Outrun 2006, bringing it to DC!!

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 1:08 pm

@Imerion, i wrote a long reply then my browser crashed

( I'll get back to you tomorrow.

Miko · Post by **Miko** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:09 pm

We're talking 2006 here guys. Nothing will come out on the Dreamcast now. Not from Sega. Why not just buy it on Xbox? Also you have to appreciate the Dreamcast is far too different from a PSP's build. They'd have to do a lot of work to port it as it'd be coded different etc. Manufacture a game that'll sell 5 copies... Don't think so! A DC game in 2006 fully priced, don't think it could work to sell enough anyway, too.

Mike

Joestar · Post by **Joestar** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:15 pm

Skynet wrote:Personally I'd hate to place this on PSP

The first time I picked up the PSP and played Ridge Racers, my first thought was that Outrun2 would be damn awesome on this handheld.

MetaFox · Post by **MetaFox** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 6:23 pm

Miko wrote:We're talking 2006 here guys. Nothing will come out on the Dreamcast now. Not from Sega. Why not just buy it on Xbox? Also you have to appreciate the Dreamcast is far too different from a PSP's build. They'd have to do a lot of work to port it as it'd be coded different etc. Manufacture a game that'll sell 5 copies... Don't think so! A DC game in 2006 fully priced, don't think it could work to sell enough anyway, too.

Although I doubt that a petition for this game would be sucessful in getting Sega to release Outrun 2006 on the Dreamcast, there still is a strong market for the Dreamcast in Japan. The latest Dreamcast releases have reached the top selling games charts and have outsold games on the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Every recent Dreamcast release has sold out of their production runs.

bender · Post by **bender** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:38 pm

Miko wrote:We're talking 2006 here guys. Nothing will come out on the Dreamcast now. Not from Sega. Why not just buy it on Xbox?
Mike

You mean Xbox 360, right? :p

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 3:54 pm

And at this rate I'm pretty sure there are more working DC's in the world at the consumers end than Xbox 360's

Skynet · Post by **Skynet** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 6:39 pm

Joestar wrote:
Skynet wrote:Personally I'd hate to place this on PSP
The first time I picked up the PSP and played Ridge Racers, my first thought was that Outrun2 would be damn awesome on this handheld.

Hmmm, well I've yet to play RR on PSP. I own it on DS and rather enjoy it, actually. Reminds me of RR:Revolution on PS1

The only time I've played RR on PSP was once before I bought a PSP and I said "I'm never buying one of these pieces of crap."

Delin hong · Post by **Delin hong** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 6:45 am

worth a try

Eckostyle · Post by **Eckostyle** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 7:57 am

Great news, me being a OR2 fan myself.

Not trying to be a killjoy here, but why get this ported to the DC when it will be readily available for the current gen consoles with better graphics and readily available broadband online play?

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 9:42 am

Check out what i posted, i give some reasons that i think are relevant.

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:19 am

OK, people here is my initial idea about 'how to do this petition'. Please approach it open minded, i know its hard, but we're all allowed to Dream

, please tell me what you think. If there are enough interested people and some willing to help, we can do this.
In case not enough people are interested, I'll directly go to the second part of the plan

...make our own Outrun DC.

ENGLISH

ESPA?OL

..edit.. Ok, all my numbering got screwed up, so sorry for that!

Delin hong · Post by **Delin hong** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 11:57 am

Yes i will distribute posters and advertise the game on all forums i can.

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 3:49 pm

I will definately carry over the news to some of my other forums, I'm pretty sure there a lot of people interested in this one

Once the website is done I will carry the news to other forums, for now it's food for my blog ^^

Imerion · Post by **Imerion** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 6:08 pm

The plan seems good to me. Ill try to help out. Spreading the news as soon as the page is done will be no problems. I was about to offer my help in designing/hosting the page, but you have already taken care of that (and your probably a lot better than me as well when it comes to design). I can help with graphics though. Create banners, avatars, sigs, cd-covers and so on. This is something I believe many can help with, so perhaps a gallery could be added on the page so everyone who want to contribute with these things can do so. Also, since the petition-page is going to be multilingual I can help with translations to Swedish if needed.
As for funding, a good old Donate-through-Paypal button could be a good start once the page is finished.

However, Im still more interested in the second project, creating a similar game on our own. Doing that paralell to the petition might be a good idea. If you need someone to draw textures and other graphics, Ill gladly help with that. Just PM me. Wish I could be of more help, but my C programming skills aren't up to the task. I can make simple games using SDL but not much more and Im not good at 3d-modeling either.

