Sonic Colors: Ultimate - Announcement Trailer

[PSI Wind]

Showing the game side by side with the original actually shows that they took a more realistic take with the lighting and a lot of material is just overall better. While I don't like the look of some areas or materials, I do think overall its a very nice looking game

[McGroose]

11 years and 2 console generations later and we went from 480p 30FPS on the Wii to 900p 30FPS on the docked Switch.  

To be fair, I don't really care that much in regards to the visual difference between 900p and 1080p. I won't really notice when playing and I wouldn't find it that noticeable of a difference between, say, 1080p and 1440p for example.

But those numbers from a technical perspective are just embarrassing. The Switch isn't that weak and this isn't a full remake, it a remaster of the same game from 11 years ago with some textures given a resolution increase and a lot of bloom everywhere. 

[Cube]

Just finished Game Land and unlocked Super Sonic. I think it's a great part of the game.

If Sega had made something similar in scope, but with themes and bosses, it would have been a great downloadable Sonic game.

[Rabbitearsblog]

Do you think the controversy over this game's release will cause another shift in Sonic Team?  I think that's what happened with Rise of the Lyric.

[Zoomzeta]

29 minutes ago, Rabbitearsblog said:

Do you think the controversy over this game's release will cause another shift in Sonic Team?  I think that's what happened with Rise of the Lyric.

Doubt it. I think however Rangers turns out will be the determining factor.

[Rabbitearsblog]

4 hours ago, Zoomzeta said:

Doubt it. I think however Rangers turns out will be the determining factor.

Yeah, now that I think about it, Sonic Colors Ultimate probably wasn't the big game that SEGA wanted to release for Sonic and they just put it out there to have a game for the 30th anniversary.  Since Rangers will be the next big Sonic game, that's where SEGA will decide if they need to replace the members of the Sonic Team depending on how the game does.

[JezMM]

6 hours ago, Cube said:

Just finished Game Land and unlocked Super Sonic. I think it's a great part of the game.

If Sega had made something similar in scope, but with themes and bosses, it would have been a great downloadable Sonic game.

I've always found Game Land really weird to be honest.  I've realised recently that they probably made the levels for multiplayer first and single player second, but I hate how the design is so repetitive, levels rarely follow a cohesive theme, and they're just full of bits where they just seem to give you "stuff to do" rather than anything actually challenging.

If these stages were purely intended for multiplayer that would be fine, but the fact that they make playing them a reward for collecting red rings / a task to unlock Super Sonic makes it hard to not see them as significant content.

I dig the idea of having a "simple" aesthetic area in a Sonic game to double the stage count (though I'd prefer just simple stage geometry floating in a 3D background of existing locations in the game than a void, just to make them a little nicer to look at), but I hope in future if they return to this concept, they use it to make the kind of optional challenging stages that Unleashed provided in it's extra acts and DLC.

[Polkadi~☆]

1 hour ago, JezMM said:

I dig the idea of having a "simple" aesthetic area in a Sonic game to double the stage count (though I'd prefer just simple stage geometry floating in a 3D background of existing locations in the game than a void, just to make them a little nicer to look at), but I hope in future if they return to this concept, they use it to make the kind of optional challenging stages that Unleashed provided in it's extra acts and DLC.

I've always been fond of the idea that the mini acts like we see in Colours and Forces can be created in an abstract space, made to play with concepts that can't be so easily used in the main acts or to provide a challenging test of skill, akin to Super Mario Sunshine and Odyssey's own abstract worlds. I'd even evolve the way Gameland does it to make those a new kind of special stage to get Chaos Emeralds from.

...I think it would be easier just to say I like Gameland as a concept for special stages.

[JezMM]

2 hours ago, Polkadi~☆ said:

I've always been fond of the idea that the mini acts like we see in Colours and Forces can be created in an abstract space, made to play with concepts that can't be so easily used in the main acts or to provide a challenging test of skill, akin to Super Mario Sunshine and Odyssey's own abstract worlds. I'd even evolve the way Gameland does it to make those a new kind of special stage to get Chaos Emeralds from.

...I think it would be easier just to say I like Gameland as a concept for special stages.

I was always a huge fan of how Unleashed had at least one act per country (be it in DLC or the base game) that focused purely on a single element from the level design toolbelt they had for that game.  Like, Windmill Isle has one 100% focused on grinding, Rooftop Run has one 100% focused on Aero Chasers, Arid Sands has one focused 100% on QTE ramps, Jungle Joyride has one focused 100% on water-running.

