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Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

Sega's Game Archive 45

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-easy-to-collect-your-own-stuff dept.
Jeff Coe tips us to news that a group of Sega employees recently stumbled upon a storage room in the company's product development department that contains just about every piece of hardware and software Sega has ever released. They were also kind enough to snap some photos and share them. "We asked around about how the room came together and couldn't get a straight answer. Some had said our old legal department had run the archive and given it up to someone else to manage. Others said that the legal archive still exists in another room in the office, and this was pulled together over time from producers and product managers. We don't know the exact how or why, but we love that it exists and immediately accessible."
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Sega's Game Archive More

Sega's Game Archive

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  • Spectacular! I wanna visit!

    They should setup a little museum and have tours!

    -Josh

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Majik Sheff ( 930627 )

      The article said every piece of hardware. I see no Virtua Racing, no Sega Rally, no Top Skater, no arcade games to speak of. I also don't see any pinball machines.

      Sega's shining stars were in the arcade (with the exception of the Naomi system which was just a Dreamcast on 'roids). I was genuinely excited that there might still be a mint collection of arcade jewels, but instead I'm treated to pictures of spindles of preproduction GD-ROMs.

      Oh well, it's still a neat collection. I admit I'm still a little b

      • The Pinball games where made by sega pinball that used to data east pinball now stern pinball in Chicago.

        Also there is no way to fit them in that small room.

        • Yeah, I know. I've written rants before on the asshattery of Stern pinball, and I may again at some point. It's a shame that Stern ended up with the rights to the Data East platform. And I guess I have a big imagination when it comes to envisioning rooms full of wonderfulness. :)

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Yeah, I know. I've written rants before on the asshattery of Stern pinball, and I may again at some point. It's a shame that Stern ended up with the rights to the Data East platform. And I guess I have a big imagination when it comes to envisioning rooms full of wonderfulness. :)

            Better than Gottlieb - they actually requested sites like the IPDB remove all the ROMs (that were once downloadable from Gottlieb's website). Said ROMs were also removed from the website. The reason? All the Gottlieb retailers compl

            • Agreed, Gottlieb pinballs are utter crap anyway. Any advances they made on their technical platform were completely nullified by terrible gameplay, awful visuals, and the same jerkoff doing the voices for EVERY FREAKING GAME. Waterworld? *shudder* Shaq Attaq? *vomit*

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Ant P. ( 974313 )

        It may have said every piece of hardware, but it also said "room" and not "warehouse", therefore it's reasonable to assume they're only talking about consoles here.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lordofthechia ( 598872 )

      They should have sent a poet...

  • So it seems the article's been slashdotted before anyone on slashdot read it. or at least posted comments telling us how awesome it is...
  • If Sega sold the contents of this room, it'd make more profit than it ever had in the history of the entire company... and they just found it lying around?!
    • See that's why it doesn't make sense. Like there really was a room that everyone walked past for so long and nobody knew what was in there until one day someone finally opened it. That's ridiculous. I think the staff just kept it all locked in there so they can whip out the Sega G and play some Phantasy Star during break and someone finally found the room where they stashed it all lol.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by JTD121 ( 950855 ) *

        Sega did not forget the room. The Product Development department just didn't tell everyone that worked there about the room.

        From what I read, they have recently moved; I dunno if that whole department or all of Sega of America.

        Obviously no one forgot about it, seeing as it's recently updated with PS3 games.

        -Josh

  • Now they'll remember even more franchises to milk.

    • Well, they've already violated the Shining and the Phantasy Star series. Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Strike (Desert, Jungle, Urban, etc) games have been run into the ground on the PS2. Microsoft already made a ridiculous new Shadowrun video game. I'm not even going to talk about any Sonic games after 3D Blast.

      That leaves Syndicate, Tyrants, and Warsong, off the top of my head.

