/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9575556]

Why did Sega fail?

[Anonymous No.9575562]

Internal conflict + shit decisions in hardware and software for Saturn. DC might have been a gamble, but they wouldn't be forced to resort to it if it wasn't for Saturn's failure.

[Anonymous No.9575572]

Bleeding money from releasing multiple consoles and gimmicks addons within such a short timespan.

[Anonymous No.9575593]

>>9575556
I don't think they really failed in the long run. They still have it much better than Atari and NEC/Hudson Soft. They still made some great games as a third party.

[Anonymous No.9575610]

>>9575556
>Why did Sega fail?
more than anything Sega of Japan being petty moronic assholes who actively went out of their way to sabotage any success that Sega of America managed to wring out of the Genesis, leading to the death spiral that happened with the Saturn and Dreamcast

in a better world they wouldn't have been bailed out by the dying rich guy and been bought out by a more competent company after they screwed the pooch with the Dreamcast

>>9575572
>Bleeding money from releasing multiple consoles and gimmicks addons within such a short timespan.
definitely a large part of it, their best bet would have been to focus on the Neptune, scrap the Saturn, and focus on being the budget alternative* to the PlayStation and N64 to buy time till the Dreamcast is ready

*since apparently the Neptune's launch price would have likely been around $150(and probably would have lowered down to $99 by the time the PlayStation would have launched at $299^ in the US), between that incredibly low price and the likely backwards compatibility the Neptune would have had with the vast majority of the Genesis/Mega Drive library of games and accessories(especially if they were smart enough to ensure it would be compatible with both models of Sega CD), it'd be an easy sale for budget conscious parents even if it would have been very underpowered compared to the proper 5th generation consoles Sony and Nintendo were doing

^actually without the Saturn around to be a direct price competitor to try and undercut it's possible that Sony would end up launching the PS1 at a higher price than that

[Anonymous No.9575615]

People are still gonna blame the SEGA CD and 32X, but I still think they were closer to what people in the west wanted (more actual Genesis games) than the Saturn's more Japan-centric arcade lineup. That and there was no way they could compete with Sony with either the Saturn or the Dreamcast. PlayStation was just a slam dunk when it hit.

[Anonymous No.9575625]

At the ass end of the SNES/Genesis generation there was a gaming bubble of sorts with all major console-making companies basically in a mad dash to stack their shit consoles with as much shovelware garbage as possible.

Since certain consoles had shit hardware architecture they got exposed fast because instead of having decent games they got saddles with shovelware jankfests that didn't even play as they should, which both drove away buyers and also killed third party support.
Nobody wants to develop games for a dead consoles that costs too much, takes 10x times more to develop shit on and was already proven to be a dud in regards to performance.

But generally it was a larger trend where consoles slowly folded into being basically PCs, which came about a couple of generations later but it was a process that knocked out SEGA early

[Anonymous No.9575634]

>>9575610
The Neptune would've had the advantage of being different enough from the PS1 to feel like its own unique little system instead of sharing most of its library with it. Being tied to the Genesis brand also would've meant more Sonic games, more Streets of Rage, Vectorman, Ristar, etc. instead of just Virtua Fighter and Manx TT, which would've also still been on it.

[Anonymous No.9575649]

They're still in business, they didn't fail you fucking retard.

[Anonymous No.9575663]

Brothers and sisters are natural enemies.
Like Sega and Nintendo
Or Sega and Sony
Or Sega and Sega
DAMN SEGA
THEY RUINED SEGA

[Anonymous No.9575708]

>>9575556
Is this a sincere quote?

[Anonymous No.9575714]

>>9575556
Because Playstation quickly became the console of divorced parents.

[Anonymous No.9575720]

>>9575714
>parents were divorced
>had PlayStation growing up
Hey, I fit the criteria for this confirmation bias!

[Anonymous No.9575751]

>>9575714
So Saturn was for people who pulled out?

[Anonymous No.9575769]

>>9575556
Kek. Imagine being so BTFO by Nintendo and the SNES, even after it was released two years after your flagship system with a 2x slower CPU, that you make a CD and 32X add ons that fail, and tripple down with the fuckup that is the Saturn.

Then a few years later you doom your company with the Shitcast. Kek.

[Anonymous No.9575778]

>>9575556
>Never THE company
>Never drew a dime
>Never had a good game before 2005 and even then was carried by vastly superior games
>Never put anyone over
>Never had the balls to step out their Japan comfort even when Microsoft threw millions at them when the company needed it
>Instead, allowed themselves to get worked into a shoot by pachinko money marks
>Main evented the lowest drawing console generation
>Tanked the buyrate of Saturn outside Japan so hard it also tanked Dreamcast's buyrate, leading to the company quitting the console business
>Was barely ever supported by anyone because the company was never a big enough deal
>So stubborn it refused outside help from others when developing Saturn's architecture
>Buried 3dfx for no reason when developing Dreamcast
>Only the 6th best arcade developer
>Only the 7th best console manufacturer
>Only the 9th best gaming mascot
>Only the 5th best rhythm game developer
>The company's mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, was utterly BTFO by everything else and achieved nothing notable unless fans have 100% creative control on him
>Japanese and American branches constantly headbutts each other in backstage politics all up the ass
>Needed misleading performance enhancement advertising to beat SNES
>Bought Atlus, the company's only positive impact on the business, purely for the crossovers and weeb appeal
>Spent the rest of company's life carried by weebs and nostalgiafags
>Signed a deal with a talent agency company who has history of abusing their trainees like the cucks they are
>Is the gaming equivalent of that one insufferably mediocre developer whose sole professional """""""achievement"""""" is staying in the same shitty business for years
>The biggest impact the company had on the business was sitting around in the back and survive off merch and gacha money.

