Sonic Boom Thread

[TimmiT]

So it's safe to say that this is basically SEGA's answer to something like Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures?

Not really. This thing has been in development for at least 2 to 3 years now.

[Saturn Memories]

To whomever made the point, to say that third parties all did poorly on the GCN is absurd, as the GameCube was the console Sega was most consistently successful on during that generation, 2K games aside. Sonic's countless outings, Super Monkey Ball, Crazy Taxi, Phantasy Star Online and so on all did respectably. Super Monkey Ball (and its sequel) clocked well over a million a year before Billy Hatcher came out. The game flopped because it was a boy in a chicken suit, the marketing was bad, and the game was mediocre. It was half-assed at best, and it is only looked back at, even tepidly, because Sonic Team hasn't got a creative bone left in its body and Billy Hatcher is, I believe, their last stab at something remotely unique.

Sonic, Phantasy Star, and Crazy Taxi were all on PS2 and vastly outperformed their GCN counterparts. The best selling Sega title on GCN was Sonic Heroes which sold twice as well on PS2. Meanwhile PSO 1/2 and Crazy Taxi on GCN only managed around half-a-million. C'mon, we're talking about the console that even the Resident Evil series struggled on...

Burning Rangers wouldn't have been too big a project. It came out the same year Sonic Adventure did, and I think we can all assume which of those projects got the lion's share of Sonic Team's attention. Moreover, Sonic Team would have been developing Samba de Amigo and Chu Chu Rocket around that time, and presumably dicking around with Air NiGHTS.

It was a full-fledged 3D action game that pushed the Saturn to its absolute breaking point, and it had one of the most important development studios in the company at its helm. Was it operating under a Sonic budget? Doubt it. Would it have had as much money to work with as most 3D Saturn titles? Probably. Was it rushed? Most definitely. The game is short and has a number of graphical issues that the team either couldn't (because of hardware limitations) or didn't have time to correct because of Sonic Adventure. That's not to say it didn't have time to be developed (BR and SA were released 11 months apart), but the schedule was tight and the Saturn was dated and notoriously difficult to work with.

Edit: When I talk about pushing the Saturn to it's breaking point, here's what I mean... BR has actual transparencies instead of pixel mesh like most Saturn games. It makes extensive use of light sourcing (off the top of my head, I can't think of any other Saturn game that does this). It has that underwater warbling effect. There's also the voice navigation system, which was revolutionary at the time. If you don't think some serious time, effort, and money went into this game, you're bonkers.

As for ChuChu Rocket! and Samba de Amigo, they were released at the very end of 1999 and the middle of 2000 respectively. Furthermore, they were simple puzzle and music games.

I think you're missing the point with Burning Rangers; it wasn't a success, even in the land where the Saturn was successful. If it had been a success, even if it was just Japan, it would have had a sequel. Success in just Japan did mean sequels, because damn near any franchise that started on the Saturn was only successful in Japan - Panzer Dragoon, Virtua Fighter (still seeing iterations today), Sakura Taisen, Virtual On, and so on weren't exactly blockbusters in the West, but they were still given multiple sequels across several generations. Even Panzer Dragoon - and I suspect that Panzer Dragoon Saga had a substantially larger budget than Burning Rangers - managed to squeak out another title after the Saturn.

Burning Rangers, as far as I can infer, wasn't a big budget project; it was just one of many things Sonic Team had juggling. Even in that context, it sold very poorly, even for a 1998 Saturn game.

I've already covered this at length. Not gonna repeat myself.

Edit: Actually, I will hit on VF and VO since I haven't commented on either. They're arcade titles first and console titles second. They found success in arcades. That's why you kept getting sequels. That's also why as arcades began to die, you started seeing less and less of both.

[nuckles87]

 
But Sakura Taisen 2 was released in the same year and that went on to sell over 500,000 and I believe so did a Super Robot Wars title. Whilst you have a point with the Western release, I'm just doubtful a title about firefighters in space would be a highly successful venture for SEGA over here.

