Board Roundtable #5

This edition's topic received more replies than any other of the previous issues. "With every Sonic game on the way, do you really want to see retro games on GameCube?".

Thank you to the following contributors: ModoX, Chris_the_great, Schnumi, Edge, Kraig, Sip, Well_chuffed, Nintendo, Lockey316, JGonspy, countvaseline, EraZer, Shorty, Darkhound, roryrza, DacMan, Omario, King of the Swing, pdhq64, pohleonguk, weeyellowbloke, Ford Prefect, James, Maxman, Great King Bowser, Mattcube, legendofwarcraft, Surronded, Initial, Mayjest, and Richardjoones.

So do you want to see what our board members thought? Read on!

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ModoX: I'm a huge Sonic fan so if they emulate the Mega Drive games well (they got it hugely wrong on the Dreamcast, awful sound) then I'll definitely be getting it, just so I don't have to plug my Mega Drive in each time I want to play it.

But as the GBA has proven, all these ports of old games just don't sell as well. Who is going to buy Breath Of Fire over Golden Sun?

As a die hard retro gamer I love seeing these things, but there's a part of me that thinks about all those kids looking at the box and going "It's just old games, put it back, look, the new Tekken is out". Despite how cool I think the Sonic Mega Collection is, I'm worried that it will be dismissed by most gamers.

Do I want to see retro games on the Cube? Yes. Do I think they should bring them to the Cube? No.

Chris_the_great: I hardly played sonic so I'm intrigued, it seems like a waste of power to bring all the games back with little added to them but it's the quality that really matters.

Schnumi: All the old mario games would be nice (on 1 disc of course) and the Zelda series.

Edge: I can see why some people might want to see ports of retrotastic wonders to the 'Cube but I feel that it is a bit unnecessary. If you want to play classic 16-bit titles I believe you should look to the GBA as it is a lot better suited to such titles. I'm eagerly awaiting the forthcoming Phantasy Star Collection for the Advance but the package would be less enviable if it was set for release on my next-gen powerhouse.

I feel that the 16-bit games should be headed for the GBA while refurnished 32/64bit should make their way to our favourite box of tricks.

Kraig: Hmmmmmmmm, I like the idea of playing the old Sonic games on GameCube, I don't imagine I'll be playing Sonic 1 and 2 much though because i played them both to death when i had m Megadrive, but I never played Sonic 3 or Sonic and Knuckles or games like Sonic R and the CD version of Sonic.
I think it will sell loads and will maybe persuade die hard Sega fans to buy a GameCube.
I imagine the controls will be the d-pad to move and A,B,X and Y as jump etc...
The thing i want to know is will you be able to use the Sonic and Knuckles expansion where you can use Knuckles in other games because that idea was amazing and really brought excellent replay value to the Sonic games.
I'd also like to see the Sonic Advance game included.

Sip: Of course there is something like "the more games on the Cube, the merrier", but bringing all those old games back? I think gamers would be better of if the time that would be used to port those old games, would instead be used to come up with something that hasn't been released before. I don't think there are a lot of people really that interested in retro-games: the older gamers already played it, and the younger gamers have no desire to play it since it's old and outdated. I could be wrong, but I think the only people interested in games like these are a handfull of people who want to play it for nostalgia, and some/a lot of them will still have the originals, so that would eliminate their need for a GameCube port.

So, in short: no, I don't really want to see retro games on the Cube. I'd rather see something new than something old.

Well_chuffed: I absolutely love pulling out my old consoles or downloading emulators to play all the games I did as a child. Though I think I prefer the whole nostalgia of pulling them out over buying a new game with them all on it (other than Mario Allstars).

If they cram enough of those classic games onto a disk I would quite happily buy it. I look forward to seeing Animal Forest because of the built in NES games I'll be able to download to my GBA.

The problem I see is the fact that it will only be mostly the older gamers who will buy the retro games because we are the ones that played them as kids. Today's kids want state of the art stuff and are yet to build up a real sense of nostalgia. To put it more simply, I love my old Commodore 64, that thing rocked so much but someone as much as 5years younger than me (I'm 19) won't even know what a C64 is!