[Anonymous No.9575808]

>>9575778
>Never had a good game before 2005
stopped reading right there

[Anonymous No.9575837]

>>9575708
absolutely

[Anonymous No.9575847]

>>9575556
A lot of meals were put on tables, houses paid for, and kids put through college from Sega company earnings. People worked their whole lives at that company and retired happy.

Is that a failure? The company was around for decades and still is albeit no longer in the console production business.
Nothing lasts forever anon.

[Anonymous No.9575853]

>>9575649
>out of console market when you were the clear number 2
>lose your arcades
>just make games every so often
everyone who worked there at the time would tell you they failed. you dont get knocked out of the race by sony and nintendo and claim you succeeded

[Anonymous No.9575874]

>>9575610
>>9575615
Ultimately the Saturn worked for the Japanese market. The Sega brand was never particularly popular in Japan and it was easily their most successful console there. In catering to that demographic though they lost most of the audience that had made the Genesis/Mega Drive popular everywhere else

[Anonymous No.9575910]

>>9575874
>it was easily their most successful console there.
MD sold around 3.5 mln units there, Saturn did around 5.8 mln. It was "more successful", but still not a huge success. PCE did more than that. PSX did around 17 mln in Japan.
Compare this to Genesis selling at least 17mln in US, with actually thorough data suggesting 20+ mln, vs Saturn selling just 1.83 mln (!) in America.
So at the end, Genesis sold likely over 30 mln units around the world, while Saturn did less than 9 mln. What were they thinking?

[Anonymous No.9575960]

>>9575556
Saturn had too many anime games the western audience wouldn't like, so they didn't even bother releasing most of the games in the west

[Anonymous No.9575964]

>>9575847
Except Nintendo

[Anonymous No.9575994]

>>9575910
The saturn apparently was more successfull than the N64 and PS1 in the early days but then the PS1 got FF7 and sega decided to kill the saturn and release the dreamcast which pretty much killed all it's momentum.

[Anonymous No.9575996]

>>9575615
The playstation was such a slam dunk because nintendo and sega screwed up massivelly with their own consoles thought

[Anonymous No.9576003]

>>9575994
'97 was already very weak for Saturn in Japan. It still had big games coming out past '97, but still. Given that at one point Sega sold it at a loss, I can see why they pulled the plug on it.

[Anonymous No.9576005]

>>9575994
>>9576003
Also, Saturn was basically a Virtua Fighter machine in Japan. The huge success it enjoyed at fist was due to VF2 and the launch titles. After PS got Tekken 2/3 and Gran Turismo, they basically gave their own more popular answer to Saturn's biggest hits.

[Anonymous No.9576019]

>>9576003
Those Jaguar numbers, lol. Imagine only selling 2000 units in an entire country. Even Xbox with it's pathetic numbers still sold way than that in Japan

[Anonymous No.9576060]

>>9575556
This guy is at fault for the 32x

[Anonymous No.9576084]

Every suit who worked for Sega was a complete and utter clown. It's honestly astonishing they achieved the success they did.

[Anonymous No.9576092]

>>9575556
Kalinske is a dick. And Sega of america was a mistake.

[Anonymous No.9576109]

Shiturn was an over engineered mess. Deal with it.

[Anonymous No.9576139]

>>9575960
>Saturn had too many anime games the western audience wouldn't like
You mean at the time? A lot of people understood that Japanese animation was better back in the mid-90's.

[Anonymous No.9576145]

>>9576003
Yeah 97 was the year FF7 came out no wonder the playstation saw a massive rise in console sales while the saturn suffered. Maybe things could had turned out different if FF7 also came out on saturn (honestly why didn't the game come out on saturn people always talk about how the final fantasy game could never work on N64 due to cartridge space but they could had been released on saturn just fine).

[Anonymous No.9576186]

>>9575874
>Ultimately the Saturn worked for the Japanese market. The Sega brand was never particularly popular in Japan and it was easily their most successful console there. In catering to that demographic though they lost most of the audience that had made the Genesis/Mega Drive popular everywhere else
that's the problem, catering to the Japanese market just never really worked out for Sega and basically every problem they had as a company stemmed from trying to win over that market at the expense of every other market Sega was operating in(and generally was performing better in)

[Anonymous No.9576213]

>>9576145
>honestly why didn't the game come out on saturn

Sony wanted exclusivity and still do

[Anonymous No.9576241]

>>9575556
>Intracompany politics between Japanese and American leaders that had vastly different visions of the company's future.
>Failing to get new releases for major IPs on the console (Sonic) and cannibalizing the small number of major releases that did reach the console by releasing them on software from the previous gen (Virtua Fighter).
>Not embracing successes that were "too Japanese" under the perception that they would damage the brand.
>A general absence of high-quality exclusives.
>Pissing off retailers through dumb marketing gimmicks, making so those interested in the console can't even buy the damn thing.
>Pricing well above what other market alternatives were offering.
>General arrogance and a "too big to fail" attitude born out of finding success last gen.
It's a good thing no one is making those same mistakes nowadays.

