They could very well be hiding M2 as the developer, or some entirely new team we've never seen before. I think that at least Taxman is involved, but not due the unnanounced status of the developer. If we all limited ourselves to only basing our assumptions off that one unknown variable, then we'd all be in a three-way tie for last. Potentially even a four-way tie or higher, but never lower until a bit of info arrives to cross out a candidate. The omission provides us with absolutely nothing. So why do I still think Taxman is involved then? The Retro engine is why. It is not yet confirmed to be what the collection will run off, but if we consider all the extra features and the titles included, then the Retro engine takes the gold while the Ages engine takes the silver. Retro takes the lead for two simple reasons: CD and S3K. Yes, M2 could have to take on the unfortunate task of porting CD alongside 3K using their Ages engine, but it'd be far more likely and practical to see about contracting Taxman first. All Sonic 1, CD, and 2 would need are the promised extras and optimization for consoles, while 3K would need to be built. M2 or anyother developer would have to start from scratch, whereas Taxman would be resuming construction from an existing base. Having Taxman on board would basically guarantee a quicker release. S3K is to blame for keeping the developer a secret, and I'm positive the team won't be revealed until they have footage from its port to show off. So once again no team can be ruled out yet, as we simply don't have enough info. I don't think Sega/Sonic Team are witholding information now in an effort to generate guaranteed buzz closer to release. I think they're just waiting to see a functional product.
I'm not sure the dev being unannounced is why people think it's Taxman. I kinda got the impression they just haven't told us because they've not revealed anything about the game other than its name and aspect ratio. We don't even have a logo. Saying it's being "withheld" at all almost inherently strikes me as kind of a stretch.
The most likely scenario that is reasonable to assume due to purely business reasons, SEGA isn't going to talk much about either this or "Rangers' until after Colors Ultimate. I have a feeling we'll be hearing more about this one first, out of those two. I imagine the big game is gonna be later next year (maybe even the end of it) while this one lines up earlier on next year to tide people over.
Yep. Some people think that the radio silence about the devs is a proof that it is Taxman, and some people think that it is a proof that it's not. And probably it isn't proof of anything.
That might be the case. M2 versions still count as rereleases (emulation) rather than ports, and it might be the way SEGA found to release Sonic 3 again. Let's remember the last time Sonic 3 was released was in 2017, with Tectoy's latest Mega Drive. Apparently the need to pay royalties to the MJ-team composers only apply to different consoles. IDK For the 3DS they managed to create the 3D effect within their emulator (did they call it the Tera Drive?), maybe they made a wide-screen emulator just for the collection, dunno. The fact they slapped 'Original footage' on their trailer somehow makes it feel the Taxman versions won't be the base for these new widescreen versions. Doesn't make much sense commercially, but neither did Sonic 1 nor Sonic 2 SEGA Ages versions.
See that’s the key word right there with M2: emulation. If Iizuka said that this collection will not be based on emulation, then I don’t see how M2 can be involved. I don’t think M2 has ever developed native widescreen ports of any game from scratch. They have only done stretched widescreen as far as I know. (if anyone can find a game that proves otherwise, please let me know) The only thing is we will have to wait and see until after the release of Colors Ultimate. Unfortunately we don’t have enough info to go off of and we are going in circles here lol
SEGA AGES Virtua Racing is a port, and runs in widescreen. SEGA AGES Outrun is emulated, and was converted to Widescreen (not stretched) Actually IIRC most of the 3D classics arcade titles on 3DS had their viewport expanded (not stretched) to 15:9 (the 3DS top screen aspect ratio) The Iizuka interview for Famitsu is pretty vague and the translations available might not be accurate to what he actually said. I didn't find the original text in Japanese. For Game Informer the tone was more like "oh it's not like other emulation compilations" instead of "it's not emulation". I think there's a chance this is just the old 'emulation with extras'. Let's also remember Sega refers to 3D Classics as ports even though they are all emulated:
Informative and all there @Mastered Realm , but your quotes in the above post came from Jordan91, not me.
Hmm.. interesting.. idk how I missed those games.. I checked out gameplay video for both of them and they look like brand new experiences in widescreen 60 FPS.. I mean it’s M2 so they go the extra mile for sure. With this info, now I’m at a cross roads.. I have no idea who will be handling Origins but like I said in the beginning, I wouldn’t have an issue if it turns out to be M2. It’s a nice consolation if Taxman and Stealth aren’t chosen.
Right, but what about the interview conducted in English by The Sonic Stadium that says the following: TSS specifically asked about both Christian Whitehead and M2, with Iizuka responding by saying that he can't speak about specific details yet. But he goes out of his way to "this will not be a compilation title running off emulation". He wasn't asked that point specifically, and yet he thought it necessary to make that point crystal clear. There's no ambiguity about the emulation issue. And if it turns out that Origins is indeed emulated, even an enhanced emulation as in those examples you mentioned, then Iizuka would have been dishonest in these interviews for absolutely no reason. We don't know who's developing this. I personally think that by not announcing a developer yet, it suggests that nobody from the Mania team is involved. But that's just a guess, and I can't really back it up any more than "surely they'd want to mention if the Mania guys were involved, right?". Trying to read between the lines a little bit, I get the impression that Origins is very, very early in development right now. Maybe even too early to even talk about who the developer is. Iizuka is only talking about "plans" for Origins, whilst the announcement during Sonic Central included nothing as much as a logo and had a disclaimer about the footage not coming from Origins itself. The games isn't coming out until next year, and I'd not be in the least bit surprised to hear that this project is only just starting to take shape. Like Rangers Sonic 2022, they've basically just announced that Origins exists well before they're actually ready to talk about it. That could be because it's too early in development, or just because they don't want to shift the focus away from Colours Ultimate.