Overall, I think if they are going to release retro games for a console they should do it Animal Forest style, where you find and unlock the games as a bonus, that would appeal more to the younger generation as well as pull back those older nostalgia hunters.

Nintendo: I never really got into the sonic games as I wasn't into computer games when i was that young. But as for releasing them on the cube, well I would much rather it was on the GBA.
The only way that I would buy it on the cube, is if the graphics were spiced up and the game was extended or had extras.
Or SEGA could just opt for the Animal Forest approach and add all the old games into a brand new game.
More games cant be a bad thing but it isn't really a good thing either.

Lockey316: I think that is a brilliant idea because it lets gamers who never had a sonic game before until it came out on the GameCube (me) enjoy gaming classics. It has been done before with Mario all-stars which was a huge hit, hell I pulled out a old mag a couple of days before and it had given Mario all-stars 99%!!! With two in the making the other been the resident evil series it looks like we will never escape the gaming classics which is a good thing because we should never forget the games that made all we have now possible. The very foundations of the games industry! It would be nice too see Nintendo do a Mario Allstars 2 which would include all the ones in the first version and some new ones like Mario 64 and super Mario kart and the 64 version.

JGonspy: I think having those classic Sonics is great. I only really played the second since I didn't have a Genesis (Megadrive to you folks in the UK) so I can't wait to see what all the fuss over the old Sonics is about. I'm much happier seeing it come to the cube then the GBA because I don't really feel like buying 4 or 5 cartridges when I can have it all on one disc.
Of course a new Sonic game would be nice but it really doesn't take that much time or manpower to port games so a new Sonic really shouldn't be affected by a small fraction of the team porting classics.
Classics sell very despite what people may think. The Super Mario Advance series sells extremely well and is constantly the top selling GBA game. Of course those sales come from the name recognition of Mario but I'm sure Sonic has enough of a name to crack one million copies.

Countvaseline: retro games, YES.
old games, NO.

I can appreciate classic gaming (hey I'm old, I'm allowed to) but the whole Sonic Saga (whole being technically not the correct word in this case) ported direct to the cube in its Megadrive state just seems to be an insult. Not only to Nintendo as a whole, but to GameCube owners in general.
What this does is only give the impression that the Cube is an overpriced emulator.
Which it most certainly isn't.
It also smacks of desperation a bit.

Mario Allstars worked for a few simple reasons.
1. NES to SNES isn't as big a jump as Megadrive to GameCube.
2. Its somewhat updated graphically and (excuse the pun) sonicly.
3. The Lost Levels are reason alone to realise it.

Sonic on the other hand, though a worthy series, in its original format seems a little lacking now. Even more so when you consider that you could download the lot of them at any moment and play them on your PC for nothing.

Add to this the difficulty level of the sonic platformers and you suddenly feel like Sega are taking the piss.
You'd probably be lucky to fill a 1/10 of a GC disc with the games in question. The ommisson of the rest of the Sonic games from MegaCD, GameGear and NeoGeoPocket is the biggest slap in the face.

The REAL question is: What's the price going to be?

Retro gaming has its place via updating, revising and through added extras (a la Animal Crossing) not through swindling an easily abused public.

Schnumi: The price should be the half off normal games but some guys say new games above old. But the old games only have to be put on the mini DVD and that's it so they have enough time for new games.

ERaZer: I want to see retro games on the GameCube, I would just love it if Nintendo made an Allstars 2 with every NES, SNES and N64 Mario game(and games where Mario starred in, like Mario Tennis). And they updated the graphics and sound, like the did in All-stars 1. This Sonic Mega Collection is not that... it doesn't have hard to get games(like Allstars 1 had, the Lost Levels), improved graphics or extremely many games.
I want retro games on GameCube, the All-stars way or the Animal Crossing(i.e. hiding them inside the game, like DK64 did).

Shorty: There is a lot of potential for retro games on the GameCube, as Nintendo has a fantastic back catalogue of games that a lot of this generation of gamers may not have experienced. However when it comes to retro games I think price has to be very important. The re-release of Ocarina of Time and Sonic sounds very cool, but unless they stack a lot of new additions in, I don't think I will find myself forking out �40 for some NES games that were only �8 when they came out.

