Update: According to our resident tech guru Bmn, It’s a glitch. What’s specifically happening is a recurring loop of redirects between www.sonicthehedgehog4.com/us and www.sega.com/sonic4, which suggests minor technical problem. But still, to leave it like that for nearly a week? So there you have it.
Original Story: Regardless as to what you may think of the game. Sonic the Hedgehog 4 happened, it’s still for sale on several online services and is far from what you would consider to be an old game.
So why then has the official website been taken down and why has it remained offline for the best part of a week? SSMB member -Bender- first noticed that the site had gone dark a few days ago and whilst sometimes sites can go down for a day or two, this site has been offline for nearly a week if not longer.
Click the read more link… and let your imagination run wild…
Now you might be thinking. ‘Ah but, Sonic 4 isn’t the best game and it’s old, maybe they did it to save money?’ Well heres the thing. if that’s the case… why on earth are the websites or minisites for the following games still online.
You cannot buy brand new anymore (certainly not with any ease) those games, with Sonic Rivals, you can’t buy a PSP new anymore (though it is on the PSN). There is still a product page for the game on Segas official website, however, thats about it.
But Sonic 4, a game which despite reception, which is under a year old that you can still buy brand new has had it’s website taken down for over a week? Is this just a big technical failure that has gone unoticed… or should your knuckles be twitching with excitement? And remember, this follows on from claims made by TouchGameplay that a new Sonic 2D game is in production.
Source: Sonic 4’s official website. & SSMB Member -Bender-
Thanks to SSMB member Blue Blood for pointing out some of the Olympic Games titles still have their websites online too.
“Is this just a big technical failure that has gone unoticed… or should your knuckles be twitching with excitement?”
I see what you did there…
Well I love the speculation around this, and I’d love for the Sonic 4 episodes to receive an end, a good one. episode one wasn’t great, episode two improved gameplay-wise but was lacking story-wise, especially at the end.
I hope there is a third instalment in the works.
I hope people don’t read too much into that one. Put it as a joke. Though I wanted to include a giant Knuckles Fist… but decided that would be too mean. =p
lol, twitching knuckles…. fist…. can only mean Sonic 4 Episode III & Knuckles!
Maybe SEGA have just decided to start wiping all mention of this game from the face of the earth, as many people probably want them to.
Sonic 4 has been praised throughout both Episodes and Episode 2 was praised by MANY fans who disliked the first Episode.
Sonic 4 as a whole hasn’t been so much “praised” as just met with… average reception. Episode I was only given a lot of positive remarks because according to professional critics, it was the apparent return of 2D Sonic (ignoring the fact that 2D Sonic games have been made since 2002, but whatever). After time passed, people began seeing Sonic 4 for what it was–at beast, an “okay” downloadable game. When Episode II was released, the reception was definitely better, but that’s not saying a lot since some of the issues from Episode I still carried over to the next game.
It MORE than deserves another installment.
I’ve said it on other sites, and I’ll say it again–part of me thinks that an Episode III should be made just to give proper closure to the Sonic 4 saga, but part of me thinks Sega should move on and put their resources and effort towards new projects. If Episode III does happen, I wouldn’t really mind, but if it doesn’t, I won’t lose sleep over it.
April 3rd…4/3…4 Episode 3?
Very clever! It’s possible!
Interesting, but who knows what it could mean. I never played 1 and 2, either, so I can’t give my thoughts…Watched LPs though 😛
We shall have to wait and see…
More TSS rumors?
Everyone loves the Rumor Train! Choo choo! XD
This isn’t a rumour. We’re just reporting on the site being down and that we think it’s a tad suspicious. We’re not saying OMG EPISODE III CONFIRMED, YOU GUYS! or anything.
…you realize most of the scores for Episode II are mostly in the 50-60s range, right? Since when does 2 out of 5 stars equate to being “received generally well”? And as I said above, most of the love for Episode I most likely came from joy out of sheer nostalgia as 4 was widely seen as the “rebirth” of 2D Sonic.
Sonic 4 Episode III, please.
One thing though, if you plan on bringing it to the Wii U SEGA, please re-release Episode I and II as well in case of lock-on technology.
I bet you it went down because Sega was busy allocating server space for Sonic Dash.
But really, a site goes down and everyone gets all crazy? What is this, 2012?
Suspicions about an episode 3? Oh well I guess that is interesti-
OMG! THE SONIC CHRONICLES WEBSITE IS STILL UP! I’M THERE! 😀
(Literally, thanks for the link. Now it’s time to relive some memories…)
Eh, it’s probably just a fuck-up on their end.
who thinks sonic 4 should have followed classic sonic from sonic generations and into another great classic game without those ridiculous bugs from sonic 4
It works if you remove the ‘www.’ and also append ‘us’ (or ‘us/’, or ‘us/index.html’).
http://sonicthehedgehog4.com/us/index.html
(same thing applies to sonicthehedgehog5.com …. up to …. sonicthehedgehog10.com)
It’s also noteworthy that where it redirects to has always redirected to sonicthehedgehog4.com (sourced from archive.org), whereas with other games, where it redirects to shows actual content – and they all follow the same URL pattern to redirect to, so whoever, or whatever, made the change, probably did the standard thing to do without knowing that where it redirects to actually redirects back.
I’ll also add that if you run a whois on sonicthehedgehog4.com, the domain name has an expiry date of 21 Jan 2013 (and the sth5/6/7/8/9/10 domains have an expiry date of 25 Jan 2013).
I don’t care! Where’s the download for Music Adventure 2012!?
Too much speculation, makes my head hurt >.<
If they are going to release Episode III, then they will need the following.
*Knuckles as a playable character
*Amy Rose as an NPC
*The special stage from Sonic 3 and Knuckles
*More types of Badniks, some new, some from Sonic 3 and Knuckles
*A mix of new bosses, and ones from Sonic 3 and Knuckles
*A special episode you get for owning Episodes II and III on the same console
*Five new zones
*Maybe, Sonic, Knuckles and Tails together
That’s what I think they need for an Episode III.
Oh God Episode II… oh dear god was it bad.
I required tag teaming you had to do was Tails was awful. The parts in various levels that required you to time it right, or pure death traps.
I would rather they can the Sonic 2 Episode Non-sense, and use the Generations engine and create
Sonic and Knuckles 2. It’s amazing how things work well when Sega actually tries.
WELL IM LOOKING FOWARD EPISODE 3 if it gets comfirmed.
Episode 1 was OK, but relied too much on rehashing everything with little new ideas, but there was a bit of fun there which made it very playable. Episode 2 was FAR better in terms of graphics & scale + had more originality, but, it seemed to have lost a lot of the “fun” element which is essential in Sonic games. The review scores for both episodes reflect that episode 1 was the 1st dive into 2d sonic for quite some time & was nostalgia related more than how good the game was. The second episode was clearly bigger budget, more advanced & original. Took more risks etc. It could have been a better game if only it was a tad more fun. But, it had lost it’s “1st sonic 2d game for “x” years” status & was more critically reviewed than episode 1. In my opinion episode 2 was quite harshly reviewed & deserved about a “7” score. I guarantee if this was released as episode 1 it would have received far better reviews. Episode 2 was a let down in the fact that some parts were frustrating & lost the sonic mojo, but in scale & some of it’s ideas it was right on track.