Rockafeller

Short summary: in a Japanese journal from 1997, an employee of Ikegami Tsushinki (the company that programmed Donkey Kong for Nintendo) wrote about the process. He still had documentation from back in 1981, and his account provides brand-new historical details.

Critical Kate happened across the journal and, knowing that its length (11 pages) would be beyond the usual remit of volunteer translations, organized a fundraiser with Hit Save! and Gaming Alexandria to raise $750 to commission a translation from Shmuplations. The goal's already been met, but you can still donate if you'd like!

In short: referencing other retro game collections released in the past year, the writer notes that Origins could have been a prime opportunity to collect everything about "classic Sonic" from the early to mid-'90s in one package - obscure games, development documents, promotional material, and so on.

Relevant quote:

Digital Eclipse has, over the last few years, stepped up what a video game compilation should be. [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The] Cowabunga Collection has the games, yes. It has multiple versions of some of them! And all sorts of options that alter your playing experience. But it’s the extras that, for me, make it truly shine. You’ve got all sorts of magazine advertisements. You don’t just have a couple pieces of concept art – you have entire game design documents, for multiple games. Anything written in Japanese? A single button gives you an English translation. You have screenshots of every single episode of Ninja Turtles. It takes that extra step to not just give you the games, but let you take a peek into how they were made, and how they were part of the greater Turtles experience. The Ninja Turtles were one of the biggest things in the world back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, and you get a sense of why.

Then Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection took it another step, turning the video game compilation into a true interactive museum. You’ve got a timeline, you’ve got full documentary style interviews. The Atari 2600 was before my time, but I understand the importance of that company and the games they produced. For someone who has zero idea why? That is the perfect game to tell you. It takes any Atari collection that came before and blows it out of the water. The highs and the lows are there for everyone to see, with commentary from the people who were there, and giving you a selection of games that cover it all. It even has Atari Jaguar games. A system that most people will say had one good game!

Sonic Origins doesn’t bother to tell you when Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was released.

It's an interesting point - even if companies aren't necessarily required to be stewards of their own history and present it all to the public like this, on some level perhaps they should be.

Specifically, Civilization, Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Catan, Glimmerati, System Rush, Pathway to Glory: Ikusa Islands, Rifts: Promise of Power, X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse, Mile-High Pinball, Asphalt 2, High Seize, One, and Glory in Death.

I believe this means that all of them have been found now.

The short version: while Sonic 1's official release date was June 23rd, 1991, several Usenet posts around that time make it clear stores in various parts of the US were stocking it up to two weeks beforehand. (There's also some discussion of pre-release coverage of the game, if you're curious.)

It's an interesting look at an era of gaming where synchronized, nationwide release dates in America weren't really a thing. (As the article notes, it took quite a bit of planning to get the sequel out on "Sonic 2-sday" across the country, and even then didn't immediately become the standard.)

"The archive's primarily designed for research purposes — YouTubers, wikis that need to cite print interviews, etc. In my own research, I often see wiki citations that claim bits of information come from a magazine, but when I track down the mag, the info isn't in there.

Also for fans who just wanna read, say, 100 Zelda interviews. But I need someone who can help set up a site anyone can contribute interviews to, kinda like Spriters Resource or a wiki. Owned by me, not Fandom or any corp. Open to ideas, and estimates from web designers."

He currently plans to get the site up in a few months' time (and to focus on interviews from between 1995 and around 2012, since going past that opens up copyright concerns).

This has been around for a few months now, but I think it warrants posting here. This is a hefty collection of statements by Shigeru Miyamoto, building on a number of other resources and amassing them all in one place.