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Unofficial Sonic Unleashed port a symptom of SEGA’s fraught relationship with conversions
Sonic fans have been frantic these last while because of an unofficial Sonic Unleashed PC port making the rounds. If one single person was able to bring the game over from Xbox 360 to PC, how come the company is not interested? That may be seen as a symptom of the Japanese company's often complicated relationship with conversions. What happened over the years? The 90s and the first Sonic ports by SEGA There was a time, now quite far away, when Sega was very jealous of its properties, thus having little to no interest in converting their games to other platforms. This started to change after the mid-90s when Sega saw the potential for a new audience on a platform where there wasn't much competition for 2D platform games. In 1996, Sega decided it was time to port some of their games over to PC, creating an internal division just for that. Called Sega PC, the team was headed by hardware expert Shun Arai. Their first ports were indeed Sonic games but, for some reason, they skipped games that people wanted (like Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2) and, instead, released a Sonic & Knuckles collection, with Sonic CD following soon. Excellent games, mind you, but why not start from the beginning? We might never have the answer to that. Image by Destructoid The division ported quite a few classic Mega Drive / Genesis games on PC, such as Comix Zone, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA. These ports ranged from okay to the bare minimum to get them running, and today they are probably better ignored if you are looking to run these games on PC. An emulator would probably give you less trouble and much more customization options. Not to mention the boxed versions are very expensive to get. There were also some rather strange choices, like on Sega Smash Pack, released in 1997 which included classics such as Out Run and Golden Axe. So far so good, but not only the chosen Sonic game for that compilation was Sonic Spinball (why??) but The Revenge of Shinobi included was a Japanese prototype version. Image via Sonic Wiki Zone Probably the crown of weird will have to go to the Sonic & Garfield Pack, a 1999 compilation disc featuring three Mega Drive games: Sonic & Knuckles collection (yep, again), Garfield Caught in the Act, and for some ungodly reason, the puzzle Baku Baku Animal. I am not sure what the lasagna-loving meme cat has to do with Sonic, but I am surprised he still hasn't made a loving cameo in any of the Sonic movies. Sega PC continued working well until 2000, when the whole division was merged into the company Smilebit, known mostly for their quality Xbox and Dreamcast games until Sega officially disbanded the company in 2004. SEGA and PC, the later confusing years From 2005 until 2015, Sega was in a weird place with their PC ports, since many of their games would receive a PC version, but others seemed to be left out. Case in point Sonic Unleashed or the quite infamous Sonic 2006. Not to mention the several Wii-exclusive Sonic games that are still just stuck on that one platform and can't seem to get out. Things get even weirder if one ventures outside of the Sonic games, with titles such as Toejam & Earl 3 that have been stuck on Xbox since 2007, or even appreciated sequels such as The House of the Dead 4 and Virtua Tennis 2. But hey, we did get Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on PC in 2006... Image via Sega Entertainment Things started to change for good after 2016 when Sega apparently embraced the presence of Steam and started a successful relationship with the digital platform. Senior VP of commercial publishing John Clark, interviewed by PC Gamer in 2017, mentions how Sega's relationship with Steam was important for the company. He also went on a strange tangent about needing "to make sure that they’re good PC games, making sure that technically they really, really deliver what the community wants and for what the tech-savvy community wants on Steam". Which sure, speaks to the fact that Sega would not want to deliver a shoddy PC port, bless them, but the problem remains that their selection of games to be ported on PC seemed to be a bit of random guessing. Or more like blindly throwing dirt at the wall to see what sticks. This changed with the success of the Yakuza series. The Yakuza series and a new cycle Image via Sega The growing popularity of the series formerly known as Yakuza made Sega realize there was a completely new audience on PC that they wanted to reach. From 2019 on, every title in the series was slowly but surely made available on PC. While it might be hard to believe, it is possible today to play every title in the series on PC. Well, okay, not every title in the series. The weird survival horror spin-off Yakuza: Dead Souls is, sadly, still nowhere to be found, but hey, you can't win them all. While the Like a Dragon series was lucky enough, no such luck for the Fist of the North Star series, where titles like 2018's Lost Paradise, developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku stud
Sonic fans have been frantic these last while because of an unofficial Sonic Unleashed PC port making the rounds. If one single person was able to bring the game over from Xbox 360 to PC, how come the company is not interested?
That may be seen as a symptom of the Japanese company's often complicated relationship with conversions. What happened over the years?
The 90s and the first Sonic ports by SEGA
There was a time, now quite far away, when Sega was very jealous of its properties, thus having little to no interest in converting their games to other platforms. This started to change after the mid-90s when Sega saw the potential for a new audience on a platform where there wasn't much competition for 2D platform games.