I never said Billy Hatcher flopped hard but as far as I know from old NPD records, it never broke the 200,000 mark in the United States. I am just guesstimating that Europe might have helped it significantly but I really have nothing to support that other than "Well Sonic Team made it and it's a platformer"
But I am talking about it from a purely sales point of view. Irregardless of where those titles found successes, they found them somewhere. If Burning Rangers, Ristar etc found success in one region, SEGA would have continued to develop more entries to those games. Sonic is a poor seller in Japan but that never stopped SEGA making more sequels because he was hugely successful in the Western world.

Sakura Taisen 2 was the sequel to a massively successful game that spawned a multimedia franchise.  Burning Rangers...wasn't. So I really wouldn't say the two games are comparable.


As for the second statement, that was aimed at something Saturn Memories said, but it turns out I misread his post. XD

So in response to that, I wouldn't say Gamecube "flopped hard". It did make a profit, and games did sell reasonably on it. Sonic Adventure 2 Battle was in the NPD for months. Though it was a lot harder for exclusives to sell well on it, so I do agree with him that Billy Hatcher had a tougher time on it then it might have had on PS2 or as a multiplatform release.

Wii U....now that's an example of a flopper.

Simply because it's the only source of information does not mean it should be used. They have greatly overestimated the sales of Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and severely underestimated Iron Man to name but two SEGA titles who's numbers did not match up and from the looks of things, Sonic & Allstars Racing Transformed seems to be too. I've even seen sales numbers for SKUs that do not exist. It also helps that we do not know their methodology whilst sales trackers like NPD, Media Create, Chart Tracker etc has access to large number of stores across their respective countries.

So until their tracker becomes reliable, then there is no reason to use them.

My thoughts exactly. I have an account on their site and frequent it often and their numbers have been off enough that I don't think they are relevant to discussion about sales. Aside from their Japanese numbers, which are taken straight from Media Create and Famitsu.

[jonboy101]

Saturn Memories:

I think you're mistaken on a few points. To begin with, the best selling Sega title on the GCN was Sonic Adventure 2, which sold something like 2 million units - which, I believe, puts it at least on par with the PS2 Sonic Heroes.

Which Phantasy Star cracked a million on the PS2? It certainly wasn't Phantasy Star Universe. That game was a flop, and I promise you had a much larger budget than PSO did. You might be thinking of the PSP games. Phantasy Star Online wasn't available on the PS2, and the GCN version more than outsold the XBOX counterparts. I would hazard to say that's pretty goddamn impressive, too, as the GCN required you buy an internet adapter and PSO was, if not the only, certainly one of the only online games on the GCN. I honestly can't think of another one off the top of my head.

I also think you're also misunderstanding the word consistent.

I'm well aware of Burning Rangers wizardry, and I stand by my original statement. The game wouldn't have been a priority - just another game. During this same time, Sonic Team was going on field trips to Mexico and Peru to scout locations for Sonic Adventure, for god sake. Don't forget that Sonic Adventure had started development in something like spring 1997, not long after NiGHTS came out. I really don't think Burning Rangers had a year and a half long development period as well (of course I could be mistaken), nor was it supposed to be the killer ap for Sega's next piece of hardware. Samba and Chu Chu both came out in 1999. I think it might be a bit unfair to call them nothing more than a music and puzzle game. The former required the development of the magnetic maracas and then converting those for home use and the ladder was the first online console game, which I imagine took a bit of elbow grease. Sonic Team had a lot of things being developed at once in the late 90s - many things not released, I think it's fair to speculate - like Air NiGHTS. I'm not saying Burning Rangers was a budget title, I am saying it was not a "big gun" and it did not live up to Sega's expectations, even if they were modest.


You didn't really cover it at length: what you said was the reason they flopped is debatable and left it at that. Earlier I believe you said it was because it came out late in the Saturn's life, and then someone pointed out ST 2 sold half a million the same year. You said something about budgets - ST had a smaller budget, so success is more easily achieved, and that's where I jumped in.

