General Retro Discussion

[WackerJr]

On 12/29/2024 at 12:50 AM, Cube said:

There's something oddly satisfying about in depth videos about tiny aspects of video games, like the blue dog in Majora's Mask 

 

I don’t know why that was so compelling, but I enjoyed that & admittedly never realised much of that about the MM dog race.

[WackerJr]

On 12/29/2024 at 12:50 AM, Cube said:

There's something oddly satisfying about in depth videos about tiny aspects of video games, like the blue dog in Majora's Mask 

 

I don’t know why that was so compelling, but I enjoyed that & admittedly never realised much of that about the MM dog race.

[Dcubed]

A bunch of E3 2010 3DS showfloor demos have just been found on a prototype console and dumped.  These include some never-before-reported behind closed doors demos... INCLUDING A CANCELLED SEQUEL TO THE DSiWARE CLASSIC, PHOTO DOJO!!!!!

@Glen-i, @RedShell THIS IS NOT A DRILL! NINTENDO WERE MAKING PHOTO DOJO DX AND ACTUALLY CANCELLED IT!!!!!

Photo Dojo DX footage starts at 16:00 BTW.

Edited Wednesday at 09:10 PM by Dcubed

[S.C.G]

Site News: Happy New Year!

Gotta Write Fast! A New Year's article featuring Nintendo, Sega, Sonic and Shadow.

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle is still peak classic 3D Sonic.

There's surely no better time than now to replay it.

Edited Thursday at 12:28 AM by S.C.G

[RedShell]

11 hours ago, Dcubed said:

THIS IS NOT A DRILL! NINTENDO WERE MAKING PHOTO DOJO DX AND ACTUALLY CANCELLED IT!!!!!

Fascinating stuff, Dcubed.  Thanks for sharing. 
Photo Dojo DX already looked amazing! That's seriously cool how they streamlined the fighter creation process like that. Such a shame it never got finished/released.

Also, 3D hopper cat absolutely needs to be used for something (anything) in the future, Nintendo!

[Glen-i]

Well, now I'm bummed. Photo Dojo is the best reason to have a DSi!

[Jonnas]

So, I just heard of this recently, but it seems Sega has delisted a lot of games from Steam (and other consoles, but Steam is the most affected), about a month or so ago. It's mostly Mega Drive games, but they also removed stuff like Jet Set Radio, Nights into Dreams, and even the ToeJam&Earl reboot.

Now, when it comes to Steam specifically, I'm saddened, but it is something that I kind of expected to happen for a while. Sega were a very early adopter of the policy of "rereleases our back catalogue on Steam", and some of these releases were definitely dated, for good or ill (lower prices for each individual releases, but also barely updated or remastered, and many QoL features were in their infancy). I figured it was a matter of time before they decided to essentially redo their PC retro line-up.

What surprises me is how broad they made this. They may have a history of re-selling Arcade, Mega Drive, and Master System classics, but it's the first time I'm seeing them include more modern games (by which I mean, Sega Saturn and later) in the redo. I imagine they might be preparing to release a "Dreamcast Collection" volume of some sorts? A remaster of Nights? Definitely another Mega Drive Collection for sure ("HD Genesis", they might call it? ).

All I'm asking for is a proper Virtua Fighter collection. Or include the 3D entries somewhere in whatever collection they release. AndalsoSkiesofArcadia.

Until then, it's sad to see such a large line-up leave a storefront all at once. I trust Sega to put them back on the market soon enough, but I don't have the same amount of trust for any other publisher.

Edited 22 hours ago by Jonnas

[Ike]

I'm hoping for a new collection/upgraded versions as well.

The fact Limited Run Games started selling Virtual Fighter kind of killed my excitement, I'm praying this isn't the future of the games that got pulled.

[Julius]

31 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

Until then, it's sad to see such a large line-up leave a storefront all at once. I trust Sega to put them back on the market soon enough, but I don't have the same amount of trust for any other publisher.

Hate to burst your bubble of optimism here Jonnas, I really do, and of course it might not come to pass (here's hoping), but the timing of these being taken down and SEGA recently saying they're considering a subscription service lines up too well to make me think that this isn't the route they're trying to take. 

