Great news - things just got complicated. Sega doesn't distribute games in mainland Europe - since 2012 this task has been handled by Koch Media, which recently changed their name to "Plaion". And Plaion has a press server: https://press.kochmedia.com/de/Sega High resolution screenshots, artwork, stock images, videos and written press releases for (potentially) ten years' worth of Sega games. They also distribute in multiple countries - that's just the German site, you'll have to change the language to see other things. Sega already has a press server www.sega-press.com Hivebrain used to keep up with these. I... haven't been keeping up with these. And I don't know if what Plaion has lines up with what Sega has - someone will have to check.
I've got a few questions. 1. How are press releases uploaded? 2. Can I just make up categories like "Press files (Plaion)" and "Lost Judgement press files (Plaion)"? 3. Which file format should I choose? JPG or BMP? MP4 or MPG?
When I've been mirroring things from CDs, I've been shoving all the contents in Category:Press files (except for artwork because the templates invent categories - Category:Artwork by source). That includes press releases in PDF format (I converted .doc/.docx to PDF). And there's also fun things like converting BMP/TIFF/PSD into PNG so the wiki can cope. I would be tempted to make a "Plaion Press Server files" category, but if the contents are on Sega's PressVault, favour those versions. As long as there's some consistency with the names and/or descriptions, so files don't get lost and we know where they're from, that should be good enough.
Hm, I can't see what's on Sega's press vault because I don't have an account there. What if I just upload everything for now and we think about the rest later? Sonic Frontiers' files could look something like this: I'd use the dates from the website, and for the categories I could just make up something.
Sounds like a plan Do whatever feels best - something is better than nothing. Though favour BMPs converted to PNGs over JPEGS where possible (but don't convert JPEG to PNG).
I registered a Sega Press account (it takes a couple of days to process, for those interested) - the lossless screenshots seem to be identical between Sega and Plaion, so either source will do. A lot of non-English material is missing from Sega's site, such as stock images: https://press.kochmedia.com/fr-BE/Lost-Judgment-14717#?tab=Packshots-2 https://press.kochmedia.com/de/Lost-Judgment#?tab=Verpackungen-2 Sega doesn't provide these, for example. It may be safe to say that Plaion, in general, has more content, and given it's easier to access, it's probably a good idea to strip the database for parts. But it is slightly behind the times and doesn't have everything - Sega's press site can fill in the blanks. That being said the volume of content is immense, and I don't think I can devote the time and energy to mirroring it all. For example, there are 400MB+ videos in here - a trailer for every language - it's a lot.
I have found files for Germany, Austria, Benelux, France, Spain, and Switzerland. The other pages look like this: Most files aren't country-specific and just duplicates, but I will have to check in more detail later... Here's what I have so far. Hope I didn't break anything. The videos take forever to download, but we're getting there. The written press releases though, I haven't touched yet.
I've linked up most of the files, though there's a lot I haven't touched: Mainly Atlus things, MP4s, PSDs I can't be bothered to convert, and things we had already. Fundamentally we need more people to jump in, make decisions and gain experience using the wiki. Where do all these Steve Aoki Sonic things go? You decide!
Category:Artwork from Sega Media Portal Something to get you started. I think my personal policy will be "upload things I'm interested in, when I can be bothered". And that probably won't include the 100+ videos for Humankind (which will need to be cross-referenced with the Plaion set). So work together, make the dream come true, etc.
Some things that I've noticed: - Multiple versions for each rating system: The European release of Catherine: Full Body, for example, has three different versions: Catherine_Full_Body_PS4_Packshot_Angled_EU_PEGI.jpg Catherine_Full_Body_PS4_Packshot_Angled_EU_PEGI_USK.jpg Catherine_Full_Body_PS4_Packshot_Angled_EU_USK.jpg This means that we can have at least three different versions for each platform, region, and the way the packshot is portrayed (angled left/right, front/straight, flat). The same goes for videos and promo images. - Thumbnails are separate files: Sometimes there's a "clean" version ("NoBumper") with no text whatsoever. This is so different channels can apply their own logos and designs. - The numeration of some files indicates that there are hundreds of screenshots, but only a handful that were released. If such is the case, I usually stick to the numbering from the original files. I don't renumber them. It's no use. - The soul of a game carries over to the press kit, no doubt about it. At the moment, I'm sifting through Atlus's Plaion page.
Sorry guys for double posting, but just one more thing. You most likely already know this, but there were a lot of pre-released packshots and promo images in general of games that had yet to be rated. They usually look like this: So, uhm... watch out for those?
Oh I do wish people would work with us - we could have known about this three years ago: https://www.vault1541.com/2019/09/youtube-dreamcast-20th-anniversary.html Dreamcast games "Hot Wheels Stunt Track Driver 2" and "Tyco R/C Racing" - completely undocumented. This needs a bit of thought, hence why I haven't uploaded everything straight away. Turns out this was a postcard. That's why I never found it when looking through magazines.
If it's a postcard then there is something on the other side. Also no one is going to work with us when the internet doesn't know we exist. Outside of the occasional odd YouTuber and a random comment simewhere, the only people I've seen reference Sega Retro on the internet are people FROM here. Everyone else uses Wikipedia and calls it a day.
French blister packs. Someone check if we have pics of all these, and crop them from this photo if we don't.
https://archive.org/details/jun-16-95-dts.-7z https://archive.org/details/march-96-dts.-7z https://archive.org/details/june-96-dts.-7z Some Developer Technical Support discs were dumped earlier in the week. I'm not too sure how to handle these, so I... haven't. These (and possibly other things we've not mirrored) were brought to light by Forest of Illusion - well done those people. We almost certainly have some of these documents already, but we won't have the tools, and there's likely loads of miscellenous things we're unaware of. I'd make some headway on this task myself, but at least one of them is Mac formatted, which makes things awkward. Supposedly there's some tools for SGI workstations as well - it's at lot to deal with. I don't know what the story of these discs is - whether this is something the DTS team sent out to developrs monthly, or different revisions of a set of tools, compiled whenever.
Like this thing: https://archive.org/details/SEGADiskBackups I think that we should save all this stuff on Retro CDN before it gets lost...
