Late last month, a game-testing friend of mine hopped on Twitter and talked about what he was going to be testing on PartnerNET that day. Sonic CD was one of the games and he was disappointed with what was a 4:3, 30 FPS demo with performance issues. Well, that Tweet made its way around and some confusion ensued, especially since the news of Christian Whitehead’s involvement in the port was made known a few days prior. (Fact checking, how does it work?)
While the PAX demo of Sonic CD cleared up some of that confusion, Sonic CD Brand Manager Ken Balough gave me a ring this afternoon, wanting to make everything clear. “The version of Sonic CD developed by Christian Whitehead has never been on PartnetNET. The PAX version that is widescreen and runs at 60 FPS is the version,” said Balough.
SEGA has been susceptible to PartnerNET leaks in the past, but the version of Sonic CD on the service was never meant to be for private testing, let alone known to the public. Balough noted, “The PartnerNET build wasn’t created by Sonic Team. It was something that we were playing around with to see if a port would work. It was never intended to be played by anybody outside of the company. When we were thinking seriously about this project, we started looking at talented developers. That’s where Christian, his Retro-Engine and Sonic Team come in.”
“It’s a non-story at the end of the day.” Words we’ve heard many times. Many, many times.
