¿Podrías postear también el texto original en inglés? Es que la traducción made in Babelfish como que se hace bastante plomazo leerla.
Sin problema
I can't be sure about Sega-specific non-disclosure agreements, though Capcom's still actively pursuing any leads to reclaim copies of the Biohazard 2 prototype (AKA Resident Evil 1.5) and that was from the late Saturn era so maybe it's possible there are systems in place to keep a lid on details about the 32-bit versions of Virtua Fighter 3 and Shenmue getting out.
For those who've not been following the Biohazard 2 situation, a well-known collector/hoarder bought one of the last builds from right under the fan community's nose a few years back and has since made it his personal mission to continue rubbing our noses in what could have been. However, there is some hope - not how I mentioned there are possible more complete builds in circulation...
While other copies are confirmed to be out there, it's unlikely we'll ever see any of these because of Capcom keeping a very close eye on things. The official view is that owning such discs (which mostly came from magazines who for whatever reason didn't return their preview code) remains an act of theft, and if any revision ever leaked Capcom would be able to trace those responsible, pursuing legal action without much hesitation.
Nothing would please me greater than to reveal the sources of my information regarding various prototypes I've discussed in the past, but the truth is that it's not my place to make public the names of any contacts. In fact, doing so may jeopardise any future communications I have with these people, and as someone who's hoping to further their career in the world of journalism I'd rather not go around burning bridges.
For several years now I've build trust with some major names, including a few journalists and Sega insiders who've all been genuinely impressed with my achievements. I don't want to reveal too much about the long-promised Saturn-related project I've been working on, because in all honesty I want nothing more than for the initial launch to be as jaw-dropping as possible!
As I've mentioned before, a lucky few have already seen very early samples of my work, but I don't want to make a habit of revealing too much too soon. Therefore, as with my inability to give too much away about my sources, I can only hope that you will understand the reasons why I won't be saying a lot about "the project" over and over. Besides, I'd rather not tease you all more than I have to.
Returning to the subject of sources for a moment, apart from myself does anyone know of another place you can read about the exact cancellation date for Saturn VF3? I'm sure that Sam Pettus, the author of the SegaBase editorials, was bombarded for an answer to this very question. Despite this, he's remained quiet and been respected as a result, even though he isn't really that active anymore.
Also, who remembers what happened to the editor of SegaWeb as a result of his popular site? Now he runs a professional multiplatform news resource, with various connections to Sega and other companies. I'm sure he wouldn't have reached this without having to maintain agreements, keep secrets and remain trustworthy when a lesser person would drop others in the proverbial.
Looking around, I don't sense any Sega ninjas present here, so I guess it wouldn't be too much of a big deal if I threw you all a few bones. For starters, back in the day I would have frequent conversations online with someone claiming to be a Sega insider who even posted on various sites anonymously (or at least his identity was never correctly guessed at the many places I saw him visit, unlike more recent Sega insiders).
Considering the fact he often mentioned having direct access to such names as Mark Maslowicz, Andy Mee and even Rich Leadbetter, there's no doubt in my mind that he genuinely was a member of personnel at Sega Europe. Apart from the people he would often mention, there was also plenty of talk about abandoned hardware concepts that were barely covered by websites or magazines. Eclipse, anyone? Predictably, the deal with such discussions was that notes were not to be taken.
After a while this source ran dry, and while I never got a definitive answer as to why, it did finally get back to me that he was possibly laid off during the major corporate reshuffle that saw many department heads leave along with the source code for various games, as suggested in earlier posts. Whatever happened, my intuition meant other roads were always open to me.
Around the time of AM2 releasing the Shenmue Saturn Version footage, I recall someone at a more technically-minded message board talking about how certain notable programmers had been shown a few impressive-looking unreleased games, including VF3 and a racing tech demo using the Sega Graphics Library that ran at 60 frames per second, which is quite impressive when you bear in mind no commercial racer ever went beyond 30fps!
I set myself a target of making contact with such programmers, first deciding who everyone thought would be worthy of such praise. Months passed with no luck, until I managed to track down a few of the former members at Lobotomy Software plus the various teams working under Scavenger, such as Zyrinx, Lemon and Fetus. Of those I secured interviews with, a few details seemed to be repeated...
Sega Europe had a long history of close links to the company's Japanese offices, with early builds of many games being shown there long before the media had any knowledge of their existence. For example, both Daytona USA Championship Circuit Edition and The House Of The Dead were being demonstrated in this way.
