/vr/ - Retro Games

I did my damnedest, but sadly, the Shiturn salted the earth...

>>6675078
Easy...
1) Don't hire Bernie Stolar.
2) Keep production of the Sega Saturn going, get exclusives on that platform.
3) Wait until 2001 to release the Dreamcast and include a DVD player.

>>6675238
Wrong answer, fucko!

>>6675238
>2) Keep production of the Sega Saturn going
Why, so Sega would go bankrupt even sooner? Lmao.

a fucking DVD drive, thats right I fucking said it, come at me.

The starting point for saving the Dreamcast (and Sega as a hardware maker) would have to be way earlier than the Saturn's launch.

>>6675238
This, fuck that jew. Delaying it for DVD support and not selling it at a loss would have been a smart idea. Also without Bernie you don't have the blackbelt failure.

>>6675078
1. Keep officially supporting Genesis until at least '97
2. Don't release the 32X, use carts with chips instead like Virtua Racing
3. Delay the Saturn and completely redesign it to have one powerful, 3D-capable video chip and so would only need a single CPU (using more than one is a fuck to program for); this was the major thing that held Sega back in 5th gen and the reason Sega had to rush out the Dreamcast

>>6675078
It's easier to fix the Saturn because the Dreamcast was too far gone as a result of years of incompetence.

1. Don't create the 32X.

2. Put the R&D that went into the 32X / Neptune toward making the Saturn more 3D compatible to not alienate developers.

3. Don't sperg out while developing Sonic Xtreme, just make it a competent 3D platformer and it could easily rival Mario 64's numbers and singlehandedy make the Saturn a hit in America as Sonic 2 did the Genesis. I imagine it had development hell partly because the Saturn's inner workings were a shitshow but also because Sega's crew was too stupid to design Sonic in 3D until a generation too late. Skip the idiotic fisheye lens shit and make it like the Condor / Sonic World prototype right off the bat and we're good.

>>6675361
A Sonic game not by Sonic Team would've been trash. I'm glad that X-Treme got cancelled.

>>6675078
Sega couldn’t afford to add a DVD drive. Face it, Dreamcast was always destined to fail.

>>6675238
>1) Don't hire Bernie Stolar.
Bernie literally did everything right with the dreamcast but the Shiturn had already killed sega

>>6675528
What were they so busy with for the Saturn's entire run that they couldn't develop their landmark home console series?

>>6675553
Muh gay flying jester and muh fire extinguishing simulator

Release it in the year 2000 so it wouldn't be retro. People didn't want to buy antique products.

>>6675553
They really fucked up their production and organizational structure compared to Nintendo. Someone like Miyamoto could act as producer for games like Mario and Zelda while still working on original concepts. The egos at Sonic Team instead moved all resources with them. Sega didn't have a system where experienced producers could oversee talent at different teams sharing resources when needed. They initially had something like that, since Sega Technical Institute worked with Sonic Team on Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, but then Sonic Team just fucked off and kept to themselves even to the point of refusing to share resources or game engine with the Xtreme team. It's like if Miyamoto had refused to work on anything but one project at a time with his one team.

>>6675602
Yeah, the auteurship retardation really hurt the company as a whole. Not just in terms of games output, but also from a technical standpoint, since they refused to share internally-designed devtools with other teams.

Reading product histories, it seems like Sega made one misstep after another, with the occasional success, until eventually all their baggage pulled them under.

>>6675602
>nintendo
>original concepts
B8

>>6675271
>Why, so Sega would go bankrupt even sooner?
No, to build an image of dependability for your customers. What they did with the Saturn in America made even the most hard-core SEGA fans hesitant to buy the DreamCast -- "Why should I buy this when they might just stop supporting it in a couple short years?"
Keep in kind this was right after they had done the exact same thing to the people who bought the Sega CD and/or the 32X.

>>6675547
>anything right with the dreamcast
>ensures every unit is a loss
berniefags/nincels are genuinely retarded

>>6675078
DESU senpai, the Dreamcast controller was absolute crap. It was too big and had that retarded cord coming out of the bottom and that really fucked with my head. Even with the little slot where you can put the cord, just WTF was that thing all about.

>>6675310
>and Sega as a hardware maker
???????
Sega released their first video game console more than 10 years before the Saturn's launch

>>6675707
>Sega CD
That was yet another idiotic fuckup on SoJ's part (announcing in late 1993 that no first-party development would take place for the Sega CD, barely a year after it was released in the US, and not even a year after it was launched in Europe), and yet another reason why year-wide gaps between regional launch windows were an insanely retarded idea (they inevitably/invariably led to a company whose branches operated at vastly different speeds).

