This article's from 2007 but it was new to me. Overall a nice summary and reminder of SEGA's activity around 2001-2007, including the Sammy merger. It glosses over a lot of stuff, is very broad at times, but there's some good insight. You might find some new info, or more likely just become depressed: http://wii.kombo.com/article.php?artid=9544 A good quote: "Sega’s corporate identity had been stripped clean, and now their creative identity was being washed away as well. The individual culture and style of each of the teams was squelched out in the process." I searched and found no mention of this article yet on ASSEMblergames, so I hope it's new to you.
Thanks for the tip - I saw those articles. His history went up to 1996, detailing some things that were already leading to SEGA's decline. Did he write anything past that?
He needs more statistics to be taken seriously. Most of the stuff is somewhat well known, but "In the Japanese business community, to suddenly (and rather publicly) turn your back on a business partner for an unbeknownst reason is considered a direct insult" seems a bit short-sighted. Business is war, and much worse things have happened... done by Sega, no doubt (3DFX anyone?). In Japanese, it is perfectly acceptable to avoid something as a means of refusal. In my neighborhood, you could almost split the Sega fanatics into two groups: VF fans who bought PS2s and VF4 (and the stick if they could find one), and the PSO camp who went to the GC. The rest made up, unfortunately, a very small number of people. The article makes basically no mention of either, which are two series that kept them afloat soon after their exodus from consumer hardware. American piece of shit, that shouldn't be considered as the Japanese Sega (which is the focus of the article). Uhmmm.... no. The 2nd half of the Sega Ages 2500 series (mostly developed by M2, but obviously overseen by Sega) redefined "retro reproduction", blowing the doors off of anything the Wii can do in terms of emulation. To be fair, they are almost all ports, and not emulation. But they are better representations of the original than emulated versions. NTSC-U & NTSC-J Wii's don't support RGB, or 240p over any type of component output. The first half, yes, is crap, but disproves one of his main points: the Sega doesn't listen to their fans. Sure, they've made tons of mistakes, but I still see no difference in comparing the old Sega & new Sega to the old Capcom & new Capcom, old Konami and new Konami, etc. He also states that VF5 was one of their high quality titles...despite the fact it was revered by hardcore fans as a turd, and was an absolute BOMB at the arcades. It wasn't until VF5R1 came out until they saved some face (and got some players back). Not a bad article, but it has some bugs.
Yeah, definitely some errors, such as stating Power Smash came from AM2, when it's actually Hitmaker.