[Anonymous No.9576258]

>>9575593
>I don't think they really failed in the long run
delusional

[Anonymous No.9576294]

>>9575556
Sega never failed
Just look at Bayonetta, Persona and Yakuza Series
Extremely popular and very good games
They also still have really confy arcade stations on Japan.
About the home console market
Man
They kept doing the same shits since SG-1000, competing with themselves and confusing the consumers (especially the ones who thoughts third of a pound is less than a quarter pound ) with their autistic marketing, while NEETendo was commanding the game since the 80s with their exclusive contracts and brilliant western Ads.

[Anonymous No.9576330]

Saturn is the best Sega console with some of the most unique, vibrant and fun games they ever released

[Anonymous No.9576367]

>>9576330
>Saturn is the best Sega console with some of the most unique, vibrant and fun games they ever released
That's a funny way of saying the Dreamcast.

[Anonymous No.9576370]

>>9575556
>>9575562
bad press
bad marketing
also sony bought press media

check your hobbyconsolas, superjuegos or your country equivalent. Every magazine reviewed games on sega consoles as you already owned a PSX. Quite unprofessional same happened in early 90s with megadrive and snes

[Anonymous No.9576525]

>>9576330
Is this bait?

[Anonymous No.9576590]

>>9575556
He's probably right but it still had a few games worth playing

Too the bad the price tag ruined it

[Anonymous No.9576593]

>>9576590
Idk what the price was then but now it's too high

[Anonymous No.9576623]

>>9576145
No point though. Sony did everything right. They were welcoming devs and made it super easy for them to develop and publish games for PS. And Sega had what, an overengineered overpriced mess of a console that somehow looked worse than PS in most games? Even Sega devs themselves said it was hard to develop for, and Saturn emulation used to be shit for a long time because of how overcomplicated it was.
It's also interesting (and ironic) that if you look at the list in >>9576005 , quite a lot of the best selling 3rd party Saturn games were 2D, and pretty basic 2D at that (SRT, VNs, etc). Even Sega's own Sakura Taisen wasn't some feat of graphics.

[Anonymous No.9576647]

>>9575556

No mainline Sonic game for Saturn and y the time DC hit for Sonic Adventure it was far too late.

[Anonymous No.9576656]

>>9575634
If the plan had been to release the 32x instead of the saturn, it could of been reworked as its own system which also played genesis games instead of relying on the genesis hardware so much (as an Add-on). Alot of the reason 32x games were such shit was because of that.
But even with that they at best manage to not hemmorage there entire company revenue over like 4 years until they can release DC,Mars,Saturn whatever they wanna call it. But really as a kid seeing demo units of Virtua Racing next to Ridge Racer in 1995 which one are you gonna want for christmas?

[Anonymous No.9577225]

>>9575778
Sonic was raped in the summer of 1992

[Anonymous No.9577231]

>>9576139
God I hope there's some sort of massive crash that tanks the anime industry

[Anonymous No.9577238]

>>9575556
they couldn't ship floigan bros. in time

[Anonymous No.9577261]

>>9576593
In the US at least the Saturn launched at $399 which was considered very pricey at the time. Once Sony announced the Playstation would be releasing for only $299 it was basically already over for Sega. The Saturn did include a pack in game with Virtua Fighter, but that series just wasn't a system seller the way it was here >>9576005

[Anonymous No.9577298]

Probably the heavy focus on arcade-style games over longer, more complex single-player experiences. I get that they're an arcade company, but just because that style of game works for the arcade, doesn't make it appropriate for home consoles. Even the Dreamcast had this problem to an extent

[Anonymous No.9577345]

>>9577231
Anime at it's core is reduced to the most profitable by any means possible. This is why it is so referential to any pop culture current or past. This is also why old stuff sometimes doesn't gain traction with the younger kids. It is essentially the same stuff from year to year. Occationally there is a shining star in the rough. But things are so filtered today, it will continue to get worse in the future too. Maybe it will get so hard on rails like hollywood has and noone will understand how their formulaic recipes didn't get any better with a dash of mental diarrhea.

[Anonymous No.9577363]

>>9575610
>ore than anything Sega of Japan being petty moronic assholes who actively went out of their way to sabotage any success that Sega of America managed to wring out of the Genesis
What are you even talking about? Be more specific.

[Anonymous No.9577382]

>>9575960
Anime in blew up in the 90s and the Ps1 had plenty of anime type games like jrpgs which also blew up at the same time. Anime was the cool, new hip alternative to the kiddy shit of Disney.

