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March 2004 - Spotlight: Sonic X-Treme
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Hoe



Joined: 28 Mar 2004
Posts: 21

PostPosted: Mon Apr 05, 2004 1:50 pm    Post subject: Re: Flashbacks... Reply with quote

samiam wrote:
I'm going to guess that that is why Sonic Xtreme began its first serious development on PC; the new console would have had video hardware very similar to what they could work with on a PC.


Doubtful.
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samiam



Joined: 02 Apr 2004
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 12:45 am    Post subject: Re: Flashbacks... Reply with quote

Hoe wrote:

Doubtful.


Fine, but when you disagree with an idea, it's usually a good idea to say why. Please explain. I'm always open to new knowlegde ;)
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nixon
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 12:59 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Okay, I'll shoot.

Recent example. The Gameboy Advance. Work was started on games for it long before hardware was finished up. But there were emulator style programs that you could run your code on and then development systems that were partial hardware.

Work on programming a system begins before hardware is finalized, or before it is in an actuall usable form.

True they work probably began on a PC, doing modeling and basic world building code, but to say that because work was done on a PC then this means that the cancelled system was similar to a PC (or at least the video part) is streching it very far. Very far.
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PopaSmear
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 2:41 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixon wrote:
It's always seemed to me that NOJ has always had NOA under its thumb, and letting it trickle out things here and there, but god forbid that it do anything revolutionary on it's own.


This probably has something to do with the whole Father-in-Law, Son-in-Law aspect of Yamauchi and Arakawa's relationship.
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samiam



Joined: 02 Apr 2004
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Tue Apr 06, 2004 4:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixon wrote:

True they work probably began on a PC, doing modeling and basic world building code, but to say that because work was done on a PC then this means that the cancelled system was similar to a PC (or at least the video part) is streching it very far. Very far.


Fair enough, but I'm not pulling that out of thin air. From Mike Wallis's interview:

Quote:
Mr. Wallis: With Sonic Xtreme, it was strange.. because at the time, Sega was looking to do a new system.. so Sonic Xtreme actually first started out as a 32X Game. And then, you know when that system came out and sort of tanked they switched it to... there was an intern system before the Saturn, it was Nvidia technology based... now, a lot of people don't know this because it was just on the drawing board. But Sega had a partnership with Nvidia technologies for their very first RIVA, TNT Card.. Sega was going to make a cartridge based machine to compete with the N64 rather than a CD-ROM based machine. So we had some early techology and Xtreme basically went on THAT platform, it was going to be a launch title. And then Sega of America said "No, We're going to do a Saturn." Well, actually Sega of Japan came over and said "We're not doing that machine, we're doing the Saturn". It was weird because SOA would do their own thing and SOJ would do their own thing and then eventually SOJ would come in and say "No we're gonna do this" so Sega wasted a lot of money and a lot of resources on hardware development and software development for machines that eventually would never see the light of day.


Now, maybe they didn't start development on a PC with the intent of porting code, but I I'll bet they used a similar video card so that they could learn about its capabilities and limitations.
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Hoe



Joined: 28 Mar 2004
Posts: 21

PostPosted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 1:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

nixon wrote:
True they work probably began on a PC, doing modeling and basic world building code, but to say that because work was done on a PC then this means that the cancelled system was similar to a PC (or at least the video part) is streching it very far. Very far.


That was my point. There is no reason to write a program in x86 (assuming it was an x86 computer) and then rewrite it for another cpu simply because the video cards came from the same manufacturer.

You seem to be getting that point now, but innitialy that's not what you said.
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SlyphGlitch



Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 144

PostPosted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 12:07 am    Post subject: SOJ vs SOA Reply with quote

How people here know what the NV2 is? It was suppose to be the original chipset for the Dreamcast using high level surfaces instead of polygons. I wonder if this Riva based system was the Sega 64 my friends kept talking about?

About Nintendo, how many people know of a long lost system that Nintendo almost released instead of the Gamecube? I'll see if I can dig up info on it.
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nateJC



Joined: 08 Nov 2003
Posts: 65
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PostPosted: Fri Apr 09, 2004 3:51 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

http://firingsquad.com/features/nv2/

Read the above article, especially the 2nd page titled "Background."
This is where I'm confused. See, nVidia's line of chips went like this: NV1 -> NV2 -> RIVA, and so on. Sega of Japan (not America) made a US$7M deal with nVidia to tweak the NV1 for use in a video game console. I don't know of SoA ever licensing nVidia to do anything, although they almost had a deal with 3dfx on the Dural project. (Who remembers THAT one?) I think they switched to either Hitachi or NEC before the console tanked. Anyway, I hope that gives someone a clue on this mystery console 'cause I'm stumped.

