The Saturn Mini is a dream, that probably will not materialise, at least not anytime soon I always wondered if it would be profitable for them to just produce a new batch of retro consoles with original hardware, like Saturn, Dreamcast etc. Maybe with some Hard Drive compatibility or with an SD card slot? I mean, there certainly is a market for it, but is it big enough? I recall the revived Mega Drive from few years ago to be a success.
It was, but it was for a console that was an international success. Neither Saturn nor Dreamcast were, so I'm not sure if they'd feel that confident. That said, it is Sega, a company not bound by reason. EDIT: Late response since I didn't see it, but I can't say that's true in the slightest. My entire generation owned a PS2 for one reason greater than all the others: it was both Little Jimmy's video game console and a cheap DVD player. Much like the PS2 did to Dreamcast, whatever hype that surrounded the PS2's graphic capabilities were immediately undermined in a year or two's time with OG Xbox and GC landing on the scene. Or at the very least, they were evened out. Graphics wars became something you bragged about on a per-game basis, with minor tussles over texture filtering and similar faff. It was PS2's no-hassle super-cheap DVD player functionality that made it the most appealing contender; you get a machine with a nice home-theater-grade design that fits alongside your giant TV, with no extra fuss of changing outputs, inputs or remotes. And if you're a kid with a family that already owned a DVD player, well this one is for you to watch your Shrek movies and Spongebob episodes on in your room. This was the main reason I ever knew anyone picked PS2 over the other two/three, besides Sony's killer apps like SoTC, Ratchet, Jak and what have you. And PS2 was unstoppable due to it. OG Xbox required you to buy extra peripherals to play them (licensing junk ahoy) so that wasn't hassle-free. GameCube and Dreamcast didn't allow you to play them at all and it's no coincidence that they sold the worst that gen. DVD was everything in the 2000s. It became the biggest media format on Earth overnight, partially due to the PS2. Vice versa, PS2 is still the largest selling video game console of all time largely because of it. It was the right call, right place, right people, right time. And that's why it was unstoppable.
They were plenty of cheap DVD players by the time the PS2 hit Pal land, The Samsung model was very well priced. I was in Florida in 1999 on holiday and even you saw shops with decent priced DVD players and a load of DVD's. I can't remember seeing quite the weekly explosion of DVD sales, that you saw in Japan. I just remember for most people I knew, it was all about the hype of being so powerful with Toy Story graphics in real-time, Iraq using them for Nukes and 77 million polygons Vs the DC 3 million and wanted it for a games system, but given the games were so poor in its 1st year, most would use the DVD playback, I guess; I know that feeling the 1st year of owning a Jp Mega -CD the main highlight was being able to play Music CD's in my bedroom I really thought the DC had a chance in the USA: Peter Moore was the best boss SEGA America ever had IMO and the team doing great things with a tiny budget, while SEGA Europe was run by muppets and SOJ had blown the DC changes almost from the start. Then came that E3 2000 MGS trailer and it was a killer moment . I remember going into my import shop and talking about it and most of us all agreed (most of us how shopped there were either SEGA or NEC) it was over, everyone was going to want a PS2 for that game, hell most of us in the shop did. For the 1st time one started to see some of the power the PS2 had and where you knew the DC couldn't match it. It was a truly devastating moment, coming not long after the other massive devastating moment and that was SEGA GT; The game that I thought would get SEGA's driving crown back from SONY and it was an utter letdown (why AM#2 wasn't given the task to produce SEGA GT, I'll never now )still the team made up for with SEGA GT 2002, with for me is the best racer of that gen. When you look at both the 32X and Saturn should have done better for the racing genre and Sonic titles
Your demographic definitely seems like it was older than mine, and with different priorities. Speaking as a millennial, graphics power was either not discussed purely on what a console was capable of unless it was a bunch of bullshit numbers and unrealistic statements.. which tbf seems not far off from what was going on for your group, either. 