At one point in time, Vision Scape was working on a hot up and coming new project. They had made such games as SeaBlade and Tech Deck: Bare Knuckle Grind, and were looking for a new project to propel them even further. As Vision Scape worked alongside SEGA for the Sonic Heroes cinematics, they had a new idea. What if they took everyone's favorite blue hedgehog and gave him his own new hoverboard based racing game? And, what if it was called Sonic Extreme?
SEGA didn't want that game, at least, not from them. So when Vision Scape submitted designs for the game, SEGA went quiet on their end. However, a few years later SEGA did release Sonic Riders, a hoverboard game featuring everyone's favorite blue hedgehog. The odd thing is, it wasn't made by Vision Scape. Vision Scape did try to strike up legal action against the company, but reportedly they signed an NDA that locked them in a closet and wouldn't let them out. So since Sonic Riders featured Sonic, it was technically owned by SEGA. No one could fight that.
Now SEGA is moving past that, especially as they haven't done anything with the Sonic Riders series since 2010. Currently, they have their eyes set on a 2D throwback game called Sonic Mania, and now a 3D game called Sonic Forces. I wonder what other skeletons they have under their bed that we could find.