>Gamepad with two analogue sticks and more buttons for trigger fingers
>DVD drive
>More emphasis on the keyboard and mouse combo it offered

Also as others said, Sega was in a free fall since the 32x disaster as well as working on the Neptune.

>>6675238
Bring every Japanese Saturn game that isn't pork or gambling o the west.

>>6675078
Nothing. It was a good console, but it was doomed from the start by previous failures.

>>6675238
Also having games that aren't just weeb-bait would've helped.

>>6676108
>Japanese Saturn game that isn't pork

>"piggu-chan my hips are moving on their own!"

>>6675732
>computer video game
I've always thought that referring to a console as a "video game" sounded so middle-aged and out of touch, so I'm surprised to see one with that actually written on it.

>>6675078
>not have the memory cards require batteries
>fix where the wire goes into the controller
>dvd player
>advertise more games than just Crazy Taxi, Seaman, SC5 and Sonic.

>>6676161
>sounded so middle-aged and out of touch

who cares at this point? its all woke garbage anyway

>>6676167
The batteries were only for the mini games you can play on the VMU. The game saves were internal and can live without the batteries.

>>6675345
Their issues go back to the SG-1000 itself but here we go.

>Grab up 3rd parties the same time Nintendo was, While Nintendo had Capcom, Konami, Namco and Hal Laboratory, Sega had Falcom, Games Arts, Enix/Chun Soft and Compile. Nintendo has the big arcade companies (as well as Square and Hudson) while Sega has the big PC companies.
>Don't release your games on other systems like the NES, PC6000, PC88, X1, X68000 and PC Engine, keep it only to Sega systems and that way those systems would of sold much better.
>Custom VDP from day 1 (larger color pallet, more sprites that are also multi color, RGB video output).
>Outputs composite & RGB through a 8-pin din, not just RF.
>Ram/sound expansion pack (32KB with AY-3-8910)
>15 pin controller ports for more then 2 buttons at launch to match up to the NES and arcade boards at that time.
>Pause/Start button on the controller itself rather then the console.
>Removable controllers from day 1, not through a SG-1000 Mark II.
>NES like controllers from day 1.
>SG-1000 Mark 2 is just the original with the ram/sound expansion pack built in.
>Keep until 1989 until the Mega Drive/Genesis is release, after that make into a hand held as the Game Gear but only with the extra ram and sound chip, no extra colors, that way the SG-1000 can play it's games with just a add on on a TV.

If Sega did that they will be much better off; How the Genesis should of been done will come later.

>>6676967
Sega didn't need to do any of this to survive. The real turning point was around the Genesis/Mega Drive and everyone seems to forget why. Sega was doing fuck awful in North America initially. Master System and Genesis launch sales were nothing compared to the NES. Japan thought everything was fine and threw a fit when Tom Kalinske wanted to drop the price of the Genesis and throw Sonic in as a pack-in. They did it and the Genesis sales started going up. Japan didn't drop the price of the Mega Drive or include Sonic initially and sales were staying flat. Europe saw success when Nintendo bombed in their territory, which is how they took advantage and helped secure the console market for them in that territory.

Japan hated the fact that America and Europe were doing so much better for the company than they were to the point where they sabotaged them. They wouldn't share anything about the Mega CD to America until it was almost done, at which point they had to rely on putting together parts from prototypes to figure it out. Not only that, but the Mega CD's purpose was to take on NEC's PC-Engine, which was doing well in Japan. Sega of America had no choice but to target the Super Nintendo since the TurboGrafx-16 was a dud here. Then Sega of Japan had Sega of America work on the 32X as a stopgap for the Saturn's release. When the Sega CD and 32X weren't doing well in the west (they sold over a million units but weren't doing big, big numbers), they decided to take away Sega of America's power. They prematurely launched the Saturn with only some retailers, which pissed off other retailers that weren't included. It also made it difficult for those who were saving up to get a Saturn later since it came out sooner than expected, and those who could afford one right away were stuck with a limited number of games since non-Sega devs weren't ready for the surprise launch.

>>6677382
When Saturn's numbers weren't up to snuff in the west, Sega of Japan's answer was to nuke all of their other platforms, despite strong Genesis sales from the previous holiday, which effectively gave Nintendo even more sales for the Super Nintendo since their Nintendo 64 wasn't ready yet.

They then hired Bernie Stolar, who was fired from Sony, to run Sega of America, who made every bad choice possible with the Saturn. Thankfully, he used those mistakes to see what the Dreamcast needed to have a successful US launch, but it didn't help the damage that was already done.

