As we all knew pretty well, Naka-san pointed out that Sonic Team had a big hand in the design of the Dreamcast hardware. He speaks of long meetings lasting late into the night regarding the console’s design, shape of the controller, graphics, etc. -- all the while they were working on Sonic Adventure, of course, as well as Burning Rangers. Sonic Team was also responsible for the famous "Irimajiri Head Demo", as well as the Dreamcast's booting screen. Moreover, Naka-san stressed what a hectic year 1998 was, and that he was "quite amazed" they actually finished Sonic Adventure in time.

OK, so what can we expect from Sonic Team in '99? When asked this question, Naka-san replied: "We'll be doing networks, but we'll be taking a break this year." But don't misread that and think Sonic Team's gonna be sitting around on their butts watching each other grow wrinkles for the next twelve months. Naka-san stressed that pushing Sonic is their main concern this year, along with further development of the network system. "From January to March, I will be providing an entertainment based on Sonic on the web. By downloading data, you can enjoy the same stages with different gimmicks." It's probably just a translation quirk, but I wonder what he means by "gimmicks"...

And how about the English language version of Sonic Adventure? That's all part of the plan, according to the master. "Not that we don't care about Japan, but the American version of Sonic is our main concern. Dreamcast will be released all over the world in September, so we have to make our webpages international. We're thinking of doing an international ranking as well." Well then, since the Team's primary focus at the moment is indeed the US version of Sonic Adventure, we should expect most of the glitches to be ironed out, and some quality voice-acting to boot. And what of the "making our webpages international" part? Could we dare to hope that an English version of the official Sonic Team web page will be opened up? Or at least have the neat VMS (or "VMU" as they will be called over here) downloads available to us? And that "international ranking"...I smell online competition! (Don't even try, kids, NObody tops me at Sonic. No joke, I actually completed the "100 Rings in under a minute" challenge in the Sonic Jam Sonic World with two whopping seconds to spare. *evil laughter*)

Hey, it's looking like a beautiful year so far, but is there going to be nothing new from the Team at all? The master speaks: "Maybe we can present something around Christmas, but it may be hard... We have already prepared the Sonic download for Christmas '99, so please wait on them." Oho! A question answered and a new mystery presented. It seems the soonest we can expect Sonic Team's next game (whatever that may be) is around December this year. And exactly what is this "Sonic download for Christmas" Naka-san refers to? The mind boggles...

OK, we're almost done. But, of course, NO Sonic Team interview would be complete without asking about a possible NiGHTS into Dreams... sequel. Naka-san probably has the response commited to memory by now: "Please have fun with Sonic. People often ask me if we are making a sequel to NiGHTS. But I think that a completely new game is more interesting than a sequel." I agree. This also takes credence from the recent rumor about NiGHTS 2 being one of the secret titles at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show. Like I keep saying, those who are waiting for a sequel to NiGHTS are waiting for the revival of a horse that ain't dead yet...

OK, all this Sonic stuff is great, but they're gonna have to start working on SOMEthing new soon, whether they can get it released this year or not. NiGHTS 2 is out of the question for now, so...what is the Team's next great idea? Naka-san's answer is simple and straightforward: they don't have it yet. "As of now, we don't have any ideas in our repertoire, so I’ll be taking a break overseas, and then think about it." As they say, you can't rush genius. It's a little disheartening to hear that there's nothing planned yet, but whatever the Team comes up with, you can bet it'll surely be worth the wait.