Shorts - Hatcher & SMC for PC · Home division profits

[big_smile]

Sega Europe announce Billy Hatcher and Mega Collection for PC
PC ports due at the end of March

With sales of Sonic Mega Collection Plus and Billy Hatcher being higher in Europe in comparison to other territories, Sega Europe have announced that PC ports of both games will be released on March 31st.

At the moment, it isn’t clear if any extras will be added or if the games will appear outside of Europe.

Sega’s press release can be found here.

Sega’s home division makes a profit
Success partly attributed to overseas sales of Shadow

The home division of Sega Sammy managed to post a profit of $18.5 million this year, which is a considerable improvement on the losses of $42 million made last year. The success has partly been attributed to the western sales of Shadow the Hedgehog and various other Sonic titles.

As a whole, Sega Sammy seems to be in good financial health even though its Pachinko and Pachislot operation, which represents the largest division of the company, suffered a decline in profits.

The facts and figures that make up the full report are discussed at Gamepsot.

[Zeta]

I had a nightmare last night where a horrible entity consumed my body and forced me to purchase and play Shadow the Hedgehog.

[Delphine]

Oh crap, you made fun of Shadow! Quick, run, before j-man finds out!

[plasticwingsband]

shadow is gay lol

[The Doc]

If you ask me, the bad press Shadow got was just a WEE bit exaggerated.

I'm not saying it was 10/10. Not even fucking close. But just a teeny-tiny microscopic bit.

I mean, yeah, I completely understand why people hate the game. After all, the ending was more retarded than George Bush at a Trekkie convention. But seeing as how I'm easily amused, I did see some good in it.

In particular, the music. I got a real kick out of it. I'm always entertained by Senoue and Gioeli, and when you combine that with Powerman 5000, I'm gonna enjoy the fuck out of it. Of course, the voice acting doesn't count in that, which was just plain motherfucking BAD. Huge mistake replacing the Adventure folk, especially David Humphrey, who captured Shadow PERFECTLY in SA2 and Heroes. That damn pansy-ass Sonic X Shadow voice...I'm not saying he's bad or anything; I'm saying Bobcat Goldthwait could have probably done better.

It's unfortunate that the good and bad of the game are at the extreme ends of "Good" and "Bad," and there's (virtually) nothing in the game that is average or even falls under the category of "Thumbs in the middle, leaning up." It was either good or bad.

Also, if you look at it as just a game and not as a Sonic fan (hard for some of us, myself included), you could probably get some perverse enjoyment out of it. Besides, it's got 326 different ways to play. The replayability's up there.

I'm not saying this game is down there with the likes of Night Trap or E.T., but I'm not saying give it Game of the Year either. I'm just saying, it's more of a 2/10 than a 1/10 because there was at least ONE positive thing that came out of it.

[j-man]

Oh crap, you made fun of Shadow! Quick, run, before j-man finds out!

RAAAAAAAARR

[Brazillian Cara]

From what I played, I can easily say that it isn't THAT bad. But I wasn't going to buy it for more than $20. But after reading the script in Gamefaqs (the only thing I was caring about, and it made me partially satisfied), I decided not to buy it at all. Well, more money to buy a PSP.

[Omni Hunter]

I'm not too sure about my PSP anymore, all I have is WipEout Pure.
Every time I go to HMV or Virgin I go to the PSP section but never see any games I'd like to get.
That said, I have the same problem with all consoles now.

[Light Speed]

Yeah, I've noticed we've been on a pretty long good game shortage latelly. Sure we get the occasional good game, but usually around Christmas time theres like 10 games I want. This year I think the only actual new game I bought during that period was Two Thrones. I figure it's just because we are in a transition period though. Oh and yeah, the PSP seems kind of useless to me. Everyone I know that has one, something like three people, loved it for the first week or two, now never really use it. Even the guy that used Homebrew or whatever is trying to find someone to buy it off him.

[Delphine]

That said, I have the same problem with all consoles now.

Ditto. Recently I've just been buying older games that I never got around to picking up. The last game I bought close to the release date was We Love Katamari.

[Double-S-]

Next generation limbo. The gap when developers haved stopped making games for the last generation and haven't yet optimized the process for the new technology.

It's been like this since what, summer?

[Omni Hunter]

Yeah, I want to get Twilight Princess when it comes out but I'm not sure if I should get the Gamecube version or wait till transition is over and get the Revolution version.

[Light Speed]

I think I'm gonna snatch up whatever comes first. We'll see what else is out at the time though, I might wait.

[Frieza2000]

Revolution is backwards compatable with Gamecube disks. There won't be a second version.

[Light Speed]

So they are going to program the ability to use the new controller into the GameCube game?

[Kishi]

Some UK magazine speculated that they would, which caused such a commotion that a Nintendo representative had to come out and state specifically that there was no truth behind the assumption.

[Frieza2000]

Don't tell me you've forgotten about this:



How else would the backwards compatibility work?

[Light Speed]

Well, you won't even be able to use the GameCube discs with the Revolution assuming the pictures of the console are actually going to be what the system looks like. You can't slide a small sized disc like the GameCubes into a drive like that.

[Kishi]

Don't tell me you've forgotten about this:



How else would the backwards compatibility work?

That's just an amateur mock-up, although there is supposed to be some kind of "shell" to turn the standard Revolution controller into something more conventional. But even without the shell, the Revolution takes normal GameCube controllers.

[Light Speed]

Besides, Nintendo said that Twilight Princess was going to be able to use the Revolution remote controller. I my guess is they are going to have to re-release it on the Revolution.

[Kishi]

Actually they've <a href="http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5954">denied it</a>.

[James McGeachie]

But the more recent Reggie interview pretty much reconfirms it. Their "denial" was nothing of the sort anyway, they didn't outright deny it, they just said it was a "rumour", which in this business, can make something even more likely to be true.

EGM: Speaking of Zelda, best-case scenario, it's a few months away from the Revolution launch, worst case scenario is it's coming out at the same time. Is there ever a point where you believe that it would be better to switch it over to Revolution? Or does it not matter, since the Revolution will be backward compatible with Cube games?

Reggie: Exactly. I think that our senior management has made it very clear that bringing Zelda: Twilight Princess out on GameCube is important, that we want to satisfy the GameCube fan base and have it be on that system. You've said the obvious, which is that [because] Revolution's backward compatible, it will almost effectively be a launch title for Revolution. The trick will be what makes it special to play on Revolution, and to the extent that we could create something like that, boy, wouldn't that be fantastic? Certainly one of the things that I would love to see is something that makes Zelda, when it's played on Revolution, do something magical. And I think that any Nintendo fan would love to see that.

Basically, Twilight Princess will have a control method that uses the Revolution controller (and no I obviously don't mean the controller shell), they're just not going to outright say it yet because they were probably trying to keep a lid on it until E3, or didn't want to give anyone the misconception it was now a Revolution title.

[Kishi]

That still sounds pretty hypothetical, and Reggie is, after all, a marketing guy. It'll be great if it pans out, though.

[The Doc]

All that is is a GameCube/Dreamcast controller hybrid. Hybrids are huge these days. Hell, there are Hot Pocket/hoagie hybrids now.

[Light Speed]

I still don't get how they can release a game on GameCube and expect us to play it on the Revolution. You won't be able to stick the mini GameCube disc into a Revolution, so they are going to have to release a Revolution version on a Revolution disc, which is why waiting might be a good idea.