Sonic 2006 currently relisted on XBLA Marketplace (360 only, no One/Series BC)

Put me in the "probably a mistake" camp. It's weird that it only happened for one version of one game, and for it to be this game? Yeah, no. Hell, if they were relisting anything they'd make some sort of announcement about it, and then it totally could be Sonic 06 if they thought the potential of meme-buyers was high enough and shitposted on twitter, but there's nothing.

I feel like there has been four different times I said SEGA should pull a Black Mesa and tell ChaosX "hey can we just publish your work when you're done". The "Fan help finally fixes SONIC's worst game" headlines write themselves.

Like, ideal Sonic collection of minimal actual dev effort: SA1 and SA2 with these mods, Heroes with the character overhaul and physics/stage patch (and the last story unlocking after 1 playthrough), Shadow with...idk, everything rearranged to be only one linear playthrough and cut out the non-canon stuff, and P-06 in a finished state. You can call it Sonic Adventure Ultimate, or Sonic Origins Adventure, or rename Sonic 06 to Sonic Adventure 3 or Sonic Wildfire (actually they should've used that from the start), whatever! I just get pissed off knowing now how salvageable a lot of the stuff we consider poorly-aged actually is sometimes (though, I don't think Shadow will ever be great).

It's not just "SEGA please let the fans do the work for you", the fans already did the work, you just need to shove it in there. The only things I need for these games that I don't already have (or expect ChaosX to finish eventually) are what's probably a simple trigger for Heroes, and just reducing the amount of tedium in Shadow (in retrospect they may have to alter a lot of the cutscenes for this, admittedly).

And yeah yeah I know there's probably a bunch of legal stuff that'd go into this and not every modder may consent and all the games are less stable when they're pumped full of hot sweaty steamy frothing custom code, but that just pisses me off more with how easy it feels like it should be.

 

I would fully support an official release of BetterSADX and an improved re-release of Adventure 2 and Heroes.

The thing is, I don't really know if SEGA are even aware that these fan mods and patches actually exist

I don't think SEGA are actively going around scouting for fan talent to re-release their games. They go for whoever is cheapest and easily available.

If these re-releases are ever going to happen then I feel like it's up to the devs of these projects to get together and officially pitch these to SEGA and show them that the work has already been done. (If they're lucky enough to ever get the chance to do something like that)

 

In the camp of it NOT being a mistake, there was this tweet from Katie Chrzanowski, current head of Sonic twitter.

https://twitter.com/KatieChrz/status/1529205675133243392

If it was a mistake, I don't think it would have been acknowledged by someone working at SEGA.

 

She also replied with this though. Hmm...

... The plot thickens.


Also, I'll say that it would be interesting if this was in fact deliberate, and the reason for not relisting on other platforms currently (Xbox Series X/S particularly.) being them testing the waters of what the fan reactions are to Sonic 2006 making an official re-appearance at all. SEGA relisting it on only 1 platform alone is a minimal time, effort and expense route for them to gauge interest / backlash / etcetera. Just my thoughts and speculations of course.

 

If they really are doing that, which I personally doubt, then we'd probably be getting backwards compatibility soon.
The reactions I've seen outside of here have been mostly positive, and anything not positive has just been very very confused.

 

I’m not convinced it’s a mistake. I think the hype surrounding P-06 and the appearance of Zoomer retrospectives talking about enjoying the game may have convinced Sega to just put it up for the few sales it may garner.

I mean those things convinced me to rebuy and play the game for the first time in (oh God, I hate time) 16 years. I had to do it on the PS3 since I don’t have a 360 anymore, but I’m sure there are others in a similar position who’d go ahead and buy it digitally from the Xbox store. Everyone knows about the game already and it’s not like people will accidentally buy it from a GameStop over a newer game, so Sega loses almost nothing from having it available.

As for not being available on PS3… was it ever in the west? I remember Sony allowed digital downloads of retail games later than Microsoft. Outside of Japan, I don’t think Sonic 06 was ever available to download from the PSN store.

Edit: Though I must say BC on Xbox is probably a pipe dream. The last batch of games was referred to as the final one by Microsoft. As much as people would like not having to keep an old system around, I don’t think Sega and Microsoft will revive the initiative for 06 of all games lol.

 

I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if MS is open to doing one offs for backward compatibility at the behest of publishers. In this case, there’s opportunity for an improved experience, possibly marketing tie in.

As for licensing contracts, older contracts probably have generic legalese prohibiting “broadcasting, public exhibition” and other terms which live-streaming from console and gameplay recording features would have to take into consideration.

The optics of prohibiting or stringent enforcement? That’s a whole other discussion.

 

Would be nice if it got BC. But yeah, I'm not able to purchase it or any of the DLC either, and I'd like to because my disc is barely working anymore. RIP.

 

I'd love for the game to be backwards compatible. I haven't played this game since 2007. I played it recently in Xenia without the long load times and framerate dips normally seen on console and it was like a breath of fresh air with those two issues fixed alone.

The game is still kinda terrible but at least you could actually PLAY it with the load times and framerate fixed.

 

P-06 is an incredibly impressive project that’s worth a download. I’d be down for an official release so the fan devs could be legally paid for their work. But I have to be honest: I do not think P06 makes 06 a good game. The characters are better to control... but I wouldn’t say that it actually feels good to play. There are moments of joy to be found but to extend that joy to the whole game would require the levels being redesigned and the physics being further improved. You mentioned a 06 MANIA so maybe you’re implying that you’d like a reimagining of 06 similar to my desires. At that point tho I’d rather see the P-06 guys be hired along with the Sonic GT and Speed Simulator guys to make an original 3D game.

 

I find it funny to imagine someone at SEGA getting fired for this slip-up, like with the same severity as if they accidentally deleted a company database or leaked confidential data.

 

Yea, plus more likely than not this was someone at Microsoft's error. I don't think Sega has any direct control over that marketplace so unless it was planned how could it have been them?

 

Oh wow, the first time I saw this I thought it was a joke lmao. I didn't think it actually happened.

Definitely a slip up, but maybe someone at Microsoft was bored and thought nobody would notice. It's neat to see though, I wonder if they'll just keep it up and go "eh, what the hell" because the damage has already been done.

 

Maybe they’ll test the water next with Sonic Level Creator.

A man can dream, right?