[Anonymous No.9577406]

>>9577363
Nothing really, I just made that up.

[Anonymous No.9577507]

I'm glad Yuji Naka has finally paid for his crimes

[Anonymous No.9577537]

SEGA failed because they lacked the financial muscle to take on a company which at the time was rated as being part of the top 10 corporations in the world. The moment they lowered the model 1 from 399 to 299 their console branch started hemorrhaging money it was long term over for Sega as a console manufacturer.

[Anonymous No.9577550]

>>9575556
So it could learn to pick itself back up and develop trashy sonic sequel after trashy sonic sequel.

[Anonymous No.9577729]

>>9577507
>I'm glad Yuji Naka has finally paid for his crimes
maybe. influential and famous japanese person will get off with a fine.

>>9577537
>started hemorrhaging money
>what's the sega game gear, 32x and sega cd?
>started
based retard

[Anonymous No.9577734]

>>9577382
>Anime in blew up in the 90s
no, that was the 1980s. i remember it well. i was born before then.

[Anonymous No.9577748]

>>9576294
bayonetta only survived because of nintendo and sega game centers don't exist anymore

[Anonymous No.9577869]

>>9575615
>People are still gonna blame the SEGA CD and 32X

The Sega CD was an interesting add-on for the time. It was the second CD-ROM on the market behind the TurboGrafx-CD. The Sega CD tried to add in some Mode 7-like playing fields (an effect used with the Saturn as well) and even scale sprites. Plus there is some audio enhancements. The 32x, was released to try and extend the life of the Genesis in the west. The idea started as something smaller, but they ended up with an add-on that has two 32bit CPU's. I think the 32x was cool as some sort of machine that has Model 1 arcade ports and a few scaling sprite games. And, this system did kinda do well at launch. There was actually quite a number of games announced for the machine, and so many of them were later cancelled due to the surprise early release of the Sega Saturn. 1994-1995 was weird for gaming. You had the 16-bit consoles. the 8bit handhelds. the 3DO and Jaguar. The Sega/ Mega CD. There was the 32x, and the Playstation just coming out, as well as the Saturn, and all the other weird consoles. the 32x did come out later 1994, and Saturn was early 1995.

[Anonymous No.9577879]

>>9575964
Do they still make playing cards in their own factories?
Or do they just put their name on another company's product?

[Anonymous No.9577881]

>>9575556
The Genesis being a huge hit in the USA is what killed them. They could never live up to the numbers that they got with it despite how much they tried. There's really no reason why they released the Sega CD or 32x when they could have released one or neither and just focused more on the Saturn. But even then who's to say the numbers would be better. The Dreamcast was a legitimately impressive device but Sega was far too deep in the red to let it have the life it deserved. So many people blame PS2's DVD function but forget that Dreamcast's initial numbers were very strong and with a continuing amount of exclusives it would have stayed strong. The just didn't have enough money to stay afloat for things to pan out.

[Anonymous No.9578449]

>>9576241
Nigga people don't buy PS consoles for the exclusives, they buy them for fifa, madden, and cod.

[Anonymous No.9578460]

>>9577729
>influential and famous japanese person will get off with a fine.
He is far from those things in Japan.

[Anonymous No.9578927]

>>9575610
>actively went out of their way to sabotage any success that Sega of America managed to wring out of the Genesis

Sega of Japan discovered piles of unsold Sega Genesis units in American warehouses, that Sega of America was expecting to sell... in 1997... despite stopping localizing games in 1993 for the stock Sega Genesis and stopping third parties from localizing Sega CD games altogether in Europe by late 1992 and as third parties in America by early 1995... and on the American development front, they let go of most of their American talent.

Their ideas for Genesis successor systems were even more idiotic than SoJ's Sega Saturn, they stopped supporting the X32 too soon for anyone to trust them again with the Saturn (in fact they were planning a redo of it with a Sega CD + X32 combo... despite the aforementioned third party woes)

And then, for the Saturn, they had sizeable third party support and lots of developers with finished games that were willing to shoulder the risk for North American releases, and Bernie Stolar was contacting/threatening them one by one to "just cancel your game bro, come back for the dreamcast" (no they didn't, they ported them for the psx) which just boggles the mind. Only jewish pilpul covering up for their fellow jew ceo's mistakes as a businessman failure (the one job jews claim to do "well") could excuse such blatant idiocy, which he went on to repeat for four different companies and then helped introduce microtransaction cancer to modern gaming before retiring.

The only company that saw success from this clusterfuck was TecToy in Brazil, as South America is where unsold 16-bit stock went (like Nintendo of America secretly allowing Capcom to export Street Fighter Zero to LatAM and sell it there directly out of region at below market price, just to recoup expenses) and where a lot of already manufactured Genesis game copies stuck in Sega of America approval hell could release hassle free.

[Anonymous No.9579073]

32X should have never ever happened. Releasing that turd just months prior to the release of the Saturn was such a baffling bad decision to make. All their efforts should have been towards making the Saturn launch as successful as possible instead of bothering with such a useless and obvious stop gap product. It's just infuriating to see how much better system was handed in the Japanese market with nearly 1300 games released compared to the absolute shitshow it was everywhere else.