Naturally whether each individual one was any good will vary by player, but I like this idea of using the base gameplay for special stages rather than coming up with an arbitrary minigame that has nothing to do with the core gameplay.

The only game to do what I've described above so far is Sonic Chaos and... yeah, it worked, I dug it in that game.

 

Sonic Colours literally has 7 multi-coloured gameplay mechanics they could've done this with too!  I feel they rarely SUPER challenge us on perfect Wisp usage via an obstacle course specifically designed for that Wisp anywhere in the game.

[Iko]

20 hours ago, NoKaine said:

That report doesn't detail who was making the game before Blind Squirrel Studios because "SEGA" doesn't make games. It does align with past rumors, and BlazeHedgehog (isn't he on this forum?) also says these are just a collection of rumors.

But the idea that Blind Squirrel Studios took up the game after the game is considered dead lines up with the Glassdoor reviews that states that they pick up "Dead in house game that is 5 years too late."

So the question is where did SEGA's oversight go, from delaying a game and getting a new studio to letting Colors Ultimate release the way it did?

If it's true that it was initially developed by someone else, then it's a really interesting situation.

I doubt it was developed internally, since they probably would have used the Hedgehog Engine instead of Godot, and probably wouldn't have had so many problems adapting the game to Switch since SEGA releases many games on Switch.

It was probably another external team, but I wonder who they were.

My bet goes to Hardlight, didn't they work on other Sega ports in the past right? Considering how glitchy and unstable their mobile games are, I wouldn't be surprised if the unplayable version of the game was their own. But without any proof I can't say that for sure.

[Sonikko]

I think you're reading too much into things, and wasn't the "Sonic Colours remaster was unplayable in 2020" rumor by Zippo, hence fake?

The Blind Squirrel reviews do not say that they picked up a game from a publisher that was 5 years too late and in development hell, it says that they have an internal IP that has been in dev hell for at least 5 years because of poor management.

EDIT: They also add that the IP has now successfully been funded, at the expense of people's sanity and while bleeding talent left and right because of mismanagement. So I guess we'll get to know what that is at some point in the future. /edit

It wouldn't make sense for a remaster to be in dev hell for 5 years, SEGA does re-releases constantly and they've never had issues like that.
Remastering a game is not as hard as making a new one from scratch, so I really can't see how any of this makes any sense, to be quite honest.

The most likely thing is that they were commissioned for the project in late 2019, as some of the producers seem to hint on Twitter.
One of them has a pinned tweet, don't remember his name, with a photo of the SoJ offices and a caption that says "wow SoJ is so cool" or something like that, and it lines up perfectly with the timetable we have.

At the same time, once the pandemic hit, the game was probably  not pushed back by too much, because they needed something out this year, and they're already packed next year with Origins and Rangers, so they just released it in whatever state it is now.

All of that + Blind Squirrel being apparently pretty poor at managing projects and personnel resulted in a poorly planned, poorly executed remaster that somehow still scored well with critics, beats me why.

It is clear that whoever worked on the UI for the game has never touched GUI design before in their life, I can and have done a better job myself and I'm nowhere near being ready to work in a professional environment.

It's also pretty clear by how quickly mods for the game are coming out that doing things better wouldn't have taken much, thanks to how Godot works.

tl;dr 

Blind Squirrel mismanaged Colors, there's no way that this remaster had been in dev hell for 5 years. Go read the BS reviews yourself and you'll see that what is being reported as "they picked up a 5yo project to save it" is misinformation, the project that has been in dev for 5 years is internal and a new IP.

SEGA shouldn't have released the game in the state it is and should have probably cancelled it or restarted development internally, as a publisher it's their responsibility to make sure the products they put out are up to standards, and apparently they still don't care, despite how much they like to say the opposite. As usual the bottom line is more important than their IPs reputation.

 

EDIT 2:
Uhhh...

Looks like the gameplay footage for the launch trailer looks less dark, and overall better.

 

Quick comparison

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/17248

https://screenshotcomparison.com/comparison/17249

Tropical Resort looks MUCH brighter and colorful in the trailer. Is this false advertising or yet another different build?

 

 

[NoKaine]

1 hour ago, Sonikko said:

wasn't the "Sonic Colours remaster was unplayable in 2020" rumor by Zippo, hence fake?

