[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/vr/ - Retro Games

View post   
File: 171 KB, 1600x1200, Sega.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
764690 No.764690 [Reply] [Original]

Where did SEGA go wrong /vr/? Was it their attempts at keeping the Genesis alice with the CD and 32x? Was it the over-reliance on Sonic that lead to the Saturn's demise due to the fact that no new Sonic game was available on it? Did the Dreamcast prove they still had some fight in them or was it just a glorofied platform for Sonic Adventure 1 and 2?

>> No.764691

they'll be back. i hope

>> No.764693

>>764691
With their deal with Nintendo they've admitted defeat

>> No.764697

>>764690
Cashgrab addons with little support. Terrible U.S. marketing for the Dreamcast. Temporal distance between the Saturn launch and the Dreamcast launch.

>> No.764715

>>764693
what is their deal?

>> No.764716

Constant in-fighting between the US and Jap teams, not enough support for shit like the CD and 32X, releasing the Saturn very early without telling anyone, not releasing a lot of Saturn games in the west, piracy running wild on the Dreamcast, PS2 kicking the Dreamcast's shit in, then giving away all the Dreamcast's exclusives to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

That's what I can think of. And the funny thing is they're still not doing all that great now.

>> No.764717

>>764697
Yeah. And I heard at E3 they actually had to say that the Saturn was available in stores. I'm not sure if that's true, but you'd think with their agressive marketing campaign during the Genesis/Nes and Snes days they could at least build up a little hype

>> No.764721

>>764715
Basically that Sonic is only on Nintendo consoles and they're not going to develop for anyone else

>> No.764752

>>764690
Saturn killed SEGA.

Dreamcast was a fine console, had a fair few fantastic games and introduced out of the box internet connectivity to the console market. However it came too late, SEGA was already in real financial trouble and didn't have the funds to truly back the console in the way sony, microsoft and nintendo could do with their offerings.

>> No.764769

>>764717
Were you born in 2000 or something? They announced they were releasing it early, I thought everyone knew that.

>> No.764771

>>764690
Where did they go wrong?

This one action pretty much killed the company.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Saturn#North_America

>> No.764776

>>764697
To be fair, SoJ pretty much gave SoA no indication that the Saturn even existed until it was announced. SoA legitimately thought the 32X was going to be their next console, and SoJ fucked them over, causing consumer confidence in Sega to plummet in the U.S., then the little early release for the Saturn caused distributor confidence to plummet. Oh, and Bernie fucking Stolar.

It really is astounding that Sega did as well as they did with all the dipshits they had running it.

>> No.764786

seeing as the Xbox is basically just a contiuation of the Dreamcast, I'd be willing to say that they never really left the console market. At least, untill they made that deal with Nintendo (>>764721).

I like to think that the Xbox was actually made by sega in secret, and that when Microsoft started taking over, they ditched it for Nintendo. However I know that's not true. Allthough I do know that sega had a hand in the creation of the Xbox hueg, not sure how far though.

>> No.764807

>>764690
32X + Sega CD

/thread

>> No.764810

funny thing is, in some interesting ways... the dreamcast was better than the ps2, the graphics chip in the dreamcast for instance is pretty impressive by the standards of the day and dreamcast, while having less system ram had double the graphics memory (4 vs 8 mb) of the ps2. If you look at games like Dead or alive II or crazy taxi that got came out on both consoles, surprisingly, the dreamcast versions look MUCH better by comparison.

>> No.765329

>>764690
The Saturn led to there downfall, If the Saturn was succesful they would've had support for the Dreamcast

>> No.765350

>>764810
ps2 games look very blurry in comparison to dreamcast titles

>> No.765369

>>765329
On top of that, EA dropped sports game support for the Dreamcast, which is a really good way to make sure your console dies.

>> No.765405

>>764697
Dreamcast performed much better in the West than in Japan, as did all Sega consoles except for the Saturn.

The turning point for Sega was the 32X, but even then they would have been able to correct their mistakes if it weren't for the surprise launch of the Saturn, which pissed off a fucking ton of developers (like EA, and EA Sports was fucking HUGE on Genesis). Its complicated hardware pales in comparison to their poor business decisions.

>> No.765404

>>765369
i dunno they did a pretty good job at making their own sports titles

>> No.765415

>>765369
Sega Sports was a huge brand and very popular at the time. I'm pretty sure at least one of their games outsold the EA Sports equivalent.

