Sonic X Shadow Generations thread, movie level out now

The Sonic Twitter put up a post about pre orders for the Switch 2 version and the comments are extremely negative so chances are, if they were willing to listen to fans on something as small as making the Japanese box art a reversable cover, they're going to change their minds on this. Or so I hope.

 

I’ve added my voice to the chorus, but I’m not optimistic. Logistically, adding a reversible cover is much more straightforward and has no financial downside. SEGA’s likely calculated the approach they’re taking will be fiscally successful for them. Hopefully they’re proven wrong if they do commit to this course.

 

Yeah this feels like someone at sega thought they could get away with a port rather than an upgrade to maximize profits. I dont see this changing unfortunately but hey maybe

 

Full price is whatever, it's only half a year old and $50 was a good enough price at release.

Game key card, you're telling me that you can't fit the game on a physical cartridge?

No upgrade, fuck that lmao. I think that's the first game to improve on the Switch 2 but not do an upgrade at all. That's some bullshit.

Sega is easier to pressure on this than Nintendo, but we'll have to see.

 

Full price for a relatively new game you've yet to buy isn't the issue. As you say, the price was reasonable at release.

It's the fact that you can't upgrade and have to buy a whole second copy of the game. Except it's not like we couldn't get an upgrade in theory, because SEGA have said that save files from the S1 version are compatible with the S2 version.

I hoped they had been humbled by the fact that Superstars underperformed according to their own targets.

 

This is so dumb. The amount of people who are buying a Switch 2 and interested enough in SxS to not get it on the Switch they absolutely already own is so incredibly insignificant that I wonder what Sega's thought process here is.

 

SEGA are definitely at fault here, but frankly Nintendo should’ve had a system in place for cross gen games too. Pretty sure stuff like this is built into the PS/Xbox ecosystem

 

If Nintendo can put up Switch 2 upgrades for BOTW and TOTK for ten bucks each, this definitely could've gotten the same treatment.

 

Games that just upgrade performance have free updates. Games like BOTW get new features, but not new content, so they're +$10, while games like Kirby and Mario Party have DLC, so they get +$20. That seems to be the pattern, which is, it's okay. It makes sense at least.

SXSG is a simple performance patch, so that patch should be free, but Sega for some reason did less than that and give us no upgrade whatsoever.

Their arrogance is less Nintendo/Sony's, where it's "you'll buy what we put out no matter the price", it's more "let's see how much we can squeeze out of the customer", so they'll always try these little plays for things that can technically be avoided, like the digital deluxe editions.

I do think CrossWorlds will come out for $50 because of Superstars, but we should definitely prepare for a $70 Sonic game pretty soon.

 

This is a shame and unfortunately not new.
There was a similar case with Yakuza: Like a dragon between last Gen and current Gen consoles.

 

A slip cover is pennies. This would need a dramatic change in Sega's C-Suite decision making. Not saying it's impossible, but any change would likely only benefit future releases.

 

Considering that it's a launch title and the fact that the initial releases of this game came out six months ago, this might have been in development at the same time as those versions but was held in secret until the console was announced.

 

How frequently does SXS generations go on sale both on switch and other platforms.
My suspicion is that they don’t want to “undervalue” the newest game in the series by giving people a cheaper way to get the game which will be essentially the same as the other versions. If it’s on average cheaper to get the game on switch, then you pay a 10 dollar upgrade fee, you might still be getting a discount over just buying the native version.
Idk how true any of this is but it’s just my own guess.

 

I see it going on sale frequently, at least at the retail level around here. Can sometimes find it for $19.99.

 

I could actually forgive charging full price for this game again, IF they had included the entire game on the cart and had an upgrade path available for those who already had the Switch 1 version.

One day SEGA will realize they don't have the clout to come up with extremely anticonsumer decisions and get away with them (Nintendo on the otherhand for all the "DROP THE PRICE" comment spam, Switch 2 still sold out of pre orders extremely fast. Including one I picked up.) But not today.

 

I think it warrants mentioning why so many third parties, including SEGA, are going with game key cards. Switch cards are proprietary tech, and they're more expensive to manufacture than simple blu-ray discs. Additionally, they're available with different storage capacities, with the larger ones inevitably costing more. We saw lots of publishers opt not to put full games on S1 carts and force additional downloads instead:

• Crash and Spyro trilogies only contain one game each, The Spyro Reignited Trilogy only contains the first game, requiring the others to be downloaded.
• Both of the Assassin's Creed collections from Ubisoft only contain a single game and rewrite the others to be downloaded.
• DOOM 2016 only has the single player game on card and needs the multiplayer to be downloaded separately.
• Even Nintendo did it with Bayonetta 1 & 2. Bayonetta 1 is included with all Bayonetta 2 copies, but it has to be downloaded separately (in Japan it actually came on a second card instead). Arguable if this one counts, but I'm mentioning it regardless.
• There are countless more boxed games that only contain a code and no card whatsoever (Lego 2K Drive, Nickelodeon Kart Racers, Just Dance 2023, tons of indie games...)

Each of these releases could have fit on to a single card, but that would have made them more expensive as a larger card would be required. It's always been true that Switch versions often cost £5 to £10 more than their counterparts on other platforms because the carts are so expensive. The "Switch Tax" is AC phenomenon. Game-key cards seem to be Nintendo's way of pacifying publishers who were unhappy about the costs involved. This way they can release their "physical" games and cut down on production costs. It's a win win for them, especially when Switch 2 games will inevitably need to be larger than Switch 1 games.

It's a shitty practice however. Even though game key cards are clearly explained on the boxes, I still think it's pretty deceptive. And that says nothing of how wasteful they are. It's just masses of extra plastic and there's no real product inside, only an access key for the product.

 

Oh they absolutely make sense, but they are indeed so so so wasteful. I hope if this sticks they move the game cards to something smaller, like a giftcard but maybe just a bit larger somehow. Its functionally not that different from just buying the game from the eshop at that point anyways

 

Not quite accurate - although that's true for Spyro (and, indeed, is the reason I never bought it), Crash Bandicoot: N-Sane Trilogy actually has all three games right there on the card.

Side note: I'm still gutted the Switch version of Spyro: Reignited Trilogy never got an updated revision with all the games on the card; from what I understand, at least one other platform got a reprint with no downloads required. I'd have totally picked it up by now if they'd followed suit for the Switch version.

 

The key difference is that you can resell the game key card, which is something people like to brag about with physical editions anyways.

I feel like the better solution to this problem, if they're really not willing to pay out for the higher capacity for a game that'll be far below it, is to at least bundle it with another game physically even if they get seperate (cheaper) eShop releases. Like why not just do a Puyo Puyo Tetris 2 and Shadow Generations bundle? A lot of people would probably be into that.