Unreleased Saturn games

[mrsaturn]

As far as i can see and as long as the search function works there is no thread about unreleased Saturn games yet.

And as i just updated my site about unreleased Saturn games, i start this discussion:



Overview:

www.sega-saturn.net/nr/nr.htm

[Yart]

WOW... Abuse almost made it to Saturn?

That woulda RULED!! Abuse is AWESOME!


And Arena too... holy crap!

[Syntesis]

It would have been nice to have Blood Omen and Micro Machines V3 on Saturn.

MGS on Saturn is news to me. Where's the evidence of that?

[Kibbles]

Well Anthemia heard it from a dubious source via email so obviously it is true.

I'm not sure 'considered' counts as being unreleased.

If you take into account games that were 'considered' for Saturn, you'd have a very long list of pretty much every 32-bit Era game ever that never appeared on Saturn.

[Syntesis]

Apr 22, 2011 23:03:01 GMT Kibbles said:

I'm not sure 'considered' counts as being unreleased.

Neither do I.

I think a working prototype needs to have existed as a bare minimum.

[syn]

It's interesting but the others have raised a valid point.

[Anthaemia.]

Apr 22, 2011 23:03:01 GMT Kibbles said:

Well Anthemia heard it from a dubious source via email so obviously it is true.

I'm not sure 'considered' counts as being unreleased.

(You just knew I couldn't resist answering to a comment like this!)

The claims of my source being "dubious" are a little off the mark, though I'll try my best to explain in more detail. However, you must realise that any information was passed on to me after being translated from its native Japanese first so please understand this may not be a word-for-word copy of what had been originally said.

Anyway, a former programmer on the Saturn conversion team was quoted on the floor at the 1998 Tokyo Game Show as confirming that Metal Gear Solid was indeed in the works, though management had already killed off this project and was yet to officially announce this. Since it was being developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya - as opposed to the original Tokyo division - progress was slow, mainly due to Hideo Kojima making sure the PlayStation edition took full priority.

By the time MGS on the PS was nearing completion, Sega had already written the Saturn off in favour of the Dreamcast, rendering such a high profile game financially unworthy of bringing to fruition on what had become an obsolete platform. Another factor in sealing its fate was Sega's objection to any smoking references, which they suggested be replaced by aerosol cannisters that were implemented as a way of detecting laser traps.

Because of this particular point, my contact personally made the assumption that progress must clearly have reached a quite advanced stage. Then again, unlike other high profile titles of the same period such as Biohazard 2 to name just one such example, why didn't Konami initially make a bigger deal about MGS being planned as a multiplatform release?

I prefer not to speculate where possible, but my guess is that they probably already knew the Saturn code was either way behind schedule or already highly unlikely to see the light of day. Besides, another source elsewhere suggested it was scrapped closer to the pre-planning stage, with barely any code being passed through a Saturn development kit... if any at all.

One thing for certain is that news of Saturn MGS was definitely printed in a few Japanese publications, which is possibly why the makers of Bleem! sought to work on this game when they came to releasing standalone emulation discs for the Dreamcast not too long after. I can only wish that a lot of my reference material hadn't disappeared when I was forced to move home under less than positive circumstances a few years back, even if a slight quote via interpretation regarding a cancelled Saturn game was the least of my losses.

[sploit]

Strange to think oneof PS1's most popular exclusives could have made it onto the Saturn

[Stuart36]

Apr 22, 2011 23:07:26 GMT Syntesis said:

Apr 22, 2011 23:03:01 GMT Kibbles said:

I'm not sure 'considered' counts as being unreleased.

Neither do I.

I think a working prototype needs to have existed as a bare minimum.

i think as long as magazines were talking about it (maybe having screenshots), saying it would be coming (even without a release date) then it counts.

[akirashin]

Anthaemia..

Very interesting informations. thanks for sharing it.

[Syntesis]

Apr 23, 2011 8:29:46 GMT Stuart36 said:

Apr 22, 2011 23:07:26 GMT Syntesis said:

Neither do I.

I think a working prototype needs to have existed as a bare minimum.

i think as long as magazines were talking about it (maybe having screenshots), saying it would be coming (even without a release date) then it counts.

I don't think that's good enough either. Some of the time all that was available were PSX screenshots or PSX playable code so the Saturn magazines used those as part of their coverage.

[Syntesis]

Apr 23, 2011 2:38:39 GMT Anthaemia. said:

Apr 22, 2011 23:03:01 GMT Kibbles said:

Well Anthemia heard it from a dubious source via email so obviously it is true.

I'm not sure 'considered' counts as being unreleased.

(You just knew I couldn't resist answering to a comment like this!)

The claims of my source being "dubious" are a little off the mark, though I'll try my best to explain in more detail. However, you must realise that any information was passed on to me after being translated from its native Japanese first so please understand this may not be a word-for-word copy of what had been originally said.

Anyway, a former programmer on the Saturn conversion team was quoted on the floor at the 1998 Tokyo Game Show as confirming that Metal Gear Solid was indeed in the works, though management had already killed off this project and was yet to officially announce this. Since it was being developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Nagoya - as opposed to the original Tokyo division - progress was slow, mainly due to Hideo Kojima making sure the PlayStation edition took full priority.

