As always one has to consider the context. With nintendo while the N64 had been a disappointment it still made a ton of money, it was a letdown not because it failed miserably like the VirtualBoy but because it wasn't "the next Nes" like many had predicted it would. Add to that that it was pokemon heyday and even if the N64 had been a total failure nintendo was still awash with money from the IP alone. Add the money still coming in from the Snes and the fortune it made with the Nes and Gameboy and nintendo had more than enough money in the bank. Sega on the other hand had the Genesis and little else: the Master System was kept alive by Europe and Brazil, thats all, the GG and SCD you can say barely broke even, but the 32X and Saturn drained the company dry. The Dreamcast was not too little, but it was without a doubt too late: at that time sony had cornered the market, M$ was readying the Xbox (ironically after getting their console 101 lessons from Sega) and nintendo had the portable market all for itself. Frankly is kind of difficult to come up with a scenario where Sega won the early aughts console war or at least got back on its feet. My theory is that a DC with DVD and a better thermal envelope (iirc the GPU was limited due to this) would have been more successful even if priced over $199. Also launch it in late 1998 worldwide instead of waiting almost a year to launch it outside Japan. I know there were GPU supply problems but the reality is that the 9.9.99 launch was only good for sony. A new GG would have helped too since at the time the GBC was already a living fossil and the only reason the GBA dominated the market was because between 2001 and 2005 there was effectively no other portable console in the market. A GG2 could have defeated the GBC and given Sega a much needed cash infusion at the time.
Releasing 32X as upgrade, a rumor of Neptune that combined Genesis and 32X in one neat console, and then releasing Satun some months later which is a bitch to program for. Too many new systems and Sega hacked up Saturn spec to make it more powerful than PS1 but at the expense of easy programming. So many companies programmed for PS1 then ported graphic to Saturn rather than redoing to take advantage of better graphic capabilities.
LOL, in Facebook, a friend said the same thing about having a DVD would help. It could help indeed, but I think the Dreamcast failed thanks to the Saturn, there was a year and half gap and they took too long indeed to release worldwide, to the point that Stolar was fired just days before the USA release, at the least unlike the PS2 that took more than 1 year to show his first hits (mid to fall 2001), the Dreamcast had already on the USA release, and Soul Calibur is the only launch title to receive an 10 from IGN, Gamespot and others, the Visual Concepts sports were acclaimed even more than EA ones. Maybe if they just released a few months earlier... Appearently there is an Uproar from Sega fans over Stolar, he indeed made bad decisions about the 2D Gaming, but he was correct about the Saturn hardware, maybe he went overboard saying that the Saturn wasn't sega future in E3 97, it was too soon, but he did order the making of the Dreamcast, and wasn't he that allowed to the STI borrow the Nights engine, until Yuji Naka went idiot to forbade them? Like some people said, he ended up being the scapegoat, while in fact the biggest problems were made by Sega of Japan.
LOL, in Facebook, a friend said the same thing about having a DVD would help. It could help indeed, but I think the Dreamcast failed thanks to the Saturn, there was a year and half gap and they took too long indeed to release worldwide, to the point that Stolar was fired just days before the USA release, at the least unlike the PS2 that took more than 1 year to show his first hits (mid to fall 2001), the Dreamcast had already on the USA release, and Soul Calibur is the only launch title to receive an 10 from IGN, Gamespot and others, the Visual Concepts sports were acclaimed even more than EA ones. Maybe if they just released a few months earlier... Appearently there is an Uproar from Sega fans over Stolar, he indeed made bad decisions about the 2D Gaming, well who knows that at the time they didn't make too much or only few made in western and the 3D was the deal now, but he was correct about the Saturn hardware, maybe he went overboard saying that the Saturn wasn't sega future in E3 97, it was too soon, but he did order the making of the Dreamcast, and wasn't he that allowed to the STI borrow the Nights engine, until Yuji Naka went idiot to forbade them? Like some people said, he ended up being the scapegoat, while in fact the biggest problems were made by Sega of Japan. Sega of Japan got what they paid for the Saturn Hardware, the fact being good for 2D was because it was made for 2D, but with the rise of 3D, rather than sparing the hardware for arcade/redo it from zero, nah, lets do a "Gambiarra", an originated word from Brazil, means that you want fix something even if the right thing was redo it from zero to save work and money. And then that hardware came, hard programming for 3D, lack of doccumentation and support especially for the western, why bother with it? Juding from what i've read, it would even make the PS2, PS3 and 64 a piece of cake, lack of communication between SoA and SoJ, it was done. Saturn was a good console, but from what happened in the western and the project itself, Stolar did the right thing to pull the plug, the problem was just the time... Ironicaly, Sega was created by a few americans I agree, the PS2 hardware was probably more powerful than the DC one (I guess), but comparing to the rest of the rivals, it was just the worst, it had even a difficult programming.
I think the DC's early launch helped it, but any earlier couldn't have helped the system. As it was the system was out almost a year before the PS2, and who knows what an earlier launch would have done to supplies. Agreed, if Sega had used the 32X as a better bridge and redone the Saturn from the ground up for 3D, it may have been competitive. As it stands, the best games (especially the 2D ones) never got released in the West, so it had a relatively small, crummy library. I'm not 100% certain about this. Had the DC lived until 2005 or so, I'm convinced that we could have seen bigger and better games for it, every system gets its best (and certainly best looking) games later into the development cycle. The smaller GD Rom would have been a drawback, but the GC's discs were smaller than DVDs too, and it got some multiplats.