Virtua Fighter might be an arcade game first, but I think it's reasonably important to point out that Sega's consoles, in general, were home arcade machines first and foremost, so I'm not sure what your point was. Yes, Virtua Fighter was a success in the arcades, but, again, only in Japanese arcades. Regardless, Virtua Fighter's tie in ratio with early Saturn adopters was ridiculous in Japan (2:3?), and Virtua Fighter 2 was bought by (or given to) something like 20 percent of the Saturn's userbase. It was undeniably a success in Japan. By the same token, it was not a major reason most people bought a Saturn in the United States or Europe. Sega did everything under the sun to make Virtua Fighter successful in the United States and Europe, and largely were unsuccessful. You don't think they were converting the game to the Master System to flaunt their triumph do you? And despite being a flop in the west, Sega saw fit to make four direct sequels, a super-deformed version of VF3, a cross-over, an RPG (which became the most expensive game made up to that point - starting life on the Saturn), an anime and so on. Virtual On has the same argument, just on a smaller scale. Sure they were arcade hits, but only in Japanese arcades - and moreover, they did well on the consoles as well.


I think you're also ignoring the corporate culture of Sega in the 90s, which prioritized success in Japan over other markets. If Burning Rangers had sold any reasonable amount, even if it was just Japan, it would have had a sequel, or loose talk of a sequel, or anything.


I do think the game could have been more successful on the Dreamcast, but it still would be a niche title - just a niche title on a more chic platform.





Knuckles:


I think the point was that games could still sell well on the Saturn in 1998. Sakura Taisen 2 outsold every game in the series that came after it. The House of the Dead was successful in Japan; so was Shining Force 3, Dragon Force 2, the second Neon Genesis Evangeleon game, Super Robot Taisen and so on. Some of those were big sellers. Super Robot Taisen actually sold more than Sakura Taisen, actually, so it wouldn't be the case that ST was Sega's only big hit in 98.

[nuckles87]

I know that was the point. My point was that context is important. New IPs are always going to be riskier investments then established franchises. A new IP launching in the twilight years of a console's lifespan, when a new console is on the horizon and garnering all the attention, is going to be a much more difficult sell then the second or third iteration of a successful series with an established fan base.

Virtually every title you mentioned is a sequel to a game that came out in the middle of a console's lifespan. The only exception is House of the Dead, which was the console release of a hit arcade game. They had fans before the first line of code was even written. Ristar and Burning Rangers? Not so much.

The most ideal time to launch a new IP on any console has always been in its first few years. Games released near the end of a console's life span typically either flop or see limited release....unless it's something like God of War 2.

[Saturn Memories]

Saturn Memories:

I think you're mistaken on a few points. To begin with, the best selling Sega title on the GCN was Sonic Adventure 2, which sold something like 2 million units - which, I believe, puts it at least on par with the PS2 Sonic Heroes.

Million-and-a-half versus three million units. Not a poor seller but not better than SH PS2.

Which Phantasy Star cracked a million on the PS2? It certainly wasn't Phantasy Star Universe. That game was a flop, and I promise you had a much larger budget than PSO did. You might be thinking of the PSP games.

Yeah, my mistake. PSO I/II, Plus, and III on GCN combine for only 600 thousand though.

I also think you're also misunderstanding the word consistent.

Only Sonic and Super Monkey Ball titles cracked a million on GCN. Sega titles consistently performed better on PS2.

I'm well aware of Burning Rangers wizardry, and I stand by my original statement. The game wouldn't have been a priority - just another game. During this same time, Sonic Team was going on field trips to Mexico and Peru to scout locations for Sonic Adventure, for god sake. Don't forget that Sonic Adventure had started development in something like spring 1997, not long after NiGHTS came out. I really don't think Burning Rangers had a year and a half long development period as well (of course I could be mistaken), nor was it supposed to be the killer ap for Sega's next piece of hardware.