Dreamcast still had some life in it, but Sega changed management at the time and the new higher-ups thought they should focus only on software.

Bernie, for all the shit he gets, would have kept the Dreamcast alive.

Also, EA dropped support with the Saturn.

>> No.765410
File: 8 KB, 160x230, stolar.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
765410

As some people have mentioned, constant fighting with the JP and US offices, pouring money into prolonging the Genesis lifespan with the Sega CD and 32x, gave up on the 32x early and announced the Saturn, abandoning developers and consumers. Surprising launching the Saturn really early which pissed off more developers and also retailers, and they only had a handful of games available for a long while, and deciding to not localize a lot of hit Japanese games here in the US. At least in the US, Sega really did try to turn things around with the Dreamcast, having the thing launch with a built-in modem for $200 and pushed all kinds of great software for the American market, but the damage had been done. Aside from piracy and competition from the PS2 and The Matrix on DVD, a lot of people simply didn't trust Sega anymore, or at least saw them as a 2nd rate hardware company compared to the likes of Sony and Nintendo.

It went something like that.

>> No.765412

>>765404
The Sega Sports games were all right, but not having Madden is just a deathknell in America.

>> No.765429

They didn't. The gaming public just became overly stupid in the mid-90s because they supported the stupid fucking N64 over the Saturn as Console #2 under the admittedly good PS1. But then when DC was released, it started being good but they apparently just jumped ship when PS2 was released despite having nearly nothing to back it up vs. TONS of good Dreamcast games. Plus the XBox, again another poor console with a ton of bad games that appealed to non-gamers.

Sega didn't turn its back on gaming, gaming turned its back on Sega.

>> No.765437

The rivalry between Sega of Japan and Sega of America.

Also, Bernie Stolar during Saturn era. And the design of the Saturn hardware itself. Personally, I think it should have been a console variant of the Model 2C CRX arcade board

Somewhere along the lines, finding more third-party developers would have helped as well.

And the cancellation of Sonic X-Treme.

And not equipping the Dreamcast with DVD support initially.

Goddamn, there is so much more than that as well. Nevertheless, I love Sega.

>> No.765440

>>765429
Oh, and don't tell me it was Sega's management that did this. Sega just saw the PS2 and its false momentum by non-gamers and decided to give up, despite what "gaming history" (written by the winners, like all history) tells us.

It's pretty crazy what people believe about gaming history vs. what actually happened. Pretty important to actually listen to people who were there as it happened that aren't fucking biased.

>> No.765449

>>765429
At launch, the PS2 still had better exclusive FPS and RPG games than the Dreamcast had up until that point.

>> No.765457

32X and the Saturn in the west seem to be the critical failures.

The Saturn's 2d focus ran counter to dogma about 3d games, the actions they took to accommodate 3d games just gave the system an identity crisis and a lackluster library.

Dreamcast was a glorious renaissance.

The runaway successes of the PS1 and PS2 can't have helped either.

>> No.765490

>>765440
>>765449
You both forget that the PS2 was the lowest-priced DVD player available at its launch with 480i support? Almost NOBODY had a DVD player before the PS2 launched. Same goes with the PS3 and BluRay players. Shit, I was just talking today with a RANDOM PERSON at a store about the Playstation being the best consumer CD player available when it launched, too, after a comment that the in-store radio had compression garbage in it.

>> No.765543

I'm a huge Saturn lover, and it's sad that anyone who actually wants a fair shot at having a decent collection for it turns to importing. US versions of most Saturn games worth playing are usually hilariously expensive, thanks to Segas wonderful business sense. Thankfully it's very easy to run burned CDs anyway, so the games are available to play for as cheap as the blank discs come. I'm slowly picking up imports, but I've got a ton of burned games in the meanwhile. I have a ton of PS1 games I've spent little effort obtaining, while very few US Saturn games because it's such a pain, and generally pricier for anything worthwhile.

>> No.766918
File: 72 KB, 532x800, 1367799871503.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
766918

>>765543

It's hard with someone who grew up with a Saturn.

>MOM CAN I HAVE PANZER DRAGOON SAGA THEY'RE ONLY MAKING LIKE 500 OF THEM
>No
>OK...
>Time passes, copies show up on ebay

>> No.766923

>>764690
Sega was a one hit wonder. That's all they ever had.

