Someone on ebay has a bunch of Japanese promo sega videos, are these ones we have captures of already? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/221393295129 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sonic-the-Hedgehog-2-Promo-VHS-RARE-SEGA-Japan-/221393300510 http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sega-Saturn-Virtua-Racing-VHS-Promo-Video-Japan-/221393285869
Sega Video Magazine although we don't have scans! One of these is "Virtua Racing: Virtua Video" which... may exist on the internet in some form, but it's not on YouTube as far as I can tell (it might be on one of the Japanese video sharing sites - I'm not in a rush to go digging there). It's in the list of VHS pages to make, but since we don't know what's on the cassette, it's in stasis for now. The Saturn one is another Sega Video Magazine cassette, after it was rebranded "Sega Saturn Video Magazine". I'm guessing it's this one. Sonic 2 one should be covered (it pops up fairly often) but I tend to leave the Sonic Retro stuff to other sysops these days
Sonic 2 prototype footage http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAP3jNU9qNY 0:40 ->1:57 Don't know if I posted this before - it looks a bit familiar, but yeah. Different special stage layouts, Chemical Plant loops, title screen etc. - it's that elusive "beta 3" which tons of magazines received between our Simon Wai prototype and the final build. The Streets of Rage II stuff is more interesting - wrong boss!
Wow, did any of the already available prototypes have the neon lights in the Special Stage change colors like that? Not just one, but two bosses! You can also see the fat kickboxer getting hit before Zamza's scene. EDIT: By the way... Why would anybody want to upscale a video like that one to 1080p?
The unused Go Straight "beatmix" music track (#01 in the final) is used inside the bar in that SoR2 footage (you can tell by the extra metallic noises on the repeated intro), and the bartender's sprite disappears after he stops wiping the glass instead of walking away. EDIT: and "shirtless martial arts" enemies in Round 1. Because "HD" stands for "hurr durr".
One reason I can think of is that Youtube's encoder doesn't touch 1080p MP4 files that are uploaded to it, so you get better video quality at lower bitrates as a result (ie the original resolution looks like it did before you put it on Youtube).
That particular drawing of Sonic with the dolphin was used in some old products like this one: I remember seeing it on a Japanese lunchbox as well but I can't find it.
I was more interested in the Robotnik art on the top left, Sega of Europe certainly used that, but they modified Robotnik's face (deep black eyes rather than specs, and with the teeth clenching that he did in pretty much all Western artwork then).
By the way, in case there's somebody who didn't notice (SEGA didn't, apparently!), the Sonic drawing in the middle was taken from a still-prototype design (the one with the "HIS NAME IS" written in the circle, I think), which was also used in the old Asahi can (sans the text in the circle, but with "SEGASONIC" in the middle). To be more specific, his top spine should go further than that. That's something that could still be seen in the SegaSonic prototype title screen, but was corrected in the final... which is something that makes me wonder when did the development for said arcade start exactly. Oh, and thanks for the pic Casshern, I didn't remember about that one. Also, the top-right Sonic+Tails drawing was used in a "Fresh Cookies" box, according to Sonic Gear. Man, I hope somebody leaks another batch of those official traced Classic Sonic artworks. There must be a bunch of them we still haven't seen, all of them awesome. />
I made this request on the wiki some time ago but yeah. Anyone willing to rip a map of Hidden Palace Zone (the "real" one from the Sonic 2 prototypes, as oppsoed to the Taxman-Stealth remake which we already have). Other prototype maps would be nice for documentation purposes too (there's a Wood Zone one floating about on the net) but Hidden Palace would be handy for a project I'm working on. Thanks in advance