[Anonymous No.9579206]

They released a load of jank in the latter half of the Genesis wheras the Snes kept improving and had a better reputation.

[Anonymous No.9579332]

>>9575778
>The biggest impact the company had on the business was sitting around in the back and survive off merch and gacha money.
What's even funnier is that they even found a way to fuck that up. While they were busy raping the corpse of Sakura Wars, they lost $30 million on its corresponding gacha game.

[Anonymous No.9579390]

>>9579073
The 32X was fine, Sega should've had more confidence in it and rode with it for a year or 2 and spend that time ironing out the flaws with the Saturn to give it less clusterfuck hardware so that it'd be easier for developers to code on, also more powerful to match the upcoming N64 which killed any steam the Saturn had and forced Sega's hand to rush out the DC.

Also, Sega should've made a 32X+Genesis-based handheld in the late '90s instead of piggybacking off SNK's NeoGeo Pocket. Having a 3D handheld would've btfo'd the GB/GBC and helped prevent bankruptcy.

[Anonymous No.9579438]

>>9579206
I think if anything, that was far less of a fuckup than Saturn. Or more like, Nintendo put their shit together and produced DKC.
Still, good data suggests that Genesis beat SNES in America, and even more so in Europe. It was going from 20+ million Genesis consoles in America to less than 2 mln of Saturns that truly killed them.
Regardless, I think if Saturn had been just a moderate success, like it if had sold 10 mln units in America vs N64's 20 mln and PS's 40 million, Sega would've been in a much, much better spot in 2001-2002.

[Anonymous No.9579484]

>>9579390
Nah, it was a novelty.
It was far too weak to compete to the psx or even saturn and people were willing to move on.
Even with the saturn being the weakest of the 5th gen it still could have done better if sega put better focus on it and didnt kill it so early.
Dreamcast was launched too early so it could not compete with gc/ps2 either

[Anonymous No.9579617]

>>9575556
>Why did Sega fail?

1. Sega of Japanese not listening to Sega of America

2. Too many failed add-ons (Sega CD, Sega 32x, etc).

3. Saturn just sucked. Weird ass advertising. Crazy bald lady with rings around her head? Wtf.

No Sonic game. Instead we got a A weird ass jester character that collected gems or whatever. No American RPGs. No true Genesis franchise sequels on Saturn.

Botched Saturn launch. Way too expensive for what it was. Total greed.

4. Saturn sucked for 3D games. It was harder to program for so most 3rd party developers didn't want to bother. The hardware was suited for 2D graphics. Wrong era of gaming.

5. Namco decided to be exclusive to Playstation just to fuck with Sega. Playststion got Tekken and a bunch of other hits.

6. And lastly the big one. Sega sells their consoles at loss and makes money on game sales. This was foolish in the long run. Why?

Because Sony is a hardware company. Gaming is just one division. They could sell the Playstation for huge losses and the company would still be just fine.

Sega could not do this. They were a gaming company and much smaller. They made money on arcade machine sales and console game sales. Selling at a loss was mistake against Sony.

Sega should have just did what Nintendo did to survive. Make a slightly less powerful console, and sell your consoles for a small profit. That's how Nintendo survives. Nintendo always sells their consoles at profit.

Sega wasn't going to beat the Playstation no matter what they did. Sega was not going to be King anymore in home consoles. Not with Sony throwing millions of dollars around like it's nothing.

But Sega could have lessened their losses. Sega could have redesigned their Saturn system to be an affordable 3D system. Then make Genesis franchise sequels for Saturn. Like Sega, Streets of Rage, etc. Also bring over more JRPGS.

Sega could have survived if they did that.

[Anonymous No.9579690]

When the writing was on the wall of sony entering the ring as a behemoth with no cash limitations that could sell at loss Sega was automatically put in the position as a borderline company with little room for error that would require uncommon foresight to stay afloat. Instead they made nearly the worst possible decision at every turn through the 5th gen.

[Anonymous No.9579712]

>>9579690
The sad part was that Sony wanted to work with Sega at first but Sega said no.

We could have had the Sega Playstation.

[Anonymous No.9579736]

>>9575649
You can't be a success when you literally failed anon.

[Anonymous No.9580258]

Bug! or Floigan Bros.?

[Anonymous No.9580265]

>>9575769
>with a 2x slower CPU
The Genesis CPU was faster than the snes. It's why it could play games like ThunderForce4 and Gunstar Heroes while the snes couldnt.

[Anonymous No.9580303]

One major aspect was the 32x, it was so overpriced, unnecessary and unwanted, addons never work well much less one that costs as much as the console at the time and that almost no games supports.
The Genesis came out in 88 and was old and losing steam, they should have put all their effort into the Saturn instead, but the combination of the Sega CD, Sega Net, Sega Nomad and Sega 32x put off consumers and seemed desperate and fragmented and the consumer not knowing if something they spent money on was going to have no support from Sega and 3rd party studios.
Short answer is that Sega threw too many things at the wall trying to prolong the Genesis and fracturing it in the process, hoping one would stick. As a result players got burned too many times and had no confidence in anything they did anymore.