>> No.766983

I think one of the biggest things hanging over the Dreamcast even before launch was the simple matter that their last two consoles were successes in a few markets and failures in another.

Genesis did amazing in the Americas and Europe. Made Sega a brand name. But in Japan it could never touch the SNES juggernaut.
Saturn was a decent success in Japan, but bombed elsewhere.

For the nth time, the infighting between Sega Japan and America was a huge issue. It went on forever, too; you have shit like Yuji Naka requesting no Americans were on the sonic 3 development team (2 was codesigned by americans and Japanese developers in America). Then you have things like America being kept in the dark with the saturn, or kept from using the NiGHTS engine for the use of a sonic game the SS needed as a killer app desperately.

Bottom line, Sega america was fucking brilliant when it came to marketing. They MADE the Genesis a success. Was their marketing campaign tryhard and cheesy? Yeah. But we're still talking about what "nintendon't" 20 years later. They were the video game version of Pepsi, and that worked.

Bernie Stolar was an excellent asset they shouldn't have dumped early on. Even if the looming PS2 was always going to take it down, Stolar knew how to play the cards right to make Sega successful enough. The Dreamcast launch was a huge success. Stolar made lemons out of lemonade with 2k sports and knew just how to steer sega to make it solid, if not on top.

I love the DC's quirky games, but they should have realized they can't stay afloat with that alone. they needed more mainstream inhouse stuff; that's what made the genesis such a huge success. Genesis era sega had a ton of franchises in all sorts of genres. Saturn and the dreamcast cut down on this massively, . What really sucks is that the XBOX sequels were meant to be DC titles, and though they weren't totally mainstream, they had the appeal DC's 1st party stuff desperately needed.

>> No.767380

>>766983
It's also worth mentioning that Sega of America had buildings of people with literally nothing to do while the Dreamcast was dying. Apparently Sega of Japan would reject all of their game ideas and the American CEO at the time has come forward saying their ideas were incredible system sellers.

So, yeah. It's cute that people think that Sony's decisions had something to do with Sega's death but, really, Sega of Japan was just insane.

>> No.767478

>>767380
It's ironic how much a company created by an American soldier hates it's own American branch. while Sega Japan was definitely the workhorse, Sega of America shouldn't be sold short. I'm curious to know what those ideas would have been. I'm sure they had their pulse on the Western market far better than SoJ did.

I noticed Sega Founder David Rosen resigned around 96, around the time Sega Japan stopped playing fair with Sega America.I wonder if that had anything to do with it; it's a stretch, though. Either way, the Saturn catastrophe is one of the most amazing crash and burns in video game history.

>> No.767569

The Saturn and the N64 were both casualties of boneheaded, stubborn decisions. Sega's complete negligence of the American and European market, who were instrumental in them getting the foothold they had in the first place, pretty much killed any trust developers, distributors and the public had in them. That negative sentiment continued through to the Dreamcast even as Sega tried to make amends.

Then Nintendo shot themselves in the foot with the N64 hardware. Hiroshi Yamauchi, for all his "notoriously imperialistic style" of leadership, wanted the NES to be easy to program for because he believed that artists made the best games, not technicians. For the N64 he completely went back on that and decided to intentionally make it as hard to develop for as possible to try and scare away mediocre developers. Instead, many of the good developers jumped ship or released games that weren't up to their usual standards, while the bad developers just made their games anyway and they turned out even worse. Like Sega, they tried to make it up to people with the Gamecube (which was apparenty much more developer-friendly) but the damage was done.

Compare this to Sony with the Playstation. Other than a few weird regulations (Sony of America didn't want 2D games, I've heard), they just sat back and let the developers do their thing. Regardless of the hardware (well, using CD's instead of cartridges was another reason it pulled ahead of the N64, but still), their less draconian treatment of developers is what won the day for them. The PS2 was more of the same, since their only competition was a pair of companies who had fallen into disrepute and a new console that showed up late to the party.

>> No.767585

>>764721
They made that deal for "the next 3 Sonic games", it's not forever. Sonic Lost World, Mario & Sonic at the Olympics, and an unannounced Sonic game are the 3.

Sonic can go to other consoles after the next 3.

>> No.767587

>>767380
lol what. Source or you're making shit up.