M2 aren't fallible and most of their porting work has either contained oversights or been patched to fix minor issues, but with the exception of perhaps Hamster they are honestly better than everyone else at what they do - if they do turn out to be handling Origins, effort will definitely be put into extras and overall presentation at least. Virtua Racing is an interesting one - the original game itself unusually has an option to run in near-enough 16:9 widescreen, but M2 still put in extra work for it as the source code was lost. After tracking down a former developer who held on to the code by chance, they used its generally identical deluxe incarnation, Virtua Formula, as a basis. The frame rate was also doubled to 60fps, so more evidence of their commitment to presentation there.
Forgive me if it's been said (and I'll be damned if I'm going back through nearly 30 pages to find out), but I wonder if the reasons nothing has been said about who's involved is simply because it hasn't been decided yet. Granted I've never worked a project of this caliber before (nor any type of 'legacy' project) so it may not even work like this. That being said I'm picturing that Sega has at least a few options for developers at their disposal, and that they simply haven't settled on which developer, hence why nothing has been said. The problem, of course, is that this would assume that each prospective developer has either come far enough along in their proof-of-concepts or that the developer has the manpower to begin do what needs to be done in time for a '22 release. It was just a thought I had, though. Never said it was perfect lol.
lol, you posted this just as I was editing my previous post to mention the same thing. I could very easily believe that a developer hasn't been finalised for this game yet. The announcement of Origins couldn't have been much lighter on information if they tried. And I think that that's not just because they don't want to talk about it, but also because they have nothing to talk about.
Lol Nice! But yeah I'm thinking the company is at the point where all the things we're pondering is exactly what they're trying to work out; we don't have the information because they don't even have it yet. The way I figure it is that they've gotten as far as knowing that the project can be done and that it's definitely something they want to do and will be doing and now they just need to work out the who, the how etc. Like you said, they've likely remained silent because at this point in the game, there isn't anything to discuss — or if I may add, whatever is there to discuss would just bore or confuse people or (worse) get people's hopes too high.
Hearing that it's not emulation is a good feeling, but I still have to hold back my average expectations still, this is sega after all.
This is like next level. I've never seen people try to speculate that a publicly announced project could possibly not have been finalized in its details. Pretty sure things don't typically reach public earshot until such details are ironed out. Even SEGA doesn't seem incompetent enough to me to go against such a common practice. Game development typically starts with a project document which entails almost everything about what a game should be like in terms of features and scope or what will be necessary to accomplish that. I just think people are being a bit silly about this- this isn't the first, or last time SEGA have been secretive about the details on game(s) they've announced, especially considering the much more likely case: They have a a game coming out THIS year that they're trying to sell to us FIRST. I really think that's the end all, be all of it.
I assume the speculation surrounding this compilation has more to do with... well, that it's a compilation than anything else, and Sega has been super scant on details other than knowing that S1-3K and CD will be in it. That takes on a different level of speculation and theorizing than something like Sonic Rangers, for example, where we know literally nothing about the game (officially) so it's anyone's guess as to what it will play like, what the story is, etc. Whereas with a compilation like this, this forum especially already knows what the Genesis Sonic games are like, so it becomes entirely about the smaller details. It's like trying to predict the plot and actors of the next Star Wars movie with nothing to go on, compared to a re-release of the original trilogy. I just got some internet nostalgia over Sonic Mega Collection's initial announcement. The disappointment that it literally only featured the Genesis titles was palpable at the time, and there was a pretty firm consensus that Sonic Jam was the better collection, as it had the games that people actually cared about and a much better selection of extras. With that in mind it's been funny to see Mega Collection held up as a gold standard for Origins to live up to - for my money, 16:9 remasters and trading Spinball, 3D Blast and Mean Bean Machine for Sonic CD already beats the pants off it.
I'd consider than an exception rather than the norm. SEGA has certainly not had a track record of doing it. Usually games are planned to have far more features than we ever see(it is far more common for things from a project document to be removed, rather than added- not that that doesn't happen, just look at Melee's additional fighters like Ganon). I mean, everyone knows the scope of 06 was too big for their britches, especially under development team fracturing and corporate deals leading to a strict holiday release window. The main takeaways are: We already know it's not emulated. We already have a name. We already have the games that are going to be featured. We've even had talk about the features or at least hints of them. Iizuka didn't say he didn't know yet, he straight up said he couldn't talk about it yet. Most games have to be greenlit before they even get announced, many games get cancelled before we even hear about them. We've found out about many of them over time, like even cancelled Kirby games.
A game can get greenlit with negotiations for prospective developers still on-going. We have no idea whether or not that has been the case thus far with Origins, but it is a possibility. It is also possible, as I've seen mentioned here a good bit, that Iizuka is deliberately trying to not take any buzz away from Sonic Colours. It could even be a mix of those, or more! Who knows. What we do know is substantial enough for us classic fans to remain hyped until further info drops, which I'm now inclined to believe won't be until autumn for the sake of letting Sonic Colours shine solo. Here's what we know to be true at the moment: - It features four (or possibly five) classic Sonic titles: Sonic 1, Sonic CD, Sonic 2, and Sonic 3 & Knuckles. - The games will NOT be emulated. - The games will feature a widescreen display. - It has a tentative release window of 2022. - There will be bonus content. Seemingly more than the Ages releases had even. I think that's it, but I also feel that I may've missed something.
