General Questions and Information Thread

doc eggfan · Oct 6, 2013

From Kerry Thornley's introduction of the 5th ed. of the Principia Discordia c. 1991

With the help of a Chaosopher's Stone I found the Goddess Eris Discordia in my pineal gland (on Cosmic Channel Number Five) and ever since I have known the answers to all the mysteries of metaphysics, metamystics, metamorhpics, metanoiacs and metaphorics. (Before that I didn't even know how to install a plastic trash can liner so it wouldn't fall down inside the first time somebody threw away garbage.)
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Co-incidence?

Black Squirrel · Oct 7, 2013

So here's something painful. Apparently our friends at Pony Canyon thought it might be fun to shove game footage on super obscure video formats. You thought the Video CD was bad, check out the CD Video!

I ran into this accidentally and have mirrored the two Sega videos. Pony Canyon also released a LaserDisc/VHS which covers these games... don't know if it's the same footage. It's pretty dull footage regardless, but I mirrored it on YouTube for preservation's sake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaOQBDcWka0
"Power Drift"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL75hUoaKQI
"Mega Drive Special"

maybe there are differences? I dunno.

Black Squirrel · Oct 14, 2013

http://segaretro.org/File:IwdTb_VHS_JP_Box.jpg

Sega put a 1957 West German film on VHS in Japan. Because this is the sorts of things Sega does.

I suspect there might be more, but I don't know where to begin to find them - anyone else want to take up the task?

Dark Sonic · Nov 6, 2013

Sega's rigging their stuff

http://nypost.com/2013/11/02/segas-key-master-game-is-rigged-lawsuit/

Aerosol · Nov 6, 2013

They just got caught. I'm sure 99% of those things are rigged.

Black Squirrel · Nov 12, 2013

This is worth highlighting even if nobody acts on it, because Wikipedia has been poisoning the world with its made-up facts

http://segaretro.org/Template:SegaDevs

I've been sifting through the various departments of Sega, digging around with webarchive for things of value. I'm not really done, but if there's ever to be a desperately sad version of QI where all the questions are about Sega companies, here's some claxons

- Lots of the "AMx became y" stories are wrong. Sonic Team was never AM8. Amusement Vision was never AM4.

- AM2 weren't called AM2 until 1990, meaning Hang-On, OutRun, Space Harrier, After Burner etc. were not technically made by AM2.

- AM4 made cabinets. Like, all the damn cabinets. Then they became Sega Mechatronics... and Mechatronics made all the damn cabinets

- AM7 and 8 didn't show up under those names until the latter half of the 90s and barely did anything

- Most of the made-for-console stuff was handled by CS Teams, not AM teams.

- AM5 made large scale attractions, e.g. things like SegaWorld, but probably not SegaWorld (more like Joypolis in Japan)

Andlabs · Nov 13, 2013

I don't presently have much additional information beyond what I already put down in that template when I started expanding it to include the non-AM/CS studios but I can continue putting together staff lists and code comparisons if needed.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/665725/sega_aliases.txt This will probably help; someone's attempt to figure out who is who

While we are at it something I found out a few weeks ago: Sonic! and Camelot were separate studios; both are credited on Shining Force III and I assume Camelot bought Sonic! shortly after that was finished

Andlabs · Nov 15, 2013

Okay so here's what I got so far:

Sega of Japan had that one sole R&D department but they had it back in 1982. Games developed:
- Super Locomotive
- Zoom 909/Buck Rogers
- Star Jacker
- Up'n Down
- Regulus
Likely developed; these use hi score table abbreviations so we will have to compare to the list below:
- Astron Belt
- Galaxy Ranger
Also, GP World was the first game that had the classic Sega diagnostic menu's CONTINUOUS/INDIVIDUAL switch, so I assume this is where everything started to branch off.

Staffers:
- Masatoshi Mizunaga: programmer, also designed copy protection; worked on all the above games except Regulus (and likely GP World; need to check again). He likely was not happy in the end.
- Hideki Ishikawa: programmer on Buck Rogers and Regulus
- Hiroshi Nakayama, Katsuya Kazihara, Katsunori Kanazawa: programmers on Star Jacker
- Eiro Nagata, Shozo Takihi: designers on Star Jacker
- Hideo Kume: sound producer on Star Jacker
- Hideki Sato, Takaya Ida: credited on Star Jacker as "hard work" and "creator", respectively
- Syuichi(Shuichi) Katagi: did copy protection on Regulus instead of Mizunaga
- "FUKUMURA" (identity unknown): credited on Super Locomotive

In addition, SubRoc-3D has the two names M. Yoshii and M. Totsuka, which don't match any of the above. Now up to 1984; will continue later.

Also Black Squirrel: how did you confirm that Sonic Team and Amusement Vision were not AM8 and AM4, respectively; just out fo curioisty? THanks.

muteKi · Nov 15, 2013

http://segaretro.org/Masaharu_Yoshii perhaps?

Black Squirrel · Nov 15, 2013

I'll slightly back down from the Sonic Team one - the old Sonic Team website mentions AM8... but the UK Official Sega Saturn magazine explicitly says that AM8 was a re-branded AM Annex, so I'm confused - maybe there were two? (the Annex branch pretty much became Sega Rosso)

AM4 is mentioned all the time in 90s Sega magazines and are continuously credited as cabinet designers. The archived Sega Mechatronics website says Mechatronics (which delt with cabinets) used to be known as AM4. I've seen no real evidence to suggest the AM4 branch ever made video games, while Amusement Vision clearly did

I think Amusement Vision was a new studio opened in 2000 - they put AM2's Toshihiro Nagoshi in charge and started working on new things like Super Monkey Ball.

