Crazy, but it appears to be true. The Nintendo Wii version of House of The Dead 2 & 3 appears to have been ported by Sonic Team.
Where’s Sonic? Bueller? Bueller?
Anyways, the evidence that they did the port lies in all the online files residing on Sonic Team’s Japanese servers… Like, here.
After the disaserous game Sonic the Hedgehog (Xbox 360 & PS3), not to mention the even larger disasters (as in, all the Sonic games since Sonic Adventure 2), I can understand Sonic Team’s break… the team needs to re-align after Yuji Naka’s departure.
That said, I think the future is brighter for Sonic Team. The last time Naka-san was away, Sonic Team made Sonic CD. And, as any major Sonic fan will tell you… it was one of Sonic Team’s finest hours to-date.
Assuming this is correct though… one wonders what Sega WOW is up to. We haven’t seen House of The Dead 4 on either Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3… both systems are capable enough of handling a port. Sega, unfortunately, is letting many of its great arcade titles languish in the arcades only. The same could be said about many other games from other branches of Sega. In Yu Suzuki’s absence, Virtua Cop 3 has not hit home… and VC3 was made using almost pure Xbox hardware (no, not Xbox 360, the original).
Imagine a company that made movies, put them into theaters, and then never did a DVD/Blu-Ray release. That’s where Sega is right now, and it’s a big reason why their stock is in the tank. Oh, but they are dusting off Dreamcast and Xbox 1 games and porting them to Wii… where nobody will pay twice for the same game.
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Hey Chris, I didn’t know you were a such a big Sonic fan.
What’s your opinion on the leaked footage of Sonic Unleashed? I think with Unleashed, the Bioware RPG, and his appearance in Brawl, Sonic could be making a comeback.
Well, I didn’t mean to imply Sonic needed a comeback. My opinion that Sonic games were bad/dismal was a reflection of the standard Sonic Team had set… in other words, the recent Sonic games failed to meet the standards Sonic Team had set in the past.
Unleashed is close to what I’ve been suggesting for a long time: A return to 2D for Sonic Team. Just because this is the 3D era does not mean that 2D gameplay has to die. Paper Mario demonstrated this quite clearly.
I would suggest Sonic Team and Sega Studios USA (Sonic Team’s U.S. division) routinely hand off working on 2D and 3D platform titles.
While I’m optimistic about Bioware, no third-party has ever been well received as to their treatment of Sonic. Traveler’s Tales bombed with Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast (Sonic R was fun, but gameplay was overall poor, and Sonic 3D Blast was a quick afterthought to the failed Sonic X-Treme). Even Sega’s own divisions have mis-managed Sonic (STI failed with Spinball, then again with X-Treme).
Appearances in other games is nothing new, Sonic continues to have staying power despite no longer having a console of his own. Fox has consistently renewed Sonic’s current cartoon (Sonic X), and there’s really no risk of Sonic fading away at this point.
I agree, the Sonic series isn’t just going to fade away like some in the video game industry think (like this ). One thing to note is that Sega games seem to be more successful on Nintendo consoles. Even though Sega wanted to bring a lot of there series from the Dreamcast on the Xbox ( such as Jet Grind Radio, Panzer Dragoon, and Shenmue), it appears the hardcore Sega fans migrated to Nintendo. Honestly, even though Sonic ’06 was a horrible game, if it was released on the Wii it would of sold at least three times what it did on the 360 and PS3…