You have to think about what might happen several years from now, current gen stores start sunsetting, old services shut down, goodbye amy and gg roms as part of Origins. If you buy a physical release of Mania right now you get everything, mighty, ray, encore and the latest game update on cartridge, how it should be for a year late physical release.
Oh, right, I forgot about the crap with digital products and stores. Then yeah, it's screwed up, especially to digital-only buyers...
On the box screenshot, it says "7.5GB Minimum". According to this page, the base version of Origins on Playstation is 6GB. Of course, those minimum information aren't always accurate. But could Origins Plus have an extra 1.5GB of content? Game Gear games wouldn't take up anywhere that amount of space, so “hopefully” they've added some more museum items (I say “hopefully” because Origins is uncanny in its ability to disappoint!)
I could forgive Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 and Sonic Frontiers download codes, as they just fast tracked some of the grind. This is unique content heavily advertised on a physical version. Very lame.
I'd hope this just meant they were making sure everything was perfect up to the 11th hour, though Sonic Team have clearly been slacking on needing to change/fix some things on their end. Headcannon, who may actually be fixing things, would've also needed to send off their contribution so ST could incorporate it at some point, but eh, maybe that supports this theory. I'm hoping their side of the production that's the directly the games themselves is fixing (or even adding) more stuff like how they fixed SCD's Timer bug, and more stuff gets crossed off of my recently updated improvements checklist (sorry, had to get that in somewhere), but we'll see.
If that survey from last year was anything to go by, then I’m hoping more behind the scenes content and some more animations are included as well. SEGA already followed through with more games and a new playable character so that extra space has to amount to something.
They're hesitant to push vanilla Origins Plus to disc because they know it will probably be loaded with issues that players will have to bring up like the last time they tried this without the Plus. I'm guessing we're gonna get an unnecessary extra physical release in a year or so after the digital buyers have done unofficial beta testing.
I can't find any info on the UK release. I just find more releases of the vanilla version through double packs with TSR. I did find that GAME lists a Double Pack for Forces and Mania +. So maybe they just don't have either the vanilla or + versions as standalone physical releases anymore. I'd have to dig deeper.
If that was the case, they'd just issue a day 1 update. I think the likely scenario is actually just so that they can more easily release a physical copy of the base version of Origins in the future. All they'd need to do is change the boxart and not include a DLC code in the box. It would be pretty similar to the 30th Anniversary edition of TSR they released: everything is the same on the inside, only the outsides are any different. As has been brought up, non-Plus physical versions of Mania now exist and that requires a lick of extra work because the content of the cartridge/disc is different to the Plus version. Plus this method also means SEGA don't miss out entirely on the secondhand market. Cynical, but likely.
Bingo. So long as Sonic remains hot from the movies I suspect Sega will nickel and dime us every chance they get. The one exception to this has been the frontiers dlc. I suspect Frontiers has sold so well (and has had such mixed reviews) they decided free dlc for frontiers would be more valuable as goodwill.
I mean the DLC not being on the disc itself kinda sucks but I'd hardly call it much of an exploit just because the download code can't get resold. Maybe this is just me, but if all I want is to play a game, then I'm either paying for it on a currently-existing service or not at all. Physical copies still somewhat matter for preservation right now, but it's not like the DLC or digital version of the game won't be scraped off within a week.
I think if there were new animations, they'd have shown a tease of them by now. The survey also mentioned new co-op modes, which don’t seem to be in. We'll just have to cross our fingers and hope for the best. This is a much better explanation and probably the reason.
For Switch the excuse usually is that they'd have to use a bigger, more expensive cartridge to include everything. But on PS5? It's probably to sell the DLC to second-hand buyers. The base version of Sonic Origins already exists. At least on the Switch, all they'd need to do is put that on a cartridge. It's for a physical release that includes the DLC that they'd need to have a separate build.
Not gonna lie, I don’t really see how this is something to get upset about. It’s weird and probably unnecessary but it’s not something I’m particularly torn up about.
SEGA aren't going to stop releasing the Classic games any time soon. As long as new platforms continue to be produced, the Classic games will continue to be released for them. Fuck, I mean Sonic 2 already existed on the Switch in 3 separate releases before Origins came along. The Origins releases are probably going to serve as the basis for increasingly bastardised releases for years to come, either independently or in a collection. The DLC will probably be included too, one way or another. Honestly my biggest bugbear in all of this is that Knuckles in CD isn't being added to the base game. It means that the base game remains an inconsistent package until the Plus expansion is added. Even though its not quite the same, it's not unlike the Planet Wisp music in Colours Ultimate. It feels like content that should be there already, because Knuckles exists in the other games. Plus should exclusively add in Amy and the Game Gear titles.
That's what I'm saying. With Mania, they have 2 entirely separate discs/cartridges on the shelves: Mania and Mania Plus. But with Origins, that won't be the case. By releasing Plus as the base game with an extra DLC code, they'll never have to go through the time, money and effort of printing different copies of the game. All that will need changing is the boxart. If customers want the Plus content, it'll always be available to buy. It makes logistical and financial sense for SEGA.