Sonic Jam had just released in summer of 1997. Jam's "Sonic World" was used as a test engine for Sonic Team to figure out how a 3D Sonic game might work. I doubt at that point they were taking trips to scout locations for SA in spring of '97 when they were still trying to figure out how to make Sonic work in 3D.

Samba and Chu Chu both came out in 1999.

Forgot Samba was an arcade game first. ChuChu still came mid-November of '99 though.

I think it might be a bit unfair to call them nothing more than a music and puzzle game. The former required the development of the magnetic maracas and then converting those for home use and the ladder was the first online console game, which I imagine took a bit of elbow grease. Sonic Team had a lot of things being developed at once in the late 90s - many things not released, I think it's fair to speculate - like Air NiGHTS. I'm not saying Burning Rangers was a budget title, I am saying it was not a "big gun" and it did not live up to Sega's expectations, even if they were modest.

Sonic Team would have had input on the maracas the same way Sega's arcade developers had input on their games' cabinets, but they wouldn't have been directly responsible for their development. Online play had been something Sega had dabbled in since the Genesis days. And Air NiGHTS, who knows how far they got into that before abandoning it. There's very little information out there about it and absolutely no screenshots. It may have only been in planning stages.

You didn't really cover it at length: what you said was the reason they flopped is debatable and left it at that. Earlier I believe you said it was because it came out late in the Saturn's life, and then someone pointed out ST 2 sold half a million the same year. You said something about budgets - ST had a smaller budget, so success is more easily achieved, and that's where I jumped in.

In previous posts, I talked about Ristar, NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, the Panzer Dragoon series, Sakura Wars, the Let's Make series, etc...

Virtua Fighter might be an arcade game first, but I think it's reasonably important to point out that Sega's consoles, in general, were home arcade machines first and foremost, so I'm not sure what your point was. Yes, Virtua Fighter was a success in the arcades, but, again, only in Japanese arcades. Regardless, Virtua Fighter's tie in ratio with early Saturn adopters was ridiculous in Japan (2:3?), and Virtua Fighter 2 was bought by (or given to) something like 20 percent of the Saturn's userbase. It was undeniably a success in Japan. By the same token, it was not a major reason most people bought a Saturn in the United States or Europe. Sega did everything under the sun to make Virtua Fighter successful in the United States and Europe, and largely were unsuccessful. You don't think they were converting the game to the Master System to flaunt their triumph do you? And despite being a flop in the west, Sega saw fit to make four direct sequels, a super-deformed version of VF3, a cross-over, an RPG (which became the most expensive game made up to that point - starting life on the Saturn), an anime and so on. Virtual On has the same argument, just on a smaller scale. Sure they were arcade hits, but only in Japanese arcades - and moreover, they did well on the consoles as well.

Can you point to an article or something that states that VF did poorly in US arcades? Everything I've ever read seems agree that VF did well and impressed gamers with it's 3D polygonal graphics. It wasn't SF2 successful or anything, but it did well.

[Aki-at]

I wasn't questioning their status as niche titles today. There's no denying that. The reason they flopped upon release is certainly debatable though. There's also the question of whether these titles would be viable in today's market. As far as NiGHTS is concerned, the answer would seem to be no. I do think Sega dropped the ball with Journey of Dreams and even the HD remake, but at the end of the day, I realize people have a hard time wrapping their heads around how the game is supposed to be played and that a flying purple jester is a really hard sell to most people. Ristar and Burning Rangers though, I'm not so sure...

I think Burning Rangers would have failed just as badly personally. Even in Japan I'm not sure I see much of a market for firefighters in space and if we step into the West it becomes even harder to think it would have been a big hit here. Same with Billy Hatcher, the premise of the game coupled with it's low quality certainly destroyed any chance that title had. Rister I think was a missed opportunity but I do think it still might have a chance today because children's tastes knows no bounds.
But my original point was Sonic Team is only known for one successful product in the West so I'd wager SEGA is hesistant they would want to risk them making a new IP. Especially when budgets are spiralling further upwards and that specific team has shown both an inability to generate massive successes or developing critically acclaimed titles.