[Anonymous No.9580575]

sssssSSSAAAYYY GAHHHHHHHH

[Anonymous No.9581334]

>>9575837
he didn't say that.

[Anonymous No.9581380]

>>9576005
I'm seeing a lot of healthy sales there. Yes it's not PS1 level but it's not bad at all for a system that only had an install base of about 6 Million. That's also only Famitsu Data. So that only tracks if the game made weekly charts and only tracks for how long they were on the carts.

We do know that worldwide Sega sold about 80 Million Saturn games, and about 2/3 of the worldwide install base was in Japan. We also know that the charts only show sales for about 430 games and the Saturn's Japanese library was over 1000 games. So if 2/3 of those 80 Million were in Japan that would be about 53 million games sold, and the Famitsu charts only account for about 35 Million. So there's almost 20 Million games sold and another 600 games released not reflected in those charts.

I think the main thing here is you see a few killer apps on Saturn, but then the sales spread out because you had a pretty wide variety of games. Third party games are also actually selling at a respectable level for the install base. If you want to see bad sales, look at the N64. Sure it has decent first party sales, but it completely goes off a cliff after the top 20. A lot of third parties had games that sold more copies on Saturn than their entire output on N64.

[Anonymous No.9581392]

>>9579617
>Sega of Japanese not listening to Sega of America
Japan did listen to America. They gave the American branch exactly what they wanted, the 32X. It failed because the American side was retarded and misread the market.
>Too many failed add-ons (Sega CD, Sega 32x, etc).
If it weren't for the 32X, we probably would look back on the Sega CD more positively. For an add-on it didn't do all that bad and it has a respectful library.
>3. Saturn just sucked. Weird ass advertising. Crazy bald lady with rings around her head? Wtf.
Blame Sega of America for that.
>No Sonic
Wasn't necessary early on. If they launch was handled competently we could have gotten a proper 3D Sonic from Sonic Team around 1997/1998 as they originally intended.
>Saturn sucked for 3D games.
It's more than powerful enough to be competitive for the era.
>It was harder to program for so most 3rd party developers didn't want to bother.
No, the lack of sales is why they didn't bother. In Japan where it actually sold it had very good third party support. The system isn't anymore complicated or difficult to work with than the N64.
>Sega sells their consoles at loss and makes money on game sales
Sony did the same thing. Both the Saturn and PS1 cost about the same to produce at their 1994 Japanese Launch with Saturn costing maybe $40 more. Both were sold for about the same loss. The strategy would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that the American branch was doing stupid shit and wasting money on ordering Genesis hardware and games in 1996 like it was still 1992, and not wasting millions on developing FMV porn games for Saturn, PC, and PS1.

People love to point to mistakes Japan made with the Saturn, when the reality is Sega of America's history of mistakes is what lead to the company almost going bankrupt.

[Anonymous No.9581398]

>>9581380
>I'm seeing a lot of healthy sales there.
"Healthy"—maybe, "for a system that only had an install base of about 6 Million"—maybe. But then you look at PS, and Saturn pales in comparison.
Also, note that power gap between VF2, the launch titles and the rest of games. As well as the unhealthy amount of VNs and anime games on the list.

[Anonymous No.9581401]

>>9580265
lrn2read

[Anonymous No.9581432]

>>9581398
>But then you look at PS, and Saturn pales in comparison.
I'd expect the system that was on the market longer and had 3x the install base to have more sales.
>Also, note that power gap between VF2, the launch titles and the rest of games.
That gap is there too in the PS1 list. Once you get outside the top 5 of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest the sales drop by half. If you were to either multiple Saturn's sales by 3 or divide PS1's sales by 3 to make the install base similar the sales would probably look similar.
> the unhealthy amount of VNs and anime games on the list.
There's a lot of them on PS1 as well. And honestly so what? The point is that third party developers like Capcom, Game Arts, Treasure, Konami, etc. could actually put games on the Saturn and have them sell decent numbers. Which is why those companies were still putting out games on the system even after it was announced that it was discontinued. It was a much healthier platform for selling software in Japan than say the N64.

[Anonymous No.9581473]

>>9581432
>I'd expect the system that was on the market longer and had 3x the install base to have more sales.
So what's your point anyway? You could do this with every console that didn't sell well. I guess if you take 3DO or Wonderswan game sales figures and multiply them by X, you will also get "healthy" numbers for a console that died fast. Attach rate doesn't doesn't decide shit if your console sold 2 and a half units and bankrupted a company.
>That gap is there too in the PS1 list. Once you get outside the top 5 of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest the sales drop by half.
Stop exaggerating things. Saturn is 1 game selling 1.4 mln, then the next one starts at 630k. PS is gradually lowering from 4 mln of #1 sellers to 1.46 mln of #14 seller, which is how it is for most consoles.
The case of Saturn is far closer to Xbox, which was rightfully called "a Halo machine". Halo 2 sold 8 mln, Halo 1 sold 5, then the next closest game to them was Fable at 3 mln. Which goes to show that Xbox was bought for Halo first and foremost.
>There's a lot of them on PS1 as well.
Not in top 50 sellers. That's the main issue. It means the system had nothing better to offer.
>The point is that third party developers like Capcom, Game Arts, Treasure, Konami, etc. could actually put games on the Saturn and have them sell decent numbers.
Or they could put them on PS and sell 3-4-5 times more, get better conditions from Sony and not bother with Saturn's retarded architecture.