BlazeHedgehog also reports that it was true, and I don't find any reason to not believe him, or think that he is just blindly reporting obviously fake rumors.

1 hour ago, Sonikko said:

SEGA shouldn't have released the game in the state it is and should have probably cancelled it or restarted development internally, as a publisher it's their responsibility to make sure the products they put out are up to standards, and apparently they still don't care, despite how much they like to say the opposite. As usual the bottom line is more important than their IPs reputation.

It's quite odd for people to insist that SEGA is still wholly responsible despite even believing in evidence that Blind Squirrel Studios' own management botched the game on top of troubles with COVID because "well, they could have not released it" when among many claims about Blind Squirrel Studios includes bad communication with the client / publisher.

You don't believe that the initial build was unplayable in 2020, but then why was a remaster of a Wii game in consistent development for nearly two whole years, but is still somehow rushed? Forces may have had a shorter development time and it is nowhere near as buggy. Sonic Team didn't even know what a Switch was but managed to put a version that is pretty much identical to the others besides a lower framerate. Where was Sonic Team? The easiest assumption is that they are working on Rangers. Not forcing Sonic Team to work on like 12 games at the same time is actually proof that SEGA learned something.

Just like how over a dozen reviewers, including Nintendo Life who played the Switch version and insist that they legitimately did not run into any major glitches for their review, managed to play the game, not encounter glitches, and find the remaster up to parity with the original, that could be how they presented it to SEGA as well. 

And other games Blind Squirrel Studios made have a very similar pattern of being glitchy and having problems not apparent in the original, but being put together well enough that it is not a critical loss. 

It's still easily possible that SEGA might have had a big hand managerially in botching the remaster (the Glassdoor reviews also mention how BSS' management would "take beatings" from their clients, and pass the stress onto the dev team), but to put the onus of them, because, I mean, they could've canceled it? isn't really strong. I am adeptly curious why they wouldn't delay at least the Switch version. September isn't even a usual or even decent release time for a Sonic game. They usually rush for Christmas and Black Friday, not... Labor Day?

[Wraith]

They might just be testing other dates. The holiday season is getting filled up with bigger and bigger games so it makes sense to try and give Sonic some space from all that.

[NoKaine]

There are big games in November and December but nothing that would give a $40 remaster of a Sonic game pause.

EDIT: But I guess regardless of its quality, it'd be like $20 - 30 by Holiday season. I just wonder what their launch expectations are.

[Wraith]

Like I said, they might just be feeling it out. Maybe they want to try launching Rangers in September and want to see how Sonic does in that slot.

[Sonikko]

@NoKaineno matter how you put it or what you believe in, SEGA as a publisher has the final say on wether a product gets released, reworked, delayed or what have you.

They decided it was good enough to ship. That puts SEGA at fault automatically, no matter how much BS has been incompetent with the development itself.

When a game isn't up to standards, you (the publisher) either cancel it, or restart development and change the dev team in charge of it (like Squeenix did with FF7 R and how Nintendo did with Metroid Prime 4). If the publisher deems it adequate for release, then they're at fault as much as the developer itself.

SEGA literally said "we're taking our time with Sonic games so that they're polished and as good as can be" and 2 months later they released a seizure inducing remaster, doesn't feel good man.

[Iko]

1 hour ago, Sonikko said:

wasn't the "Sonic Colours remaster was unplayable in 2020" rumor by Zippo, hence fake?

From what I remember it was not by Zippo, that rumor came from another source (I'm not sure if it was still BlazeHedgehog or not) that was the first one to mention movie content (optional skin) as well as customization (optional skin indeed) in the game. The movie skin was not included but still the final game has the movie boost effect, so I think that the leak is at least credible.

According to BlazeHedgehog, BlindSquirrel was hired to save the project when it was already a disaster; I don't know if BlazeHedgehog can be trusted or not, but if it's the same person who leaked movie content in the game and optional skins when the feature was not announced yet, I would wait for some evidence before calling it false...

Though I fully agree with you that the game should have been canceled or redone from scratch.

PS: 90% of the times when I try to post something, the posts are not submitted and I have to reload the page and try again, this is getting a bit annoying -.-

[Sonikko]

5 minutes ago, Iko said:

From what I remember it was not by Zippo, that rumor came from another source

In that article, I cite:

"Sonic Colors Ultimate was recently leaked for current consoles, however the remaster was originally leaked last year. A reliable source connected with previous leaks in the community informed us of Sonic Colors Ultimate in August 2020 with further details revealed to us in the following months by the same source."