It all comes down to the budget. Burning Rangers was a larger project and would have had significantly more money and resources devoted to it than an RPG like Sakura Wars. Success within Japan alone may not have been enough to guarantee a sequel.

That's never been the case with SEGA though, from Phantasy Star to Virtua Fighter, Yakuza to 7th Dragon and Valkyria Chronicles to the Tony Taka Shining games, they've always shown a willingness to support games even if they only find success in Japan. If Burning Rangers pulled similar, perhaps even half, Sakura Taisen's numbers in Japan we would probably be looking at a Burning Rangers 2.
Budget was a factor but I would not imagine we were looking at a game that would not profit with sales of 300,000 - 400,000 units.

Never claimed that being on a failed console was the sole reason for their lackluster sales numbers, but it certainly was a contributing factor.

Right but I think, especially for Billy Hatcher, it had more to do with the game than the console itself.

Sakura Taisen 2 was the sequel to a massively successful game that spawned a multimedia franchise.  Burning Rangers...wasn't. So I really wouldn't say the two games are comparable.

It just shows to me there was still life in the Saturn in its home turf, simply because a successor is announced shouldn't mean that software sales are going to collapse completely. Especially as we saw the Dreamcast did not make Saturn numbers, where did that demograph go? They were certainly still on the Saturn for the time being!

My thoughts exactly. I have an account on their site and frequent it often and their numbers have been off enough that I don't think they are relevant to discussion about sales. Aside from their Japanese numbers, which are taken straight from Media Create and Famitsu.

I just hope more people start to realise how bad they are with numbers, they have Valkyria Chronicles with having sold over half a million in America but NPD has that title selling under 200,000 in the US...

[jonboy101]

I'm rather skeptical that Sonic Heroes sold 3 million on the PS2, but if we're going to use VgChartz as a source, then I suppose it'd be fair to say Sonic Adventure 2 sold 2.6 million on the GCN, not the 1.5-2 I guessed. The VG numbers, then, have us at an adoption rate of something like 1:9. While 2.6 million isn't quite 3, I think it's plenty impressive in context. I do not think Sonic Adventure 2 would have sold much more on the PS2, despite that system's install base.

And which series were pumping out over a million on PS2? Sonic, one Virtua Fighter game and Yakuza - which was (conveniently for the purpose of argument) only successful in Japan. The rest of the pack hardly inspires me to go buy stock. Astro Boy was hardly a runaway. Same with Blood Will Tell, Nightshade, Virtual On Marz, the Sakura Taisen series, after a point the J-League games, and so on. Plenty of high profile, expensive, disappointments - especially Sakura Taisen, which was supposed to be expanded into this giant metaverse sort of deal, wasn't it?

The Gamecube saw very few high budget games, and, generally speaking, games sold reasonably relative to their budgets. PSO I&II was a port of a DC game that probably made its budget back in 2000, III wasn't a roaring success, I'll grant you, but it wasn't a re-imagining of the Phantasy Star world with a three year long development cycle and robust budget, either. Skies of Arcadia was a pruned port, Crazy Taxi was a port, and so on. The PS2 saw plenty of high profile, expensive games (like Astro Boy) flop, badly. The GCN did, too (like Billy Hatcher), but I think it had a better record, on the whole.

I don't think Billy would have done much, if any, better on the PS2. I suppose a multi-release wouldn't have hurt, but Sonic Team never seemed to wrap their heads around the PS2, so for the sake of critical acclaim, it might be for the best that didn't happen.


I think you're confusing my two statements, and I could have written them better. Sonic Adventure was being developed as early as spring 1997, which would have been roughly the same time Burning Rangers was getting underway. Burning Rangers couldn't have been in the burner for more than a few months before development of Sonic Adventure got rolling. I wasn't saying they were poking around in the Yucatan in spring 97 (I don't remember when they went, but it was fairly early in development, wasn't it?) - I was just illustrating the difference in priority.

