Talk:Sonic Spinball

Untitled

isn't the official title "sonic spinball"?

A quick Google image search for "Sonic Spinball" will bring up both the title screen and the box art. Admittedly the "the Hedgehog" part is downplayed, but it's still part of the title.

Also, it helps keep discussions clearer if you sign your comments. You can either click the signature button or simply type ~~~, or ~~~~ for a sig with a timestamp. : ) --Sparky the Seventh Chaos 06:46, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, at the United States Patent and Trademark Office Home Page, "Sonic Spinball" has a hit, registered to Sega of America. However, "Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball" has no hits. Since Sega therefor registered "Sonic Spinball" (in America at least) shouldn't that title of this article be "Sonic Spinball"? Sonic3KMaster^(talk) 21:53, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The title screen, if you look closely, has "The" capitalized. I don't want to start a big thing here... --Brandon Dilbeck 06:52, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Genocide City

I heard that the Machine level is really the deleted level called Genocide City inside the old Sonic 2

From what's known, at least part of it is. Allyourbasearebelongtousomg 03:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

WII release

Shouldn't the wii release be mentioned?

It is mentioned, in the intro. (Don't know when this comment was left, so I may be responding to a question that was asked before the Wii release was added.) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 00:03, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Only game with AoStH characters?

The opening paragraph contains this sentence: "It is the only Sonic game to feature characters from the Saturday morning cartoon Sonic the Hedgehog and Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, though only in cameos." Yet I'm pretty sure Scratch and Grounder were in Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and the enemies they were based off were in Sonic 2 (the red Grounders in Aquatic Ruin and the chicken gunners in Wing Fortress) Yoshiman64 (talk) 02:19, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Another Console Release?

In 1993-4, I recall visiting Nobody Beats the Wiz and desperately wanting to purchase an Atari Jaguar because Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball was bundled with it. The game was sold out for every other system, but I was not willing to spend the money for a new system just for one game when I could just wait for the next shipment. I do not see any acknowledgement that it was ever released on the Jaguar either here or on the List of Jaguar games page. — Thincom2000 (talk) 15:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Stand Alones and Compilations

I don't think it really matters whether a game is release as a stand-alone or part of a compilation. If it's officially released for a particular console, then that console belongs in the game's list of platforms. Firstly, Sonic Spinball was developed in a time where video games are only a few megabytes. Because consoles nowadays use discs that have capacities in several gigabytes, it's necessary to put in a group of those vintage games. But that doesn't mean those compilations should be excluded from a game's platform list. 208.54.4.130 (talk) 00:38, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

• Dissident93 - you're always maintaining infoboxes - can you break it down for him? Sergecross73 msg me 04:44, 3 January 2016 (UTC)
• The compilations/ports for PS2/Steam are all emulated without any changes. The infobox guidelines for this states that we should only list "The unabbreviated console or operating system for which the game was specifically developed. This includes dedicated ports, but not games in emulation or services". Info like this belongs in the article, where it can be written in more detail anyway. The iOS version remains in the infobox because it was changed (however slightly), so it wasn't a direct ROM being played by an emulator. ~ Dissident93 (talk) 04:57, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 18 November 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved. Jenks24 (talk) 01:53, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

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Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball → Sonic Spinball – Per WP:COMMONNAME. A quick Google search shows 224,000 results for "Sonic Spinball" and only 150,000 if "the hedgehog" is added. Furthermore, many of the sources used prefer just "Sonic Spinball", and it's also officially referred to by the name on Steam. JOEBRO64 23:49, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

• Support also as more WP:CONCISE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  18:40, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per nom. We also recently moved Sonic the Hedgehog CD to just Sonic CD for the same reasons. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 03:50, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support sounds good. JAGUAR  11:53, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support, as aformentioned with WP:CONCISE. ~ P*h3i (talk to me) 08:17, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per nom TarkusAB^talk 21:45, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per nom. – Hounder4 03:45, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Aoba47 (talk) 03:51, 23 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support both per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. --TL22 (talk) 01:52, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Recent edits

