese launched was plagued with problems, and from what I've read, was worse than Europe's. It paled compared to the U.S. launch, which did have a Sonic title. Funny how SOJ only was able to read its own market correctly with the Saturn...

[Team Andromeda]

You can when you're launching new hardware 4 months ahead of schedule and into a three-way race

What ? SEGA Japan launched the Saturn in 1994. It was up to SOA to get the Saturn release and launch software right and they made a right pigs ear or it, after trying to back the 32X.

A new, true Sonic could have pushed hardware on name recognition alone at the time

I think you overplay Sonic just a little and that fact that a real Sonic game wouldn't have been ready to go untill late 1996 anyway and even then SOA and SOE made sure to screw the Saturn up totally and make already look a lost cause .

MS has outsold Sony pretty much consistently this generation and has done so WITHOUT Japan

No really . It now looks like the PS3 will overtake the 360 userbase and the 360 has never outsold Sony in Europe and Japan.

the difference is that MS was coming off a well-regarded platform

That can mean little . Just look at the Wii U, Saturn, Vita sales

Instead, it put all its hopes on new IP that it didn't have the money to market against two competitors with Scrooge McDuck-sized bank accounts.

No different to SEGA doing just the same with the Master System and Mega Drive and taking the fight to NEC and Nintendo.

MS weathered the ROD storm with little damage because it had the cash to cover the costs

No it had to act with sales and the 360 image taking a massive hit .

The public turned its back on Sonic CD because they had to buy a $300 add-on just to play it

Its not like the Saturn was cheap and when Sonic CD launched I really doubt the SEGA CD cost $300

Really? Golden Axe wasn't Japanese? Streets of Rage? Heck, Sonic 1 itself was a Japanese title.

And baring SOR II the likes of Golden Axe never came close to being a million sellers and you may have missed them, but the Saturn had loads of Japanse games itself .

And it makes sense to you that SOJ would consider the company mascot to be a western franchise

Huh ? Sonic or VF aren't western franchises .

I think Sonic's delay in Japan had more to do with Sega having to basically support the still-successful Saturn and the DC simultaneously

The game just wasn't ready in time. That was the real reason

The Japanese launched was plagued with problems, and from what I've read, was worse than Europe's

Yes SOJ couldn't make enough units that's what happens on Hardware launches and issues that the 360 suffered from its self . Still with the DC having been manufactured for some 10 months , I wouldn't expect the Western lauch to have issues making enough Hardware to meet demand.

And no, the DC was a flop in Europe

[kool kitty89]

Melf, while I agree with parts of your argument, I think you're still putting put much emphasis on "Sonic Team HAD to develop a new Sonic game."

IMO there's nothing wrong with handing the brunt of development over to another dev team, especially if Sonic team was also charged with plans for a longer-term development schedule for a later Sonic game (ie for the 2nd or 3rd wave/gen of Saturn software releases) later down the line. (which is what Sonic Adventure on Saturn was to be) Still, it would have been nice for them to carry Chaotix over to Saturn, especially with some enhancements. (updated BGs and special states, etc)


Now, in terms of STI's 3D Sonic development . . . that should have been better managed overall, but to be honest, the dev teams themselves (while messy) were doing more or less "good enough" overall until upper management stepped in and tried to "improve" things . . . and did so several times, each time messing things up more. Prior to Nakayma's review there was the mess with Point of View being brought in (waste of time and resources, and hindered actual development of existing teams), then the mess with Nakayama's review, then the Nights engine (or superficially Nights-like level demo, depending who you ask) Yuji Naka fiasco, etc.

If anything, the only "stepping in" management should have done should have been to try and help mediate some of the comunication issues, divisiveness, and personality conflicts in the original STI teams (including Coffin's general paranoia and especially "hatred" towards Ofer Alon). And even then, things were working themselves out well enough alone, so a hands off approach from management may have been most foolproof. (given the general progress being made, it seems like they definitely could have had a full game ready for releasy by fall of '96)

By the time PoV was brought in, the teams had already settled on development of one single game which was to include 2 distinct engines (level engine and boss) into that single game, and both PC and Saturn were being targeted at that point. (Coffin's Boss engine was working well natively on the Saturn, and Senn and Alon were well along with the PC engine, and were gradually making headway at making it work fast enough on the Saturn)
Brining PoV in and reworking the 2nd team (Saturn/Team B) along with PoV staff is what really screwed things up . . . wasting time and resources on the "Team B" end in general (should have been focusing on Coffin's Boss engine in general) while producing a piss port conversion of the PC level engine that was even worse than Senn and Alon's initial (unsatisfactory) conversion results. And on top of that, getting those crappy results demoed at Nakayma's review presentation, preventing Senn and Alon's work on the Saturn conversion from being shown. (which was pretty smooth at that point, and getting close to the point where they could consider it satisfactory for a final version -or at least a play-test quality beta)