SEGA grows a spine to go with Sonics’ set of balls; Naka gives a Proper introduction, while death brings life to the Sonic franchise. It’s all happening; Sonic News catches up with Sonic developers past and present.
Backbone Entertainment
Backbone Entertainment (the company behind the upcoming PSP game Sonic Rivals) has finished a reconstruction of their official website which began during the E3 Consumer Electronics Expo (perhaps in anticipation to the attention the event would generate toward the studio).
The site features its own Sonic Rivals page, and although that offers no new information, if you navigate to the Vancouver studios blog entry, studio head Joe Bonar reveals that the game will be running on the internally developed Reaper Engine.
Prope
Prope, the studio headed by former Sonic Team top dog and Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka haven’t been very forthcoming with information regarding the company (who’s name in Latin means beside and near future), but now they’ve finally released new information regarding the studio through its official website.
This Tokyo based studio currently employs 10 members of staff which it aims to increase to 50, and it derives 10,000,000 Yen of its venture capital from the SEGA Corporation, which unsurprisingly is its main employer. However what is surprising is the studios current decision to support the Playstation 3, XBOX 360, and Wii formats only, omitting developments on Sony’s Playstation Portable, the Nintendo Gameboy Advance and DS, while the studio remained undecided on its support for the PC and Mobile Phone.
In a question and answer conducted with a studio official it was stated that Prope would create and explore the possibilities of both 3D and 2D visuals in its games, but that Sonic would play no part in the studios developments.