Sonic Xtreme E3 1996 promo video

OMFG!
I have been waiting for something as clear as this for ages !
Now I can see the details in many textures that I couldn't before.
This will really help Project AXSX Development quite a bit !
Thanks a lot !

 

As if we needed more footage to confirm how bad X-Treme looked.

No it's cool and everything to see this all, but damn it would have been awful. It's quite clear that it went through development hell before being shut down entirely.

 

Sonic X-treme looks even more awful than I imagined it would at that stage.

But hey, NiGHTS with a placeholder title screen and X-Women footage. Funky stuff.

 

What do you guys expect? It was on a Sega Saturn!
Besides what is shown was early proof of concept stages used in testing the game engine.
Also For the time it looked damed good!

(Offtopic, this was the video that I had seen at Wallmart when I was a kid, I had started a searching topic a while back for this video)

 

Wonder if we can get the guy on here for an interview or something ?
He says he was going threw some of his old stuff and found the video, wonder what other Sega stuff he has.

 

Not as much that the game looks like ass graphically. It's not that bad on that regard. No it looks like a horrendous mess to play. What the fuck is going on half the time? How do you know where to go? Can you fall off a cliff or just kind or float around for a bit aimlessly for no reason. Compared to what this game looked like Sonic 06 is the Citizen Kane of gaming. I'm honestly very, very glad this game never saw the light of day.

 

To be fair, a lot of that footage from the first video arguably looks like a beta of the game early in development or even CG animations/cutscenes; especially considering that Sonic is forced into a blue sphere throughout most of the promo and is unable to collect any of rings. The entire level seems completely empty and lacking of detail, enemies, level hazards, etc.

Here's another video, which has a gameplay trailer of the game. This version of the game seems to be later in development than the first, as the levels have more detail, and seem to in line of the Genesis games in terms of level design and artstyle. Too bad it's in low quality and lacks any sound.



Gameplay still looks like a mess though.

 

This looks like it was from the same build. I mean... it was from the same event after all

It's clear to me that Sonic was incapable of interacting with anything other than the level geometry at this stage. It wasn't playable at E3 1996, and you can see the pre-recorded footage makes an effort not to go very far - just wander around in circles and demonstrate the broken jumping animations. It's pretty typical stuff of a proof-of-concept build.

By the time things get to the PC (see: all those videos Chris Senn released) life gets better for X-treme, but never was this a good "Sonic" game. It doesn't capture the essence of what made the Mega Drive games great, it just attempts to capitalise on their success. It's a fascinating story, but the game was never going to beat NiGHTS or Mario 64 or Crash Bandicoot or any of the other things demonstrated at E3 1996.

 

So, I've got a question that might be too big and too vague to be summarized here in this thread. I'm just wondering why Sega let something as seemingly disastrous as X-treme happen in the first place. Was management so far-gone at this point that they actually had confidence in what STI was doing at this point? They didn't, at any point, think, "Hmm, maybe we should get some more staff for these guys. Maybe we should plan this out a little more first."

On top of that, why didn't Sonic Team feel like developing a full Sonic game at this point? I know they did Nights and I think they did Burning Rangers. Did Sega of Japan put a priority on developing those over a new, good Sonic game for the Saturn, or was it all Sonic Team's decision?

 

I bet it was Sega who requested sonic team to make a fresh game for the new Console, something to show off its abilities.
In one magazine article for sonic fighters they seem to be talking about a surprise game from sonic team with high end graphics for Sega Saturn.
Most likely Nights. if so, than I'm also betting that the game was in development for awhile up until that point.
Also I bet that Sonic Team was planning Nights, as far back as sonic and Knuckles, or Chaotix.( at least the initial flying concept)

So yeah they may have had there hands full already. to full for taking on a new sonic game.
Anyhow these are just guesses with no backing.

 

I wouldn't take this as anything more than conjecture, but 90's Sega of America pumped considerable amounts of money into R&D... lots of which never made it to final market (Sega VR, Project Jupiter etc). Sonic Xtreme wasn't even the only 3D game proposed for the Saturn - there was that other "Sonic Saturn" project that barely made it off the ground. In the 90's SOA had more autonomy interms of what they could do with Sonic, and after doing 4 Sonic games, in Japan Sonic Team wanted to try something new for the Saturn console. They may not have had the same pressure to make a Saturn Sonic at the time because it was more of a runaway success in the West.

 

Wow Great catch there !

 

Yeah I was amazed the first posts didn't catch that... First thing that stood out to me. So... How fucking early a build is this since we seem to have almost every build of 3D Blast under the sun.

EDIT: Also, I knew the second footage was off too... Look at the hole he's popping out of there. Wasn't it more mechanical in the final?

 

Because nobody with a soul wants to be tied down to producing the same things for the rest of their career. The difference in the 90s is that people could actually diversify and make other stuff - these days there is immense pressure to pile on the sequels because that means less risk. When you've got super-expensive 482948-year projects on the table like you do today, there's not much room for failure.

I don't think there was a push from Japan to make more and more and more Sonic games. Sega of America tried to push things out themselves but they lacked the expertise to do it properly (see this - Sonic X-treme). Generally I get the feeling that Sega were more happy to push their company out into the battleground rather than a specific product - the "Sega" name was just as iconic as Sonic was back in the day, and would help guarantee that the likes of Panzer Dragoon and Manx TT SuperBike sold.

 

Doesn't Sonic X-treme it remind anyone else of Super Mario Galaxy here (kind've if it was in the process of being made in the late 90s)?

 

It was less mechanical:

 

Really great clear footage! This uploader says he was a video games journalist in the 90's, and might have other tapes from that era. I hope he has more E3 stuff to show, I'm looking for E3 videos from 1997 and 1998 for certain games.

Also, to get this out of the way. The trailer showed a different design for those portals, instead of a bi-door we see a quad door. Also, there's also missing green spots in the screens.
E3 1996 Trailer (left), Final (right).



EDIT: NINJA'D' DX

How's he going through that loop without touching rings on the left screen?

 

Hm, they included Destruction Derby in the Saturn video. Interesting that they would include a game that is also on the Playstation.