Big Red Button reflects on Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric, SEGA on Sonic’s future and more
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 50 Comments
Today, Polygon published a massive piece about Sonic’s history. The site chronicled the series’ early times all the way up through Rise of Lyric as well as the future (in general terms).
We highly suggest giving the full article a read here if you’re a fan of Sonic. But after the break, you can find a breakdown of comments from Big Red Button CEO and co-founder Bob Rafei about Rise of Lyric as well as other comments from SEGA about the franchise.
Alternate Sonic Boom logos discovered
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, Images, Wii U | 7 Comments
The Sonic Stadium has come across several unused Sonic Boom logos. Some have the text “Dudes vs. Evil” – might that have been part of the title at one point?
You can find the rest of the unused logos below. They all come from senior designer Henry Grey, who posted them on Cargo Collective.
Looking into what went wrong with Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Videos, Wii U | 17 Comments
Liam Robertson, a person known for digging up information about cancelled games, recently took on the challenge of investigating Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric’s troubled development.
There’s no question that Rise of Lyric has a number of major issues. That being said, Robertson does offer some insight into why it wasn’t a better game.
For instance, did you know that Sonic Boom’s debut trailer wasn’t actually comprised of Wii U footage? The video was instead created from the game running on a PC with more powerful hardware. That’s one of the big reasons for the graphical downgrade. And even though there was a disclaimer at the beginning of the trailer stating that it was “in-engine footage” and how it represented “a work in progress”, some people may have felt mislead. Perhaps that’s why it’s now being discovered that SEGA pulled the video from its YouTube channel.
You can get a better overview of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric’s development by watching the video below.
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric beta hub/animations footage
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Videos, Wii U | 12 Comments
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric character animation Tuan Nguyen recently uploaded a demo reel, which features beta hub/animations footage from the game. You can check it out below.
Sonic Boom was once known as “Sonic Synergy”
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 7 Comments
The website for Edward Moore, a UX/UI design consultant on Sonic Boom, reveals that the Wii U and 3DS games were known as “Sonic Synergy” at one point.
Moore’s site also houses images of UI diagrams and early concept artwork. Another image – shown below – also seems to depict a slightly different-looking Sonic.
As The Sonic Stadium points out, “Sonic’s arms are back to being tan in colour, spikes are also different, much more like the Sega Sonic version. Amy also has some differences too.”
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric producer reflects on the game
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 31 Comments
A new podcast from SegaNerds contains an interview with Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric producer Stephen Frost. You can listen to it in full here, though Sonic Stadium has rounded up some of the more interesting bits.
Frost touched on Sonic Boom’s development, and a few other topics as well. Here’s the full summary:
- Suggestion that Sonic had to re-invent itself because the fanbase was getting smaller. Cites Call of Duty as an example/comparison.
- Boom was made to appeal to non Sonic fans. — This is stated multiple times.
- Suggestion that people/retailers are bored of Classic – Dreamcast era Sonic. States you can only do so much with these eras/characters. He does go on to suggest this is from a retailer standpoint.
- Claims multiple times that Boom (franchise) is a big success.
- Admits Boom (franchise) could have been better.
- “Could the games have been better… yes, any game can be made better.”
- Suggestion that part of the reason why Boom (game) isn’t that good is because the team didn’t know what Sonic was about/lack of experience.
- “In focus tests, we heard all the time, people were sick of speed, Sonic was too fast, they wanted to slow down.”
- “People really liked the Co-Op” — Hopes Sonic Team will do that in the future.
- “The biggest mistake in Boom (game) was adding too many features to it.
- “It was too much to ask of the/any development team” — In terms of different characters, combat, features etc.
- “I was tasked (by Sega) with creating an experience that appeals to an audience which doesn’t play Sonic.”
- “If I could do it again, I would remove features and speed would be the main focus from the start.”
- “Speed was shelved because we were under the impression people didn’t want it.”
- “Speed is always a Sonic thing, we didn’t focus on that.”
- “The goal of Boom was to reach new people.”
- “As a branch of Sonic, Boom is a success in many ways.”
- Suggests that due to how much content you need to make for a Sonic alone game, it’s too much work. You need additional characters to spread the burden of content.
- “Multiple characters resonate well with people”
- “Solo Sonic games, I don’t know how long that can last there isn’t enough variety to sustain it.”
- “The future of Sonic games needs to be Co-Op, it worked really well in Sonic Boom, community and online play, that sustains it.”
- Say’s he’d love to see a Sonic level design game.
- “In general, you need to do multiplayer and add online multiplayer aspects, that will sustain and keep the franchise alive.”
- Says that the reason for the change in release date was likely a number of reasons, cartoon air date, Nintendo release dates, Sega release dates.
- When the decision was made to change Boom’s release date, Sega did not know when Smash was coming out.
Sonic Boom moves 490,000 copies, other SEGA financial results tidbits
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News, Wii U | 10 Comments
Sonic Boom has sold 490,000 copies worldwide on Wii U and 3DS, SEGA has confirmed. The company’s report doesn’t actually clarify if that figure is shipped or sold-in to consumers. However, it’s disappointing in any case, and Sonic Boom is the worst-performing entry in the series ever.
Today’s information about Sonic Boom’s performance comes from SEGA’s latest financial report. Other interesting tidbits are as follows:
– SEGA spent $210 million on games development
– That is a 27 percent increase compared to the year prior
– Advertising expenses climbed 53 percent, up to $73 million
– SEGA is releasing 50 games by the end of the financial year in March, but combined sales of all those are expected to be about 5.4 million units
– SEGA initially expected to sell about 300,000 units of its four latest Wii U games
– That is now revised to 230,000, making it the weakest platform in terms of unit sales
– Full year expectations for 3DS 1,160,000
– SEGA’s revenue for the three-quarter period was $685 million
– After expenses, that lowers to a profit of $18 million
– SEGA is now organizing a sweeping business restructure, which will rebuild the corporation into three divisions, as part of a wider plan to “drastically improve profitability”
– At least 300 positions at the corporation are targeted for redundancy
– SEGA has set aside $125 million for the restructure costs
– SEGA expects to lose $110m for the full year
Why the Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric patch is so huge
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 8 Comments
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric’s update is huge – as in 1GB huge. So what exactly is included in the massive patch? We did hear about a few things recently, but Sonic Stadium has offered further information as to why the update is so big.
Here’s what the site shared:
Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric update out now in North America
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 3 Comments
The Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric update is out now in North America. It previously was made available in Europe late last week.
For an overview of the patch, check out this post.
Thanks to GamerClues for the tip.
An overview of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric’s update
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in News, Wii U | 3 Comments
The folks over at Sonic Stadium have put together an overview about the new Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric update. SEGA just released the patch in Europe this week, and it should be out in North America very soon.
On with the information!
Additions:
Navigation arrows “Small yellow arrows added which show you where to go” (They were in the original, but they now have some issues).