@Jaguar: Not sure you are so hellbent on including a link to Mega Drive/Genesis when this violates the use of American English (per the tag), WP:COMMONNAME, and WP:NOPIPE. The article also includes GameRankings and IGN game profile pages as citations, which shouldn't be allowed, nor does it make any mention of release dates in prose, where the citations belong anyway. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 20:13, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Get the absurd notion that Genesis is the common name of the console out and resist the dogma. This is not the point though; you are advocating the total omission of the usage of 'Mega Drive' from anything you see and I don't know why. I've already explained that ENGVAR is absolutely irrelevant from preferring one term over the other. Think of the readers who don't know what the other name of the console could be. I for one lived all of my life not knowing it was called Genesis in North America until I saw the Wikipedia article three years ago. You need to take reader's accessibility into account here. Where does it say that IGN and GameRankings can't be used to source release dates (albeit them being the only ones which do)? Can you be sure if they're user-generated? And regardless, why is it that FA reviewers always requests that release dates be sourced in the infobox? I had to oblige their requests, even for FAs like Super Mario World and Galaxy. If the release dates are incorrect or if the urls break the infobox, then by all means remove or fix them but I don't see the valid reason of doing so. JAGUAR 20:24, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Late response, but Genesis is the common name on Wikipedia, using regional names (on an American produced game no less) because of personal preference just causes unnecessary edit warring, as seen here. It becoming a FA does not make everything carried over infallible and unable to be changed. Nothing personal against the name Mega Drive, I just fail to see any valid reason to make an exception to use it here and on none of the other Genesis game articles. Also, game profile pages shouldn't be used for verifying release dates, as many are user submitted, I.E. GameSpot sources theirs from GameFAQs. Also nothing personal against GameRankings, but if there was no better source for the date, then maybe that's saying something about the verifiability of it? And I don't know why FA commenters requested sources inside the infobox when none of them seemed to care that they the dates even mentioned in the article itself, which is where it should always be. Although not directly stated, infoboxes should follow the same general practice as WP:CITELEAD. Maybe I'm in the wrong here, but I'd like to see further discussions from other WP:VG members. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 22:06, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

As from what I've seen, most people know it as the Genesis in any context anyways, so it shouldn't really be too much of an issue. Zoom (talk page) 22:24, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

• The general way of handling this across Wikipedia, up until this point, is to use Genesis. As a compromise, there's been times where we mention "Sega Genesis/Mega Drive" once in a first mention somewhere, but otherwise use Genesis (we don't need to be spelling out both at every mention - people can remember on their own.) Genesis is preferred due to its consistency with the article title, unless it's literally a Europe-only title or something. I see little reason to randomly deviate at this particular article. Sergecross73 msg me 22:17, 7 February 2018 (UTC)
• I don't see a problem with either name. While the article is titled "Sega Genesis", either version (Sega Mega Drive, Mega Drive/Genesis, etc.) links to the exact same article, where it's explained immediately in the opening sentences. JOEBRO64 22:20, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

This is the third time you've accused me of having a personal preference, Dissident. I don't have a problem with the name Genesis, but what I do have a problem with is the fact that it's being erroneously enforced as the one and only common name; bolstered by WPVG's internal bias. I would like more flexibility on the usage of "Sega Genesis/Mega Drive" on all articles, Anglocentric or not, as leverage for all readers. The English Wikipedia caters for the entire Anglosphere—this includes the world outside Wisconsin. As a dead compromise, I'd advocate using both names at least once in the article's lead and then perhaps use one name in the body. While we're on the topic of determining a common name, I'll pull off some examples of what a common name actually is:

