Sega’s is oversimplified to the point someone who doesn’t already know the story would be misinformed. Christian Whitehead was employed at Sega before this for porting classic Sonic games (1, 2, and CD) using his Retro Engine, and they later let him and his team make Sonic Mania after he presented a prototype to Takashi Iizuka.
That is, Whitehead intended from the start to bring it to Sonic Team, whom he’d already worked for, as a prototype to have it officially produced and released. Sega had a lot of influence over the broader development, mainly the inclusion of classic levels. They didn’t just take a random fan game and slap a “SEGA” logo over it.
If anything, the image for Sega should be Sonic CD for iPhone, as he was just a fan at that time making a fan port. Sonic Mania is kind of a quasi-fan game, in the sense that Whitehead was a huge fan and did work at Sega in the first place because of his fan port proof of concept.
so it was REALLY unfortunate timing to do a fan remake
That’s true, but I don’t think it moves the needle in their favor at all; if anything, to me, it makes it worse.
It’s still just as much of a dick move (part of a broader pattern of dick moves around the time) that shows utter contempt for fans. A smart company would’ve leveraged AM2R to create hype, because it was pulling a Game Boy game from 1991 out of obscurity. Personally, it got me excited even as someone who wasn’t even a Metroid fan at the time, and I refused to buy Samus Returns solely because of what Nintendo did. It could’ve ridden AM2R’s coattails and gotten a purchase from me.
AM2R is hardly a market substitute for Samus Returns in a way that hurts Samus Returns more than it helps (given most fans dedicated and knowledgeable enough to play AM2R were probably also big enough fans to want Samus Returns regardless), and I’d bet anything that if they reached out to the AM2R team, Nintendo could’ve done something cool with them to amplify the hype while stepping on Samus Returns’ toes as little as possible.
Sega’s is oversimplified to the point someone who doesn’t already know the story would be misinformed. Christian Whitehead was employed at Sega before this for porting classic Sonic games (1, 2, and CD) using his Retro Engine, and they later let him and his team make Sonic Mania after he presented a prototype to Takashi Iizuka.
That is, Whitehead intended from the start to bring it to Sonic Team, whom he’d already worked for, as a prototype to have it officially produced and released. Sega had a lot of influence over the broader development, mainly the inclusion of classic levels. They didn’t just take a random fan game and slap a “SEGA” logo over it.
If anything, the image for Sega should be Sonic CD for iPhone, as he was just a fan at that time making a fan port. Sonic Mania is kind of a quasi-fan game, in the sense that Whitehead was a huge fan and did work at Sega in the first place because of his fan port proof of concept.
Edit: Also, here’s what Sega thinks of its fans in 2026.
also for the context of AM2R, it released a year before Samus returns remake, so it was REALLY unfortunate timing to do a fan remake.
the positive outcome of that least was it gave Nintendo confidence in Meecury Steam to allow them to make Metroid Dread.
That’s true, but I don’t think it moves the needle in their favor at all; if anything, to me, it makes it worse.
It’s still just as much of a dick move (part of a broader pattern of dick moves around the time) that shows utter contempt for fans. A smart company would’ve leveraged AM2R to create hype, because it was pulling a Game Boy game from 1991 out of obscurity. Personally, it got me excited even as someone who wasn’t even a Metroid fan at the time, and I refused to buy Samus Returns solely because of what Nintendo did. It could’ve ridden AM2R’s coattails and gotten a purchase from me.
AM2R is hardly a market substitute for Samus Returns in a way that hurts Samus Returns more than it helps (given most fans dedicated and knowledgeable enough to play AM2R were probably also big enough fans to want Samus Returns regardless), and I’d bet anything that if they reached out to the AM2R team, Nintendo could’ve done something cool with them to amplify the hype while stepping on Samus Returns’ toes as little as possible.