Sonic Spinball prototype origins?

Given that we have at least one person who claims to have remembered playing a Spinball cartridge with the old music back in the day, I want to caution against pooh-poohing anyone's memories.

 

Not only him. A close friend of mine, from Chile, had that version as a kid too. He always jokes about his surprise the first time he emulated Spinball and the title theme was drossin's, instead of the Dreams come true theme he remembered.

 

I tend to agree. A couple weeks ago, SSNTails was saying how he remembered the DCT theme song when playing Spinball as a kid. Moreover, he's an American, so you can't point to sketchy bootlegs. There may be other explanations to consider. Plus, if it's a prototype, it's still a complete game nonetheless, which is unusual for a prototype (though not unheard of as seen with the Kid Chameleon prototype we have where exactly two tiny changes were made that a vast majority of folks would never notice anyway).

 

I don't want to completely shut down all these memories that are surfacing, but linking back to that Bad Influence clip with the tune definitely, even if briefly audible at one point... do we think it's possible that it was a review copy of it for the media that got out?

I can easily imagine a journo or someone else involved leaking it (though not necessarily Andy Crane, or even Violet Berlin).

 

evilhamwizard posted this a while back, indicating it was possibly one of the ROMs that SNEAKERS pulled off Sega of America's BBS back in 1993.

 

...and I linked above to a reply to that thread, saying that someone remembers playing that build on an actual cartridge.

I suspect this is the same sort of thing as Sonic 2 REV00, in which the later version is the more common version.

Funnily enough, I actually discovered that Knuckles the Echidna in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (prototype 0612) is nearly identical to the final version of Knuckles in Sonic 2, at least as far as the UPMEM chip is concerned; the only differences involve a single-character bugfix involving an incorrect register and some invisible collision objects being adjusted for Casino Night Zone. The 0618 build is a perfect match for the final.

 

I don't think you should simply dismiss years worth of people around the internet saying they remember the alternate music in their version of the game. It's not as though it's limited to one or two people. That in of itself is a bias. I think the more prudent thing would be to consider this inconclusive for the time being. None of us have actually inquired about those cartridges that people played on. This thing may very well have been shipped, accident or not.

 

Still considering all possibilities here... there's another example

Dodgy Kebab's old massive Sega UK television appearance tape has a few clips from The Big Breakfast's regular video games feature, Master Blaster. And guess what popped up on it, old music intact, at least one month prior to release?

Chris Evans makes the moderately-sized claim that Spinball has never been seen on TV before. I don't know how true that claim actually is. It's not going to be easy to verify an exact date either - even if Channel 4 had a listings project like Genome, it probably wouldn't ever be detailed enough to note the games featured in each Big Breakfast episode from that time.

 

Screenocean have at least some episodes of it up on their site, but none from the exact period we're specifically looking for to see Spinball here. And they've all got fat watermarks at best, or are unavailable to stream altogether at worst, unless you're willing to (understandably) cough up the cash.

Side note - I clocked a while ago that site had a lot of other interesting things, like assorted episodes of Gamesmaster. Their succinctly brief description of the infamous Mario 64 episode made me smile:

 

I disagree. People think they remember all sorts of stuff, when their memories have been rebuilt over the years to what they think they remember. What’s funny is that for the amount of people saying they remember it (actually, a few, but not that many as far as I know?) there’s no cartridge evidence whatsoever. There’s a whole wide world of collectors and connected retro gaming scenes out there but not one person has a copy to prove it?

Until there’s actual evidence, take what people think they remember with a pinch of salt, especially when there’s layers of information that go with the memory (I.e. I was young, someone else rented it, I don’t remember the time exactly, I just remember the final music sounding odd, etc.)

 

Especially since the track in question is a remix of the Sonic 1 theme, very easy for memory mix ups to happen. That being said, it'd probably be fine for some acknowledgement on the Wiki as long as it's pointed out that its just hearsay.

 

Sort of reminds me of this fiasco.



People swore by the claim that something that never happened, happened, to the point that everyone just accepted it as fact. Hell, I believed it.

 

I also think the fact that the ROM was classified as an alt ROM and not a prototype even since the GoodGEN days also contributed to people being confused with their memories.

If the game was mastered and pressed with the music, Sega definitely would've made that classification by the revision number in the ROM itself, but there's only been US REV00 and PAL REV00. I did a little bit of research, and the Sonic Spinball carts in the US were manufactured in two weeks in 1993. The mask ROMs were manufactured in the 42nd (Oct. 18, 1993 ~ Oct. 24, 1993) and 43rd weeks in 1993 (Oct. 25, 1993 ~ Oct. 31, 1993). I think there were carts manufactured in 1996, but based on available pictures of the mask ROM, these were the earliest manufacture dates I could confirm. If there was an earlier revision with the music, it would've had to have been manufactured sometimes around week 38 (September 20, 1993 ~ September 26, 1993) to week 41 (October 11, 1993 ~ October 17, 1993), since the final US build was made around 1992-09-22, a presumed alternate build with the alternate title theme had to be made no earlier than the 20th to be on the safe side to coincide with the stories. So a "mpr-15753" with a manufacture year and week around 38-41 would be your alternate music cart, if it actually existed (which I doubt).

 

If there is an actual post from 1993 where someone states, "Oh, the music is the DCT theme," that's worth discussing. However, I don't think someone talking about a memory 20-30 years removed is worth much.

 

The world didn't begin 10 years ago, my friend. It seems some folks on here who were present in the older days of the scene have some amnesia, because I remember quite well how numerous people were making the claim ~1999, whenever the ROM became common knowledge. That would be only six years after the game's release.

I'm willing to believe it's more likely a prototype than not. And yes, we all misremember things from time to time. But my main issue is nobody has even made an attempt to properly rule out the "this was accidentally published" scenario in the face of all these claims that go back decades. That's not exactly objective.

Anyway, I don't want to beat a dead bush. I just wanted to add some clarity.

 

1. Please don’t talk to me like I’m 15 lol. Even if I were, I’m just trying to ensure we have a good methodology for the Wiki. We don’t want the barrier of proof to be hearsay.

2. Do we have any records of the posts from 1999? Though, if the ROM was known of prior to the posts it could have given people false memories. If we don’t have documented physical copy, I think acting like it’s real would necessitate having multiple posts from before knowledge came out where the stories match up.

 

1) There's no need to be offended. Nobody's talking down to you or assuming you're 15. I treat you as you are. I'm rhetorical in my first few sentences, slightly tongue-in-cheek. You said 20-30 years ago, I was making the point that people were talking about it long before the last decade. And yes, I'm stating that I was here long before most (but not all) folks here, though I'm certainly not pointing to anyone specifically, but simply giving my own statements the context they deserve.

2) It'd be difficult, but maybe not impossible. I'd have to do some digging when I have time. I have some links saved off that I could look at. But I can say that many of the people commenting at the time didn't know of the ROM prior based on the discussions as I recall them occurring. But then we're relying in MY memory for this, so that's even more reason to look deeper into this.