SA2 in Beta?

Is this story truly credible? Well, some at the DCTP Board say that it isn’t. Sonic, the beta tester’s nickname, is one of the forumers at the board. However, other say that he is completely credible. Let’s look at some facts and rumors.
First, we know that there indeed is an SA2 in development, as it has been confirmed. However, it is rather surprising that it is already in a beta stage, with the Sonic Team working on Samba de Amigo and Phantasy Star Online. I see that the only way this is possible is if someone other that the Sonic Team was working on this, a worst case scenario, or a small part of the Team is working on this.

Next, Sonic says that there might be another Sonic compilation ahead. If this were true, it would be welcome news for Sonic fans. Perhaps we would get the original Sonic CD and Knuckles Chaotix on the DC. A sign that could confirm the truth of this compilation’s existence is the report of a Sonic 3 and Knuckles update being done for the DC. Remember way back when the Sonic Scene and DC.IGN.COM reported on this? Of course, this could just be a separate title from the compilation, even better news for fans, since more space could be used on the ‘Jam 2’ GD for more games.

Either way, it seems that this beta tester’s story could indeed be true. And if there are betas in existence (SSRG, are you reading this?), it would be interesting to see how they look, even with bugs. Stay tuned, this could be elaborated further…

Part 1:  It looks like the beans have been spilled. But is it true? Apparently, a game tester for Sega of America was interviewed by a Segadojo reporter, and one could almost say that he leaked some rather big information. Here’s a big chunk of that interview:

Platedropper:…As far as waiting list, that just comes to show you how popular wanting to become a tester shows. Moving on……..i want to talk about some things on graphics and some other related stuff. First off all, do bits matter anymore? Personally, I don’t see N64 being twice as better than PSX, even though they have twice as many bits. What is going on and is polygons the name of the game for now?

Sonic: Bits means absolutely nothing nowadays. There really is little difference except for a larger data path that information can be sent through at any time. Polygons are interesting because if you spend the time and play around with them amazing things can be done. I picture it like this. The Dreamcast will have developers lining up left and right to test out the best graphical treats and beauty for the eyes. The PS2, since it can do so many polys a sec, will be for the lazy developers who wants to use so many polys on their character models and do not even want to spend the time on getting the good poly models to perfection.

Platedropper: That’s very good to hear! It seems that many people get so caught up in the hype of what has more bits or less bits. And yes, along with shocking sales figures of a million, developers have more reasons to join! Speaking of DC and PS2, is it true that the DC is easier to develop a game, compared to PS2, and why?

Sonic: I really do not know that answer as I have not touched or even seen a PS2 dev kit. But I would say yes, the DC is very easy to program for, with Win CE and DirectX it is available to almost all programmers to get right in.

Platedropper: No problem, PS2 isn’t even out yet. I want to speak about the inside of the DC. What is the heart of the Dreamcast to process these beautiful 3-D graphics? I’ve heard of the SH4 and the PowerVR chip, can you explain what it EXACTLY does?

Sonic: Which chip?

Platedropper: The Power VR chipset

Sonic: the PVR2DC takes all the polygon information and renders it, it applies certain effects such as filtering and anti-aliasing.

Platedropper: ok…..and what does the SH4 (CPU) do? Sonic: The PowerVR architecture only renders the forward facing pixels to save the bandwidth

Platedropper: all right, thanks for all this info, I’m kinda alien when it comes to what these things do. Speaking of polygons…………

Sonic: The SH4 is the heart of the DC and is the chip that transforms all the polygons and then sends the info to the PVR2Dc so it will apply all the graphical effects to the scene. The SH4 also does all of the AI and physics and well everything hat is needed for the game to run.

Platedropper: So the SH4 is truly the heart of the DC. I bet the game Seaman is a good example of the Sh-4 can do :). Speaking of polygons…..According to the specs sheet here…it states that the DC can do 3million+polygons a second. In the mainstream gaming mags I hear that it can only do 3 million at max which puts the DC always in the position of being semi obsolete to the power of PS2 or less with all effects on. What information do you know of how many polygons a second the DC can really do ?

Sonic: I know of certain things which I can no longer discuss. Let’s just say this. The DC can push 4 million + polygons per second with most all effects turned on.

Platedropper: No problem…and when you say “plus” you mean past 4 million polygons a second right?

Sonic: Yes I do, but I will not say how much.

Platedropper: ok…

Platedropper: Sonic, I tell you, I really get tired when I go to the mainstream message boards and the Sony fans tell me that the DC cant make games like TTT or even Bouncer. Yet, when I saw DOA2, it seems to me the same or even better than TTT, is the DC using some tricks that we dont know about, like more lighting or anything else?

Sonic: Not really, if a certain developers makes good use of the DC hardware and learns its little secrets and tricks then amazing things can start to appear.

Platedropper: that is so true! A good example is Shenmue, that seems to really use the DC’s hardware. Speaking of Shenmue…..Have you tried the beta version of Shenmue, if so, how was it?

Sonic: Let us say that the English voice-overs so far are terrible. Shenmue is a game I cannot speak about too much.

Platedropper: alright……Sonic Adventure is one of my favorite games for all time, yet, I still miss the 2-d version of Sonic. Would you happen to hint what the next SA game will look like, and will we see any sort of 2-D action, or is there gonna be more polygons? Any kind of hints you can indicate would be nice.

Sonic: SA2 will look like SA1 but with higher poly models and better textures and more lighting effects; about the same level from sonic 1 to Sonic 2. There very well could be a certain Sonic the Hedgehog 4 in development within the confines SoJ. But this may come out on a future compilation of Sonic games.

Platedropper: Yay! That’s cool to hear……..! SA looked really beautiful, i have been asked this before, and I do not know the answer, but can you say how many polys SA moves compared to the likes of Soul Calibur?

Sonic: Between 300,000 and 600,000 polys a sec for Sonic Adventure. Soul Caliber pushes about 700,000 polys a sec from the dev kit numbers.

Platedropper: WOW! That’s not even the scratch of DC’s power! And development kits? I think I heard of this before, like SA used the first dev kit and Soul Calibur used a higher one. Can you please explain more about this, this stuff intrigues me!

Sonic: I cannot discuss this information as it us highly under NDA! Let’s just say that Soul Caliber used Set 5, SA used Set 2.

Platedropper: That’s cool with me. Ok…..and I assume there are higher ones than set 5, right? (You don’t have to answer this, I understand your position my friend)

Sonic: Set 5 is the highest.

Some forumers at the DCTP board are very skeptical about this, though. We’ll have that part of the story tomorrow.