Hello, this is the second discussion that I made. So the big question about Sega is how some of their consoles failed. How do you think they failed. Do you think the games they had were fun. Could they make a comeback to the console war. What do you think you could of happened to save Sega. Please comment and tell me what you think about Sega.
Saturn was notoriously hard to develop for, and despite that, it still produced some great games, but it didn't have the longevity of the playstation. the DC was notoriously easy to pirate games for. That coupled with easy distribution via the Internet really hurt sales, scared devs & publishers which drove the bigger third party games to other systems can you elaborate on this? yes, 32x bombed, but they still released 2 generations of hardware after it...
I think the biggest problem with Sega was that Sega of America and Sega of Japan didn't communicate at all. The 32X was developed and released because SoA thought the Saturn was at least a year off. It was released in the US a day before the Saturn came out in Japan. SoA focused on polygonal games for the Saturn, while SoJ and the Japanese companies were making amazing 2D sprite games for the system, many of which never were released in the States. Releasing the CD and 32X meant that by 1994, the various Segas were supporting (get ready for a list), the Genesis (most everywhere) the CD (again, in many markets), the Saturn (it released in Japan in 1994, soon to come worldwide), the 32X (North America and Japan, with an EU release in 1995), the Game Gear (nearing the end of its life cycle), the Nomad, and the Master System in Europe and Brazil, where it was wildly popular. Sega started bleeding money after this, and decided to end support for most of those systems by 1996, which upset SoA, where the Genesis was really popular still. Honestly I doubt Sega has the money to compete with Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. They don't have the massive diversified tech portfolio and coffers of Microsoft and Sony, nor do they have a longstanding legacy of consoles like Nintendo. Plus, unlike while they were making consoles, Sega is in the black.
SEGA does what Nintendon't, namely make bad hardware and go bankrupt ... well until the Wii-U came out that is, seems like Nintendoes finally what SEGA did. I mean, SEGA always had pretty good games on their consoles, so you surely can't blame the software side of their business.
To be fair the GameCube wasn't exactly a huge success either, both the Dreamcast and the GameCube were completely over shadowed by the PS2's outstanding sales figures. Why were Sega so incapable of bringing it back like Nintendo did? Simply down to how much they had in the bank?
I liked that you started by mentioning the Sega of America vs. Sega of Japan relationship. Also, don't forget that SEGA was a pioneering company in arcades. I don't think it was cheap to produce stuff like Holosseum, R360, Model1 and Model2 boards, all from early 1990s. If any of you guys have time, i suggest all SegaBase volumes: http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index.php?page=SegaBase In my opinion, Sega started losing too much money during the SegaCD days. The 32X only made it worse. Having lots of prototypes, both in USA and Japan didn't help lowering R&D costs either. Don't forget that it wasn't until last year that we found out about the Pluto. As for Brazil, yes, the Sega Tectoy partnership was very succesful during Master System and MegaDrive days... But when they released the MegaCD (actually the 2nd revision), a lot of people were already going for SuperNintendo.
In Sega of Americas defense they didn't want the 32x it was forced on them as Japan insisted on a whole new system while they decided on add on to make it less a disaster. It's covered in console wars. Even saturns release was forced on them cause Japan was scared of playstation. If anything the issue besides communication was that one side got jealous not letting the other do it's job. I always thought it was smart that Nintendo of Japan never interfered with Nintendo of America when it came to what to bring and what not to bring. Dreamcast timing was just bad and the foresight to not support dvd due to costs hurt them. The 32x and saturn really are what hurt them. It made people loose a lot of confidence in the brand. Plus they were spending so much in general they were forced to bow out. The sega cd was the start but not the exact point. As for saturn they made a poor choice of underestimating the power needed for 3d as well as displaying in quads due to 2d and porting model 1 and 2 games which pissed a lot of developers off.
Sega never went bankrupt. The main reason the DC couldn't compete with the PS2 was that Sega didn't have the resources to match Sony's hype machine, although they did try their best. At release the PS2 only sold because of the hype and nothing else: it's not like people were choosing it over the DC based on its crappy launch library as opposed to the DC's library which had already accumulated several great titles.
I imagine the Dreamcast was pretty cheap to produce given that it was essentially a Naomi with less RAM, and that a lot of the games were ports of already existing arcade games?
I'm reading through Console Wars now and its an amazing book. Sega of Japan's attitude towards Sega of America was just baffling during the height of Sega Genesis' success. The Saturn could have had the SGI hardware that was in the N64 but Sega didn't want a western company's chip in their system. Its very unfortunate. By the time they corrected their direction with Dreamcast, playstation had gained too much marketing ground to the point where an unreleased console (the playstation 2) was preventing dreamcast sales.