      • Sega was great with the 2D but in the 3d world...i don't know...it's like they don't have any good ideas any more. They should make a new console and great games for that console(actually deep inside me i want sega to sell again 16bit games but that's an other story ). Maybe a new development team. A new mascot.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tepples ( 727027 )

          (actually deep inside me i want sega to sell again 16bit games but that's an other story ).

          The GBA was just a little more 32-bit than the Sega Genesis (ARM7TDMI on a 16-bit bus vs. MC68000 on a 16-bit bus), and it had Sonic Advance (decent) and Sonic Genesis (called a terrible port by many Sonic fans).

    • Nothing wrong with milking a franchise IF they do a good job on the sequels!

  • So... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Darkness404 ( 1287218 ) on Friday August 15, 2008 @11:48PM (#24624041)
    So let me get this right, there was an unmarked door in Sega's office that everyone had forgotten about but really contained every game ever made by Sega?
    • I can't read the article 'cause it's /.'d, but from what I can see on the Flickr mirror of the images, it's not only all the games, but stacks of spindles that, I assume, have development builds. So not only does the secret/foregotten door contain every game, but stacks of historical/never-seen-before stuff (read: pre-release builds) as well!
      • Yes but what I found interesting was the forgotten room contained PS3 games! So how forgotten is a forgotten room when it has games from ~2006 or more recent.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Psychotria ( 953670 )
          You are correct of course... also note the lack of dust. The "forgotten" room has less dust than my bedroom (not that that is saying much)

          Cheers

    • Something like that, as funny as it sounds, it's not really that hard to believe, there was probably some Secret Door Manager in charge of it who didn't think it really mattered, no one else suspected its existance since that guy has been in there and hadn't said anything.

      Stuff shipped in and out randomly, coulda been paper towels or post-it notes... la te da... then some inspection is due (insurance, maybe some mods to the building)... bam, what the hell is all this?

      Although, since its on sega.com, unlike

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by D'Sphitz ( 699604 )
      The blog explains that it was not a forgotten room. If it were forgotten, it wouldn't be a complete archive would it? (and as someone points out below it contains PS3 games)

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday August 16, 2008 @12:24AM (#24624187)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I see stackes of games, cd's joysticks, develpoments consoles, drawers full of cables and and controllers... seems like a great place to end up locked in for the night....but wait.... what's this not a single monitor or TV? DOH!!!!
  • Who wanted to put my face between all those Dreamcast builds and motorboat? I bet there are a few unreleased gems in there... perchance to dream!

  • Sad (Score:1)

    by thedrx ( 1139811 )
    I run Hidden Palace [hidden-palace.org], a website devoted to preserving unfinished versions of games (prototypes) and unreleased games (for various reasons, mostly that the media isn't forever, it decays after 10-15 years)

    I spend tens of thousands of dollars on this stuff, when companies like this just ignore it. Most companies throw stuff like this out (SEGA got rid of most of its stuff in ~2001, a lot of unreleased games got destroyed this way).

    It's sad...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ant P. ( 974313 )

      I wonder if they have a similar room for source code. They obviously keep it for some of the newer games if the amount of unoriginal ports and sequels are anything to go by...

  • I can't believe they're talking about renting out all of that stuff (internally). I'm betting some of that stuff is quite valuable.

    I can see the rental agreement now.
    Return a game late: $5/day
    Scratch/Damage/Lose a game: A beating with a big stick

    At least that would be my rental agreement if that were my stuff. But if that were my stuff I wouldn't be renting it out.

  • I would think that every company would have some sort of archive for their products, even ones that were finished to some point but never made it to market. Especially game companies that, for the most part, just store the CDs/carts.

    Here's hoping that some of these gents take some spare time to fix up this room and make a proper archive.

    Personally, I think a small "museum" type setup to show off consoles, accessories, etc. with the gaming library nearby would be a really cool thing. There was this Video G

  • Sega CDx it was too cool of a system to let go. There were even a few cartridge games (not all) where I could start a music CD in them then push the cart in and play the game to my fav CDs.... good times.

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