XBLA: Updated Graphics "A Requirement" For Classic Games On Xbox Live Arcade
During E3 2008, Kotaku had a chat with Sega of America's Simon Jeffery about their current releases on Xbox Live Arcade - games like Sonic, Golden Axe and the like. From the discussion came a few interesting tidbits:
- Getting System 16, Model 2 and 3 games on Xbox Live Arcade is very difficult since it's difficult to find the source code. They generally don't like working based on 'ROM' files much like the internet does and then emulating them, though that's how it works with Genesis games nowadays.
- Currently for a classic game to get onto Xbox Live Arcade, it must have "Updated Graphics". Much like how the SEGA Classics have horrible blur filters on them or how 'Double Dragon' kind of redrew the character art and ends up looking awful. It is a requirement. What they have found is that everyone ends up turning them all off anyhow.
While I can imagine Microsoft want companies to put in a little more effort into their arcade releases compared to throwing out every game they possibly can, for classic arcade titles it's really not worth the effort at all, in my opinion. Blurring things up just looks ugly.
Thankfully some games like Wonderboy, Virtual On or Virtua Fighter 2 have had complete remakes on the PS2 recently in their SEGA 2600 collections. I'd love to see them make their way onto the Xbox Live Arcade, complete with online multiplayer.
Source: Kotaku: Sega Can't Find The Source Code For Your Favorite Old School Arcade Games [E308]
Comments
Turning off the blurring on SEGA games is something I do... but most people's complaint stems from the fact that it's still blurry if you don't force the image size down to the smallest it can possibly be.
Leaving it at the default size and turning off the blur filter still results in a terrible image. So even with it turned off in Sonic 2, or whatever, it STILL looks like crap.
There are ways to do these things WELL. I think most people turn them off because they're doing a bad job, plain and simple.
A smoothing filter is not smart.
Making a game like Double Dragon look like a crappy Flash title and introducing HORRIBLE slowdown is not smart.
I think it worked fine for Gauntlet and Robotron. Both games look better with the new graphics, but it's not so different that it's off putting.
Posted by: Tony | July 25, 2008 5:46 PM