>>6677382
>Sega didn't need to do any of this to survive.
Yes, they did, Nintendo became huge because they had the 3rd party support and exclusives Sega didn't, the later because Sega just let companies let Dempa port their games to other systems like the PC88 & X68000. If Sega took their 3rd parties the same time Nintendo did and said no to companies like Dempa and made their games SG-1000 only like Nintendo did with the Famicom/NES once Super Mario Bros was released Sega would of done MUCH better for Sega in the end.

Has anyone ever tried putting a rechargeable battery in the VMU? Would the system charge it when powered on?

>>6675078
Sega were basically doomed since they were an arcade first company in an era that started moving away from the arcade, the original goal for the Saturn was to provide the best 2D gaming experience with pixel perfect arcade ports from the 80s, which just wasn’t what the market wanted in the mid-90s, home gaming was easily a self-standing industry now.

>>6677382
The Sega CD ended up overpriced due to a major fuckup when designing the Genesis board, whose workaround required putting a second CPU in the add-on itself.
By contrast, the PC-Engine's CD add-on doesn't have a second CPU in it, despite the base unit using a 7.6 MHz processor (vaguely comparable to the Genesis's).

>>6677540
There was once a Ex-Sega staff member that posted here that said that their choices with the Genesis's VDP were either scaling with 2 extra background layers, a extra window layer and more sprites or Master System support, they selected Master System support.

If they chose the former and delayed it by 1 year (and fulled up the external color ram bus to the full 32KB) it would of prevented the 32X's existence.

>>6677573
It wasn't just forcing pointless features like backwards compatibility to the detriment of performance.
It was also outright design mistakes which completely hobbled the system's ability to expand, like not linking the VDP (later integrated A/V ASIC) to the expansion slot or cartridge port.
To quote another anon from an older, long-gone thread:

>who designed the Genesis connected a couple CPU pins to the expansion slot, and if he connected the external VRAM and palette pins from the VDP it could have displayed twice as many colors from the same 15-bit palette the SNES used, or an even bigger palette.

>Sega didn't connect the VDP expansion lines to the cartridge slot either, even though the VDP itself actually supports 128/4096 (up from 64/512) with additional color RAM (this is what the Sega System C is, a Genesis / Mega Drive with slightly faster CPU clock and a color encoder), the only way to increase the palette is doing it the 32X way because it's pretty much its own system in the graphics department

And from a YT comment in a Sega CD video:
>As it was, in order to get graphics images from the Mega CD to the Genesis VDP"s memory the images had to be loaded from the Mega CD's memory across to the Mega Drive's system memory and then moved by the Mega Drive's 68000 to the VDP's VRAM. This made utilizing rotation and scaling cumbersome and difficult to program.

>>6680073
That's a problem that Sega of Japan never wanted to address through out their entire hardware line and it was especially noticeable during the Saturn's development. Sega of America was willing to push something with Silicon Graphics and presented the idea to Sega of Japan. Japan would find faults and tell them no. When they'd come back with improvements, Japan would find more things and ultimately said their tech was better and they didn't want SGI's. Thanks to that, SGI went to Nintendo and helped shape the N64.

When it came to Saturn's tech, it was impressive and powerful, but absolutely no one but Sega knew how to properly use it. When you open up a Saturn and compare it to a Dreamcast's internals, you can instantly see why so many devs had problems developing for Saturn compared to Dreamcast.

>>6677438
I think it drains only and demands explicitly nonrechargeable ones

>>6675238
how

Not making the most expensive game at the time.

>>6675078
fire bernie stolar, get a bigger marketing budget = win

>>6681071
Shenmue, while being insanely expensive, wasn't the sole reason for Sega's lack of money. They were literally spending money they didn't have on marketing, including promotions with Ozzfest.

>>6681082
There lies the problem. Bernie wasn't the sole reason for Saturn bombing, and even then, he rectified his problems with Saturn by recognizing what the Dreamcast's North American launch needed in order to survive.

He fought with Isao Okawa, who wanted the Dreamcast to cost more than $200 and to include DVD (which was costly since it required licensing deals with Sony while they were already hemorrhaging money). EA refused to work with Sega on Dreamcast unless they got exclusivity rights for sports games, which Sega couldn't do since they bought Visual Concepts and were making the 2K line of sports games. 2K Sports games were so big, they forced EA's hand to buying exclusive rights to the NFL license to prevent anymore loss of sales.

>>6675547
Go HOME BerniePoster you are drunk.

