It’s been long known that SEGA, once a major console manufacturer themselves, had the odd plan to bring their most successful franchise ever to the Xbox Live Arcade service. Will a bunch of new leaked screenshots, showing off the SEGA Vintage Collection, enlighten us about whether Sonic the Hedgehog will be a more endurable offering on the Arcade than its rather dreadful full-price outing?

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IGN got the scoop it seems, with an article referencing material found on SegaOnline.nl:

Now SEGA’s official Netherlands Website has screenshots and a name for the classic series: SEGA Vintage Collection. Our Dutch is a little rusty, so we can’t be sure exactly what SEGA Netherlands is announcing about the game. But the opening paragraph clearly says “Xbox Live Arcade,” and the screenshots show a title screen where “Leaderboards,” “Achievements,” and “Return to Arcade” options can be found.

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Fortunately our Dutch is a tad less rusty, so we won’t be falling into the same pitfalls IGN did here. First off, SEGA does not have an official Dutch website, and their European site does not mention anything regarding this vintage collection. SegaOnline.nl is an enthusiast site run by a few guys with a deep love for everything SEGA. Secondly, there’s nothing official from SEGA about the whole thing. A proper translation of their post would be:

SEGA vintage collection heading to Live Arcade

You don’t have to be Einstein to know that a collection encompasses several things, in this case games. In other words SEGA is predicting a lot of good stuff on Xbox Live Arcade. We all know Sonic the Hedgehog is coming, but not that it will be part of the “SEGA vintage collection”.

At this time SEGA has not stated anything official on the subject yet, but the exclusive screenshots below speak for themselves.

Summing it all up, there’s nothing official here and IGN rather jumped the gun while they should’ve waited for someone to do a proper translation for them. The screenshots look cool, but nothing the average bored kiddo couldn’t cook up in 30 minutes given a copy of Photoshop and 5 Megadrive screenshots. However, Sonic has been mentioned for XBLA several times by SEGA representatives, so we’ll give the whole story a 50/50 credibility for the time being, perhaps with a small edge towards bogus.

Cheers to MIT Acid, nofear360 and hotpocket Fanny for submitting the news!