Official Sonic 2006 topic

[Big Panda]

Oh my god

I always wondered what the hell was going on with Sonic’s hand/fist on this art. It looks like it has some blurry fingers coming out from behind it.

And then I saw the Japanese box

How...?

[Razule]

American Kirby is angry

American Sonic is going to punch you

[Big Panda]

With his terribly-photoshopped fist.

[Ryannumber1gamer]

I wanted to post this video, because I think it's an incredibly good explanation and look over why Sonic 06 ended up failing as hard as it did, and has some details that I didn't even know about the developmental period of 06:

Before this, I thought the main cause of issues was Secret Rings and Naka's leaving, I had no idea it extended even further between SEGA making deals with Microsoft, the PS3 originally being the target console, and a special demo that's half-way decent.

[Meta77]

It was well known the 360 demo played so much better than the final game. I remember playing it and just loving it cause it was so good. But then the final game. That video did a great job outlining things I knew hurt the game such as Naka leaving just out of the blue during production and Sony as a factor in it being bad as they were trying to focus on it being the target console  cause the 360 was not selling that heavily in japan at the time. Then there were things i did not know such as other hub worlds which would have been great and a more focused story that was dashed to bits to meet crazy bday deadlines.

[Apollo Chungus]

It's worth pointing out that some of the information in that video is pretty questionable and shouldn't be taken as gospel. I'm gonna quote a Tumblt post written by Ryan Bloom/Blaze Hedgehog (long-time member of the Sonic fan community and TSSZ reporter) on the matter:

"...There was an episode of Wha Happun where he had clips of Sonic 06 at the end of the video, during the segment where he was soliciting suggestions on future episodes of the series.

So I shot him an email. I figured he was already planning on doing a video, because the Sonic movie buzz was ramping up and it would be good SEO. 

I told him something along the lines of “Hey, I was writing a book on that game, I’ve done charity marathons centered around that game, my Youtube video for Sonic 06 used to be the top search result for the game, I’ve written for a Sega news site for a decade, and I’m a walking encyclopedia for the Sonic franchise. If you need any help with making your video or fact checking your information, I’d be willing to lend a hand.” 

He never responded to me. Fair enough, I guess. I doubt that guy would need to slum it with another channel that doesn’t even have 20k subscribers, and we’d never spoken formally otherwise. I was a nobody to him.

Maybe he should have, though. Not even 90 seconds in to the video and there’s already things that I’m not quite sure he’s right on. By his account, Sonic 2006 was intended to be a Playstation 3 launch title, and PS3 itself was intended to be lead platform. 

As far as I’m aware, this isn’t true. 

 

Sonic 06 was originally revealed in a press-only behind-closed-doors demonstration at E3 in 2005, running on the newly announced Xbox 360. Here is part of that presentation, leaked via ancient flip phone video, showing numerous other Sega tech demos running on early 360 hardware, including Chrome Hounds, Afterburner Climax, Virtua Fighter 5, House of the Dead 4, and, of course, Sonic 06. You can hear the presenter talking about how some of these Sega games are Xbox 360 exclusives. 

As far as I’ve ever heard, Sonic 06 was lead on the Xbox 360, as Sonic Team was struggling with the PS3. This was the case for a lot of developers back then – it was often easier to port from PS3 to 360, but not the other way around, thanks in part to the overly-complicated hardware architecture of Sony’s console and its limited RAM. However, because the 360 was so much easier to work with than the PS3, most developers tried to do it the hard way, especially early on. That’s because it often took way less effort to get an Xbox 360 build up and running well.

Hence, Sonic 06 came out on the PS3 more than two months after the Xbox 360, and with even worse loading times. That doesn’t sound like a lead platform to me.

Microsoft may have been the laughing stock of Japan, but they were very tightly knit with Sega. The original Xbox was even originally intended to play Dreamcast GD-ROMs, and received the bulk of Sega’s exclusives for that generation (Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Crazy Taxi 3, Sega GT, Gun Valkyrie, etc.). Sega’s Chihiro arcade hardware was also partly based on the Xbox, similar to how Naomi was based on the Dreamcast.

Microsoft also fought hard spent a lot of money to get other Japanese developers on board. Namco with Breakdown, Artoon with Blinx the Time Sweeper, Tecmo with Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, From Software with Otogi, etc. This even extended to the 360, with games like Dead Rising, Blue Dragon, Rumble Roses, Beautiful Katamari, Ace Combat 6 and more originally being Xbox 360 exclusives. Japanese people may not have been buying the console, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying on Microsoft’s part. 

And most of this was YEARS before Matt’s claim that Microsoft “suddenly” wanted to push Sonic 06 as a flagship Xbox 360 game in the late-stages of its development.

His claim that Sonic 06′s Xbox demo was “better” than the final product also reeks of a person who is only going by romanticized second-hand accounts and never actually touched the demo then, or now. That demo is actually buggier than the full game, and with considerably more sluggish camera controls. 

All of this is in service of Matt dancing dangerously close to the old, worn out lie that “Microsoft pressured Sega for Sonic 06 and contributed to its demise.” That’s something I have personally debunked by tracking it down to a Sonic 06 apologist named “pkstarstorm1up” who was going around adding it to Sonic wikis as a way of deflecting the blame off of Sega. There is absolutely no actual factual evidence that this ever happened, but his wiki edits weren’t removed until well after the damage had been done and the myth took hold.

Matt also brings up the PC version of “Sonic Free Riders”… a Kinect game… that never came to PC?" 

[Legendary Emerald]

2 hours ago, Apollo Chungus said:

It's worth pointing out that some of the information in that video is pretty questionable and shouldn't be taken as gospel. I'm gonna quote a Tumblt post written by Ryan Bloom/Blaze Hedgehog (long-time member of the Sonic fan community and TSSZ reporter) on the matter:

*Post*

Thanks for all the information. The videos' claim of a PS3-first development was surprising to me, since I followed the release of the game fairly closely at the time. It'll be interesting to see if Matt has the authenticity to actually correct these mistakes in a future video, or if he'll pull an Eyepatch Wolf and never fully own up to incorrect information he has supplied.

[Sonic Fan J]

Honestly one of the weirdest things I remember hearing leading up to 06's release is that Shadow was going to PlayStation exclusive. I was so riled up by that at the time especially when I saw screenshots of Shadow in Flame Core (had no idea that was Flame Core at the time since it was pre-release) as well as hints of his unique enemy. It really got under my skin since I didn't have a PlayStation 3 at the time or any way to afford such a ridiculously overpriced console so it seemed like I was going to miss out on Shadow's episode. Then I got the game and Shadow wasn't just in the 360 version but his story was arguably more important to understanding the whole story than Sonic's and I was more confused than ever.

[HPX]

Someone claimed on Twitter very recently that the Xbox 360 'Platinum Family Hits' version of '06 is a different, more stable build of the game. They didn't provide any other information and I haven't been able to find any information on this via some google searches, so I wonder if anyone here knows anything about that? It seems like something we'd absolutely have heard about if it were true. I know there was a demo on 360 that was a better build of the game, but it was taken down and those improvements never saw their way into the game. Unless this is it?