Sonic Mega Collection looks like an interesting package of retro titles, focusing on the blue blur’s original adventures on Sega Mega Drive. But according to Sonic Team head Yuji Naka, the plan was to also include Mega CD add-on platformer, Sonic CD.
In an interview with Gamespot, Naka-san revealed that Sonic CD eventually couldn’t be included due to “space constraints” on the Gamecube disc. When asked how he came to decide which games to have in the collection, Naka said,
I wanted to include all the Genesis games. I’d wanted to include Sonic CD, but I couldn’t because of space constraints.
Development of the collection itself seemed to satisfy Naka-san as well, especially as he says that Sonic Team had a hard time finding archive material for the project.
When we started gathering materials to include in the compilation, we actually had a hard time finding them. It’s been 10 years since we made these games, and we really had to dig to find materials because Sega’s not that good about keeping history. We really had a sense of accomplishment when we put it all together.