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Sonic Team Speaks
Naka/Ogawa interview: New Sonic game

A sliver of information has emerged about the new Sonic Gamecube title that was first announced at Nintendo’s Gamer Summit back in 2003. In an interview conducted in London by Nintendo Official Magazine UK, Yuji Naka revealed that the new game is currently planned for a late 2005 release and will be shown alongside Sonic DS at this years E3.

The Nintendo Official Magazine interview also explores Naka’s discussions with Shigeru Miyamoto about Sonic and Mario teaming up for a new adventure. However, the latest edition of the magazine, which went on sale yesterday, only contains a teaser of the interview. The full article will be published in next month’s edition.

Naka’s interactions with Miyamoto can be traced back to as early as October 2001, when, in an interview with UK publication CVG, the Mario creator expressed his enjoyment of collaborating with the Sonic Team CEO (although, Miyamoto was keen to emphasise that his comments did not necessarily indicate that the pair were actually working on a game).

The current edition of Nintendo Official Magazine also features a lengthy interview with Yojiro Ogawa, the creator of Sonic Team’s first DS title, Kimishine. In the interview, Ogawa-san makes a further reference to the Sonic Gamecube title. He also suggests that Sega and Sonic Team will not only be supporting the DS but will continue to release Gameboy Advance titles as well. Other interesting revelations include the meaning of the pun behind the European title of the game and the reasons for the addition of the bikini to the Western version of the box-art silhouette.

The GHZ Newsboard exclusively presents scans of all three above-mentioned articles:
Naka teaser interview
Ogawa interview page 1
Ogawa interview page 2
Ogawa interview page 3
Extract of Miyamoto interview from CVG, October 2001

Nifty.

....To bad it's probably going to suck.

Come on, you know it's going to!

Edit: Wow, were those extra hat things in the American version?

No no no, it's going to be LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.

Or has that been overused?

Protodude wrote:Wow, were those extra hat things in the American version?

I'm assuming you mean the unlockable hats and outfits in Feel The Magic (or whatever title you want to call it). If that's the case then yes. Put in Sonic Team GBA games into the DS when you are going to play Feel The Magic, and you can unlock them. They vary depending on the game. Nothing to crazy about though, it's rather lame.

Delphine wrote:No no no, it's going to be LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.

Or has that been overused?

No, I get the feeling we'll be using that description for every Sonic Team game from here on.

Or at least until Gulpo's Puke.

Hypothetically speaking, if Sonic and Sega decided the only way to truly become giants in the market again was to join forces with Nintendo and become a gigantic company including Miyamato's boys, Sammy, Sega, Sonic Team, and the Pokemon Company . . .

Do you think that would bring the quality of Sonic games up, or drag Nintendo down?

Nintendo's already been heading down on their own for the last few years. I think Sega would possibly help Nintendo.

Help them in a good way or help drag them down even more?

A little bit of column A, a little bit of column B...

Sega's in a quality game slump right now... they're not pumping out A+ titles one after another right now. Hopefully it's simply attributed to their dev team shufflement, and their next generation of products will be better.

One could argue the entire industry is in somewhat of a quality game slump right now, and has been for a few years.

They haven't been utter shit. We've gotten pretty good games on all consoles. Nothing like the Dreamcast era, but still. I've had quite a bit of fun with this generation. Sure most of it was on Xbox Live, but I think you guys are being a bit more cynical than usual.

I can kinda see where you're coming from though.

I have to agree. I really haven't found that definitive single player experience, but the mutliplayer games have been great. Of course that isn't saying much because even a shitty game played with friends is better then a good game played alone.

Of course that isn't saying much because even a shitty game played with friends is better then a good game played alone.

I disagree with that statement possibly more than I disagree with any other statement that's ever been posted here. Not to discount the value or viability of good multiplayer games, but to me, the quintessential "game" experience is something you play alone for yourself, like reading a book. I didn't get into this hobby because I enjoy socializing.

You just don't have any friends. All the rest of us like Smash Bros. when you're not playing with 3 computers on difficulty 1 to simulate drunken behaviour.

I'd argue against GG! just to say I did, but I just got done with a marathon (I.E., 8 hour) session of KOTOR2. My only companions were the portable microwave and a 24 pack of Diet Coke.

I don't agree that a shitty game with friends is as good/better than a good game alone, but I do think that a good game with friends can offer a completely different, if still wholly satistfying experience, as a good game can alone.

For instance, playing Guardian Heroes with my brothers/friends is one of the best game experiences I've had, period.

Both single- and multi-player games can own in their own ways. The experiences you have in the two are non-comparable.

A good single-player game doesn't necessarily make a good multi-, and vice versa.

If this new Sonic game is debuting at E3 and being released at Christmas, it can't be a major original title, can it?

(I continue to foolishly hope for that Mega Collection 2 that has Sonic the Fighters, Sonic the Arcade, Sonic CD, Knuckles Chaotix, Sonic Pocket Adventure, Sonic R and Sonic Shuffle.)

KOTOR 2 was great for about 20-30 hours. Then I beat it. There really isn't much left to do with it. Ironically enough the "system" for KOTOR is a bastardization of TSR's RPG masterpiece, AD&D. Which is a "multiplayer" game.

I like single player games as much as the next guy but multiplayer games are much more fun to play through more then once. I mean, I could throw in any one of my multiplayer games: Halo/2, MechAssault, Brute Force, Pandora Tomorrow, PSO and have a blast. All of the aforementioned games have a single player mode and aside from the coop modes in Halo/2 and Brute Force, I have no interest in touching them.

Humans are more fun to play against I guess, and since I don't play games for any sort of artistic merit they may hold, the static "vision" the creators had is in most cases lost on me. I just want a solid, glitchy free engine with a few cool features to frag some people in.

Esrever wrote:If this new Sonic game is debuting at E3 and being released at Christmas, it can't be a major original title, can it?

Probably not, it seems like Sonic has only had a major game every three years:
1998 - Sonic Adventure
2001 - Sonic Adventure 2
2004 - Sonic Heroes
So I imagine the next one would probably be in 2007?

If this new Sonic game is debuting at E3 and being released at Christmas, it can't be a major original title, can it?

Isn't that what happened with Sonic Heroes? It would make it about two years, which is standard industry interim between sequels.

All of the aforementioned games have a single player mode and aside from the coop modes in Halo/2 and Brute Force, I have no interest in touching them.

Well in the case of the examples you gave, they all suck except for PSO, and that one was intended to be a multiplayer game from the ground up (and I get the impression Halo 2 was as well, because there's really no reason at all to play the story mode in that).

Humans are more fun to play against I guess, and since I don't play games for any sort of artistic merit they may hold, the static "vision" the creators had is in most cases lost on me. I just want a solid, glitchy free engine with a few cool features to frag some people in.

Hm.

Can I add these to SoST, Smile?