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:08 am

Thanx for the positive response Delin hong, Cid Highwind, Imerion, segafreak2, i very much appreciate it, I'll continue with this topic a little while longer to see if there is more interest... i closed the topics at LikSang and DCS due to too much offtopicness and negativity. We can pursue this crusade further, but at the end we need 10 000 people to be interested in buying Outrun 2. So lets give it some time!

On the other hand I'm more than interested in making a racing game for the DC in that same arcade style and will do it regardless of public response, so this petition can silently turn into a racer project for the dc.

However, I'm still more interested in the second project, creating a similar game on our own.
If you need someone to draw textures and other graphics, Ill gladly help with that. Just PM me.

I certainly will, thank you!

Segafreak2 · Post by **Segafreak2** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 5:39 am

If you inform the big boys at IGN, Gamespy, Game FAQs, 1up etc. who are all Dreamcast fans

then Sega could get a kick up the backside...

Reasons:

1. All new DC releases have sold out, there is still a feeling of nostalgia for the DC all over the world, and it is highly popular in Japan. If Sega sold the game online in other countries (like at amazon.co.uk) in their respective formats (e.g. PAL) in GDs then the game would sell. The fact is Sega haven't done that yet, so they can't say it wont work

2. As Tec Toy are still manufacturing DCs, why can't they manufacture BB adapters as well? Sure the people on eBay who sell them for ?100-?200 a piece would go mad, but it would be great for everyone else. They're still making Saturns for christ's sake! That must make it the longest production run of any console!

3. Yes there is an issue of hardware and emulation, but it's nothing Sega can't handle; especially as Yuji Naka is a Dreamcast fan.

So there's only one thing for me left to say:

cube_b3 · Post by **cube_b3** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:25 am

Cid Highwind · Post by **Cid Highwind** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 12:40 pm

Segafreak2 wrote:If you inform the big boys at IGN, Gamespy, Game FAQs, 1up etc. who are all Dreamcast fans then Sega could get a kick up the backside...

Reasons:

1. All new DC releases have sold out, there is still a feeling of nostalgia for the DC all over the world, and it is highly popular in Japan. If Sega sold the game online in other countries (like at amazon.co.uk) in their respective formats (e.g. PAL) in GDs then the game would sell. The fact is Sega haven't done that yet, so they can't say it wont work
2. As Tec Toy are still manufacturing DCs, why can't they manufacture BB adapters as well? Sure the people on eBay who sell them for ?100-?200 a piece would go mad, but it would be great for everyone else. They're still making Saturns for christ's sake! That must make it the longest production run of any console!
3. Yes there is an issue of hardware and emulation, but it's nothing Sega can't handle; especially as Yuji Naka is a Dreamcast fan.

So there's only one thing for me left to say:

In reply to #1: I don't think pal optimization would be needed, most PAL gamers won't have trouble playing NTSC games, a good bootdisc can be downloaded for free, legally, and 60Hz is a must for games, which almost every single tv supports afaik. Plus having to convert a game to PAL will involve extra costs. Shipping NTSC games to let's say amazon.co.uk would be the best thing I think.

In reply to #2: More BBA's are welcome of course, but that might be a good thing for a next project, no offence meant, but at this moment I think the Outrun game is more important.

In reply to #3: There is no way to avoid emulation, and the downloading of warezed copies, unfortunately

But that shouldn't discourage anyone from porting this game to DC, those Chankast kiddies never intended to buy the game in the first place. Chankast will always remain something 'grey' untill normal dvd drives will have GDrom support, ppl will have to dump the game themselves, or they will resort to pirated copies.

Btw, informing those websites might be a pretty good idea. Dutch members here might know the gaming magazine Power Unlimited, I was thinking about sending an email about this project as soon as the website is finished. I read this month's edition and they are still talking about DC. It was in an article about innovations that 'failed'. Nothing but Kudos to the DC, and shame to the gamers, according to them

Hopefully they will at least put information about this project on their webpage, or in the tiny newsbites in their magazine.

S0L · Post by **S0L** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 7:49 am

Hello,

Greetings from Sumo!

I came across your petition via RMLLUK - and I thought I'd drop by to go over a few problems you might face

First, if you wanted us or Sega to convert the game over, you're going to have to consider it's going to cost quite a bit of money. We're talking somewhere in the region of thousands of pounds, maybe even half a million pounds, since this wouldn't be a short or necessarily easy project. So you'd either have to look to fund this yourselves, or prove it was commercially viable in order for Sega to fund it.

