When we where kids, growing up in the 16-bit era, we always took sides with either Sonic or Mario. But deep down inside, we always wanted to see them do a game together, an awesome platformer. Then SEGA announced Mario & Sonic Olympic series, making people angry. But why not make a platformer game?
“Prior to this project there has always been a discussion between Nintendo and Sega about bringing Sonic and Mario together somehow. But every time we talked about it, there was an issue as to exactly how we could achieve that.
These characters come from two totally different backgrounds, and have completely different worlds. If you do any kind of collaboration, you can’t just get them to run on one of the Sonic stages or vice versa. You have to create something from scratch, a neutral location. Nintendo and SEGA never managed to agree on just where or what kind of universe we could set a Mario and Sonic adventure in.
Then, some time ago, SEGA secured a license to create games based on the Olympics. At that point I came up with the idea of having Mario and Sonic compete with each other in the Olympic games setting. We proposed that idea to Nintendo and they were really positive and interested in the idea, so that is where we started building it into a concrete game proposal.” – Osamu Ohash, Producer.
Very interesting, minigames seem to be the easiest way to cash in on the brand names.
Gamespot’s On The Spot show had a demo play of Guardian Heroes, the new port being handled by Treasure exclusively for XBLA.
Really weird, that out of nowhere SEGA decided to bring this game back. No complaints, outside the fact that I wish it was on PSN. But hey, can’t cry over exclusivity.
Yukio Sugino had an interview in the latest Famitsu magazine, where he talks about the past, present and future of SEGA. One of the quotes that I loved was when he described what made SEGA great.
“Sega’s philosophy has always been that creativity is our lifeblood and we try to reflect that not just in what we make, but in all aspects of our work. Staying consistent with this spirit is what’s allowed us to approach the world of entertainment in such a broad scope.” – Yukio Sugino
He goes on to talk about a lot of great stuff, about how they used to make games with world wide appeal and not just split it up into regions. So what about not having hardware? Yukio Sugino says it’s hard to go from a hardware company to software.
Binary Domain, Nagoshi’s new shooter, was revealed back in January. We saw a trailer that didn’t give much away about the game and we haven’t heard much about it since. Talking to Famitsu, Nagoshi didn’t give much away! Why? Because as much as he would like to tell you more about Binary Domain, he isn’t allowed to!
”To be honest, there’s very little that we can actually reveal at this precise time,” he admitted to Famitsu. “There’s a lot I want to talk about; it’s practically all about to burst out of my mouth, but I just have to keep it all bottled up for now. All I can really say is that it’s getting better by the day.”
As more interviews and previews for Sonic Generations are released, more details have been revealed (so that’s how it works!). Swedish gaming magazine LEVEL has a preview and interview with Iizuka, and G4TV has an interview with Patrick Riley, SEGA’s director of international productions. Check out the G4TV interview video above and head over to the Sonic Stadium boards for the full translated LEVEL article (four posts down). Thanks to TSS forum user Carbo for translating.
After the break, a handy bulleted list of the new details revealed!
Of course SEGA can say yes or no on any future Yakuza games being brought over, what with Yakuza 4 coming out very soon. But the guys from Siliconera had a great interview about what it takes to bring Yakuza games to the West. When asked if SEGA would bring over a spin off like Kenzan:
“In terms of the older games, I can really speak to that at the moment. Because currently from the Yakuza franchise we have Black Panther, Kenzan, and now we have Of the End. Which all intents and purposes is a working title for the West, we don’t know what it’s going to be called. I think the possibility is there. We haven’t closed the door on any of those titles. We’re always looking at what might be the next title that will be appropriate for the Western market.” – Yas Noguchi, Senior Producer Yakuza 4
Sounds like ‘Yakuza of the End’ is leaning more towards a yes, since they are already saying it’s a code name in the West or is this just me wanting a game badly?
MCV UK has interviewed SEGA Europe’s John Clark about SEGA’s position in the digital distribution market. John Clark was the managing director at SEGA Europe, but he is now the director of digital distribution at SEGA and has given some insight as to what SEGA thinks of digital distribution. Clark says that SEGA is still very much a boxed goods company even though they have a section of SEGA dedicated to digital distribution.
Alan Pritchard, SEGA West’s VP of marketing and Sales, had a interview with Game Informer in the latest issue. One of the questions asked was if Aliens: Colonial Marines was still coming out. The short answer? Yes.
“Colonial Marines . We’ve been working closely with Gearbox behind the scenes, and we’ll be able to tell
Pritchard also discussed SEGA’s plans for the 3DS over the next financial and calendar year. In addition to confirming Super Monkey Ball as a 3DS launch title, he discussed plans for old and original IPs:
“We have a number of 3DS titles in our line-up for next financial and calendar year. There’s four or five existing franchises, one or two from the old Sega IP locker, and we’re looking at one or two new IPs as well.
This has been a tough year for Dreamcast owners, as we haven’t had a single game released this year and things got increasingly grim when redspotgames revealed this summer that their next game Solar Struggle was for Xbox Live Indie Games, and then at GamesCom they revealed they had started development for Nintendo Wii with the upcoming port of Rush Rush Rally Racing for WiiWare. It started to look like our Dreamcast wouldn’t be able to escape the grim reaper this year, however like Aika’s boomerang redspotgames returned and revealed STURMWIND for Dreamcast on German television show “neues” (The rsg part starts at -5:10, Sturmwind footage can be seen at 07.45)
(Note: The above paragraph is over dramatic as NG:Dev.Team are currently porting Fast Striker and it is scheduled for release this fall, read our interview with NG:Dev.Team for more information)
Hit the Jump to See the Dreamcast Relevant Clips of the Show (with translation), Game Features List, and Screen Shots
1up has published the second part of the Yu Suzuki interview, in this second part Yu Suzuki talks more about what Shenmue 3 would have been like and where he has been these past few years.
As for Shenmue 3:
“This is not actually in the game, but as an example to give you an idea of what I mean by deeper dialogue, when Shenhua and Ryo are at home, Shenhua will ask Ryo if he would like to drink tea or coffee and the player will select one or the other. Or, Shenhua will ask Ryo a hypothetical question like: “There are four animals; a monkey, cat, dog and bird. You are crossing the river but you need to leave one behind. Which one will you leave behind?” And the player has to choose one. Shenhua will ask lots and lots of questions like these and the answers will get stored in the game and affect the outcome of the player’s relationship with other characters. It’s like a personality test. For example, the person who leaves behind the monkey is the type of person who leaves their wife.” -Yu Suzuki
Damn, the man is brilliant. Makes me want to play it now. Other stuff in the interview are comments like 360 being the Dreamcast 2 and Yu Suzuki talking about Nagoshi. Some good stuff, read it here.
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