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Post by TrekkiesUnite118 on Jul 17, 2013 17:19:40 GMT
So this thread over at Sega-16 got me thinking. Why don't we as a community actually look into getting certain US and possibly even PAL and JP Saturn releases reprinted? Between all of us we probably have some connections to reach out to people and get some info on what would need to be done to make this possible. And if money comes down to being the main factor we could probably use Kickstarter to raise it. So what do you guys think about this? If we do want to seriously go into it I'd say our first line of business would be to reach out to the right people and start asking questions. So to start I think a good idea would be to get a list of who we think would be good people to get in contact with to get some information on this and who knows how to get in contact with them. I'd say definitely reaching out to Sega would be a good place to start. Though I'm not sure who would be a good person to contact about that.
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mick_aka
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Post by mick_aka on Jul 18, 2013 0:47:39 GMT
Don't want to fly in with mounds of negativity but you'd need to have CD's pressed with the Sega protection ring, even if you got permission from Sega themselves (unlikely) the tooling and information on the protection system will be long gone.
It would be, putting it mildly, prohibitively expensive.
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Post by TrekkiesUnite118 on Jul 18, 2013 1:18:24 GMT
I understand that's a possibility. But I still think it would be worthwhile to at least look into it and see what the reality of the situation is rather than jump to speculations. There's no harm in asking around and doing some research.
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Post by MIK on Jul 18, 2013 7:50:05 GMT
Even if Sega gave the ok it would be 3rd party stuff that would be an exclusive mission of it's own. Put it this way... Wipe Out would be off the menu, Psygnosis are no more and Sony own the rights which makes it an exclusive to Sony hardware.
More trouble than it's worth chasing things up.
and say all you want is Sega Rally, Daytona USA reprinted... Licence holders would want payment which does not come cheap. There is no free for all, it really is money that makes the world go round.
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Post by TrekkiesUnite118 on Jul 18, 2013 13:57:06 GMT
Why would you reprint games that are already common as dirt? There's no need to reprint Wipeout, Sega Rally, or Daytona USA. Daytona USA's licensing shouldn't be an issue anyways as Sega was able to get the license again to release it on XBLA with no changes. The games I was thinking of were games like Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, Deep Fear, Burning Rangers, House of the Dead, Dragon Force, etc. The stuff that was First Party that Sega made stupidly low production runs of. The harder stuff would be the stuff by Working Designs, Konami, Capcom, Hudson Soft, and Treasure.
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mick_aka
Kickin' it lively!
"Mick is moderately adequate."
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Post by mick_aka on Jul 18, 2013 16:28:30 GMT
I think you're taking our comments the wrong way. There's not a lot of point running in guns-blazing to Sega until you've put together at least a rough feasibility study on the idea, it's not all mere speculation.
It's certainly not something I'd step lightly into, and we should consider:
* Sega WILL charge you a licensing fee for both the game itself AND the use of their protection ring technology, your effectively setting yourself up as a 3rd party publisher in that respect. It's not the company it once was, SAMMY will want their pound of flesh for distributing their IPs.
* You'll need to go to the original plant with the tooling for the protection rings (if they retained it), it will be a large plant that will have minimum run numbers (usually 5000-10,000 discs) So realistically You'll need at least a thousand pounds for each pressing run of each game (likely more due to the special nature of protection ring pressing)
I don't fancy trying to shift 5000 re-production copies of PD Saga? I'm not sure that many people worldwide are still using the Saturn.
If it comes down to the original tooling not existing and having to re-tool a pressing line forget it, you're looking at running into six figures.
* For any 3rd party developed titles you'll need permission (and almost certainly to pay a licensing fee) to the current copyright owner, I can vouch for this being a nightmare. A lot of developers simply don't exist and you'd be genuinely shocked by how many companies don't realise what IP's they inherited through a buyout 5 or 10 years ago.
*The vast amount of hardcore Saturn collectors will want original copies and not re-issues, and a lot of non-collectors/casual retro-gamers will simply be happy burning an ISO at home for their mod-chipped system, which seriously limits your target audience. It's not like cartridge re-pros that most people cant re-produce at home.
*Packaging: there is not an abundance of spare Sega Saturn cases floating around so you're either going to have to have those re-manufactured (DAMN pricey! I've had bespoke plastic media cases made myself) or use standard DVD cases which will take away from the idea of it being a faithful re-issue. Special outer boxes for titles like PD Saga would have to be re-created and re-printed professionally.
