Right. Hm. An identifier could be automatically assigned within the template when its uploaded (or if the template is added to a file later): When you hit Save page and the wiki builds that template for the first time, have it automatically check with a background list of previously-created merch pages, add a number to that, and send it back to be added to the template. If the template is edited and re-saved, it can check if it already contains an identifier and bypass the background list step. Is something like that possible? Edit: clarification
I have a vague idea of what's needed and will have a play at some point, unless someone gets there before me. In other (old) news: Sega Rally actually went rallying. You'd think this would be a given (Sega sans "Rally" was a minor car sponsor in 2006), but this is the only photo I could find on short notice. There's a reason for this - the team only particpated in the 1999 Safari Rally and came 10th. What coverage exists of the event rightly spends most of its time on Colin McRae and the podium contenders. You can get a model though. Is it featured in any actual Sega Rally games? Probably not. It was too late for Sega Rally 2's Japanese Dreamcast release, which is what this endeavour was meant to promote, and if you're going to drive a Subaru Impreza WRX, you want it in blue, surely.
Yep... from this book: https://www.amazon.de/länger-bewegte-Geschichte-Favoritner-Athletic/dp/B0037PVTZK
As said wherever, there was a wonderful period in the late 2000s and early 2010s where Sega posted all its news as PDF press releases. That meant I could dump the files on the wiki to sift through at a later date. Very useful because the Wayback Machine is slow and often failed to cache images from the time. Before then though, it was all just written on their website as HTML, and because the company was doing a lot more, they'd be posting regularly. To be fair, a good chunk, dating back to 1998, is archived, but there's a lot of text, much of it is likely to confuse, and it's easy to miss things, especially if you don't know what you're looking for. So while it might look like Sega Retro has tracked all of Sega's history, there's massive gaps in our knowledge. And this is one of them: https://web.archive.org/web/20011024215429/http://sega.jp/event/ Sega had an "event" page which was regularly updated, and in the early 2000s they went to (and hosted) a lot of expositions, often taking games to non-game events. Like their appearance at World PC Expo 2001. https://web.archive.org/web/20040417081955/http://sega.jp/event/re_backnumber.html It's when you read Sega hosted a tournament for Britney's Dance Beat that you realise how much we're missing. Eggman killed live on stage. Wakey wakey, Retro. Mario came to congratulate Sonic on the release of Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Sonic Advance. I feel like I should have known this. Absorb etc.
I was seeing the term "Movic" come up a lot, so I went to see what it was. And it's a Japanese company that makes anime-related merchandise, some of it Sega related oh for the love of Because there weren't enough types of collectable card, here's another one. "Laminated Card", or "Lamica", and oh look Sakura Taisen. I suppose I should have expected this, but another tedious thing to keep track of at some point. Think of the trees. And we can't put Xbox games on disc.
Don't know if this was already known about or not, but Sega GameWorks service website which includes manuals etc.
I know this is probably hopeless, but does anyone have the second page archived from this Sega Creators interview with the late Yoshitaka Tamaki? http://web.archive.org/web/20150828015027/https://sega.jp/fb/creators/vol_17/1.html Not getting a proper backup of these interviews is one of my biggest regrets. I want to translate the Tamaki interview for something I'm working on in his memory.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090223185158/http://sega.jp:80/archive/creators/vol_17/2.html Edit: Also; https://web.archive.org/web/2003112...&UoN=sega.jp/community/creators/vol_17/0.html https://web.archive.org/web/2003112...ega.jp/community/creators/vol_17/1.html&OoN=1 https://web.archive.org/web/2003112...ega.jp/community/creators/vol_17/2.html&OoN=1 https://web.archive.org/web/2003112...ega.jp/community/creators/vol_17/2.html&OoN=2
Thank you. I seem to recall you doing this for me once before, but I completely forgot about those other domains.
Well that's a relief. I hated the fact I had to update the wiki page while saying that the second part was lost. Interview was from 2003.
No worries, unfortunately I couldn't find the images archived, but at least the text is still there, which is obviously the main thing. Those interviews should also be hosted on the wiki. Edit: Here's the original link with some images saved; https://web.archive.org/web/20030826085137/http://www.sega.jp:80/community/creators/vol_17/2.html Edit 2: Another mirror with one more missing image; https://web.archive.org/web/20031222234216/http://www.sega.co.jp:80/community/creators/vol_17/2.html
Ah, you must be the one who helped Gryson before :p So the only page which was missing from the sega.jp/community/creators archive was Vol_28/2 which was mirrored here. I might combine the various mirrors and host them on my site.
An undocumented game. Kinda sorta maybe. I noticed that Sega took a game called "RF Online" to a couple of Tokyo Game Shows. It's a South Korean fantasy MMORPG - the sort I don't care much about, and was apparently published and operated in Japan by Sega. It never saw a physical release, and Sega only ran the service in Japan between 2005 and 2007 before handing over the reigns. The thing died completely in 2018. It was handled in other parts of the world, by different companies (Codemasters of all people ran it in the US and Europe). It looks like Sega gave it a theme song, but likely buried all knowledge of its existence after the rights passed on, hence why it alluded us until now.
Yeah that theme song was composed by Tsuyoshi Kaneko, a freelancer who'd already worked with Sega before on Segagaga, Sega Moba and Astro Boy: Omega Factor and had a lot of other Sega projects afterwards. The theme song had a lot of releases, but mainly on compilation albums related to the famous singer Lia (she sang for Shining Hearts and Shining Blade later). The booklet for The Force Of Love / Lia sings for RF online (scan from VGMdb) also mentions several SEGA people involved. Producers Keishi Iwahara (can't find any info on them) and Hideyo Ikeda (has credits on the Shenmue games) Special thanks to Yoshihiro Ito (probably got in contact with Kaneko as they knew each other through Sega Moba) Executive producer Mitsuhiro Someya (product management on Phantasy Star Online: Blue Burst). Someya's mention definitely makes sense, since PSO's also an MMORPG. Hard to say since I don't know many slated developers, but I wonder if Hideyo Ikeda and by extension Keishi Iwahara were part of DigitalRex/AM Plus and there was some people crossover from Shenmue Online.
I'm jumping around a bit Up until 2020 there was a bi-annual even in Japan, "Jisedai World Hobby Fair" (WHF) which showcased new toys and hobbies in various Japanese cities. Sega went to a bunch of them in the early 2000s - it was like a more child-friendly TGS, and I've been adding pages to Sega Retro. Some of the games being showcased weren't complete, meaning there are probably weird builds of Sonic games to discover, though the low resolution photos online makes it difficult to spot any differences with final versions. Though I did find this this: Here's a game that was never released in this form: "Advance Columns", or just "Columns" for the Game Boy Advance, seen at the 14th fair in June 2001. And it sure looks like Columns - they've borrowed the logo from Columns '97 to get the message across, but yeah, Columns.... except it's missing something. Following this event, Sega added children to the game and called it Columns Crown. Did it make the game better? Uh... erm... uh. Interesting kiosks too. If you thought there was a GameCube with a Game Boy Player hiding in that mysteriously locked black box, guess again - this event pre-dates the console, and the Game Boy Player didn't ship until 2003. Bespoke hardware!