In addition to commercial projects, it filtered through to me that Sega Europe also had in its possession the complete second revision of Saturn VF3, which it continued to show long after the game had been officially cancelled and superceded by Genki's conversion for the Dreamcast. Also, readers of SSM will already know all about the many tech demos that were floating around just after the Dreamcast's unveiling, with Core Design's amazing SCUD Race treatment one of the better-known cases.
Before I go on any further, I'll take this opportunity to mention just a few of the other tech demos that were confirmed as being in Sega Europe's possession around this period. The AM2 and Team Andromeda collaboration dubbed Tower of Babel was one, and another was Future City - both of these were produced in a matter of days using incomplete Katana development systems!
Another batch of similar tech demos I seem to recall from this time were the four tests shown at the 1998 E3, which I believe were created by Sega of America. Screenshots were featured in SSM, but what the EMAP guys didn't know is that these rather basic scenes were (according to one of my many sources, at least) built using the original US-led Black Belt hardware configuration. At the last minute, they ported over their work via PC workstations to use PowerVR2 architecture as opposed to the 3DFX chipset their console pitch had originally favoured. Anyway, I'm going way off-topic as usual...
Of the many programmers I managed to contact, a few names kept coming up over and over. Due to the obvious language barrier I wasn't able to go any further myself, but thanks to the kindness of a former designer with a third party Sega affiliate (whose previous employer was none other than Yuzo Koshiro and his wife at Ancient in Japan!), I was given the opportunity to ask a few questions to Keiji Okayasu.
AM2 worshippers will know that it was Okayasu who led the Saturn conversions of Daytona USA and the Virtua Fighter games, including the mythical third game in that series. He was also heavily involved with the coding side of Shenmue for the Saturn, but as with VF3 he couldn't give much information because of Yu Suzuki insisting this whole chapter of AM2's history be pasted over due to how management treated the once-highly-regarded development team.
In a similar fate to his superior, Okayasu was forced down from his pedestal following the Saturn VF3/Shenmue debacle, later jumping ship entirely around the point it was known that Sega was to be the victim of a hostile takeover from Sammy that led to the whole work environment changing from a creative one to a more business-minded setting. Suzuki's decision to stay at Sega saw him undermined to a point where even the VF series was now being produced without his authority.
Through an interpreter, I also managed to direct a few questions in the direction of Toru Kujirai, who many of you will recognise from his work on the console versions of Galaxy Force II, Virtual On and Sega Touring Car while the lead programmer at CSK Research Institute. Ironically, he later joined AM2 to contribute extensively on post-Dreamcast Virtua Fighter sequels.
Understandably, details from both of these were sometimes clouded by time, but for the majority I was able to fill in a few blanks and find a new source to backup what the likes of SegaBase had been exclusively telling the world for years before. I realise that many of you will probably be exhausted already from another one of my trademark longer-than-average posts, but you did kind of ask and I'm not the kind of person to restrict your access to answers where I can help it.
To conclude, it's difficult as someone with experience in the journalism industry because my professional work so far hasn't really involved videogaming, even though it's clear I've spent a lot of time researching this field and would love nothing more than to take this enthusiasm further. On the other hand, is there really much demand for a Saturn-era Sega magazine? There are certainly plenty of stories left to tell, but apart from a regular column for something like RetroGamer is there a future?
In other words, my only choice (until "that project" is finally ready to be unveiled) for now is to share with you what I can and hopefully raise my profile to a point where new avenues may open up to me in the future. After all, it's clear I'm doing this for the love of the subject matter and not any financial gain, or I'd have knocked together some book on the cheap and sold a few copies years back!
As always, thank you for your continued patience, and I look foward to some constructive discussion - why else do you think I choose to call this place home (well, along with Assembler and previously SegaFans)? On that note, does anyone know if any more of the old SegaFans regulars are posting here under new screen names other than just Tempest and myself?
P.S. I’m not one to boast, but does anyone think there’s a possibility the reason I’m having to remain so cryptic on certain subjects is because I may be in the possession of a few prototypes myself? They’re nothing comparable with Biohazard 1.5 or Saturn VF3, but I don’t want to ruin the chance of greater things happening in the future as they’re still quite good and rather valuable to have for now. By using their smoke and mirror techniques I hope to ingratiate myself further with the “cloak and dagger“ types.
Read more:
http://segasaturngroup.proboards.co...2#ixzz17MFZnOd3
Re: Proyecto Conjunto