The previous leaks in bolded is a link that leads to:

https://soahcity.com/2021/04/04/rumor-sonic-adventure-1-2-remakes-were-in-development/

Which is a Zippo leak lol.

I so clearly remember that the one saying that Colours was unplayable in 2020 was Zippo, it was on his blog post somewhere among the edits.

BlazeHedgehog also mentioned that the stuff they're talking about is a collection of rumors, so there's that as well.

 

[NoKaine]

41 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

@NoKaineno matter how you put it or what you believe in, SEGA as a publisher has the final say on wether a product gets released, reworked, delayed or what have you.

My point is that you assume a lot of what SEGA was presented as a finished product. Again, several reviewers managed to play the game and encounter few if any glitches, even some Switch version reviewers. Publisher and development relations are often complicated and "well but SEGA published the game so it's their fault" is lacking nuance much like "the dev team is incompetent." 

I know Sonic fans really want to believe that SEGA is full of devils who arbitrarily hate Sonic and Sonic specifically, but that's not really the case. Regardless of how much Sonic sells when he's bad, he sells better and does better when he's good. SEGA is very much proud of Mania and enough of Colors to remaster it, so a remaster that could potentially ruin the perception of "One of the Good Sonic Games^TM" is probably not something SEGA wants. 

41 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

They decided it was good enough to ship.

What did they see that was good enough to ship? IGN and Destructoid and other big-name reviewers would tell you a competent remaster with a few irrelevant glitches. Is that what SEGA saw? Do you actually think that a SEGA representative got full-blown seizures playing a Sonic game and thought "yeah, that's okay to ship?" Nevermind the seizure glitches are still rare and hard to activate, and yes, you can say "well, it shouldn't be there", but the matter is its entirely possible to not get it at all, so it's easy to miss and not report. 

And they did restart development and change the development team, if the rumors are true, because otherwise a development team took two years to barely make a basic remaster. Again, if the rumor that BSS took over a dead project isn't true, then that means from 2019 to 2021, SEGA allowed Blind Squirrel Studios to work on a remaster of a Wii game for two whole years (more time than most original Sonic games get) but still somehow come off as rushed?

They had a performance test, deemed the initial build unplayable, gave it to a new studio (regardless of how unplayable it is, the team would have something of a Colors HD to work with), and gave them a year. That sounds like SEGA wanted the game to be good. So how did the game get the potential to get seizures? That's not something that can be attributed to "SEGA not caring."

It's been like 3 years since any Sonic game, and the next is another port of old game, followed by finally a new game. They didn't really need to release it this year. It's not really an anniversary game and Iizuka stated that the game is more about getting movie fans into the games than to celebrate 30 Years of Sonic. It could've released any year.

SEGA easily could've rushed it to have something for 2021, yes. But it's also possible that they released it because they didn't know it was this shabby.

41 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

SEGA literally said "we're taking our time with Sonic games so that they're polished and as good as can be" and 2 months later they released a seizure inducing remaster, doesn't feel good man.

Like I've said before, "SEGA" doesn't make games. Blind Squirrel Studios isn't part of SEGA in any way except this instance. Regardless of how bad Colors Ultimate is, it still doesn't say anything about future Sonic games. Besides "they should make remasters in-house." 

[Sonikko]

I don't think SEGA is full of devils that hate Sonic and Sonic specifically, that's childish, I think SEGA is a corporation that works under capitalism, for which the bottom line is way more important than their employees health (crunch), the quality of the end product and customer satisfaction.

If it were legal for corporations to murder kids in order to make money, rest assured they probably would (obvious exageration to make a point), as most of them make use of slave labour (actual slavery, as in they take people away, put them in concentration camps, "reform them and reintegrate them into society" by exploiting them until they're brainwashed and drained to the point of exhaustion) in China, console manufacturers (which also develop games) do this, phone manifacturers do this and what have you.

That said, seizures aside, the game is glitchy af, there's no way that SEGA didn't know you can't play 5 stages without the game crashing and/or deleting your save. The audio issues are glaring as can be, the game just sounds bad, the audio mixing is at the same level of teenagers playing "punk" in their garage, the audio channels issues, the music not playing, the collisions glitching out at 60fps, Jade being outright broken, the list goes on.

It's not just the seizures, which as easy as they are to replicate, I WANT to believe they didn't know about, but all the rest, there's no way they didn't know.

