No ASR Bundles in America? Maybe

That, and Other Things You Likely Won’t See

This week has been quite a roller coaster ride for fans eagerly anticipating Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing.  We’ve told you about things you will be seeing, and things you won’t…and even some things that looked like you’d be seeing, but won’t.

Unfortunately, there are a couple late additions to the “not gonna happen”  list, and some additions to the PR SNAFU list.  The latter can be found in a release on Europe’s Nintendo Channel this week, which stated, among other things, that the Wii edition would include Wii Connect 24 and Gamecube Controller support, and that the DS edition would support multiplayer for up to 6 people.  This appears to have only surfaced in Europe, and never made it to North America’s Nintendo Channel.

Good, thing, too–as part of his damage control tour, Steve Lycett has stated none of the items above are correct.  You may remember the GCN de-confirmation as old news, reported by us in December.  But since the risk always runs of being Banjo-Kazooied, every little detail bears following up.

And that includes the prospects of seeing the Wii Wheel outside of Europe.  A post on the Sonic City Blognik Tuesday said that the peripheral will be exclusive to European territories.  From there, it went on about how that would pan out:

The specific pack available will be dependant upon your European territory.Something you may not be aware of, is all the Euro territories have seperate budgets for our games. So whenever we do any piece of merchandise its up to the various Euro territories to say what levels they want to be involved, as they obviously all have seperate budgets and the amount of items they may want will vary as a result.

I’ll tell you the full break down on how the wheels are available when I get it – I do gather there is quite a variety of pack types available though!

Why is this passage important?  In a previous story we had mentioned how region specific bundles were planned for ASR, and the announcement appeared generic enough that North America would be included.  This latest post shows a heavy bias toward Europe, and that begs the question: In speaking about the bundles, are references being made to variations from region to region, or from country to country within Europe alone?

How that question is answered may also answer whether North America could be shut out of any goodies, shunning a large part of the Sonic and Sega audience.

To be sure, TSSZ News followed up with a representative with Sega of America, who confirmed the Wii Wheel won’t be coming to America, but did not address any domestic plans for a bundle. Does that mean an American shutout?  It’s too early to tell, and Sega of America may not yet be ready to announce plans for the region.  This component of the story should likely evolve as we get closer to launch day.

That’s the news roundup, but we’ll be sure to keep you informed of the latest here as we get closer to ASR’s launch day.