Direct ports of old games is a bad move (see the Mario series on the GBA) but retro games... now that's different. Ports have not done the GameCube a lot of good - but maybe if the games were 2D classics they would be a hit. As I said Nintendo need to consider price first. You could pick up a mega-drive in the paper for the price of a GC game...

What gamers like me want now is not old classics, but new ones. Once Nintendo have found their feet and got a solid foundation of games like Zelda, Perfect Dark and Metroid - which take priority, they can consider retro games and other "side projects".

DarkHound: I'm a bit sceptical too when it comes to retro games hitting the Cube. It's not that I don't want to play them, it's just that, as said before, who's going to buy them when you can buy a new and probably better game (in regards to graphics and such). For example, when reading a review you often come across lines such as 'The graphics look as they did 5 years ago', so if we don't appreciate bad graphics in new games, why would someone really appreciate them in old games? If you want to re-live the feeling of playing an old game, either power up an old console or buy a Gameboy advance for it's retro games. I myself only want the more impressive games on my Cube.
What wouldn't be a bad idea though is to put these retro games on new game discs, as extra's. I wouldn't mind paying a couple of bucks more for Super Mario Sunshine if I would receive an old Mario game with it. But I wouldn't buy retro games specifically.

Roryrza: I would like to see a lot of the Mega Drive games remade on the GameCube as there were lots of enjoyable games on the MD.

DacMan: I like the idea of seeing old games being released on new consoles but it worries me that older games are just being ported and released as a cheap and easy ways of making money by software developers. In the case of the sonic collection then it's Ok, I doubt that I would buy it but there are some good Sonic games so I can understand why people would.

Lets hope that more developers incorporate older games into their newer titles - like the old NES games in Animal Forest / Crossing and Jetpack in DK64 (We need more old Spectrum classics on the GC - how about Knight Lore or SabreWulf Rare --- please?)

Although I think its unlikely how about NGC persuading developers to port old games to the 'cube and then giving them away free with their magazine?

Lets just hope that the developers don't get too lazy, we really want to see new and original games on the 'cube but if you want to port old titles and give them to us as bonus games bundled with them then we won't complain.

Tpr007: I like the idea of certain retro packages, but if it becomes commonplace there would be an influx of inferior "retro" packages being released which may be harmful.

The Sonic idea would have been better if they'd included the harder to find Sonic titles.

On the other hand, considering the NES, SNES + N64 cartridge capacity, it wouldn't be unrealistic to put the best Mario titles onto 1 disc, including those that are now hard to get, e.g Mario Tennis as well as classics like Mario 64, SMB1+3, Paper Mario etc...
They could present the disc in such a way as to show the progression of the games from the early beginnings.

Retro is a popular concept, as shown by the "success" of the MAME arcade emulator, but price is an important factor. If they did the Mario disc (including n64 Mario titles as well as NES and SNES . e.g. Paper Mario, Mario 64 etc...) I would happily pay �20-25.

Omario: I think the idea of old games on the GC is an amazing idea. It will also bring the many SEGA and Sonic fans closer to Nintendo and the GameCube.

Hopefully we might see more of the retro games coming to the GameCube. Mario, Megaman and Zelda mega collections for the GC would be a fantastic idea.

King of the Swing: Retro or no retro, that is the question.
Retro games mentioned to anyone will bring images of Space Invaders or a side-scrolling 2D shooting game. Those games were fun, but short and there was no space for genius to be shown with the platforms of the age.
But then, SEGA arrived and with the MegaDrive introduced Sonic the Hedgehog. The world was thrilled with the brilliant game play and creativeness of it all. 2D 'platformers' were born.
But then, a few short years later, 3D was born and Super Mario 64 blew away video gamers. Sonic needed to keep up and made some pathetic (in my opinion) attempts at 3D gaming.
I feel that some genres/games will die if they can't keep up with the trends, which has been the failing point of many a developer in adding a bad 3D engine. So, now that the second wave of 3D consoles has arrived, they are simply bunging all the old games onto CD's, and making them play on your GameCubes.
A good thing to do would be to get the games, re-do the graphics and sound, make them more 'modern' and let you play them. Then you don't have to pay �40 for something you could get on eBay for your SNES priced �10.
There is a risk of no sales with a simple porting, SEGA runs that. Let's just hope that they let Amusement Vision sort it out, hey?