This is the same SEGA that shipped Alien Colonial Marines, Rise of Lyric, that delayed Sonic Mania on pc by 2 weeks at the last minute to shove DRM in it, that, 4 years after release, hasn't taken Denuvo out of Sonic Forces hindering performance and loading times, that has released broken ports of SA1 and SA2 on Steam, that has released a broken port of NiGHTS into DREAMS with inputs limited to 8 directions, that has released Lost World in a sorry state on PC, that has released Colours Ultimate not only in a pitiful state, but also with awful monetization which makes my skin crawl.

5€ for the Planet Wisp remixes, fomo exploitation with skins and early access. Hell no, SEGA has its own share of fault here, don't let them walk away free. Katie and Justin were fully aware of the state the game was into, even mentioning on stream that it was an early build that's why it was glitchy, when, most clearly, it wasn't an early build, cause the final game is still like that.

 

EDIT: TBH, if as you claim, they didn't know, then they're still at fault because that's their job. To know the product they're selling.

No matter how you spin it, the multi-million company here is not a victim. They never are.

[NoKaine]

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

there's no way that SEGA didn't know you can't play 5 stages without the game crashing and/or deleting your save.

I can believe they didn't because apparently reviewers and several other people attest to not having these problems. 

Either the game blows up or you have a smooth sailing, and there is no inbetween.

When SEGA released a game they know they fucked up on, they review embargo and kind of just ignore its marketing. Colors Ultimate released with the confident marketing of a game that wouldn't give you seizures. 

The only consistent, prevalent glitches seem to be audio glitches and maybe some collision wonkiness, and if the game only had those... no one would really care at all. It wouldn't bother launch buyers and they'd be patched and forgotten in a week. 

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

This is the same SEGA that shipped Alien Colonial Marines

Interesting you bring up Alien Colonial Marines, another game made by an outsourced company.

Colonial Marines has a lot of details espoused about and a lot of the problems is explicitly about Gearbox messing with the development, including, again, embezzling money, not giving or replacing assets for the new team to use, and SEGA had delayed and even cancelled the game at several points. But for some reason, you blame that on SEGA because "well, they shipped it", even though the state of the game is entirely on Gearbox. Like, no bro, they were literally stealing money, if they didn't release something, they would have a huge loss, and SEGA wasn't doing well financially either.

It's actually questionable how SEGA let things like that happen (or continue to happen), but it's more "man getting shanked by stranger" than "man shanking himself."

Rise of Lyric is actually the result of SEGA screwing with development but you can immediately tell something was up. They actively rushed the game and forced the developers into an environment they were unequipped and uncomfortable with for the sake of money (i.e. the Wii U deal). But we don't have any clear story on Colors Ultimate and their involvement, besides the port being shabby. Also, the state of Rise of Lyric is infinitely worse than Colors Ultimate.

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

delayed Sonic Mania on pc by 2 weeks at the last minute to shove DRM in it, that, 4 years after release, hasn't taken Denuvo out of Sonic Forces hindering performance and loading times

These are problems with the Steam storefront and publishers in general. 

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

that has released broken ports of SA1 and SA2 on Steam

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

that has released Lost World in a sorry state on PC

These are really stretching the definition of "broken." What is even wrong with the Lost World port? All the reviews and criticisms are about the game itself, the almost exact opposite of Colors Ultimate.

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

5€ for the Planet Wisp remixes, fomo exploitation with skins and early access

No one arguing against anything but the fundamental state of the game. Though I'd also say that you usually don't make an "early access" for a game that you know isn't stable. What benefit is there to alert the status of the game three whole days early? And on Labor Day weekend? Definitely a stupid ass-decision, though.

All those bells and whistles are obviously SEGA but that has nothing to do with the state of the game itself. Also like the minor glitches, no one really cares about pre-order skins, like come on.

 

38 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

TBH, if as you claim, they didn't know, then they're still at fault because that's their job. To know the product they're selling.

Said job becomes harder when the people you hired to actually make the product may be lying to you. Y'know, like the time they had money stolen from them.

Edited September 9, 2021 by NoKaine

[NoKaine]

delet this

[Sonikko]

I think it's a stretch that the audio engine being completely borked would get a free pass, but ok.

Also I know the Aliens Colonial Marines story well, I follow Sterling religiously lol.

Thing is, the moment SEGA gets the product in their hands and decide to release it, then they share the blame with the devs.