[Anonymous No.9581481]

>>9581432
>It was a much healthier platform for selling software in Japan than say the N64.
maybe for a 3rd party, then yes, but that was the issue with Nintendo. big 1st party N64 games sold way more than Saturn ones.

[Anonymous No.9581770]

>>9575556
all they had to do was release the saturn with a proper 3d sonic, followed by a 3d streets of rage, and a 3d phantasy star, and 3d versions of all their classics

3d 3d 3d

I usually hate ip overuse, but sega's franchises were FAR from over saturation

instead we got.... uuh... slightly better 32x arcade ports, and clockwork knights and bug and... a weird jester that flies around in a 2.5d circus vomit world? all the while people were focusing on the multiplatform games which were much better on the ps1.

it seems so obvious to me, which means I'm probably missing a few pieces of the puzzle
there must have been a reason for not doing that, right? artistic integrity?

(die hard arcade and panzer dragoon were awesome, though)

[Anonymous No.9582064]

>>9575556
>leading 3D tech for arcades
>releases a 2D console so arcade ports are guaranteed to be gimped
jap company masterclass

[Anonymous No.9582432]

>>9581770
>it seems so obvious to me, which means I'm probably missing a few pieces of the puzzle
>there must have been a reason for not doing that, right? artistic integrity?

You are missing the 3rd element. Politics. I used to work in the corporate world.
If an Executive/Department head/Manager couldn't claim full credit for a good idea (to advance their career), then often times the idea (no matter how good or beneficial) will not be implemented. Or if their idea turned out to be bad, then they will try to blame another department for their failure.

Or they will use their influence to prevent another manager from outshining them. There is a lot of office politics and backstabbing that is just ridiculous in many big companies.

I've seen department heads openly shit talk about other departments. When I was new to the company, I was completely baffled at absolute pettiness I witnessed. It was like petty high school drama all over again. Especially with the women rivalries within the company (but that's a story for another time).

I've seen good products get ruined because of petty bickering between departments.

That's what happened with Sega during that era. Sega of Japan (depending on who you ask) wouldn't allow Sega of America to outshine them again. Sega of America made the Sega Genesis (Megadrive) a worldwide hit. While Sega of Japan couldn't get the Japanese people interested in the Genesis. SoJ got their ass kicked by Nintendo of Japan.

Sega of Japan didn't want a "branch" (SoA) office to look better than the main office. Thus they forced many ridiculous decisions on SoA. Unfortunately that kind of thinking ruined the Saturn. If SoA had a good idea, then I'm sure SoJ probably vetoed most of them just to assert dominance. I've seen political nonsense like that happen firsthand.

[Anonymous No.9582553]

>>9582432
Didn't the Silicone Graphics guys go to Sega first. Imagine if the Saturn had been on par with the N64.

[Anonymous No.9582574]

>>9581392
Sega of America made shittons of mistakes of their own (garbage FMV 'games', shovelware, overstocking Mega Drives), but dragging forward Saturn's release date was 100% on SoJ.
>They gave the American branch exactly what they wanted, the 32X.
It was Nakayama's idea. He was worried about the Jaguar (yes, I know, it sounds utterly ridiculous in hindsight). If you want to point at SoA getting a really dumb idea, look at their last-ditch effort to recycle the Mega Drive marketshare via the Nomad.

[Anonymous No.9582961]

>>9575556
the thing i remember about sega is how fucking confusing their products were. they had a zillion different systems and add-ons and the 3-button vs 6 button controller nonsense as top. as a kid, all that shit was confusing.

[Anonymous No.9583008]

>>9582432
Sounds about right:
>Tom Kalinske (president and CEO, Sega of America): After my first month as CEO, I told Mr. Nakayama, "You have to get rid of Altered Beast, the title that's bundled with Genesis. It sounds like devil worship. We have to get the price down to $149, and we have to develop more American software." The board spoke for two hours in Japanese and I was just sitting there, not understanding a word. Finally Mr. Nakayama said, "No one here agrees with anything you've said." I thought mine was going to be the shortest career in the business. But as I was walking out, he said, "But I hired you to make the decisions for Europe and the Americas, so go ahead and do it.

Looks like those execs weren't too happy the round-eye's plan succeeded.

[Anonymous No.9583187]

>>9583008
>Mr. Nakayama
Did you know this guy is still working in Japan? He's almost 100 years old. He may not work at Sega, but he is a CEO of another company.