Pdhq64: Personally, I don't think retro games with no update have a place on the GameCube. The GameCube is for new games, with great graphics and sound. I think retro games should be remade on the GameBoy Advance. The graphics of most older games can be matched by the GBA without much difficulty at all.

Pohleonguk: Do I want Retro Games on the GameCube?
Personally I welcome Sonic and all the old classic games onto the GameCube. In fact Sonic was probably the first game I played. I first owned a Genesis/Mega Drive back when I was 4, and I use to enjoy playing many a Sonic games, and now I can finally can relive the experience and maybe finally clock the game . Although this may only apply with Sonic, if I went into my local GAME and saw a brand new game or a old collections of retro titles, I would go for the new one. I am still quite young and maybe when I am 30 I will be wanting to play retro games. So maybe retro isn't all that bad...... (Note from Gualtiero: Happy Birthday!)

Weeyellowbloke: I think that it is a good idea to release old games on new consoles but not the original old games for example, with the sonic collection they should take sonic 1, 2, and 3 and give them a sonic adventure style make over so instead of having 2D side scrolling games on a beast like GameCube you have 3D version that is graphically great and actually uses the GameCube's power. This method could be used on many other retro games and anyway why spend �40 on a collection of games that you can download of the internet for free. Come on lads think about it.

Ford Prefect: I think that having the old Sonic's on the Cube is good, it will take me back to being a kid again, plus plat formers are best as 2d side scrollers I think.
I had sonic 1,2 on Gamegear, Mastersystem and Megadrive, and 3 and sonic and knuckles on mega drive too. I played them all to death all the years ago, and every so often I still get them out for a bash. would be very cool to have them on the GameCube in my opinion.

James: Yes, now that Sonic has been realised on the GameCube would love to see retro games on it. One of these would have to be Rampage(I am sure you all remember).Of course It would be even better if the original Mario Bros. for the NES and SNES could arrive on the Cube. Try to imagine it Super Mario Brothers 3(On SNES)going onto the Cube, it would rock the world. Lets keep our hopes on for retro games in the future.

Maxman: Sega have nothing to lose because all what they are going to do is just transfer the GBA and Mega drive versions of sonic to a GC CD and have about 3Gb free space to do what ever they want and then what�
I don't think they should be remaking old games on GC, this will lead to other companies doing the same and overall lowering the standard of gaming. It would be better if they can spend that time making a GOOD sonic game with no problems and good camera control. This would be a much better project.

Great King Bowser: Personally I think that remakes of old retro titles are a nice idea and I genuinely think that there is a market for them, I owned a Megadrive and bought all the mainstream Sonic titles (1,2,3 S+K) but then I missed out on the Saturn incarnations, so this is genuinely a really good investment for me, not only to rekindle my nostalgia but also to catch up on what I missed.

There were rumours of a Zelda: ocarina of time remake, even though this may not be as "retro" as other games it would be a very good title to re-release on the GameCube, numerous people missed out on this game during the Nintendo 64 days (namely PSX owners) and them getting another chance to play such a great game would genuinely be good marketing for Nintendo, I would even buy the game again even though i completed it numerous times on the n64, and if they were to add the extras rumoured that would be a bonus as well.

In conclusion I believe that retro games have a genuine market and we need to see a rekindling of old school gaming!

Though perhaps releasing singular retro titles would be a bad idea, but compilations is where the money is baby!