Fédération Internationale de Football Association → FIFA

Elizabeth Tower → Big Ben

Socialist Republic of Vietnam → Vietnam

A simple cursory search of 'Sega Genesis' into Google provides about 1,500,000 results. A search of 'Mega Drive' provides 34,900,000 results. This line of reasoning is even strengthened here on this page. In November a page move request for this article was initiated with the persuasion being that Sonic Spinball was the WP:COMMONAME of the game, trumping Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball. The fact? Sonic Spinball turned out 224,000 results, while Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball only had 150,000. It was met with unanimous support. Can anybody really convince me that Genesis is still the preferred term for the console when it was released under a different name in every other market including its native Japan? Is there anything to justify why editors will systemically remove Mega Drive from literally every article they see? I don't want to change the name of the article, like I said it doesn't bother me but it's dumbfounding to see a more logically common (because that's what it is) name be replaced with a statistically more uncommon one. If we're not talking about statistics, then let's look at more facts. In September Dissident removed all mentions of 'Mega Drive' on Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine with the only reason being that the article's name was Genesis. The fallacy of that statement was because the article was called Genesis, it meant that all traces of the other name should be removed from an article about a game which was developed in Japan, released initially exclusively in Japan. Dissident reverted this prior in August, stating that "the game didn't just release in PAL regions". So that must mean if a game was released in North America too, Genesis takes precedence. Right! There is no evidence to support the fact that most people know it is Genesis, it's whatever people perpetuate it to be.

The arguments I've seen make no sense. We need to promote Mega Drive as an equal counterpart to Genesis. Perhaps it is hard to view it from a different perspective if all you've ever known is Genesis, but do not let the unfamiliarity of another name sway your judgement – let's be open to the idea of using both names as the custom. I don't have the energy to gather more research and start a crusade on the main talk page, but I know I could make enough good points to provoke a good debate, not fuelled by emotions like the others claim. To be honest my motivation for Wikipedia is at an all time low that I doubt I'll ever be active again. It vexes me to see all the effort I've put into writing VG articles over the years—80+ GAs and several FAs—to turn into battlegrounds for such trivial crap if I'm frank. This was pushed up on me before as well. Nobody cares about writing articles anymore, I do regret saying that but I don't see the people on the project ever untangling from the bias. I will stick around for a little while longer if I can get people to see the light, but in the meantime I can't feel compelled to return if this climate persists. JAGUAR 00:02, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I have to say that parts of what you said were false. I found ~8,890,000 results for 'Mega Drive' and ~6,090,000 results for 'Sega Genesis'. In addition to this, Mega Drive is also connected to a band, giving it more results. Besides this, the Mega Drive is equal to the Genesis, but it should be known just as the Genesis for the reason of it being under WP:COMMONAME and for the reason of the article using American English, favoring American terms and vocabulary. I know it's a weak argument and excuse, but still a somewhat valid one at that. Zoom (talk page) 00:25, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

It is not the common name! What has ENGVAR got to do with it? JAGUAR 00:57, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Just used the video game custom search engine to see what the results were, and it appears as if more sources do use "Mega Drive". 47,500,000 for "mega drive", and 2,460,000 for "sega genesis". JOEBRO64 01:04, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

You must have not used quotes to search for the specific string, as "Mega Drive" got me 1,320,000 results, while "Sega Genesis" got 1,360,000. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 01:11, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

I only wish to eliminate the subjective personal preferences behind it. I personally don't care if it's Genesis, Mega Drive, or a combo of the two, as long as it's consistent across every other Genesis/Mega Drive-related article; I just settled on Sega Genesis as that is the current article title, and therefore seen as the common name. But until we have a project wide consensus for handling this, including Mega Drive on an American-produced game with an AmEng tag just seems so out of place. ~ Dissident93 ^(talk) 01:08, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

Use both at the top of the article. For subsequent use either use both throughout the article, or use the developer nationality or a case-by-case consensus. But both should be used at the top of the article, both names are valid. We don't have people going around changing every incidence of Tyre or Faucet in WP. This is no different. - X201 (talk) 08:45, 8 February 2018 (UTC)