Lost Panzer Dragoon Saga code?

http://www.1up.com/do/minisite?cId=3162472

As mentioned here, the code to PDS was lost, either deliberately or not. 1UP was not allowed to reveal exactly what happened.

Anyone have a clue?

 

Nope, but thats a wonderful article, thanks for pointing it out

 

x

 

Sonic X-treme comes to mind - although that was the beaten step-child.

 

The one time in my life I might actually go dumpster diving, and I'm busy being a poor student across the planet.

 

That's SOA as well. Hardly SOJ.

 

*slits wrists*

Seriously, I hope that ain't true. But I wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened like that. :noooo:

 

Althought it isn't 100% accurate, I remember Yuji Naka saying that much (maybe he meant almost all?) of the code and stuff from their projects previous to the Saturn era were completely lost, specifically those related to Sonic. This is what he explained when he was asked about the possibility of releasing or updating the content of their Sonic games.

If that happened to Sonic Team and also to a such important game such as "Sonic the Hedgehog", I prefer not to think what could have happened to other projects :/ .

 

I remember Yuji Naka saying that as well, but it's not very accurate

 

Well considering sonic2-knuckles were developed at sti, I am not shocked since that got shut down and they had to get rid of everything and such.

It's funny but nintendo seems to be the only company who keeps all the source code and betas for all the game they make.

When reading stuff like this though, it make me wonder if they did throw out a good portion of the work done on shenmue 3.

 

Like Saturn Shenmue.

 

That's the most retarded shit in the world. Why destroy code!? Why not back things up? Keep them in a metal box and hide it in Yuji Naka's fridge, or basement. Anything but losing original copies...

 

Considering there are two kinds of source code in the world:

-built from scratch
-built from previous source code (used as template, tweaked, etc)

and the former takes many fold longer, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that any source code that was trashed would've be done long after a system was dead... and only maybe at that.

 

I'm sceptical - any company of Sega's size would have a decent backup system if working on project's that lengthy and expensive, this just doesn't make sense.

 

The backup system at Sega differed from game to game, it wasn't consistent. Some games didn't even have version control. You did have to submit the game's source code and binaries at some point of the development, for review purposes and such.

Usually programmers/producers or people who care take code/protos home and it just sits there.

 

They've even saved the original character/enemy sketches from the original Phantasy Star! That's not even source code.

 

You did development or are you just very well informed?

 

No, but it looks nice on the wall in a frame, CDR's and tape backups aren't as aesthetically pleasing... well maybe to people like us...

 

well, but we all know that am2 stores their things..

i'm sure of that.

if not, do you guys didn't think that Yu Suzuki keept the entire shenmue artwork, scripts, etc??

 

I've never taken the words of Yuji Naka as gospel when it comes to the history of Sega, and to say that nearly everything is lost (just because STI couldn't keep a hold of its own prototypes - or could it be nothing substantial ever existed of Sonic X-Treme other than what has already been leaked and Ofer Alon's tightly guarded later PC test builds) directly flies in the face of hard facts. Besides, we already know that AM2 still has the Saturn version of Shenmue as it sourced this for the preview video featured in the second Dreamcast chapter. In addition, it's long been rumoured that Yu Suzuki's former studio continues to hoard several other high profile cancellations, such as Saturn Virtua Fighter 3 and the "Chicago" project, which is allegedly a spin-off to VF starring the Bryant siblings that was a precursor to the VF RPG that later became Akira's Quest and finally Shenmue. Going back to Sonic Team for a second, it's highly unlikely Naka's studio did really lose code relating to unreleased games as it was more than capable of reworking scraps from the abandoned third part of its "Project Sonic" into Sonic Adventure. For those not in the know, there was a lot more to Sonic World than just the small area contained in Sonic Jam, and it's believed this was ported directly over to the Dreamcast and finished off with a few new areas. While this has never been proved, you only have to consider that Speed Highway and other certain stages in the final game run at 60fps while the rest is half this figure - could these have been leftovers from the game's 32-bit roots? Sega doesn't look after the code it didn't release? Yeah, sure...