Old Sega Veteran just joined... what did you want to know?

http://kotaku.com/#!5028197/sega-cant-find-the-source-code-for-your-favorite-old-school-arcade-games
Ignore the source, it's just for the video. Basically yeah, Sega can't find the source code to many of their old games.

 

I don't have my reference files for this one at hand so please forgive me if some of the details aren't correct, but during the production of either Daytona USA or SCUD Race it was reported that Yu Suzuki playtested a near-complete version and requested that the entire handling model be scrapped in favour of a more drift-heavy driving system. From what I can remember this meant throwing out a significant portion of the game, which in turn led to massive release delays. Also, when it came to Virtua Fighter's induction into the Smithsonian didn't Sega admit to not having the original assets any more, hence the appearance of just an arcade cabinet instead?

Finally, around the time Sega went back to look for the source code to Virtua Fighter 2 (in preparation for its featuring in the AGES 2500 budget range on PlayStation 2), a lot of the old material was indeed missing from their archive. However, they did find a shocking number of ideas that didn't make the end product, such as a prototype weapon combat feature programmed by Francois Yves Bertrand, who later joined Atari where he produced Fight For Life as the Jaguar's own "response" - yeah, right! - to the likes of Virtua Fighter and Tekken. As you can probably tell, there's no doubt that Sega has at least misplaced some elements that made up its greatest hits of the Saturn era...

 

Did you have any nicknames while you were at Sega?

 

As a playtester, did you our the SoA team find and fix any bugs SOJ may have missed? Equally, are there any US region titles that would have been more polished as a result?

 

Hey Drx - I remember you teasing us a year or so ago about an earlier Chaotix release you might have/have access to with Sonic in it? Any progress on that one? :love2:

 

http://www.sonic-cult.org/siteparts/sonicchaotix/page.html
:O:lol:

 

How long has this been on the web? Man... I am so out of touch these days. This is killer. Has it been proven to be real?

 

http://www.sonic-cult.org/siteparts/sonicchaotix/how.html

 

The person who had the build lost it

 

Of course, that is 95% of SOJ's titles. Many times we would start testing the released Japanese version and found all kinds of bugs that shipped in Japan. The cleanest SOJ game I ever worked on was Super Monkey Ball. I didn't even consider that working on the game it was so clean... we basically just played the game for a couple of months before it came out.

Remember, this was before you could patch console games so what we were working on was basically a patched version of the original release.

 

Deep Fear. Good god that game looked like loads of fun but the small amount of Japanese in it kept me from wanting to play through it entirely.

11 days from today I should be receiving a sizable sum. I anticipate being the purchaser of your discs.

 

Deep fear is actually a bit poor to be honest. The voice acting is also bloody awful! Still, the music is nice.

Yakumo

 

Yeah it was the final official offering the EU Saturn deserved lol

 

I picked this up for Gamecube one day in a clearance shop for £5. Best £5 I ever spent. My friend and I would spend every opportunity getting loaded up on junkfood and trying to beat each other's minigame scores. We dabbled on most minigames before sinking most of the day into monkey target. I would win most of the time of course!

Did your lot have as much love and competitveness for this game as we did?

 

The US version was finalized but never released... officially but you might just be able to buy the US version in the next week!

We did love the game. Monkey bowling was a big favorite. Fun Fact: The Japanese version of Super Monkey Ball's Bowling had a castle that looked too much like the Disney castle so we had them change it to look more Russian for the US release. Compare some screen shots!!!!

 

Hello, DonnyK! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer our demanding questions!

I'd like to elaborate on this. Were you involved in the Sonic Adventure titles for DC at all? If so, how?

Would you be so kind to answer this question to the best of your knowledge, sir? This is one sad tale in the Saturn era's history. =(

In that context, a simple question: What was the "dirtiest" Sega game you've ever worked on?

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Off topic:

May I put in my thoughts?

NiGHTS? Lost source code...? Under someone as important as Yuji Naka?! That sonavabitch would have left the company much, MUCH sooner had he known if they tampered with his magnum opus, and anything and everything associated to it. This is the same guy who down-right demanded the Sonic X-Treme team be stripped of the source code to NiGHTS or he'd quit on the spot. I earnestly believe this.

No, dude. I would think that project would be too significant to Naka to just let all its project assets and data lost, for he passionately worked on every aspect of the game inside and out. "Sonic, who cares? But no one be touching my fucking NiGHTS."

What about the textures, model data, FMV's, pre-rendered stuff, voice data, sound and music data (I know the latter actually used the sound chip extensively, but whatever), etc? Surely those assets would still be valuable for porting, even for a game so closely tied to it's hardware.

I think I've got a better one.

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda. Didn't.

The Sega Story. Episode XXIII.

 

@Keji Dragon your wall of text (mainly from multiquote) isn't that inviting even if the responses to some will be interesting.

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?p=472626#post472626

If you are wondering why I am being your thought police as a standard member, I was a moderator untill World or Warcraft took precedent and I was demoted for not visiting daily any more Old habbits die hard though

 

x

 

This is an interesting point. What are your thoughts on (what I consider at least) a laziness that has become somewhat prevalent in beta testing now that online patching is available?

I would also like to hear your thoughts in general about DLC? Thoughts on how much of the DLC would be in the game if online wasn't available, Charging for DLC when it is already stored on the disc, Where you see it going, Ect?

 

Are you gonna make this an auction or will it be some sort of buy it now, first see first served (or what it's called)

Cause I don't want to loose it only because I didn't look in time.