Dead end - Sonic 3 prototype in Germany? NO WAY? NO WAY!

Just so the information gets out, I hit a dead end in Germany.

I've talked to (on a phone) a certain publisher/journalist from an old German newspaper about prototypes he told Oerg he has but is not allowed to sell.

Long story short - he has *some* Megadrive prototypes, but to any questions about them he just replied 'I am not allowed to give any information' etc. I explained bit rot to him, and how many SEGA and Sonic developers gave me prototypes, etc etc. Still, no dice.

I've of course tried to get him to back the games up, without any involvement on my part, but he said he was not allowed to do it, and it was the publisher's decision.

I've got three options:

1) forget about them (yeah right)
2) wait a few years until:
- someone contacts me about it
- I can influence people more with money/go there and talk to people personally
3) try to get SEGA involved, but that would:
a) get me nowhere
b) could lead to some nasty stuff


I'm a little sad about this, myself. Man, what a stressful job, getting prototypes =P

;______;

 

When I say dead end, I mean dead end. I wouldn't post if I wasn't absolutely sure there was nothing to do about it (unless I find $1 million lying on the street tomorrow, that is). I did offer a lot of money to him, in my earlier email. I understand him, in a way. But yeah, it still sucks.

However, he did give me a clue that he is not aware of (about the whereabouts of the prototypes).

If I had more funds, I'd go to Germany and just find and get the prototype myself, with his help or not.

And I was even ready to go there and dump the carts on the spot, with him watching, he was against that too, though.

 

SEGA is like a prototype hoarder. I think the analogy is self-explanatory and suits the situation well. The protos would probably be lost forever AND not be backed up (yeah, trust SEGA nowadays to do anything right... right)

I don't care about this. I'm in Poland, so the most they can do is dream of suing me. Especially over 15 year old prototypes =P

The problem is that I don't have anybody in SEGA Germany. That, and they wouldn't care about the carts anyway. I've got contacts in SOA, but that's about it.

We're (I and Oerg) trying to ask a former SEGA Germany employee if there is anything we can do or anything he can do to help us. It's worth a try, I guess.

 

They threw most Megadrive prototypes in the trash, the rest was recycled. Yay.

 

A certain department of SOA (for example) did archive some prototypes. The problem is, the choice of games was arbitrary, and the versions were usually late betas or finals, since developers didn't have to submit alphas.

On most projects however, there was total chaos when it comes to prototypes, versioning etc. Most projects didn't even have versions...

The only serious backups they kept were daily/weekly backup tapes, recycled every three months. You know, so they wouldn't lose entire project to data loss =P

Now, it might be totally different for SOJ, but I haven't really contacted any SOJ employees yet, sans for one that wasn't very helpful.