>>6680073
>As it was, in order to get graphics images from the Mega CD to the Genesis VDP"s memory the images had to be loaded from the Mega CD's memory across to the Mega Drive's system memory and then moved by the Mega Drive's 68000 to the VDP's VRAM. This made utilizing rotation and scaling cumbersome and difficult to program.
That could of been avoided if they they selected scaling/extra backgrounds/extra window layer/extra sprites instead of Master System BC as it would of made the system last longer.

Waiting a year to use a 68020 and a YM2610B instead of a 68000 and a YM2612 would of helped too, those parts would of gone down in price.

>>6681961
>Waiting a year to use a 68020 and a YM2610B instead of a 68000 and a YM2612 would of helped too, those parts would of gone down in price.
The Mark III/Master System was a bomba, despite being notably better than the NES. So they needed something to sell quickly.

>That could of been avoided if they they selected scaling/extra backgrounds/extra window layer/extra sprites instead of Master System BC as it would of made the system last longer.
Unfortunately, even if they had designed the graphics chip to make it more powerful, that wouldn't have fixed the issues regarding the excessively hypercentralized design (where the CPU had to do every admin task AND run game code). It needed a more forward-thinking approach to board design, to take into consideration future expansion plans.
A more powerful graphics chip alongside a more decentralized board would have enabled better integration with the Sega CD (and possibly wouldn't have required a second full-size CPU inside it). It might have even been able to use the Sega CD RAM cart as an actual memory expansion, instead of just for extra save slots. However, the issue of Sega CD's shitty drive would have likely persisted.

>>6677573
sounds made-up. you need additional VRAM bandwidth for most of those things, not just features on the VDP. unless they wanted to double the word size to 32bits or include a whole extra VDP/VRAM pair like the supergrafx it's not happening. scaling might've been doable in some form but idk.

scrapping master system support could've enabled some nice things very cheaply, but nothing on the scale you're describing.

>>6683479
If the VDP was connected to the cartridge slot, Sega could have used actual RAM carts (like in the later Saturn) to increase VRAM/color RAM.

>>6675345
>>6675361
>>6676967
>>6677382

You are missing the point this would have helped immensely

>Saturn backwards compatability plays Genesis SegaCD 32X (for god sakes most of the hardware was already there)
>add Saturn and Sega CD backwards compatability to Dreamcast through emulation
>Release DVD compatible Dreamcast, even if a model revision but require all games to ship on GD-ROM for maximum compatability

really would have fixed the Saturn and DC era fuck ups and mostly would have been firmware work or boot discs

Reminder just how bad the Australia/New Zealand launch of the Dreamcast was:
>Cost AU$500
>Delayed several times, eventually launched in November in Australia and December in New Zealand
>New Zealand had two launch days, December 3rd and December 4th, because units failed to arrive at stores at the same time.
>Almost a complete lack of advertising before launch. When ad-posters were created, they were never shipped to retailers.
>At one point the distributor totally lost their shipment of Dreamcasts for two Australian states, only to find they were in an Ansett Airlines warehouse (in a third state)
>Even after the systems were found, they were shipped standby (i.e. whenever the airline had extra space) to save money so most stores had no stock on launch day
>Most of the launch titles weren't available even when the consoles were
>Games being shipped from Europe got stuck at customs due to labelling issues, then had to have their shrink wrap removed and Australian ratings stickers manually applied
>No first party titles were available on launch day
>Demo discs were unavailable with launch units and had to be collected from stores later
>Peripherals (including VMUs) were unavailable on launch day and wouldn't arrive in NZ until mid december/early 2000
>Internet wasn't ready until well into the year 2000 (and was never available in New Zealand), no access disk was included with launch systems
>30 hours before launch the local distributor signed an exclusivity deal with one of the most overpriced ISPs in Australia on a pay-per-hour plan
>No official magazine even though one was originally planned.
>33.6K modem shipped instead of 56K because the internet is "less busy" in Oceania
>Eventually they slashed the price and desperately tried to sell it off as one of those weird early-2000s "internet devices" because they'd screwed up marketing it as a console so badly. This didn't work either.

>>6687986
That shitfuckery is unfortunately not uncommon in situations where transport costs are massive and profit margins are razor thin.
People try to cheap out on every little single thing.

>>6675078
The Saturn's failure doomed the Dreamcast from the start.

>>6675078
The unreleased DVD Player and Zip Drive accessories possibly could have saved the Dreamcast (along with better integration of the Broadband adapter)

>>6688559
It really wouldn't have. Sega was already hurting for money by the time they launched the system. The licensing costs for DVD would have killed Sega.