Sonic Team used the early Saturn engine of Sonic Adventure for Sonic Jam and then changed platforms to DC. It wasn't as if they were making Sonic Jam's engine just to have a neat menu - it was recycled material from their early development.

Point taken with Samba, though I'm still going to have to disagree with you on Chu Chu Rocket. There's a big difference between the single player Phantasy Star text adventures being downloaded on a cable box, or even the network play you could dick around with on the Saturn, and something like Chu Chu Rocket. It wasn't an easy task, which would be why it was just a puzzle game.

No, nothing with Air NiGHTS, but the point I was trying to convey was they had a lot of balls going at once. Even if the game was just at the conception stage, that is still taking time, money and attention away from other projects.

I think we're sort of straying a bit at this point. All I was trying to say was Burning Rangers wasn't a failure because of the Saturn. It wasn't a game like Shenmue that had to move a lot of figures to break even; it was just one of many games Sonic Team was working on at the time, like Propeller Arena or OutTrigger were just games AM2 was working on in 2000. It didn't meet sales expectations - and there were plenty of Saturn games that did meet expectations in 1998.

Virtua Fighter was impressive (it was recognized by the Smithsonian wan't it?), and I was speaking too melodramatically when I said it flopped. My bad. Let me try that again. It didn't meet expectations. I agree it sold decently, but as you said, it wasn't the Street Fighter slayer it was in Japan, which is what the Japanese executives seemed to hope - I feel like a couple of western fighters were axed, like Eternal Champions, so Sega could concentrate it's firepower on promoting Virtua Fighter. As far as I can tell, it became a rather obscure niche title in the west by the mid to late 90s, and it has more or less stayed that way. It certainly never became the system seller it was in Japan, or the one Soul Calibre would become for the DC. I don't think it was on the strength of the western arcade market that Virtua Fighter stayed afloat - I don't even think western sales mattered for that series either way, like they don't for Yakuza today.

[Kori-Maru]

Guys I think we're getting off topic here. Aren't we suppose to be talking about the upcoming Sonic Boom TV show and game?

[Saturn Memories]

I think Burning Rangers would have failed just as badly personally. Even in Japan I'm not sure I see much of a market for firefighters in space and if we step into the West it becomes even harder to think it would have been a big hit here. Same with Billy Hatcher, the premise of the game coupled with it's low quality certainly destroyed any chance that title had. Rister I think was a missed opportunity but I do think it still might have a chance today because children's tastes knows no bounds.

We're down to mere conjecture at this point, so I'm not going to drag this out much further. I will add though that a lot of little kids grow up dreaming of becoming firefighters and police officers. They're popular professions among youngsters.

But my original point was Sonic Team is only known for one successful product in the West so I'd wager SEGA is hesistant they would want to risk them making a new IP. Especially when budgets are spiralling further upwards and that specific team has shown both an inability to generate massive successes or developing critically acclaimed titles.

I think that's part of the problem though. They're a studio that's been stuck retooling the same damn game almost uninterrupted for over 10 years now. That sort of thing would take its toll anyone's sense of creativity.

That's never been the case with SEGA though, from Phantasy Star to Virtua Fighter, Yakuza to 7th Dragon and Valkyria Chronicles to the Tony Taka Shining games, they've always shown a willingness to support games even if they only find success in Japan. If Burning Rangers pulled similar, perhaps even half, Sakura Taisen's numbers in Japan we would probably be looking at a Burning Rangers 2.

So its easier for you to accept that Ristar, on a console that was popular around the world, failed because it came out at the end of its generation, but not Burning Rangers, which also came out at the end of its generation but was on a failed console that Bernie Stolar prematurely buried? I just don't think we're gonna see eye-to-eye on this one.