>> No.767601

>>766983
In Japan, the Mega Drive was 3rd place, behind of course the Super Famicom and the PC Engine. The PC Engine never caught on anywhere else(as the Turbografx-16) but in Japan it was pretty close to Nintendo in popularity. In fact, many of the PC Engine's popular games(Bomberman '94 and Snatcher, for example) were ported to the Genesis(only in the west) due to the TG-16s failure.

The Genesis's massive success in the US/EU was due to a much better library and infinitely better marketing. Had the TG-16s release date/marketing be better, who knows what the 4th generation would have been like.

>> No.767604

>>764721
>>767585
The deal kind of makes sense, though. Sonic games have historically sold best on Nintendo consoles, even when the Nintendo versions have been inferior to their Sony/MS bretheren (Unleashed, All-Stars Racing, Generations 3DS etc).

It's a good way for Nintendo to drum up interest in their system, and a good way for SEGA to focus on systems where their games sell well.

>> No.767695

>>767601
Wasn't the PC engine also one of the consoles that also had unlicensced games?

>> No.767714

Regarding Stolar himself, he is both overly blamed and overly defended for his role. Sega of Japan's bullshit was the main cause behind Sega's collapse, but Stolar didn't join SoA until 1996, long after Sega had shot up to the #2 brand in North America. Kalinske was the the man helming Sega's rise, and SoJ should have left him the fuck alone to do his thing. Instead, SoJ decided to be xenophobic "WE GRORIOUS NIPPON, WE BETTER THAN WHITE PEOPRE" and fucked everything up.

>> No.767732

>>767695
It did, but not all that many. Most of them came on HuCARD, and bordered on softcore porn. Here is an example: http://www.pcengine.co.uk/HTML_Games/Body_Conquest_II.htm

Needless to say, almost all of them suck.

>> No.767923

>>765429
I can't think of a single saturn game I'd want to go back and play now that wasn't also on the ps1.

N64, dispite its frankly stupid hardware and ugly blur-bullshit at very least had a few exclusive games I'd happily go back and play even now.

I love sega, but honestly the saturn was an appalling mess.

>> No.767928

>>765449
Grandia II > any RPG on ps2, including the crappy port of grandia II for ps2.

>> No.767938

>>764786
>seeing as the Xbox is basically just a contiuation of the Dreamcast
Sega did not design the dreamcast at all, the only thing microsoft took from the dreamcast was the controller design, and some of the games that were meant for the dreamcast ended up being easy to port because they were going to use Win CE anyhow
The Xbox is NOT a continuation of the dreamcast, stop spreading this bullshit, I'm tired of seeing it.

>> No.767950

>>767928
everyone says the Dreamcast version of Grandia II is better than the PS2 one but can never give any reasons when asked why, it's all ways "ummm... because the PS2 one is bad, OK... it just is..."

>> No.767963

>>767950
because PS2 hasn't got the texture memory of the dreamcast, so you end up with blurry, jagged upscaled crap for imagine quality.

Basicly, the PS2 looks worse and has longer loading times if i remember correctly.

>> No.768109

Much worse graphics

>> No.768179

>>767950
Loading times. Fucking loading times.

>> No.768640

>>767714
I'd defend Stolar because he actually knew what to do with the Dreamcast. Whatever lead to the Saturn's fall can't be pinned entirely on him, though he did make a lot of mistakes. What matters to me is what a turn around he produced for the first year of the dreamcast. In hind site, we can see a lot of people just were waiting for the PS2, but in pop culture back then, Sega was COOL again. Not only did it have a record launch, people were talking about how impressive and awesome it was.

I think the console market was never essential to SoJ's strategy. certainly they produced a lot of titles, but in hindsight, they probably would've been ok making them on other consoles. Even though they entered the console market around 84, they seemed passive compared to their American branch. They didn't have that competitive philosophy the west has.SoJ just seems to have an ostrich philosophy when they're failing. they never really tried in Japan when the Mega drive was failing, and they just sat around waiting for the dreamcast to die. Since they're so secure in the arcade market, especially back then, I don't think it was the end-all-be-all for them, while for America it was what kept them relevant. I think a parallel can be drawn to SNK/NeoGeo some what.

Ultimately, I guess the point is that Japanese industries are largely xenophobic and insular because they don't really need the west. Japanese executives are older and less taken to risks, and can sit comfortably on the Japanese market. SoJ didn't need SoA to stay afloat, so they ignored potential millions in lieu of a more certain market. They feared a western screw up and didn't want to get messy.