I'll slightly back down from the Sonic Team one - the old Sonic Team website mentions AM8... but the UK Official Sega Saturn magazine explicitly says that AM8 was a re-branded AM Annex, so I'm confused - maybe there were two? (the Annex branch pretty much became Sega Rosso)

AM4 is mentioned all the time in 90s Sega magazines and are continuously credited as cabinet designers. The archived Sega Mechatronics website says Mechatronics (which delt with cabinets) used to be known as AM4. I've seen no real evidence to suggest the AM4 branch ever made video games, while Amusement Vision clearly did

I think Amusement Vision was a new studio opened in 2000 - they put AM2's Toshihiro Nagoshi in charge and started working on new things like Super Monkey Ball.

Also from the sounds of things there were only about 10 people working in the consumer R&D department of Sega in 1984/1985. You might be able to name them all - Yuji Naka and Hisao Oguchi were two.

Andlabs · Nov 18, 2013

Hey guys, remember this?

The now famous text that's shown in Space Harrier that says "MANY MORE BATTLE SCENES WILL SOON BE AVAILABLE" that the game puts up when you lose a life? After starting to check the 16-ibit games, I'm thinking this text isn't supposed to be there...

Alex Kidd: The Lost Stars has this

$$ CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ]] THIS IS SEGA;S LATEST GAME<WHICH ]]IS SCHEDULED TO BE RELEASED IN THE]]NEAR FUTURE= ]] DUE TO ITS CONFIDENTIAL NATURE< ]]SEVERAL SELECTED SCENES ARE AVAIL>]]ABLE FOR VIEWING= ]] WE ARE SURE THAT YOU;LL FIND THE ]]ALEX KIDD<WITH ITS MANY INNOVATIVE]]FEATURES<WELL WORTH WAITING FOR=
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Fantasy Zone has this (!)

SORRY FOR THE LIMITED//NUMBER OF SCENES.// THE FINAL VERSION OF//THE SEGA FANTASY ZONE//WILL INCLUDE MANY MORE//EXCITING SCENES!]
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It's only two examples for now but heh

None of these are actually used anywhere (though the coding for them might still exist); they are remnants of earlier demonstration versions (possibly location tests?) where you could only play through a fraction of the game. I'm guessing the same thing happened with Space Harrier, but they forgot to chop the message from the final game (and still forgot to in the alternate revision). (Possible alternate theory: they intentionally left the text there and moved it to where it is in the final game...?)

Black Squirrel · Nov 30, 2013

Oh wow

http://www.digitpress.com/faq/vcsalt/cc_vcsalt.htm#48hrs

Sega planned to publish an Atari 2600 adaption of Airplane! (along with a bazillion other things, apparently)

Shadow Hog · Nov 30, 2013

Sega wanted to make a Wrath of Khan adaptation, huh? That'd have been interesting to see.

Black Squirrel · Dec 5, 2013

Something to look up at some stage

Apparently there was a deal around 1995-ish which saw Sega and SNK "swap" games, the idea being some Neo Geo games would be brought to the Saturn, and more crucially, some Sega-published Saturn games would be ported to the Neo Geo. The Saturn got a bunch of Neo Geo titles over the next few years (Fatal Fury 3 and KoF 95 were the first two)... but the Neo Geo got no Sega titles at all. I'm wondering if any ports were actually started - SNK's Takashi Kaga seemed pretty confident it would be a two-way deal, but his comments came before actual development on these things had begun.

Meat Miracle · Dec 6, 2013

The Playstation also got a bunch of SNK games and so did the SNES so I don't think there was much to it.

Pirate Dragon · Dec 14, 2013

Apparently a Sega entertainment centre was installed in Euro Disney since day one. It seems to be the first Sega arcade in Europe (Euro Disney opened 1992/04/12). Does anyone know the name of it? According to this it was a "Segaworld" venue, but they also state the same for the Marseille operation, which was actually called "SegaFolies" (see the Various magazine scans thread). Googling Segaworld Euro Disney doesn't give any useful results.

Pirate Dragon · Dec 21, 2013

Is there a simpler way to dump Saturn discs than this? Would like to dump this, which AFAIK hasn't been dumped yet.

Meat Miracle · Dec 21, 2013

Pirate Dragon said:

Is there a simpler way to dump Saturn discs than this? Would like to dump this, which AFAIK hasn't been dumped yet.
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Redump guide is shit and it's a good way for making bad dumps or even ruining your discs/drive.

If you just want a proper bin/cue, the best app used to be CDRWin but the original version is now gone and replaced by a shit update by a different company.

Simplest and least obtrusive app for ripping would be CD Manipulator.
http://www.storeroom.info/cdm/
Just click on "read from cd to image", select Single Session Mode from the dropdown, and under extended settings, enable sub code analysis.

Alternatively if you want an "as-good-as-it-is-possible" rip, I'll buy the disc from you. Do note that it is worth about $5 max, if it is in mint condition.

Pirate Dragon · Dec 21, 2013

I've obtained CDRWIN 3.9K (which I believe is the original version), but I don't think it supports my drive;

Following the instructions for CD Manipulator I get these errors;

Meat Miracle · Dec 22, 2013

Subcode analysis is not possible on all drives. Just read the disc without it - you'll only lose pregap info.
The last version of the original CDRWin was 4.0H which is 5 years newer than 3.9K, so it possibly supports your drive better. However, the main issue nowadays is new chipsets and such which old applications might not be compatible with (the problem can be somewhat alleviated by using different controllers, AHCI/IDE modes, or chipset drivers, but it is a pain to do that just to read a disc).

My offer to buy stands, I do rips for Trurip, which is the most accurate ripping that is possible without resorting to drive-breaking tricks.

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