Lets say hypothetically though, that money isn't a problem. What development issues would you face?

First the main one I could spot is memory. The Dreamcast only has 16MB of main RAM. For OutRun 2006 we are indeed doing a PSP conversion, but as you probably know, the PSP has 32MB of system memory to work with.

So you'd have to squeeze the game quite a bit. As it is, we're compressed the format of the 3D models, textures and audio significantly to get it into the PSP - without starting to lose detail I'm not 100% sure how you'd get it down much further. So you'd have to be prepared to take a visual hit.

Thats the single biggest hurdle - though by no means the only one. The next would be deciding on the framerate to aim at. With reduced detail in there, you would have to make some further sacrifices to the quality in order to acheive 60fps. So you'd have to decide on whether the visual quality or the framerate took priority. I can imagine the arguments you'd get in here discussing that!

Aside from the development, you also have to consider the issue of licensing. Since the game uses official representations of Ferrari's, you would also need to obtain the Ferrari license. This will also incur a cost, and require time to ensure your game assets are approved. Time you have to pay artists and programmers for

That's just a few issues. Please understand I don't want to be seen as raining on your parade - one of the reasons we put so much time and effort into OutRun2 is that we are big fans too.

Just bear in mind that it might prove to be very difficult to get an 'official' conversion.

All the best,

---
S0L
---

Segata Sanshiro · Post by **Segata Sanshiro** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 10:16 am

Hi S0L,
its a very nice surprise to see someone from the OutRun 2 development team taking the time to participate in this discussion. I personally deeply thank you for that.

We're aware that it is a very big thing we're asking for and it will be hard to achieve from organisation and funding standpoint. We are big Outrun and Dreamcast fans and as gamers, we're obviously dreamers.

The funding issue is for now out of our reach, we could think of many reasons why is a good move for SEGA to fund such a project and that it wont go unnoticed, neither will it be a loss for the company, but after all we're not SEGA and the money is not ours.

On the other hand I'm sure that as a developer you (as a team) would be interested in the challenge to recreate this masterpiece for a slightly older and weaker system. It would be a test for self reassurance and proof of your skills as artists and programmers, but of course we all have to eat and feed our families and its too big of a sacrifice to do it just for the love of games.

It is most probable that this project would turn into a fan based game in honour of OutRun (of course without using or copying any official assets like art, code, licensed vehicles, level design or music).

As for the technical side, it is my belief that OutRun can be recreated on the DC, of course there will be a visual hit, but given your skill and tools (what we have seen so far) indeed a good port can be done. I personally was thinking about the Daytona USA engine because there are various similarities in how both games render the graphics... The Daytona engine is highly optimised (60fps even for 2 player split screen with visible traffic on screen), it can display large number of vehicles on screen (with almost unnoticeable LOD change), it can render large outdoor areas without pop-up, the vehicle highlight/shading system is solid, its loading times are quite fast... of course, I'm not comparing it directly to your OutRun 2 engine, just drawing parallels.

First the main one I could spot is memory. The Dreamcast only has 16MB of main RAM. For OutRun 2006 we are indeed doing a PSP conversion, but as you probably know, the PSP has 32MB of system memory to work with.
So you'd have to squeeze the game quite a bit. As it is, we're compressed the format of the 3D models, textures and audio significantly to get it into the PSP - without starting to lose detail I'm not 100% sure how you'd get it down much further. So you'd have to be prepared to take a visual hit.

This is certainly true, nevertheless with skill and workarounds good visuals can still be obtained from the DC, for example this small level was made for a tech demo for a homebrew 3D Dreamcast engine... it is around 3000 polys and all the 52 textures occupy 4Mb (please don't feel offended by the quality, its an example).

So you'd have to decide on whether the visual quality or the framerate took priority. I can imagine the arguments you'd get in here discussing that!

Certainly

... its good to always aim at 60.

you also have to consider the issue of licensing. Since the game uses official representations of Ferrari's, you would also need to obtain the Ferrari license. This will also incur a cost, and require time to ensure your game assets are approved. Time you have to pay artists and programmers for

This is an understandable issue.

Please understand I don't want to be seen as raining on your parade

Your comments are very valuable for this discussion, it is in no way "raining on the parade", but a very good experience for us. Thank you once more

Just bear in mind that it might prove to be very difficult to get an 'official' conversion.

But not impossible

Thank you again for posting, and good luck on all future SUMO projects from OutRun fans worldwide.

Outrun 2006, bringing it to DC!!

Should we bring Outrun 2006 to Dreamcast?