I'm rather skeptical that Sonic Heroes sold 3 million on the PS2, but if we're going to use VgChartz as a source, then I suppose it'd be fair to say Sonic Adventure 2 sold 2.6 million on the GCN, not the 1.5-2 I guessed. The VG numbers, then, have us at an adoption rate of something like 1:9. While 2.6 million isn't quite 3, I think it's plenty impressive in context. I do not think Sonic Adventure 2 would have sold much more on the PS2, despite that system's install base.

And which series were pumping out over a million on PS2? Sonic, one Virtua Fighter game and Yakuza - which was (conveniently for the purpose of argument) only successful in Japan. The rest of the pack hardly inspires me to go buy stock. Astro Boy was hardly a runaway. Same with Blood Will Tell, Nightshade, Virtual On Marz, the Sakura Taisen series, after a point the J-League games, and so on. Plenty of high profile, expensive, disappointments - especially Sakura Taisen, which was supposed to be expanded into this giant metaverse sort of deal, wasn't it?

The Gamecube saw very few high budget games, and, generally speaking, games sold reasonably relative to their budgets. PSO I&II was a port of a DC game that probably made its budget back in 2000, III wasn't a roaring success, I'll grant you, but it wasn't a re-imagining of the Phantasy Star world with a three year long development cycle and robust budget, either. Skies of Arcadia was a pruned port, Crazy Taxi was a port, and so on. The PS2 saw plenty of high profile, expensive games (like Astro Boy) flop, badly. The GCN did, too (like Billy Hatcher), but I think it had a better record, on the whole.

I don't think Billy would have done much, if any, better on the PS2. I suppose a multi-release wouldn't have hurt, but Sonic Team never seemed to wrap their heads around the PS2, so for the sake of critical acclaim, it might be for the best that didn't happen.

The sheer number of titles released on the PS2 meant more failures were inevitable. Meanwhile on GC, Sega struggled with games that should have been easy sells like the Sonic Gems Collection or their 2K series. If GameCube had been a consistent earner, you would have seen a lot more ports, but it just wasn't worth it.

I think you're confusing my two statements, and I could have written them better. Sonic Adventure was being developed as early as spring 1997, which would have been roughly the same time Burning Rangers was getting underway. Burning Rangers couldn't have been in the burner for more than a few months before development of Sonic Adventure got rolling. I wasn't saying they were poking around in the Yucatan in spring 97 (I don't remember when they went, but it was fairly early in development, wasn't it?) - I was just illustrating the difference in priority.

Sonic Team used the early Saturn engine of Sonic Adventure for Sonic Jam and then changed platforms to DC. It wasn't as if they were making Sonic Jam's engine just to have a neat menu - it was recycled material from their early development.

I knew Sonic Team had been messing around, trying to figure out how Sonic would work in 3D environments since STI wasn't making a ton of progress (I assumed that work was what was recycled into Sonic Jam), but I had no idea Sonic Adventure was originally conceived as a Saturn title. Makes sense though.

Point taken with Samba, though I'm still going to have to disagree with you on Chu Chu Rocket. There's a big difference between the single player Phantasy Star text adventures being downloaded on a cable box, or even the network play you could dick around with on the Saturn, and something like Chu Chu Rocket. It wasn't an easy task, which would be why it was just a puzzle game.

Except Sega continued developing online versions of their games into the Saturn-era with titles like Daytona, Sega Rally, Virtual-On, etc. These were 3D games running on complex hardware through an add-on peripheral. The Dreamcast, on the other hand, was rather simple by comparison and was purpose-built with online play in mind. Granted, ChuChu was Sonic Team's first online title, but they would have had people in the company who were thoroughly familiar with online gaming to lend a hand.

I think we're sort of straying a bit at this point. All I was trying to say was Burning Rangers wasn't a failure because of the Saturn. It wasn't a game like Shenmue that had to move a lot of figures to break even; it was just one of many games Sonic Team was working on at the time, like Propeller Arena or OutTrigger were just games AM2 was working on in 2000. It didn't meet sales expectations - and there were plenty of Saturn games that did meet expectations in 1998.