77mil polygons?? But for millennials at the time (children, the biggest demographic for games til at least the 2010s) it was mostly the value of being able to play your cool new games, PS1 games you already had, aaaand that DVD player. It was the convenience, the bargain that sold it. Buying a machine for a flawless all-in-one purpose was it's main draw. And I'm mostly sure that was the case all around the world. Sure, you could buy another DVD player for cheapish at the turn of the millennium (that's why I'd argued the Dreamcast could've supported it if they delayed production a few months), but why do that when you can buy one machine? It cannot be said enough: at least in the United States (and Japan, going by what you're saying), DVD is what sold the PS2. Well, that and the backwards compatibility. That wasn't too common a thing back then! As for the MGS2 stuff, I don't think that really mattered in the States..? There was no definitive "this is the end" moment for the DC like that. It just.. happened. Dreamcast started off great and overall was selling fine; not amazingly, but fine. Unfortunately, PS2 and N64 dominated the market regardless; PS2 for every reason given former, and N64 because that console was now cheap and you could play all your Mario and Pokémon games. Any other console could've weathered the storm it went through (OG Xbox and GameCube certainly did), but the debt from the past Sega consoles made it impossible for Dreamcast to carry on, and the plug was pulled. It might've had writing on the wall to older audiences, but to the kids on the playground it was sudden and shocking. Graphics did matter to people back then, of course. It was as common of a discussion point on forums back in the day as they are now. But I think it was more of a loud minority on the internet that made that audience. And if that really were what made the difference, Xbox and GameCube would've far outran PS2. But that's not what happened. Children wanted the hot new toy, parents wanted affordability and convenience. And that was that. ----- Anyways, hooooly jesus I'll stop talking about this now. This topic is a pretty important archive for the community to know more about what happened to Chaotix. We gotta take this elsewhere.
I played Chaotix during the summer of 2004 using Gens as my emulator of choice. I honestly don’t know how anyone could have enjoyed the game without savestates (now rectified by Sonic Origins coins). I beat it with all the Chaos Rings (wtf are those and whatever happened to them?). I feel that the DC is like an Xbox Zero due to the striking similarities. I honestly didn’t think online gaming was going to take over by storm like it did. I never used Xbox Live but was able to use my apartment’s Ethernet to play Halo multiplayer with my roommate and his separate Xbox.
The trouble was because it was SONY no one looked to question the claims or go more into detail on how you could get to 77 million polygons. yet when SEGA said the DC was able to handle just 3 million polygons everyone looked to question it. When I was on holiday in Florida in 1999 I was quite surprised by how well DVD was supported and I can't recall seeing a massive spike in DVD sales, as you saw in Japan after the PS2 shipped for a prolonged period. All I can say it for most of the people I knew (who were already PS fans at this stage) or going into shops and being a gaming nerd at that time, I knew most of the staff working in the game shops, it was all about this power and how the PS2 was going to allow games we never saw before, how it was so powerful it was able to handle FF7 in real time, the talk of 77 million polygons, Toy story CGI in real time. I'm sure some of us will remember than talk. Like The DC was dead in Japan the moment the PS2 launched; almost overnight the PS2 was able to match the DC sales since it launched, basically in one day of it shipping, In Europe, after a decent start it was dying a death and you had SEGA Europe run by a bunch of useless muppets, who spent of all of SEGA's PR on sponsoring every football team know to man, but not making sure SEGA Europe had a AAA footy title, not allowing users to enter their ISP details, killed online gaming on day in Europe and then you had the muppets think that adversting the DC on TV with no game footage was the way to go, including a prime time TV advert for Soulcalibur on the DC (the best looking game at the time) showing someone sending a e-mail.. You couldn't make it up , but America was a big hope, where you had decent sales and real positively and a team of staff making such good moves and then came E2000 and that bloody MGS 2 trailer Up until then, the DC was really able to go toe to toe with the PS2 for graphics, but when you saw MGS2 it looked so far above anything else it was so crushing. And to say graphics didn't matter to people back then is pushing it a little IMO. Being seen as underpowered for 3D is one of the main reasons the PS was able to get one over the Saturn straight away, why the Amiga won over the Atari ST and even last gen it counted for a lot with XBox getting killed for its underpowered GPU and the God awful Kinect, which needed to suck more juice from the already underpowered GPU. There are lots of factors, of course, but the talk of the power of the PS2 over the DC was a major selling point IMO. SONY do a good job of getting power, hype and game support right, to their credit.