In short: Master System: coming AFTER the Nes. Thats it, with that nintendo cornered the market and forced companies into exclusivity so most games were sega-made Genesis: nothing, it was perfect, but SOJ killed it off when still profitable as its only-saturn strategy Game Gear: good idea with the energy use of a modern-day electric car SegaCD: rushed hardware and lack of proper support 32X: SOJ hated it, support was a joke and got killed off almost immediately so the Saturn wouldnt be jealous Saturn: at this stage Sega was in its golden age of retardness, planned as a 2D console ended up with halfbaked 3D graphics, more expensive than the PSX while being weaker, Sega managed to piss off almost every developer and retailer, wasted more money on an online thingy nobody bought/cared about and then killed it Dreamcast: Sega being practically broke and Sony having more money than there is money in the world killed it, end of story EDIT: could Sega make a comeback? maybe but only with something cheap like the ouya or that amazon console, there is no way they could go against the PS4 or XO But they don't care, Sega right now is just a shell company managing the IP rights of the franchises it owns
If that's the case, what about the Game Basic for Sega Saturn? that has the tools needed for saving the system in america! (If SoA were SMART enough to bringing it over instead of killing it off early) i think a couple or a bunch of developers would've bought one for the sake of trying it out & make games for it i think
Look no further than the culture clash between STI and Sonic Team transplants during Sonic 2's development. The work ethic of the Japanese devs, working around the clock and sleeping under their desks to meet deadlines, was so different from that of the more 9-5 American ethic that it ended with Sonic 3 becoming a mostly Japanese dev-exclusive project. Give it another year or so, and this friction became more evident throughout the entire company: Choosing the unnecessarily complex SH2 architecture over the more straightforward N64 SGI architecture (then having to build proper SDKs for it, mostly in-house and over a long period of time), 32X being developed in isolation and then being released alongside the new flagship anyway, Kalinske resigning from lack of control, bringing in Bernie Stolar (after he was let go from SCEA for 2D sadism, which he then forced on Saturn)... The downward spiral just keeps going from there. The regional branches worked well together in growing the company but only at arms length.. Once Sega started growing at a more rapid pace, the opposite ends' stark ideological differences collided with each other in the wrong way and the entire company imploded (this could have been a whirlwind if arrogance was traded for logic). That, and being intimidated by Sony. It was the only reason that the Saturn was pieced together the way it was, and most likely the only reason they brought in a SCEA reject (all thanks to Nintendo being greedy and their own Model 1 being so impressive).
Speaking of sonic, has anyone seen the sonic boom trailer? it's sonic heroes! again! why?! AND ITS THAT A FUCKING HEALTHBAR???
Nintendo has had huge monetary reserves, which let it weather a bum console or two. Plus, when the GameCube was faltering (in the West mainly), the GBA and later DS were printing money for Nintendo. Sega had no handheld system during the DC's run, so nothing to fall back on. Sega falling out of the console business was in no way because of the Dreamcast's "failings". With only 18 months shelf life in the US, had developers had more time with the system, they could have made games far better looking than the PS2, some DC games do look better than the PS2 launch titles already. They just needed the system to be a miracle, and it wasn't.
I think the posts above pretty much determine that SEGA's withdrawing from the console business was accumulative; not a single, whopper of a mistake, but a series of bumbles and disappointments that simultaneously drained its energy and resources, sapped its consumer brand, and destroyed its confidence. Rather than a single console, I think it was SEGA tried to do too much all at once. I was a huge Nintendo gamer when I was little, but I always was jealous at SEGA's ability to aggressively innovate (or for the cynics among you, jump on a faddish bandwagon!), and attempt to produce so many products, first to enhance the Mega Drive and then for their later consoles, but doing so was incredibly expensive and probably quite stressful for the company staff. The Saturn suffered because by this time SEGA's reputation was taking a slide and the launch debacle in the USA damaged their relations with vendors. That and the Saturn being uncharacteristically conservative in design and philosophy - a 2D powerhouse in a time when everything, to be cool, pretty much had to be 3D. The Dreamcast was SEGA's last hurrah and was a return to its heyday as a great innovator and producing all kinds of games not seen before on a console that had all kinds of new and unusual features, but again this was an expensive course to take and a risky one given Sony's growing reputation and strength. That, plus some core security errors in the Dreamcast, made the business unviable, and SEGA had to duck out or sink. Contrast this with stubborn, frustrating survivor Nintendo: a great innovator in its way, but in other ways refused to be dragged along for a ride. The decision to cancel the SNES-CD, keep the N64 cartridge based, not adopt DVD or CD playability, and to stick to using older technology for the Wii and WiiU but in different ways reveal a different attitude as a company. Nintendo tends to innovate more in gameplay but also in game interaction: hence the D-pad, the L and R buttons, the joystick, the touchpad and the Wiimote.
They spent way too much capital on MegaCD, 32X and Saturn with little return, add a lot of politics internally as mentioned above plus Sony wooing the market then Microsoft. They would have been better off keeping the Megadrive alone for longer and make a better platform choice for the Saturn and work on their partner network. They obviously didn't see it coming soon enough but their market changed. In some respect the PS3 feels a lot like the Saturn, complex hardware, parts of it rushed (Hello RSX) but in 2006 you could not afford not to develop for PS3. By the time they had the Dreamcast out, their cash flow must have been dreadful. They had a killer system but the PS2 was around the corner they had no chance. In 2001 you could easily afford not to develop on Dreamcast. Software = higher margins, it's repeatable, multiply that by the number of platforms you can now support, the math is easy. Porting software is cheaper than making a new hardware. That was their only possible choice, exit hardware. A good read is Only The Paranoid Survive by Andy Grove from Intel, tackles the same sort of subjects, bad products, market shift and what you gotta do to survive.
