Sonic X-treme beta auction

Screenshot of the prototype

On September 13, 2005, 'an anonymous Sega employee' put an alleged proof-of-concept beta of Sonic X-Treme up for auction on ASSEMbler Games, using TheRedEye as a middleman and auctioneer. TheRedEye posted a notification thread about it on SWS2B. The seller wanted a four-figure sum for it, which immediately put almost every member of the Sonic community out of the running, at least on thier own. TheRedEye then posted in the ASSEMbler's auction thread stating that an anonymous collector had bid $2,500. Because it was unlikely that it would be dumped and redistributed if a collector bought it, some of the members of ASSEMbler's decided to start a group bid. Among the Sonic sceners that contributed were LocalH and rika_chou. The community had raised $1,700 before Ratman221 threw a huge monkey wrench into the plan.

Ratman showed up on the 14th with a promise that he would buy the prototype at any cost. He initially bid $3,000 and said that he would raise any higher bids. Some community members were suspicious of this guy, since he gave two phoney AIM screen names and had never been heard of before. However, donations to the pot stopped completely, as everybody thought he was legitimate. After the debacle over the AIM names, LocalH went back and forth between SWS2B, ASSEMblers, and Sonic Classic relaying additional contributions that were made. This brought the group total to $2,365, only $135 short of the collector's bid.

Prototype CD

The next day, after the auction ended, Ratman revealed that his bid was a diversion meant specifically to keep the Sonic community from getting the beta, and said that he was hired by the winning collector (according to him, hl7_18) to keep everybody else out. He also claimed that the entire auction was a show, and that TheRedEye knew of this from the start. All claims about TheRedEye's involvement in a fake auction are almost certainly false due to his reliability, and hl7_18 adamantly denies both being the buyer and having anything to do with Ratman. Ratman later claimed that he was Perfect Chaos, though there's no hard evidence to suggest he actually is.

The collector is reported to have good video equipment, and has promised that he will make a high-quality video of the game in action as soon as he receives it. As of the week beginning the 26th September 2005, these promises are yet to be fulfilled.

Fake vs. Real issues

After the auction was posted, a number of SWS2B members doubted the veracity of the seller's claims.

The game disc

• Fake? The disc's appearance suggests the disc is in fact a Mega CD-R - one would assume Sega would be consistent in their use of Saturn CD-Rs, as opposed to using any form of media to hand.
• Fake? The image of a disc proves nothing as to its contents - a better method of framing the disc would have been showing the disc resting in a Sega Saturn's disc tray. As such, this image cannot be trusted, as we don't even know (aside from the seller's word and our assumptions) the Xtreme prototype and the disc are one and the same item.
• Real? Due to the commercial failure of the Mega-CD system, one would assume many discs were left over - leaving enough surplus to be used as Saturn development testing discs.
• Judgement: To truly judge the 'book by its cover', as it were, one would have to consider whether a Saturn development team would have access to development material available primarily to a completely seperate team working on a seperate console. As the Saturn and the Mega-CD ran side by side commercially for a period, however, there still remains the possibility.

==The accompanying

video==

• Judgement: As the video displaying footage of the disc's contents has not been released to the public, there can be no conclusions to draw from this; however, a select few SWS2B members were apparently given this accompanying video to prove its veracity, which they have done. Again, we have only their word.

Analysis

Whilst one can blame the 'collector's mentality' for this whole affair - after all, even a brief search of Google would indicate this would be the Holy Grail of Sonic prototypes, something that should not be a 'low-key' affair - there were numerous problem with the auction from the start.

• After the auction was posted at SWS2B, news of the sale inevitably spread throughout the Internet - something that should have been forseen, given aforesaid desirability of the disc.
• The auction's time limit only complicated matters further, despite a herioc last-ditch attempt by LocalH to garner interest - and most importantly, money - in the sale. As such, the sale was almost certainly out of the scene's reach. From this viewpoint, it certainly verifies Ratman's claims that the scene was never to own the prototype anyway, no matter what their bid.
• Why did the seller seem unduly concerned about the sale's publicity? Surely such a massively important disc would be widely publicised as possible? (Ironic, as this did in fact occur, spreading to the official - and widely public - Sega.com and GameFAQs boards...) Why the sudden end date of the auction? Where is Ratman now? Where is the winner of the sale in all this?

External Links

• ASSEMbler Games auction thread
• ASSEMbler Games after-auction thread
• SWS2B thread