I'm working on updating the initial post with the new discoveries/revelations from this thread. Once I finish I'll update the OP but post the original one again (albeit spoiler'd) for archival purposes.
I don't want to discourage discussion, but I'm honestly exhausted coming here to read about Chaotix and seeing a barrage of posts that have nothing to do with it. Perhaps we could split these off into a new thread?
Getting any info on Chaotix in development for any other system other than the 32X, is very hard to find.
I remember seeing early shots of the Scottish Open on the 32X that went to become Virtua Golf on the Saturn, remember reading about Shellshock 32X before it went on to become a Saturn game and we also saw Ancient show the design doc for Story Of Thor 2 on the 32X, before it was moved to the Saturn. Trying to get any early info on Chaotix on a Saturn is near impossible. I don't see how in that time frame, SEGA Japan would think it was wise or would be better to move Chaotix from Saturn to 32X, when for most titles it was the other way around?
Perhaps, however I doubt they *wanted* the 32X to fail, so having a Sonic game on 32X was probably thought to be a way to give it a boost. And besides, getting a stripped down version of it ready for the 32X when the Saturn wasn't due until September of '95 seems like a logical thought process.
Of course SOJ wouldn't want the 32X or the Saturn to fail , just can't see SOJ thinking we need Chaotix on the Saturn for the Japanese line up early in, only to then move it to the 32X. I would imagine it was more either it started out as a Mega Drive title and moved to the 32X or it was always a 32X title to start with to help out SOA. It be nice to know for sure mind and its a shame that SEGA Japan didn't have that team actually make a 2D Sonic game for the Saturn Western launch, even if it was just Sonic CD port with better FMV and 3D bonus section. I Wanted to like Chaotix on the 32X( it helped when I had it for nothing ), but I didn't find it fun to play, the controls just got inthe way too much, a bit like Ranger X on the MD.
So honest question... How many of you have even played Chaotix to completion? I just did a run through of it this weekend, using Knuckles as the main and occasionally switching to Vector. One thing that helped a lot was switching the HOLD button to a left or right trigger button on the upper controller. Since the rubber band is still a momentum based mechanism in line with the rest of classic Sonic gameplay, there are a lot of neat tricks you can do once you get a feel for when to snap the band, when to grab your opponent, and when to stretch and use them to gain momentum. I'd love to see serious speedrunners tackle the game sometime with these mechanics in mind. Here's just one example of ways you can use the mechanics to your advantage.
Not me TBH, I couldn't take to and didn't like the controls , I didn't find it fun . I did like the bonus 3D sections mind
I've beaten Chaotix many times, mainly just to see how all the stages change when they shift between night, day, sunset etc. In fact, I've played the game so many times, that I've beaten all the special stages in Wire Mode. Doing that was quite the challenge, but I was motivated by seeing what you would unlock. Here is what I got for all my efforts: + - Absolutely nothing. When you beat the last special stage in Wire Mode, it just goes back to the first.
I do. With all emeralds rings. I can understand, why it doesn't give you something cool, but new "chaotical" form for characters would be really nice)
I beat it once just to cross it off the list. Not much to say beyond the art and music being great. I did also like the special stages a lot. I’ll probably only play it again once I get around to buying a 32X.
During my teens I used to play it with friends, and we all had a blast every time. It feels like it was made for co-op, with singleplayer being an afterthought. Unlike in the core games, the second player doesn't end up offscreen all the time. Rather, both players are equals and work together to get through the levels. In fact, I wonder how many people actually tried the co-op for more than a few seconds.