Conversely, I think Nintendo is a good example of a company in harmony. The Japanese half is largely the workhorse, but it knows how to keep in balance with the international market.

>> No.769421

I think it has much to do with how their buisness was split overseas (Sega of America/Japan). Its why the Saturn was a flop.

Also, their head-honcho during the 16/32bit era was a major douche.

>> No.769440

>>769421
What about Sega Europe?

>> No.769468

>>764690
The CD add-on was bad, but the 32x was the last nail in the coffin. They should had never released it, it only served to piss off consumers, so when the Saturn came out, which was an actually good console, nobody wanted it.

>> No.769491

>>767601
I tough that the Genesis wasn't even on 3rd place, but rather in a niche market, since up until 92, The Famicom was still at 3rd place, since unlike games of the West, the Japanese still were interested on the Famicom because they knew what matter were the games, hence we got so many underrated gems in both regions from 1990 to 1993.

By 94 the Saturn and PSX came out, and Sufami went to 3rd place right?.

>> No.769549

saturn had fine fighting games and beat 'em ups. plenty of fun games. tbh, looking at it today, it's a way better console than n64

I see nothing wrong on saturn

dreamcast was also a fine console.

bad luck I guess or just shit marketing.

I mean, why did you play nintendo over the master system?? or snes over genesis? what happened later was just a cycle of what happened before

>> No.769556

Dreamcast sold about 10 million consoles in two years. That's not that much worse than Xbox selling 24 million consoles by the end of it's lifespan.

>> No.769614

>>769556
Half of those were sold at heavily marked-down prices around the time it was announced that the console would be discontinued.

>> No.769619

>>764807
+Saturn

>> No.769640

>We had a tremendous 18 months. Dreamcast was on fire - we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said we had to make x hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift x millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business. So on January 31st 2001 we said Sega is leaving hardware. We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2. Somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese. I had to fire a lot of people; it was not a pleasant day.
- Peter Moore

SoJ fucked up a good thing yet again...

>> No.769646

>>769614
That was the only good thing to come out of that discontinued event.
Dirt cheap games and accessories.

>> No.769703

>>764716
>piracy running wild on the Dreamcast, PS2 kicking the Dreamcast's shit in, then giving away all the Dreamcast's exclusives to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

After the immediate launch hardware sales for the PS2; Dreamcast sales actually picked up. Sega specifically set out release dates to combat Sony - Jet Set Radio, Samba De Amigo, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Grandia 2, NFL 2K1, Phantasy Star Online - all within the 3-month PS2 launch window. These games got seriously strong reviews, absolutely decimating the god awful launch line-up Sony came out with.

But this wasn't even close enough. It might have kept the Dreamcast in a strong position, but that position wasn't showing signs of growth. Seeing this, Isao Okawa decides to stop bankrolling the Dreamcast, just in time for Sega to make an announcement (31 March) before the next financial year begins (1 Apr)

I'm being pedantic - but it was more quiet resignation than vindictive death rattle.

>> No.770124

If only Sega dint even tried with the 32x......

>> No.770169

>>765415
EA made sports games for the Saturn. The early sports games were pretty good,better than their PS1 counterparts. However, later in the Saturn's life, EA (and almost every other developer) made less of an effort on their sport's titles on the Saturn. FIFA 98 on the Saturn is probably the worst sports game i have ever played.

>> No.770213

>>765449
so at launch the PS2 had half life, Quake 3, and Unreal tournament?

>> No.770302

>>770213
Looks like you don't know what an exclusive is.

>> No.772206

>>769703
piracy ran wilder than amazon's rainforest in 1200 on ps and ps2 and it didn't kill them.

stop blaming piracy ppl. it doesn't kill shit. ps and ps2 are often regarded as the best consoles of their respective generations

blame it on something else .

>> No.773332

>>764690
The Sega CD wasn't a total failure, just a modestly successful experiment that was plagued with some bad games.

I think the beginning of the end was the Sega 32X, despite being an impressive technical improvement for the Genesis, it should have never been conceived as a consumer product, especially so close to the Saturn launch (and don't get me started on how bad they fucked that up). Just a huge waste of money and resources, and it only got worse from there.

>> No.775019

>>773332
I agree.