-n
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Evan



Joined: 17 Mar 2004
Posts: 948

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 4:32 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Watch out, you have been slashdotted. :p

http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/04/22/0229242.shtml?tid=127&tid=186&tid=202
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kap
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Joined: 28 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

If only games.slashdot.org articles were on the front page by default :(

Still fucking cool though. Two slashdottings down, hopefully more to go! :)
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nixon
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Joined: 25 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And I submitted this back when it came out. Nice to see they are paying attention, but still.

*sigh*
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
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Joined: 26 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Heh, I agreed to contribute to one of those guy's books, now he likes me!
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SlyphGlitch



Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 144

PostPosted: Thu Apr 22, 2004 11:54 pm    Post subject: Yeah I've read that Reply with quote

I've read that article before and it's a good read. It would have been interesting to see what version of the Voodoo 2 the Black Belt used. One thing the article doesn't mention is the Voodoo cards are all multi-chip solutions. Also the Voodoo cards didn't get 32-bit textures or 2d acceleration until the Voodoo 4/5 line of chips. The PowerVR had all of these features in a single chip.

Kinda like the Saturn's graphic setup, the Black Belt would have been another multi-chipped oddball setup. The PowerVR 2DC was a much more efficient solution.
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SlyphGlitch



Joined: 01 Apr 2004
Posts: 144

PostPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2004 12:25 am    Post subject: Here it is... Reply with quote

Could you guys do an article about this...
Here's what I could did up...

http://www.winnetmag.com/Article/ArticleID/17783/17783.html

http://www.game-bb.com/gamecube/early_history_of_the_GAMECUBE_343503.html

Wow, the GC had a very long gestation period.
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Tongueman



Joined: 27 Feb 2004
Posts: 631
Location: Japan

PostPosted: Fri Apr 23, 2004 1:36 am    Post subject: Re: Here it is... Reply with quote

Wow, the GC had a very long gestation period.[/quote]

That's because the N64 had a very rapid failure period.
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JSzczep



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
Posts: 67
Location: On a trampoline

PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 8:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What is the story with Chris Coffin and Chris Senn nearly dying? Who nearly died?

Sorry to bump such an old topic, but it's a good article and I'm curious to have this fact confirmed. I'm also using LostLevels as a reference, hence the interest.
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TheRedEye
The Internet's Frank Cifaldi
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Joined: 26 Aug 2003
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

From Chris Senn:

"One correction... the part that mentions me being sick, then Mike Wallis saying "we can't continue..." I would verify that although I was very much sick... later it was Chris Coffin who got sick while working towards that short deadline on Project: Condor that forced Mike to make the call..."

I guess maybe we should edit that article.
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JSzczep



Joined: 10 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Aha! Hasard!

So both were sick, I thought as much reading through those Sonic-cult interviews.

So, in actual fact, it's not that the article is incorrect, though it could do with some slight altering to make it easier to understand. Thanks for the correction.

Very interesting, the entire saga is so incredibly complicated, I reckon it could easily fill out a shorter "Game Over" style book. Alternatively, it would make for interesting fiction reading.

"The day to day lives of people in a politically charged games development office/team."

EDIT:

Senn also mentioned "Project Condor" to me, though I am unsure of what it is. Care to elaborate? I didn't see it in the article...



EDIT2:
For the record, hasard is french for "chance", old typing habit of mine.
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RossH



Joined: 28 Apr 2007
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:33 pm    Post subject: Project Condor Reply with quote

Project Condor was 10(ish) weeks of hell... it was an unrealistic attempt to beat Mario64 in 2 1/2 months with a new completely 3d Sonic game.

Even at the time, I pointed out that a Condor is just another name for Vulture... Very Happy
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Christuserloeser



Joined: 17 Sep 2006
Posts: 6

PostPosted: Wed Oct 29, 2008 11:57 am    Post subject: Re: Project Condor Reply with quote

RossH wrote:
Project Condor was 10(ish) weeks of hell... it was an unrealistic attempt to beat Mario64 in 2 1/2 months with a new completely 3d Sonic game.


That sounds like something SOA would come up with, alright.
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