Sonic X-Treme

[VideoGameCritic]

So I was leafing through an old Electronic Gaming Monthly (Feb 97) with Tekken 3 on the cover and I see an ad for Chips & Bits which was some kind of mail order company.

One of the games for sale for $46 was Sonic X-Treme (for the Saturn) with this description:
Sonic can move in any direction with full camera rotation. Evil Genius Robotnik has created a Death Egg so huge that its gravitational pull is sucking up all 5 surrounding worlds. Sonic's job is to rescue the Mips from each world before they can be destroyed.

I find it kind of surprising, considering I don't think this game was ever that far along. Maybe they were anticipating its release for the time the magazine was published?

[Shapur]

If I remember correctly this game was pretty far along, just several different times because they kept scrapping it and starting over. It started as Sonic Mars for the 32X and is allegedly even an outgrowth of the cancelled Sonic16 for the Genesis.

I believe it was moving along finally on the Saturn when SoJ saw the work in progress and demanded the game be rebuilt around the boss fight engine, and scrapped the level engine altogether. I think that was the final nail that got us Saturn Sonic 3D Blast as a rushed port in its place.

[VideoGameCritic]

I was just perusing some YouTube videos and I appeared to watch an ice/snow stage in Sonic X-Treme, complete with Christmas music. It made me sad because this looks like a fun game!

I also saw a video for something called Sonic Z-Treme (terrible name I know) which is supposed to be a fan-made version of Sonic X-Treme. That looked good too. There were a few videos but all dated 2018, so not sure if that project is going anywhere.

[VideoGameCritic]

I was just doing a little reading up on the history on this project, and it's fascinating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_X-treme

Sega went from 55% of the console market in 1994 to just 12% in 1997. I lack of a legitimate new Sonic title for the system was said to be a major reason why. It makes you wonder what could have been.

[Cafeman]

Did anybody ever actually think the preview builds of Sonic Xtreme looked good? I would scratch my head looking at pictures of it, and wonder what I was missing. Ultra Game Players had features raving about it. The fish eye lens effect was unappealing. SOJ was smart to scrap the whole thing and then build the excellent engine found in Sonic Jam. But it was too late to have any effect.

I wish Sega, or homebrewers, would have built a bigger game using that engine.

[DrLitch]

I lack of a legitimate new Sonic title for the system was said to be a major reason why. It makes you wonder what could have been.

That was one aspect but I think ultimately the Playstation was the reason why. It essentially was the Sega Genesis 2. It pulled both Sega fanboys and Nintendo fanboys in. People forget the 4th generation was won by Sega in a landslide - yes the SNES sold more units overall (largely due to Japan and post 1995 sales when the console was cheap as chips) but in the 1991-1994 period (which is pretty much the 4th gen period), Sega with their Genesis crushed the SNES in sales, particularly in the USA and Europe. Many ended up seeing the Sony Playstation as the spiritual successor to the Genesis - the Playstation being a Sega console in all but name.

[strat]

Chips and Bits ads often had games way out in the future - note the two "Ultra 64" games that never released.

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/def ... 75_081.jpg

[jon]

I’m surprised to see that Sega had over 50% market share in ‘94. This is coming from someone who’s not a fan of the SNES. Maybe they’re taking into account the Saturn although I don’t think it was released in ‘94. After the SNES got a monopoly on the Street Fighter 2’s console rights in late ‘91 I believe or ‘92 it began to sell more than the Genesis. I think I recall the SNES winning around ‘93-94. Sega though was making a lot of money from the arcades. I’ll look all that up. If I recall until Street Fighter 2 the Genesis was outselling the SNES or it was really close. Talk about a monopoly. They got a year head start on SF2.
The reason the Saturn failed was because they couldn’t get a good Sonic game. I think a big reason also was not being easy to program. They weren’t cranking out games like the PS1 was, swallowing up all the good developers. Of course neither was the N64 when it came around. The PS1’s competition was a joke. It was basically thousands of games for the PS1 against Mario 64 and Goldeneye. For me Another reason the Saturn failed was it couldn’t get good ports of its Model 2 arcade games that were making a fortune. Some games like Super Ski G just we’re too advanced. It was a weird time. The late 90’s were not good years for video games imo

[VideoGameCritic]

Chips and Bits ads often had games way out in the future - note the two "Ultra 64" games that never released.

http://www.gamepilgrimage.com/sites/def ... 75_081.jpg

Interesting page - thanks for the link! Maybe we should have sprung for Earthbound when it was $64.

[Hagane]

I lack of a legitimate new Sonic title for the system was said to be a major reason why. It makes you wonder what could have been.

That was one aspect but I think ultimately the Playstation was the reason why. It essentially was the Sega Genesis 2. It pulled both Sega fanboys and Nintendo fanboys in. People forget the 4th generation was won by Sega in a landslide - yes the SNES sold more units overall (largely due to Japan and post 1995 sales when the console was cheap as chips) but in the 1991-1994 period (which is pretty much the 4th gen period), Sega with their Genesis crushed the SNES in sales, particularly in the USA and Europe. Many ended up seeing the Sony Playstation as the spiritual successor to the Genesis - the Playstation being a Sega console in all but name.

I think you're wrong there, SNES already outsold the Genesis in 1992, in 1994 SNES only consolidated the lead, you can find sales numbers by year for both consoles. Also SNES sold a lot of software compared to Genesis, Street Fighter on Genesis sold poorly compared to the SNES versions, there are a lot of SNES games which surpassed the 1 million mark, on the other hand only a few Genesis games hit the 1 million mark, let's not forget that the Genesis sold poorly in Japan but where the SNES made a huge sucess, and even it Genesis fared better on the US market, SNES sold more on the american territory.