Sonic Dream Team (New 3D Game from Hardlight, coming to Apple Arcade December 5)

Apple Arcade isn't limited to phones and tablet devices. Mac and Apple TV devices are also supported. I don't think a game like this is going to be jailed strictly to touch controls.

 

"The root of suffering is attachment"
-Sonic the Hedgehog
​

 

...this actually looks cool and it's in Apple device subscription jail. Ugh.

 

Don't. Care.

SEGA are idiots for doing this. It would make a profit outside of Apple easily.

 

This thread really gonna be 100 pages crying about Apple.

 

To be fair, with his explanation I think I understand this situation more now.

The only reason the game has this type of scale and budget is because Apple was willing to put in the money for the development in the first place.

SEGA might have never approved of Hardlight doing something this original and ambitious if they had to fund and market it themselves but were willing to let them loose if they didn't have to front the bill.

Does it suck? Yeah but Apple might be the only reason this exists in the first place so the conceit is that it's locked behind their platforms for now.

 

In the interest of actually having a reasonable discussion instead of just mindless repetition.

What about Apple TV devices? Any chance you can ask your pal about the hardware differences?

 

This does seem a bit dramatic. There's still a decent chance it could get ported to Steam or Console as mentioned by the game's community manager. https://x.com/SonicWindBlue/status/1719837838919745648?s=20

 

I mean the game will have controller support, as every Apple Arcade game is required to have controller support.

 

Anyone knows if there is an Apple Arcade emulator for Android or PC?
(It's not for me. It's for my dog)

 

Our franchise wasn't hijacked by the chao, relegating us strictly to cameos and 2 crumbs of games while the little shits get entry after entry.
At least we met Mario at the Olympics. Rayman didn't even meet Mario in the Rabbids games. Those ungrateful pricks.

 

A brand ambassador saying "it theoretically might not be the thing we're saying it is" is not useful. Either you're announcing the game for other platforms or you're not. This is a damage control tweet engineered to generate the impression that it's saying something that it's not.

Also, what seems a bit dramatic? Comparing one instance of "it's better than nothing" being dumb to another? No, I don't agree. The only reason people are defending this is because it looks interesting, and it's precisely because it looks interesting that it never should have been like this in the first place. SEGA are not a small independent company who can't do anything unless Daddy Apple squirts his money juice all over them in exchange for a little exclusivity, they took a greedy deal now and they took a greedy deal when it was Nintendo, on top of ruining the dev cycle of Rise of Lyric (the only reason Lost World got a PC version is because it already had one before it became exclusive!). The fact that the game is destined to become totally inaccessible in a couple years only makes this worse. Nobody who plays this will even OWN their copy! It's a subscription service!

If you want to say "you'd change your mind if it got ported", then yeah, sure! But we don't fucking have that, and every single person in the fandom has a right to be angry until they do. I am utterly shocked at how the "ungrateful Sonic fans" narrative is apparently justified when it's executives who don't even play games making shitty predatory business decisions, but becomes settling for mediocrity when it's overworked devs who can't get the time or resources to polish the games to a mirror sheen.

 

I miss Lostgame.

Looks cool, but throw me into the "not buying an Apple device and their subscription service just to play it" group. With game consoles, I want there to be at least a few games I want to play for it before I'll buy it. And it's not that I have anything against subscription services, I have Game Pass (though games I want to keep long term I buy physical copies of), because there's several games on there that I play and want to play. With Apple devices it's an even harder sell, because I also have to need a phone, computer, TV streaming device, etc. I already have those devices covered.

 

Look, I think this just sets a bad precedent for the gaming industry as a whole. This goes beyond just Sonic, though I certainly find it annoying that one of the better looking 3D trailers isn't something I could even purchase to own on 'apple's own devices', let alone play on any other platform. I'd even consider buying a nice modern ipad to play this (since I lack a good tablet, personally) if it wasn't for the subscription model, but that part 100% kills any incentive at all. I am a video game archivist at heart. It's why I'm here in this 'specific' community. Sonic works better as an open-sourced concept and this flies in the face of that, no matter how much SEGA technically has the legal rights to do it.

I understand rationally why this exists. I'm not a child.

But it's a very anti-consumer move no matter how cool the product behind it is and no matter how much they advertise "no microtransactions" is.

It's literally bait for a service no rationale gamer should be supporting at this point.

The truth is the game might not even be very big or even worth playing. It could still be just a glorified mobile demo afterall, but it's being marketed to a demographic that's felt neglected for a long time (the Adventure era gamers, a concept which I still have at least some nostalgia for), and that doesn't read very well to me.

I've always been very hostile to the problematic issues with the mobile gaming market. It's produced some good products of course (Sonic 1-2 2013, as an example), but this is just an extension of those issues, and I've been badly burned by a lot of products in this space too. Sonic is no stranger to it, and I usually ignore titles in that space, but this one is much more frustrating for numerous reasons.

Again, for all I know, the game will last an hour and be a glorified tech demo. Or could be very shallow. Ect. ect.

But SEGA knows where the demand is here, and I'm just sad they'd choose to express it this way for numerous reasons.

 

I agree with the general point (especially the last paragraph), but I don't agree this is as bad as the Nintendo exclusivity deal, unless Dream Team comes out to be a horrible mess that worked Hardlight to the bone.

Lost World and Rise of Lyric being exclusive to the Wii U was the least of their problems, if it was a problem at all. I'm not sure how the deal affected Lost World if at all, though I'm actually believing it did result in the design choices the game has.

With Rise of Lyric, Sega took a game made for entirely different systems, shoved it under the Nintendo deal, and forced to developers to make the game for an entirely different console on top of all their other regular shitty development and management practices.

So far, Dream Team seems to benefit from the fact that Apple is paying for it. Hardlight gets to make an ambitious game they would likely never make if it had to come out of Sega's pockets, and it amusingly seems more polished than Frontiers and Superstars (but of course, it's not out yet). Unlike the Wii U, Apple Arcade, while not the first choice for gamers, is still wildly more accessible; the idea that no one would buy this there is hyperbolic, but also, Sega gets more enough from the deal.

Sega split Sonic Team while '06 was in development so they can make a wholly original Sonic game for the Wii, just so Sonic has games on every next-gen console. They wouldn't do this kind of deal unless Apple pays them good money.

As a customer, I'm annoyed, but in any case, it's just one game that would always be on a platform I'm not into (mobile platforms) anyway. As a guy who cares about the BTS things, if Sega is making bank on this and the developers aren't treated poorly (well, more poorly than usual), it's whatever at worst to me.

Both of those tweets aren't by any official member too. It's he-said she-said and he-said she-said they-said, so the whole exclusivity thing is still up in the air.

 

Not sure I wanna get an Apple TV or Mac just for the one Sonic 4 Episode length game we've yet to play. I guess Apple funded it, but do we have one new Sonic release this year that didn't have some form of controversy, that wasn't Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog?
Also I'm totally not still salty about recently getting my Apple account hacked and account funds stolen and not refunded, what are you talking about.

 

Except Sonic Mania. Buy Sonic Mania with money.

Anyway, if all iOS users get a free Arcade trial, it seems that Nintendo Switch controllers can work via bluetooth, so I'll consider it at that point, but I'm sure as hell not opening my wallet for this.

 

At least I'm not afraid about the game being compromised because its a phone game at least. People forget how powerful smartphones are now.

I can emulate BOTW full speed on my Samsung Galaxy s23 and for a good amount of time with a fan. I know it won't be to that scope or scale but that just furthers my point that you can make something extremely quality with a current day smart device.

I just need to see more gameplay. I'm very excited for this.