[Anonymous No.9583237]

The Americans were too attached to the Genesis to let it go and wanted to make the 32x to keep it alive, while the Japanese were eager to abandon this console that was a failure in their market and move on to a new one. The Japanese were correct in this assessment but they didn't have the balls to actually veto the 32x, instead they allowed the Americans to make it while they made the Saturn on their own, which eventually caused an Osborne effect.
They needed to NOT have the 32x, focus all marketing resources on the Saturn like they did the Genesis (and have proper ads that appeal to 90s kids, not the fucking weird ads they ended up doing), NOT piss off retailers by changing the release date on them, and have a lineup of known franchises like >>9581770 described. If they had done all this right the Saturn would definitely have held its ground, even if it was harder to develop for than the Playstation or whatever.

[Anonymous No.9583256]

>>9583237
>The Americans were too attached to the Genesis
Wrong. Playstation and Nintendo 64 sold quite well.

Americans were ready for 3D. Sega just dropped the ball horribly. Saturn was overpriced and not great for 3D development.

>The Japanese were correct in this assessment but they didn't have the balls to actually veto

Wrong. Stop making up lies. NOTHING gets done without Sega of Japan's approval or orders. That's not how corporate structures work.

[Anonymous No.9583280]

>>9583237
>The Americans were too attached to the Genesis to let it go and wanted to make the 32x to keep it alive
This is wrong though. The Japanese are the ones who suggested the 32X in the first place, the Americans had to try to course correct the concept as much as possible (it wasn't an add-on originally and would have been an even bigger disaster) but it still wound up as a bad idea overall. It's on both ends for the final end result. I think the American side took the open opportunity from the Japanese branch to make a mostly SoA-headed device too eagerly since it was an escape from their leash.

[Anonymous No.9583292]

>>9576084
this

[Anonymous No.9583319]

>>9583280
I personally think the 32x was a "poison pill" from SoJ. Asian culture and business operates heavily on "prestige" and reputation. SoJ needed to make SoA look bad after their massive success with the Genesis.

Basically as a way for the Japanese Executives to say "See? The Americans arent infallible. They just got lucky with the Genesis. It's time they listen to us now."

That way, Tom Kalinske couldn't say something like "Look what I did with the Sega Genesis. Just listen to me and we will make money." Without the failure of the 32x, the Executives at Sega of Japan would have nothing to counter a statement like that.

I know you think it's far fetched but I've seen departments get handed impossible tasks from other departments at companies. Then when they fail, the department (that failed) gets all the blame.

[Anonymous No.9583340]

>>9583319
This is an interesting theory. It is rather suspect that an embarrassed SoJ would be trying to help SoA after all. They even got to offload the development of the unit itself on the Americans which hadn't originally been the plan.

[Anonymous No.9583407]

Yo Sega bros, what's the easiest way to play Snatcher? Is it easy to emulate Sega CD I've never tried. Sorry I didn't wanna create another thread.

[Anonymous No.9583704]

>>9583407
I think the Turbografx mini console that came out a few years back had it, but only in Japanese. Physical copies cost a small fortune so emulation is your only real option of placing an English version. There are emulators that'll play it or I believe you can burn a copy and play it on actual Sega cd hardware too

[Anonymous No.9583738]

Ive lived long enough to see fanboys rewrite history where now the playstation and sony were failures and sega and the dreamcast were successful.

Hold the gates open for me woz im coming up

[Anonymous No.9583746]

If they could make a decent Sonic game for it it would've worked out, but they didn't and haven't since.

[Anonymous No.9583762]

>>9583738
who said any of that? the voices in your fucked up head?

[Anonymous No.9583802]

>>9583407
SEGA CD is very easy to emulate and less demanding than some SNES games. Literally all you need is the BIOS files and the rom. You can also find full English rom sets that take up less than 2GB uncompressed.

[Anonymous No.9583806]

>>9583802
Meant to say less than 100GB uncompressed

[Anonymous No.9584205]

>>9575778
>The company's mascot, Sonic the Hedgehog, was utterly BTFO by everything else and achieved nothing notable unless fans have 100% creative control on him
Sonic did achieve one thing useful - its fandom served as a containment zone for autists, furries and other assorted undesirables

[Anonymous No.9584306]

>>9583704
>>9583802
Sweet thank you bros

[Anonymous No.9584540]

>>9577231
It will never happen. Tezuka model of business is the perfect model of business folded over 1000 times.
Anime power is maximum, it just gets stronger and that's not even its final form.

[Anonymous No.9584830]

>>9575778
I'm very sorry about that man dressed as Sonic abusing you in the mall back in 1994.

[Anonymous No.9584847]

>>9576370
Hobby Consolas has me confused. Everybody says that Nintendo was the one paying to get better scores (Wario Land confirms it, a score closer to Super metroid while other magazines bashed it for being too easy and slow), but the way they wrote, they would use a kinder language for Sega games, even when given them bad scores. Fast forward to 1994 issues with "Tribuna Abierta", before the Sandoval trollfest (I was checking the scans last weekend), and there was a letter complaining of exactly this, so maybe I'm not the only one. On the humor section, specially near the 1994 World Cup, the Sega positiva bias was even more obvious.