Luigi's Mansion-Sonic Mega Collection-GameCube $16.99 + Free Shipping

[NintendoFanGirl]

This has probably been posted already but since some may not see it if the game title isn't in the subject, I'll post again.
Circuitcity.com has both Luigi's Mansion and Sonic Mega Collection on sale for $16.99 plus free shipping:

Luigi's Mansion http://www.circuitcity.com/gamedetail.jsp?c=1&b=g&u=c&catoid=-10783&bookmark=bookmark_2&oid=58182

Sonic Mega Collection http://www.circuitcity.com/gamedetail.jsp?c=1&b=g&u=c&catoid=-10783&bookmark=bookmark_3&oid=65600

[ransom456]

I almost picked up Sonic Mega Collection in-store today, but I decided to wait, because of this:

Sonic Mega Collection Plus (PS2)
http://www.ebgames.com/ebx/product/244473.asp

Anybody know what is supposed to be so "plus" about it? I'm hoping it'll include Sonic CD.

[Duo_Maxwell]

Yeah what's the Plus exactly? Alos, I've been noticing how Sega is slowly ripping thie GCN exclusive titles over to the PS2 (Ex. Super Monkey Ball DX)

[epobirs]

All I could find is this but it doesn't offer any info on the 'Plus' content either:
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/512/512252p1.html

Thus far, I'm beginning to think the Plus is availability on a more popular platform.

[Nephets]

I was going to buy the Mega Collection, then I saw the Mega Collection Plus, so, I think I'll wait to see what it's all about.

If Sonic CD is on there, I'll buy it in a heartbeat, I can't believe the GCN one didn't include it, it is one of the best Sonic games of all time.

[eldad9]

If Sonic CD is on there, I'll buy it in a heartbeat, I can't believe the GCN one didn't include it

To support all the other games, all they needed to do was get Genesis emulation right. To add that title, they'd also need to add Sega CD emulation. That would almost double the amount of work needed to produce the collection.

[Duo_Maxwell]

All I could find is this but it doesn't offer any info on the 'Plus' content either:
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/512/512252p1.html

Thus far, I'm beginning to think the Plus is availability on a more popular platform.

Haha probably so, you'd think if they were adding more games on or something they would've mention it by now.

[epobirs]

If Sonic CD is on there, I'll buy it in a heartbeat, I can't believe the GCN one didn't include it

To support all the other games, all they needed to do was get Genesis emulation right. To add that title, they'd also need to add Sega CD emulation. That would almost double the amount of work needed to produce the collection.

Not all that much work really. The Sega CD only brings one major new element with it, the video processing chip that provides some of Sonic CD's speceial effects. The rest is just a faster M68000 than the one already emulated fromt he Genesis and a 64K RAM buffer and the virtual bus between all of these elements. There are existing products to do this in the hobbyist market that can be licensed for pocket change compared to doing the owrk from scratch.

[Duo_Maxwell]

Another I fear it won't have new games on it is the price. Only $20? Seems like if the wanted to add stuff on it it would be at least $30 to start with.

[eldad9]

Not all that much work really. The Sega CD only brings one major new element with it, the video processing chip that provides some of Sonic CD's speceial effects. The rest is just a faster M68000 than the one already emulated fromt he Genesis and a 64K RAM buffer and the virtual bus between all of these elements. There are existing products to do this in the hobbyist market that can be licensed for pocket change compared to doing the owrk from scratch.

Nintendo doesn't really do business that way.

And yes, software to do it exists for PCs, but making these elements work together may be easy or hard depending on how they interface and the console's capabilities. for example. I bet the music in sonic cd was just normal CD audio; the gamecube really doesn't do that, so you'd have to write code to continously load, decode, and play the music. just an obvious example.

[jennie25]

if you read the last few lines in the ign article, it points out they will be back with more info from e3, but note that didn't happen and monkey ball and sonic collection are all still rumors. not every game that comes up in eb's/gamestop's systems are for real

[Duo_Maxwell]

Yeah but I've seen announcements on websites like Gamspot as well. Also, I'm pretty sure Sega confirmed Super Monkey Ball DX, but didn't gives details.

[epobirs]

Not all that much work really. The Sega CD only brings one major new element with it, the video processing chip that provides some of Sonic CD's speceial effects. The rest is just a faster M68000 than the one already emulated fromt he Genesis and a 64K RAM buffer and the virtual bus between all of these elements. There are existing products to do this in the hobbyist market that can be licensed for pocket change compared to doing the owrk from scratch.

Nintendo doesn't really do business that way.

And yes, software to do it exists for PCs, but making these elements work together may be easy or hard depending on how they interface and the console's capabilities. for example. I bet the music in sonic cd was just normal CD audio; the gamecube really doesn't do that, so you'd have to write code to continously load, decode, and play the music. just an obvious example.

I can't imagine what Nintendo has to do with it. we're talking about Sega.

As for the audio, are you kidding? If the audio is in Red Book than it's trivially easy to put the files on a GameCube disc and stream them. Much more so than emulating an entire audio synthesizer subsection. Even if the music is synthesized that is already covered by the existing emulation code since the Sega CD doesn't contribute any additions there.

As for licensing third party emulation code, Sega has already done it for previous products. In addition, the task for Sega is vastly simpler than most emulation projects. The usual difficulty is in revers engineering the original hardware without access to proprietary data. Sega, of course, is under no such limitation for recreating their own hardware. This eliminates about 60% percent of the time and effort for emulating such an old product.

[The Successful Dropout]

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=23839

not to be rude, because im sure nintendofangirl didnt see this in my weekly ad post and then decide to post it off of that...but a lot of ppl on here seem to disect my weekly ad post and create their own thread(s) on it....i dont mind, but wouldn't that be in the "already posted" category...or should i just create separate threads on deals that i think are worthy of having their own thread from the weekly ads deal?

[eldad9]

You're right of course, I meant sega. OK, for the PC they could (and did, for their genesis collections) just get an emulator author to create a custom version. but for the gamecube - that would have to be done completely in house since no third part stuff exists for the cube. (maybe).

as for the audio, you need to do that at the same time as emulating the audio hardware (streaming music + audio fx). anyway, we can only guess how much of a pain the different aspects of the hardware would be to convert to the cube.

[rebenns]

Sonic CD would be nice and all, but what I'd rather have is the ability to save on ALL the games, like you could in Sonic Jam (Saturn)

[mookiemeister]

Thanks! I just ordered Sonic Mega Collection. Played Sonic on Sega a long time ago. Hope it's just as fun and fast on GameCube.

[pimp tyranny]

i'm getting the GC version anyway.