another thing with Sonic CD, at least on the PSN, for almost a year after it's release, it was in the top 10 PSN games, after which it dropped to the top 15
There are these slightly higher-res scans that I extracted from Sonic Mega Collection, but even those have the same problem of the reading aids being too small. Hopefully one day we can get hold of higher scans and eventually translations. If you and Taxman ever get to make a collection for home consoles, you'll have to include HD manual scans and translations as bonus features (and don't forget the official Japanese strategy guides). Although I guess the translation budget would be more than the game development costs!
Wow. That write up was a fantastic read! The efforts that you guys have made to recreate just a portion is S3&K is all inspiring. I couldn't be more grateful for what you have shown to us. Good luck with all future projects.
The OCD in me couldn't resist and I noticed two small mistakes in Stealth's blog: That said, this is awesome, I look forward to it, etc.
That was quite educational to read, and seeing the concept idea for Blue Sphere 2 was very interesting indeed. One thing thay should be noted as well. I'd like to see corrections for these sentences as well. I couldn't understand the full context behind them without the missing terms.
Didn't see this until now but it's a good proof of concept. Hopefully it can be picked up at some point, obviously it's well known the music appears to have some legal issues but really, S&K Collection removed certain tracks, why couldn't this do the same? Clearly people will complain but if you had a choice of replacements or no release at all, what would you choose? I've played Sonic CD on Steam as well as on Android with the other games. Unfortunately due to issues with Google Wallet that they wouldn't budge with I had to skip buying the mobile games, but I do support what you have done.
Except the Sonic Collection for the DS had all S3K music intact iirc ....So I don't see the problem... :|
If it boils down to the songs cannot be remastered can you just use rips from the Genesis version from those... questionable stages? Hell I'd be happy with a remake that excluded all songs from the question stages and had an option menu that basically let you choose a song from your own playlist to play in its place.
I would imagine that it comes down to an issue of the legal aspects of the game licensing the music rather than the music itself. Emulation is fine because the music is being used in its original form, whereas re-creating it would more or less qualify it as a new product. Though having no knowledge of law nor music licensing, my assessment is probably also wrong.
It's nothing to do with the music. It's much, much more likely that Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, not being as widely known as Sonic 1 and Sonic 2, don't sell as well.
Even if it sells less than S1 and S2, it would still sell well. there's no way Taxman's fee would come close to making a dent in the profits it will make on release. Besides, Sega have re-released Sonic 3D Blast, Sonic R, and others as stand-alones, and they made practically nothing compared to Sonic 3; the argument doesn't hold up. While the specifics are unknown, there's next to no doubt that the hold-up is a legal one, be it royalties, licensing or something completely unknown.
Re-released Sonic 3D Blast and Sonic R? I think the word you're looking for is "port", when they were still new games back in the mid-to-late 90s. They haven't been released as standalones since then. Let me put it this way: there's nothing stopping them from releasing an emulated version of Sonic 3 & Knuckles on Android, like they did with both Sonic 1 and Sonic 2 before the StealthTax versions. So where is it? Why isn't Sonic 3 & Knuckles there, even as an emulated version? Are you telling me there are licensing issues regarding emulation on mobile phones that for some reason don't exist with the 3DS or Xbox 360?
Uh... And no, I doubt there's anything stopping them from releasing emulated versions of S3&K. Why they don't, I don't know; but I also don't care, because our conversation was focused on the Stealthtax version... ...which would be a remake, which may cause the licensing issue.
Whoosh. Hint: the reason they're not doing the StealthTax version is the same as the reason they haven't done the emulated version.
This is like saying pears aren't as well known as apples. Both were bazillion best-sellers in 1994 (the games, not the fruit... although the fruit probably sold more come to think of it). p.s. this could all be as simple as "they don't want to do it". It's not a model that is perceived to work well in the mobile space - needs more DLC and freemium and in-app purchases.
Reading Stealth's blog post I got the impression that making S3K would require a lot of development time, because of all the visual tricks in the background and the larger sized levels. It could be that while the mobile version will sell really well, Sega might be concerned that the earnings might not be enough to recoup the costs. Hopefully, now that they have made the first level in their own time, it might cut down some of the development time, as they'll know the best way to port the other levels and will have a better idea of how long it will take. Plus, the Youtube video would give a good indication of demand and in turn an estimate of potential revenues.
It's not an issue about revenue. Everyone is on board and ready for this except SEGA of Japan (what a shocker).