They had been lied to during Aliens development, but at one point they did receive the final game, and knew what they were doing, still decided to go with false advertising, the pre-release screenshots are still on the Steam store, and still sold the game fullprice.

That's their fault.

And you know. Reviewers may have not noticed the glitches, which I find hard to believe, they probably didn't focus on them cause they were given pre-release keys, which I understand are usually pretty glitchy builds and expected to be fixed by release, even then, even if the reviewers ABSOLUTELY didn't notice the glitches, which again, impossible, SEGA should have cause they SHOULD have a Quality Assurance department.

There is literally no way SEGA didn't know what they were selling, come on.

[Wraith]

It's basically impossible for them to not know the state the product was in before launch. SEGA sweats all over every product with this character's face on it to verify how he's presented.

What happened is what usually happens with Sonic. They finish as much as they can and take a calculated risk on launching a half baked game instead of delaying it, because Sonic missing their target window is never worth it to them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. but hopefully both of those scores being piss yellow gets across the idea that it's not a particularly great strategy for strengthening the brand. Bad strategies deserve to be criticized.

Simple shit, made complicated. Brought to you by Sonic Fans.

[NoKaine]

21 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

I think it's a stretch that the audio engine being completely borked would get a free pass, but ok.

Then you can ask reviewers why they let such atrocities like "the music cuts out some times" and "this sound effect is a little too loud" slide.

21 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Thing is, the moment SEGA gets the product in their hands and decide to release it, then they share the blame with the devs.

The devs don't have the blame; whether it's SEGA or Blind Squirrel Studios' dumbass decisions, it's pretty clear that the developers were tasked with something they could not reasonably do for the sake of lining other people's products. 

No, I do not blame the developers for not getting the remaster right if they had to work under COVID, entirely new engines, and a presumably rushed schedule. That's with management--whomever's management.

21 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

They had been lied to during Aliens development, but at one point they did receive the final game, and knew what they were doing, still decided to go with false advertising, the pre-release screenshots are still on the Steam store, and still sold the game fullprice.

That's their fault.

Yes, but "actively lying about the game" is different from "the game is glitchier than people thought." You can't blame them for the actual state of the game if it's the result of lying, stealing, and an entirely separate development team being abused by entirely different management. You can blame them for release, but the former being considered, SEGA's illicit some sympathy.

21 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

Reviewers may have not noticed the glitches, which I find hard to believe

Do you think there's some kind of conspiracy to give a Sonic game a pass for glitches? The game as a whole is glitchy but you're not going to encounter each and every single glitch at once, so yeah, it's easy to believe they didn't encounter any glitches worth noting. No, music cut-out really isn't a problem. It's obvious and noticeable, but it illicits an "oh, that's weird."

21 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

they probably didn't focus on them cause they were given pre-release keys, which I understand are usually pretty glitchy builds and expected to be fixed by release

No game reviewed would ever be criticized for glitches, then. The reviews didn't say "yes, there are glitches, but they'll be patched", they say "there are no glitches to speak of at all", by order of omission. Usually those kind of reviews wait until Day One or some time later, which explains the later, and more negative review scores.

21 minutes ago, Sonikko said:

There is literally no way SEGA didn't know what they were selling, come on.

It is entirely possible that the publisher can be unaware of the doings and happenings of their own product. That depends on how much oversight they have over the product itself, and if this and Aliens Colonial Marines are any indication, they are too lenient and hands-off on what their outsourced games be do. Which is a problem, a hilariously ironic problem considering SEGA's history.

17 minutes ago, Wraith said:

They finish as much as they can and take a calculated risk on launching a half baked game instead of delaying it, because Sonic missing their target window is never worth it to them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

But they had delayed Colors Ultimate and missed a better launch date than September.

They also did delay the PS3 version of Unleashed. Slightly. They did that a lot with the PS3 ports, in fact.

Rumors being true, they were willing to delay the game a whole year before, so why release it now? The crux of my point is that they were not aware of the biggest issues of Colors Ultimate, which I do think is possible with what is apparently known about Blind Squirrel Studios' management and the fact that Colors Ultimate is generally fine if you, like, approach it like a child; carefully, and putting it down every hour.

Even accepting that SEGA just wanted a game out, how they treated the game, including letting people play it three days earlier and jeopardizing sales with bad word-of-mouth, doesn't pan with a SEGA that knows the product is heavily flawed.