Hell, their president discussed it with the BBC, so they seem pretty serious about it. 

Quote

Sega is considering launching its own Netflix-like subscription service for video games, a move which would accelerate gaming's transition towards streaming.

There are already a number of similar services on the market - such as Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Plus - which see gamers pay a monthly fee for access to a range of titles rather than owning them outright.

Sega's president Shuji Utsumi told the BBC such subscription products were "very interesting", and his firm was "evaluating some opportunities".

"We're thinking something - and discussing something - we cannot disclose right now," he said.

Seems an unwise move to me. In this day and age, I feel like SEGA faces a weird relevancy problem when it comes to its older games reaching a newer audience - having that be locked behind yet another, separate subscription service when we're already swimming in them isn't exactly going to get new eyes on the games, is it? 

Edited 21 hours ago by Julius

[Glen-i]

7 minutes ago, Julius said:

Seems an unwise move to me. In this day and age, I feel like SEGA faces a weird relevancy problem when it comes to its older games reaching a newer audience - having that be locked behind yet another, separate subscription service when we're already swimming in them isn't exactly going to get new eyes on the games, is it? 

I kind of agree. Sega lately has been acting like they're back to their 90's relevancy peak. No-one in their right mind would actually think releasing Sonic Superstars around the same time as Mario Wonder was a good idea. Except they clearly did.

Sega, listen to me, you're not Nintendo, their subscription service includes other perks alongside "Play old games". Hell, some of those games even include games from your system! This isn't gonna work. Sony and Microsoft also have other benefits that you just can't replicate.

Sincerely,
Some weird spiky blue animal.

[Dcubed]

If they were smart, they’d let a Nintendo add Saturn and Dreamcast to NSO and rake in the licensing dough while someone else puts the emulation effort in.

Because they’re clearly not willing to do it themselves.

Edited 20 hours ago by Dcubed

[Cube]

Sega don't seem to care about their games vanishing, they've even put brand new games exclusively behind subscriptions and haven't bothered releasing them after the exclusivity wears off. They made a Chu Chu Rocket remake that was just deleted after a short time.

[Jonnas]

2 hours ago, Julius said:

Hate to burst your bubble of optimism here Jonnas, I really do, and of course it might not come to pass (here's hoping), but the timing of these being taken down and SEGA recently saying they're considering a subscription service lines up too well to make me think that this isn't the route they're trying to take. 

Hell, their president discussed it with the BBC, so they seem pretty serious about it. 

Oh dear. I didn't know this. I noticed Sega has been acting real uppity and ambitious for the past year or so (from the announcement of multiple IP revivals last year, to the most recent Virtua Fighter direct, where they seemed unusually committed to make that franchise successful), but this is a step further!

We can look at this pessimistically: it's going to crash and burn, just like Ubisoft did. We can look at this optimistically: Sega will manage whatever perks they get, and curate their back catalogue well enough to make this work.

It might end up going in more interesting directions. Outside of the NSO, this is the first time we see a Japanese company committed to the concept (I think. Didn't Capcom express some desire to do something similar some time ago? Maybe I'm misremembering something), so they might just take a different path, like a few key partnerships. The Mega Drive NSO is already basically that.

2025 is going to be an interesting year for Sega...

1 hour ago, Dcubed said:

If they were smart, they’d let a Nintendo add Saturn and Dreamcast to NSO and rake in the licensing dough while someone else puts the emulation effort in.

It's interesting, because Sega is basically the only publisher in this position: they already have their own subscription app with their properties, but they're not the ones managing it, they're just licensing them. In that sense, their perspective on the market is more privileged than most.

Also, didn't they express some disappointment or frustration at the revenue from the Mega Drive NSO some time back? If that's the case, and they're still looking to get into the subscription market anyway, is it possible that their frustration comes from the app not being fully theirs? Whether due to limited revenue, or the inability to fully manage/curate their IPs on their own terms, it's possible that the Mega Drive app may, in fact, be the (Mega) driving force behind this new direction.