In conversations with Gray, Latham recalls Sacred Pools having a $2-3 million budget. In addition, SegaSoft members Michael Latham, Tony Van, and David Gray served as smaller producers under Miller’s umbrella. Miller would be an executive producer on the project alongside writer/director James Riley. Joe Miller had been thinking about FMV games since his time at Epyx and Sacred Pools was - by most accounts - his baby.ĭevelopment began around early 1996. Sega had always been interested in the genre, and many within the company believed that merging film and games was inevitable. Games with video elements had existed since the early-70s, but the peak fever didn’t occur until the introduction of CD-based consoles like the 3DO, Phillips CD-i, and Sega CD. Sacred Pools - also known as Rebellion and Amazonia - was a late addition to the full-motion video craze of the early-90s. Sacred Pools exploits today’s technology creating a new level of gameplay so unreal you have to feel it to believe it.” “The once secure, safe, and beautiful island of Amazonia is now a land of temptation and danger. “If you crave mystery, power, and seduction, step into the world of Sacred Pools ,” read SegaSoft’s original press release. This was how titles like Sacred Pools could happen.
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SegaSoft didn’t need to focus on the children and could develop software on whatever they liked - even on competing platforms like the PSX. Games could be more free-spirited, cross-platform, and adult. The company had much more freedom as an independent branch under Sega of America and CSK Corporation. SegaSoft opened its doors in February 1996 in Redwood City, California.
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“At the time, it was a good-looking benchmark for a young company that had the ability to make its own decisions quickly about which titles to develop, how to invest its capital, how to go about selling its products with its own sales force in a way that was new for Sega,” Miller told Sega-16 in 2013. An industry veteran who had worked for Atari and Epyx, Miller was one of the few early SegaSoft members with experience in video games and was instrumental in keeping the studio on track. Joe Miller had previously served as VP of Product Development at Sega of America. Nobuo Mii, a former IBM executive, would serve as CEO, while Joe Miller led research and development. This new venture, SegaSoft, was formed in the US to play in the country’s entrepreneurial climate. In November, Okawa announced that an independent studio would open to focus on the Internet and the World Wide Web. Chairman Isao Okawa saw a future for Sega in home computers. Some believed that Sega was looking at the wrong platform. The goodwill Sega built up in the early-90s was slowly wasting away. Retailers were furious, and executive infighting at Sega was at an all-time high. The limited number of units and launch titles resulted in poor sales - it didn’t help that the PlayStation, released the same year, was $100 cheaper. Their new console, the Sega Saturn, was prematurely released at E3 that year as an attempt to combat Sony. Game Detailsġ995 was a disastrous year for Sega. Special thanks to Joe Cain, David Gray, Mars Lasar, Mark Kirkby, Josie Lewis, and Marc Dawson for providing help in the research for these materials. It actually related to VCDEMU, the Saturn SDK tool used for emulating disc drives.) ( CORRECTION: The “Mac” version was incorrectly labelled. It contains curated versions of the Sega Saturn, PC, Macintosh, and PSX ports that are playable in any emulator. In his possession for over 20 years, all discs were thankfully still intact and were easily ripped using ImgBurn. The discs were given to Gray as a parting gift in 1999 during the final days of SegaSoft which contained alpha builds for the Sega Saturn, Windows, Macintosh, and Playstation. The colleague was David Gray, who worked as an associate producer on the game alongside high-ranking members of SegaSoft. In May of 2022, Gaming Alexandria was informed by Joe Cain, avid game collector and former game tester at Sega of America, that an old colleague had several CD-ROMs of Sacred Pools in their possession. Rumours of a prototype have circulated on the internet, but no photos or files ever appeared. Although Sacred Pools made a legendary debut at E3 1996, the press panned the game for its quality and it was quietly pushed aside to never be heard from again.įor years, all we knew about Sacred Pools came from a few surviving blurbs in gaming magazines.
With a reported budget of 2-3 million dollars, Sega’s new division SegaSoft aimed to expand the experiences available on Saturn, PC, Macintosh, and PSX(!). The game was a new arrival to the FMV market that was pushed as an “erotic thriller” for older audiences. Here is The Sacred Pools, an unreleased FMV game by Sega planned for release in 1997.
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