NONE of the above is an attempt to piss all over your idea, but you need to look realistically at what you're going into. AS I said before, delve into the details and do proper feasibility study first before firing up Kickstarter.
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Post by TrekkiesUnite118 on Jul 18, 2013 17:20:37 GMT
That is actually what I wanted us to talk about here. I'm not thinking about this light hearted, I understand it would probably be difficult and expensive.
The reason I suggested getting in contact with someone at Sega would be to get specifics on this kind of information. I didn't mean run in guns-blazing going "How much money do we need to throw at you to get more PDS copies!?"
The kickstarter would clearly come after getting that information and coming up with a game plan.
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mick_aka
Kickin' it lively!
"Mick is moderately adequate."
Joined: April 2007
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XBL: mickloaf
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Post by mick_aka on Jul 18, 2013 19:06:13 GMT
The most important thing to ascertain is weather the equipment to press CDs with the protection rings still exists, the entire thing for me hinges on that.
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Post by TrekkiesUnite118 on Jul 18, 2013 19:15:23 GMT
Which that can be one of the questions to ask. For what it's worth, I think the Gamecube and Dreamcast used similar mechanics. And I know GD-Roms were still in production for some time as well as Gamecube Discs.
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Post by Syntesis on Jul 19, 2013 0:12:26 GMT
So what do you guys think about this? I am not interested. I have originals of the games I can afford or care enough to own, CD-Rs for everything else. Unless these are made by Sega themselves (this is the only scenario where this would interest me) these will be fan-made knock offs in my book and of no interest to collectors. I also doubt that they have the original design files for the manuals, disk arts and inserts. This is all moot anyway: Sega won't talk to you about this and this isn't financially viable for them. The economies of scale aren't there, the Saturn is not a popular console even in retro circles. It would have to be a labour of love (or more accurately an act of insanity) for them, with no expectation of making any profit and the very real likelihood of being saddled with thousands of unsold Saturn games.
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Post by WukaChopSuey on Jul 19, 2013 0:28:08 GMT
I would really like to imagine it'd be able to happen, but honestly I could only see it being a loss, as Mick says, it isn't like cartridge repros, if I wanted to play Panzer Dragoon Saga I'd burn an ISO and swapdisk. And as Synt says, they'd be missing bits like the manuals, etc. Also remember a lot of the companies who made Saturn games don't even exist any more, so chances of getting parts of what they made are little to none. Especially if they're owned by EA. What I could suggest, and I think it was you who originally threw the idea about, is that we could, as a community, perhaps make a game as a project or something. That'd be a creative use of it.
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Post by MIK on Jul 19, 2013 8:01:01 GMT
BTW Sega was able to get the license for Daytona USA for 360&PSN because the numbers were there to cover the cost once it was bought by us. A licence these days can start from a five figure number going upwards. You would think any company would be glad of some free publicity but say in the case of Lotus the car manufacturer, they may not have the cash to spare so can charge what they like to help the business if your that desperate to use it's cars in a game. These opportunities don't come around that often type thing. What you really want is some form of everdrive for Saturn with all games running as they should be seen off a memory stick or something. All done under the table of course...
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Post by MattBlah on Jul 19, 2013 8:17:57 GMT
As a collector myself I wouldn't be interested in reproductions in my collection and people who just want to play the games could just burn their own copies free of charge.
Another thing that would worry me about this would be people selling them as originals, if there are hundreds of reproductions out there then you'd have to be extra careful when buying any rare Saturn games.
I do like the idea though, I just don't know who the market would be.
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Post by mancity on Jul 19, 2013 10:37:47 GMT
I think everybody knows this is never going to happen unfortunately and the main reason for me is that there are alot of digital collections released on newer system, phones etc etc and companies would rather re-release them on there to the masses and charge yet again for old games.
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Post by Oho on Jul 19, 2013 13:15:10 GMT
*The vast amount of hardcore Saturn collectors will want original copies and not re-issues, and a lot of non-collectors/casual retro-gamers will simply be happy burning an ISO at home for their mod-chipped system, which seriously limits your target audience. It's not like cartridge re-pros that most people cant re-produce at home. ^^ This, pretty much.
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