Mattcube: I think that using the word retro starts the whole discussion off in the wrong direction. What that implies is that we are talking old coming back into fashion and i think this is the problem. Its not what's COOL to play it all about the games.
Games at the moment are in a bit of a slump. Real gamers are fed up of FIFA 2076 and Tomb Raider 53. Instead they put on their Rose tinted glasses and hark (blimy did I actually say hark?) back to the "old school days". This I think is wrong, but the reason behind it is real. We do want some great original games that are fun.
Take Sonic, Sonic Adventure 1+2 are, well ... a pile of crud so we want to play Sonic and Tails etc, and why not? Who doesn't enjoy playing the original Sonics, they were great fun?
I'm not saying that "retro" games are wrong and although i do believe the video games industry needs a boot up the backside, i feel they do have a place. We all like games that are original and fun no matter what there age, but we should have to have them instead of new original games.
If they were good and have survived the test of time (as many haven't) then fine by all means they have a place. Especially for folks who haven't played them before. But they should never be used as a replacement, company who are struggling shouldn't just dig out there old games and sell them just to make easy money, they should take their concept and improve on them etc (and never charge full price).
Retro games have a place but not the one being used at this point in time.

Legendofwarcraft: This is my opinion. Nintendo wants to get that older audience. So why not get them in their by putting games thy know and love on this new system. Maybe they see Super Mario Sunshine and say" I remember playing that old super Mario World for hours and hours. But I don't want to play it in 3D(many people just don't like old school games in 3D)"
So maybe just maybe by releasing that collection of old games the older crowd might pick up a GameCube to rekindle those old glory days.

Surronded: Retro games are the essence of games. It was the grow up of videogames. MegaDrive and SuperNes were incredibly popular and Sega and Nintendo made great games for them, like Final Fight, Streets of Rage, Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros, Outrun, Shinobi, Mario Kart, Phantasy Star, ...
We should remember the old games. And Sega and other companies are doing well to make retro collections and remakes, that good games are unique and it will never be a game like the old incredible game that amazed us with that fun and quality.
Thanks all the companies to make retro games on GameCube.

Initial: Retro games were probably the beginning for most of us here. The glory days of classic games from Nintendo and Sega in the first console wars ever. It was a great time. Quality games were being churned out from both ends and we, the consumer, were winning no matter what.

Nowadays, it's a bit different. Quality games are few and far between. Today it's more about quantity than quality. Granted consoles will have their quality games but its not like back in the day.

Back to the point, Retro gaming is very good. It gives those people who missed out the opportunity to play the games that were around at the beginning.

However those people that were there, and did play the games then, may not like the idea of re-integrating the games into the market today. If we look at the market today most people who play games are teenagers. Many, many of these will be young teenagers and will never have played retro games back then (when they weren't retro).

I personally don't believe that these people will shine to the fact of retro games with 'crappy' graphics.

It will basically come down to the fact that if there are more people that played games then, than they do now, retro games will return for a re-release. But as we all know that isn't true.

In conclusion I personally like the idea of retro games (particularly some RPG's that i never got around to getting and can't get now). Bring on the Nostalgia trip.

It just goes to show you I guess. I know loads of people that sell their old games just to get new ones. I could never do that. I love my old games, and I will always keep them.

I guess it's just because I can say 'I was there, at the beginning.'

Mayjest: Frankly, I'm really delighted in the fact that SEGA is devoting a team to emulating old sonic games on the GameCube, WHEN THEY COULD BE MAKING SOMETHING NEW!!!!!

(Can you detect the sarcasm in my voice? No? Was it just not obvious enough?)

I would much rather a brand new game from the team that's doing the porting. Old games on new consoles don't work, (especially when most of these sonic games will use the d-pad, as that's what the games used originally. Anyone thought of that yet?)

Don't get me wrong, I loved sonic when it was on the Megadrive, but i just don't see the point in wasting limited resources (i know that's not technically true) on old games. A new, addictive, innovative system seller would be preferable.

Hey guys, spend your money on old games for all I care, my money's on Zelda, Mario, Metroid and Starfox (some of us have to save their money to afford them).

Richardjoones: I'd only buy a retro collection if it was really big and was at a low cost. Something like all the previous Mario games + all the Zeldas would be worth paying �20 for. I wouldn't pay money to buy a few short games that are dead old.

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That's it for the 5th edition of Board Roundtable, thanks to our 31 participants and make sure you take part in next week's topic! All you have to do is follow the link below and go to the GameCube Discussion Board. Have fun!