By the time MGS on the PS was nearing completion, Sega had already written the Saturn off in favour of the Dreamcast, rendering such a high profile game financially unworthy of bringing to fruition on what had become an obsolete platform. Another factor in sealing its fate was Sega's objection to any smoking references, which they suggested be replaced by aerosol cannisters that were implemented as a way of detecting laser traps.

Because of this particular point, my contact personally made the assumption that progress must clearly have reached a quite advanced stage. Then again, unlike other high profile titles of the same period such as Biohazard 2 to name just one such example, why didn't Konami initially make a bigger deal about MGS being planned as a multiplatform release?

I prefer not to speculate where possible, but my guess is that they probably already knew the Saturn code was either way behind schedule or already highly unlikely to see the light of day. Besides, another source elsewhere suggested it was scrapped closer to the pre-planning stage, with barely any code being passed through a Saturn development kit... if any at all.

One thing for certain is that news of Saturn MGS was definitely printed in a few Japanese publications, which is possibly why the makers of Bleem! sought to work on this game when they came to releasing standalone emulation discs for the Dreamcast not too long after. I can only wish that a lot of my reference material hadn't disappeared when I was forced to move home under less than positive circumstances a few years back, even if a slight quote via interpretation regarding a cancelled Saturn game was the least of my losses.

I think it's a fair assumption to make that a Saturn version would not have been started on until after the PS1 version was finished assuming KCEN were developing it (Japanese companies were terrible at sharing source code and assets when in the same building, let alone a different studio in a different city). A high budget Saturn game being started on in the latter half of 1998? I really don't think so.

IMO MGS isn't an unreleased Saturn game because it never existed. It may have been planned as an eventual port of the finished PS1 version back in mid 1995 when development started but that's it.

Please don't take this as an attack Anathaemia, but I think your contact's conjecture is logically very unlikely and if it was mentioned in any Japanese magazine it was probably reporting it as a rumour because there is nothing on the internet about this in either English or Japanese unless I am very bad at google.

[Anthaemia.]

I don't want to focus on a specific game, but there were definitely plenty of high profile third party titles being considered for the Saturn well into 1998 - many even went into full production, such as Biohazard 2. However, because we've discussed Metal Gear Solid in depth at length for a while now, I think it's only fair we continue a little longer. My best guess is that KCEN was probably given the task of beginning their conversion with the condition of a six month exclusivity margin on the PlayStation, just as most third party multiplatform releases of the period were forced to adhere due to Sony drafting up financially lucrative contracts.

Hideo Kojima and his lead team may have taken longer than initially anticipated in providing KCEN with the assets necessary for their Saturn port, or alternatively management could have already decided this edition was not a viable option considering the state of Sega's 32-bit system. Then again, very specific details have surfaced from Japan that suggest progress went a little further than just planning, maybe even reaching a stage where improvements ordered by Sega were implemented and fully working. On the other hand, maybe the furthest KCEN even got was a playable tech demo showing their intention to make certain alterations. There's even a possibility Konami simply couldn't get MGS up and running on the Saturn.

Whatever the case, this is yet another cancelled game I'm doing my best to research extensively for my own project. Far from interpreting everyone's comments as personal attacks, I instead see your responses as constructive criticism and more evidence that I need to work harder in debunking a lot of myths that continue to this day. My ultimate goal is to compile a single source where you'll be able to read a more honest document of such aborted software, though I'd be foolish to promise a 100% accurate representation because it's highly unlikely I'll find all the right answers. I can only hope that years from now someone cares enough to continue my work and keep on searching for the inevitable gaps that will remain in my findings when the day comes for me to call it a day...

[Syntesis]

As ever I look forward to whatever it is you come up with Saturn history is a story that needs to be told.

I do however think that Konami not working on a Saturn MGS until after the PS1 version was finished is completely consistent with their other big release: PS1 Symphony of the Night was made by KCET and released 9 months later on Saturn by KCEN.

[Anthaemia.]

As I said before, the initial source of that Saturn MGS information was a programmer with KCEN, but the subject of Metal Gear was just a small portion of their actual comments made at the 1998 Tokyo Game Show. Although I've long since lost the full notes (sent via the original translator, who I recall as being someone well known within the UK jounalism scene as a regular contributor for C&VG/GameOnline), I recall the main subject of discussion being Nagoya team's handling of Dracula X and concerns even back then about Hideo Kojima's diva-like demands...

For example, he planned for the CD-ROM version of Snatcher to give off the scent of blood after a long enough period of playing, which I believe was to be achieved through the use of a thermal layer that would take advantage of a machine overheating. Management initially shot down this idea when it was felt too many gamers would refund their copies, wrongly thinking their hardware was malfunctioning. In the end, after threatening to offer the game to a rival publisher - which I doubt he could do anyway, considering his contractual obligations to Konami - production costs were instead cited as a reason this concept could not be pursued.

Continuing with MGS for a little longer, did you know a lot of the game's content was only ever meant to be shown at trade events? I don't recall any particular sequences this applies to, but the overwhelming positive reaction to a lot of prototype material forced Kojima to rewrite the story in order to keep sections that were intended as mere tech demos in the beginning. There was definitely an article a few years back on the making of MGS that focused on the stealth camouflage device being hard to implement in real time, plus I'm sure it was also mentioned that Snake was meant to drive a tank at one point. Also, the enclosed areas were a result of the PlayStation not being able to handle large open environments with the kind of detail Kojima insisted on having, which even proved a strain years later for Snake Eater on the PS2. Anyway, it was never my plan to make this into a thread dedicated to just one title!