In 1996, Sega decided it was time to port some of their games over to PC, creating an internal division just for that. Called Sega PC, the team was headed by hardware expert Shun Arai. Their first ports were indeed Sonic games but, for some reason, they skipped games that people wanted (like Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2) and, instead, released a Sonic & Knuckles collection, with Sonic CD following soon. Excellent games, mind you, but why not start from the beginning? We might never have the answer to that.
The division ported quite a few classic Mega Drive / Genesis games on PC, such as Comix Zone, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA. These ports ranged from okay to the bare minimum to get them running, and today they are probably better ignored if you are looking to run these games on PC. An emulator would probably give you less trouble and much more customization options. Not to mention the boxed versions are very expensive to get.
There were also some rather strange choices, like on Sega Smash Pack, released in 1997 which included classics such as Out Run and Golden Axe. So far so good, but not only the chosen Sonic game for that compilation was Sonic Spinball (why??) but The Revenge of Shinobi included was a Japanese prototype version.
Probably the crown of weird will have to go to the Sonic & Garfield Pack, a 1999 compilation disc featuring three Mega Drive games: Sonic & Knuckles collection (yep, again), Garfield Caught in the Act, and for some ungodly reason, the puzzle Baku Baku Animal. I am not sure what the lasagna-loving meme cat has to do with Sonic, but I am surprised he still hasn't made a loving cameo in any of the Sonic movies.
Sega PC continued working well until 2000, when the whole division was merged into the company Smilebit, known mostly for their quality Xbox and Dreamcast games until Sega officially disbanded the company in 2004.
SEGA and PC, the later confusing years
From 2005 until 2015, Sega was in a weird place with their PC ports, since many of their games would receive a PC version, but others seemed to be left out. Case in point Sonic Unleashed or the quite infamous Sonic 2006. Not to mention the several Wii-exclusive Sonic games that are still just stuck on that one platform and can't seem to get out.
Things get even weirder if one ventures outside of the Sonic games, with titles such as Toejam & Earl 3 that have been stuck on Xbox since 2007, or even appreciated sequels such as The House of the Dead 4 and Virtua Tennis 2. But hey, we did get Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg on PC in 2006...
Things started to change for good after 2016 when Sega apparently embraced the presence of Steam and started a successful relationship with the digital platform. Senior VP of commercial publishing John Clark, interviewed by PC Gamer in 2017, mentions how Sega's relationship with Steam was important for the company.
He also went on a strange tangent about needing "to make sure that they’re good PC games, making sure that technically they really, really deliver what the community wants and for what the tech-savvy community wants on Steam".
Which sure, speaks to the fact that Sega would not want to deliver a shoddy PC port, bless them, but the problem remains that their selection of games to be ported on PC seemed to be a bit of random guessing. Or more like blindly throwing dirt at the wall to see what sticks. This changed with the success of the Yakuza series.
The Yakuza series and a new cycle
The growing popularity of the series formerly known as Yakuza made Sega realize there was a completely new audience on PC that they wanted to reach. From 2019 on, every title in the series was slowly but surely made available on PC.
While it might be hard to believe, it is possible today to play every title in the series on PC. Well, okay, not every title in the series. The weird survival horror spin-off Yakuza: Dead Souls is, sadly, still nowhere to be found, but hey, you can't win them all.
While the Like a Dragon series was lucky enough, no such luck for the Fist of the North Star series, where titles like 2018's Lost Paradise, developed by Ryu Ga Gotoku studio, remain a PlayStation 4 exclusive still today. Now, it would be easy to argue that it's not a necessary game at all, but it would still be nice to have the option.
And now, the big question: can you play the original Sonic the Hedegehog on digital platforms today? Yes, with Sonic Origins, which even includes the 8-bit versions. But the story is not as straightforward as it might seem. There used to be a Steam version of the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive classics that allowed users to buy individual games they wanted to emulate, but that was delisted in December 2024.
As for other Sega classic games, such as Golden Axe or Shinobi, the situation is quite muddy and, as of today, I don't think there's any digital version available on PC. It is possible to grab them on the Switch Online service, however.
Over the years, the porting efforts by Sega have surely been commendable, but it is hard to say what the company's plans are for their most famous series. With all the interest and money in retrogaming, one would think that their entire catalog would already be available digitally.
Still today, that's not the case. And Sega, let me end this by asking a very direct question, where is my port of the beautiful Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder?
The post Unofficial Sonic Unleashed port a symptom of SEGA’s fraught relationship with conversions appeared first on Destructoid.