If by "plenty" you mean Shining Force III and Panzer Dragoon Saga, then sure. SFIII probably did well. Who knows with PDS though. We never did get another Panzer Dragoon RPG so maybe it didn't do so hot.

Virtua Fighter was impressive (it was recognized by the Smithsonian wan't it?), and I was speaking too melodramatically when I said it flopped. My bad. Let me try that again. It didn't meet expectations. I agree it sold decently, but as you said, it wasn't the Street Fighter slayer it was in Japan, which is what the Japanese executives seemed to hope - I feel like a couple of western fighters were axed, like Eternal Champions, so Sega could concentrate it's firepower on promoting Virtua Fighter. As far as I can tell, it became a rather obscure niche title in the west by the mid to late 90s, and it has more or less stayed that way. It certainly never became the system seller it was in Japan, or the one Soul Calibre would become for the DC. I don't think it was on the strength of the western arcade market that Virtua Fighter stayed afloat - I don't even think western sales mattered for that series either way, like they don't for Yakuza today.

Arcades began to die, VF3 debuted on the Dreamcast, and 3D fighting games in general fell in popularity. The fighting game scene doesn't take 3D fighters seriously at all.

[nuckles87]

I don't know if you can really call PDS or Shining Force 3 successes, as neither of them charted in the top 30 for 1998, an the lowest selling titles was 352,000. At the very least they weren't at the same level as Sakura Taisen 2 (which isn't surprising, given ST2 was a quickly becoming a media phenomenon at that point). Does anyone have any numbers?

http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-BestSell1998.shtml

[Saturn Memories]

I don't know if you can really call PDS or Shining Force 3 successes, as neither of them charted in the top 30 for 1998, an the lowest selling titles was 352,000. At the very least they weren't at the same level as Sakura Taisen 2 (which isn't surprising, given ST2 was a quickly becoming a media phenomenon at that point). Does anyone have any numbers?

http://www.the-magicbox.com/Chart-BestSell1998.shtml

Looks like Sakura Wars 2 also came out that year. Still the other two didn't even chart and both were part of established franchises. Burning Rangers didn't have that benefit.

[Aki-at]

We're down to mere conjecture at this point, so I'm not going to drag this out much further. I will add though that a lot of little kids grow up dreaming of becoming firefighters and police officers. They're popular professions among youngsters.

I was unaware of any child when I was growing up wanting to be firefighters or police officers, perhaps sports players or scientists but hardly came across anyone hoping to be a police officer/firefighter.

But it's merely anecdotal evidence from me.

I think that's part of the problem though. They're a studio that's been stuck retooling the same damn game almost uninterrupted for over 10 years now. That sort of thing would take its toll anyone's sense of creativity.

This has nothing to do with creativity, Sonic Team had major issues besides just mere creativity. A disaster like Sonic 06 or NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams was more than just working on the same game again and again, it was down to the fact they became horribly inept.

Compare them to either Nintendo's inhouse studios who work on the same IP year in year out with continued excellence or even SEGA's own Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio who worked on only one new IP since 2005 but continue to add more and more to the Yakuza franchise.

So its easier for you to accept that Ristar, on a console that was popular around the world, failed because it came out at the end of its generation, but not Burning Rangers, which also came out at the end of its generation but was on a failed console that Bernie Stolar prematurely buried? I just don't think we're gonna see eye-to-eye on this one.

The point I addressed had nothing to do with my belief of either title's reason of failure.

[SuperSonicEX]

So SEGA just released an announcement recap video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cy3XaFFHBk

[Kori-Maru]

So SEGA just released an announcement recap video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cy3XaFFHBk

Now we're talking! Pretty nice recap video SEGA of America made. New characters they said, wonder if they'll sneak in classic Sonic characters we haven't seen in awhile. I think Fang would fit perfectly for the show as long as they keep the pop gun.