Below is a link where you can download some video footage from Sonic Xtreme. The story behind this clip is that when Sega could not get permission to use their own 3D engine from the NiGHTS, they decided to make the game on the PC and then port it to the Saturn (yeah that would have looked lovely). Of course that never happened to completion. The video below is supposedly from that PC version.

Click me to download! Less than 8 megs!

Spoilers:
Poor Sonic Xtreme never had a chance. Also, did they decide that speed was something not needed in this game? And what' s with the super-wide camera lens?

I remember reading somewhere that yuji came to sega technical, saw the nights engine running, and running much faster and with greater detail, and he blew a fuse.

If yuji were to leave sega, like he might, i' m not so sure i would care that much, Naoto Ohshima was the true heart and soul of sonicteam.

NiGHTS wasn' t that impressive technically, even for its time. It didn' t do anything that hadn' t been seen on the saturn before. To me it was " the norm" .

Im glad that never got released, Next to its rival (SM64) xtreme would of looked (and played) a disgrace.

I remember reading somewhere that yuji came to sega technical, saw the nights engine running, and running much faster and with greater detail, and he blew a fuse.

If yuji were to leave sega, like he might, i' m not so sure i would care that much, Naoto Ohshima was the true heart and soul of sonicteam.

To be brutally honest, as much as I like and respect Yuji Naka I was SO friggin disappointed in his selfishness during the Saturn era. There' s no *I* in TEAM as they say but he obviously never learned that. Sonic was an incredibly popular character during the Genesis era, the Saturn NEEDED a new Sonic game to wow gamers cause their other offerings certainly weren' t doing the job. A new Sonic engine would have taken a very long time to get done, Naka' s NiGHTS engine was done and Sega Technical could use it to get a brand new Sonic game up and running in no time, did Naka-san play ball? HELL NO... Like you said, when he found out that Sega Technical had gotten ahold of the NiGHTS engine, he supposedly bitched and moaned to the higher ups at Sega of Japan, forcing them to take it back.

There' s no *I* in TEAM as they say but [Yuji Naka] obviously never learned that.

He probably needs to learn English first. Somebody should have told him that there is no 私 in チーム. (Japanese fonts required).

PS - You really need to check e-mail more often.

To be brutally honest, as much as I like and respect Yuji Naka I was SO friggin disappointed in his selfishness during the Saturn era. There' s no *I* in TEAM as they say but he obviously never learned that. Sonic was an incredibly popular character during the Genesis era, the Saturn NEEDED a new Sonic game to wow gamers cause their other offerings certainly weren' t doing the job. A new Sonic engine would have taken a very long time to get done, Naka' s NiGHTS engine was done and Sega Technical could use it to get a brand new Sonic game up and running in no time, did Naka-san play ball? HELL NO... Like you said, when he found out that Sega Technical had gotten ahold of the NiGHTS engine, he supposedly bitched and moaned to the higher ups at Sega of Japan, forcing them to take it back.

I couldn' t agree more, And if sega is to ever get back in the saddle, this will have bitten him in the ass for sure.

This clip really made my day - I' d heard about the game back in the day, and It does look lik ehtey really gave the engine a kick up the bside. It' s always a shame when corporate culture gets in the way of a new release. Dare I say it, it looks like even the demo still had some of the ' Sonic flair' , not the washed out versions we have today!

Compare that footage to say the 3d environ in Sonic Jam, it looks lovely. Yeah I know it was " pc" but all of the ported PC games in about 96' had issues compared to their console rivals, mainly down to them being cheap ports. This looks like it had some effort spent on it. Fantastic find mr Redifer! Made my day!

I wonder about the " fish eye " lens effect, was hardware capable of that then or are we actually looking at an optical effect when it was filmed straight to vhs or whatever?

i remember the fisheye was purely accidental.
I don' t remember what reason it was, but it turned out to be a happy mistake.

Yeah, the saturn was a pretty sweet hunk of hardware in the right hands:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UE2smkBf5kg&search=shenmue

Shenmue on the Saturn, Ha! thats a good one, while it did look decent for its time, i dont think it could have come close to what it was like on the Dreamcast.

well, no the dreamcast was over 200+X what the saturn was capable of, but however the saturn was more powerful then the playstation or jaguar.
So it could have done some amazing things with the right time and effort.

no, I am not 100% sure but I hear the Saturn was weaker than the ps1 in terms of 3d, but beat it hands down at 2d, as 3d was only tacked at the end of devolpment after the annocement of the Ps1.

With Time and effort, but thats what they didnt have, thus the port over to dreamcast.

the thing is, the saturn was capable of 500,000 flat, and 200,000 textured, but the playstation is rated with just 360,000, i never did see more of a breakdown of flat vs textured with the ps1, so that might lead one to believe that the saturn had a greater geometic advantage.
Unless someone can find a deeper specs chart.

Overall the saturn was the more capable machine.. Nothing on PS looks anywhere near as good as SS Vf2, Anarchy in the Nippon or Last Bronx these used the SS hardware to the greatest effect... theres no point in mentioning 2D games, obviously we all know which machine owned that area...

If only those games (plus others like, grandia / Sega rally) came out as the first wave of Sega Saturn software.. things would of been so much different now.

Ok, i got it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation

Also read this, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDP1_32-bit_video_display_processor