They failed because they wanted to cling to the lucrative cartridge market while serving the new CD market. So they made the 32X. Saturn and 32X were supposed to be identical, that's why the saturn has a cart slot. Then playstation was shown, and it made what they had look like a joke. So they panicked and instead of redesigning and being second to market, they rushed through some POS that had good paper specs but terrible implementation. Playstation was popular because it was GOOD, not because it had a CD drive. So after burning through all their money on 32X and Saturn, they were cash poor. Once again enamoured with releasing first, the dreamcast was again underpowered compared to the DVD playing ps2. By then their reputation was trash and they couldn't support what was a good system. Add in that they pissed off EA by competing with them with the 2K series, and it was a formula for failure.
Even though the Sega Saturn can produce pretty good 3D graphics with the 4MB cart + Video CD combined if they wanted too.
They didn't piss off EA by creating the 2k series, they created the 2k games because EA refused to make games for the DC for whatever reason (some say it was because EA wanted specific hardware in the system, or that Sega decided too late to include a modem, or that they wanted exclusivity, or that they lost too much money on their Saturn games).
I've heard horror stories about the Dreamcast launch being terribly rushed, with one consequence being that a decent amount of launch games (at least Sonic Adventure as I've heard it) shipped with blank discs instead (and of course, some argue that the DC's rush contributed to its deliciously easy piracy). Betcha it would've been a far higher number of blank games if SEGA tried to release the DC even earlier.
Sega Master System -Let Tonka take control in the US, they did not know how to do "video games" -Pause button on the Console....there was zero reason to do this, the goddam Atari 5200 had a pause button on the controller -No or shitty boxart/label art, Japan got decent art. -No FM synth, Japan got it, not us. Sega Genesis/Megadrive -Too many different models, too many silly ones (2 computers, a boombox..wtf) -Nomad (seriously they didn't learn their lesson with the Game Gear?) -I remember as a 5 year old being able to hold an SNES controller easily but struggling to hold a Genesis controller... -Sega CD was a folly, too early for CD tech, addons are usually doomed -32x, US and Japanese branches didn't collaborate enough Sega Saturn -Cancelled Sonic X-Treme, there were probably legions of Sonic fans waiting for that game, if it had been a launch title things could have been different. -Batshit crazy hard to make a goddam game for -Not enough analog sticks, or games that used them -Memory cards were ...inconvenient. On board memory was fine, but the memory cartridges are a stark contrast to Sony's memory cards, SNK did memory cards better years earlier, no reason Sega couldn't be inspired by that. -a hundred dollars more expensive than the competition -crappy US controller instead of the nice Japanese one. GameGear -Only portable by technicality, yes you can pick it up and play it on the go, but would you want to? It sure doesn't fit into a pocket, maybe cargo pants from the 1990's, but not normal pockets, the Gameboy was a tight fit, but it still managed. -Sacrificed practicality for bling, color and a back lit screen are nice...but why bother when you need 6 AAs? Dreamcast -VMU's became an under utilized gimmick -only one analogue stick when all other consoles of that generation had 2...even if it had succeeded, it would have needed a new controller to get any ports. -Discs could only hold 1 GB, Gamecube only squeaked by with 1.5ish, even if the Dreamcast made it, Sega would have had to come out with dual layered GD ROMs to get anything to fit -A perfect storm of DVD players catching on and the PS2 being able to play DVDs caused the PS2 to be bought en mass simply because parents could upgrade to a DVD player and get the kids a game machine with one purchase. If the Dreamcast could play DVDs, it probably would have succeeded. -Lost confidence meant that only the ignorant and hardcore fanbase bothered, if you were an informed consumer would you buy a Dreamcast after Sega failed so many times? The Mega Drive/Genesis was great, but after the Saturn and 32X, what hope was there? Sega making a come back? That train is long gone (and it broke down) Sega's only product is games, just like Nintendo. Nintendo, unless Miyamoto takes a massive holy grail atlantis solid gold AAA dump, they cannot come back. If they can't do it what can Sega do? They are a washed up has been. Sony and Microsoft are multi-media conglomerate giants. A single company that makes the hardware and the games and nothing else, cannot compete with that might.
Really only the Genesis 1, 2 and maybe 3 (came out in 1998, well after the Genesis was a current system) and Nomad could count. Yeah they had other stuff like the computers, the LaserActive module, and a boombox, but those were all small run things usually made by another company. I had it the opposite way, the Genesis controller was always easy to hold (maybe cause I've always had huge hands), but the SNES controller felt bad in the hand. Still does. The Sega CD might have been better if its good game/ crappy FMV garbage ratio were better. As it is most games were either FMV terribleness or Genesis games with a couple added FMVness scenes. Eh, the N64 was fine with just one stick, and a lot of PS1 games that did use the dualshock didn't use the right stick. Before the PS2 era I don't think I remember many games making good use of two sticks. The memory cartridges (none of which were released in the US) weren't for storing games, they were either for adding data that could be easily accessed (I know KoF 95 and maybe another game, which is why they won't play on a US Saturn unless it's modded), or for adding 1 or 4 MB or RAM, which was a cart that usually sat in there. Also it allows for the system to be easier to get region-free, with an Action Replay (which are still on Amazon, somehow). Both Sony and Microsoft are considering spinning off their game divisions, Sony is hemorrhaging money, mainly due to its TV and computer sales, or lack thereof, and some stockholders want Microsoft to focus on Windows and Office (a dumb decision, but at least they'll lose their own money).
@zstandig: if I may, I'd like to add some notes. Game Gear -Price. It had no chance in hell against the Game Boy ($149 and very little in the way of "must-haves" vs. Nintendo's $89 handheld which off the bat had Tetris and a shitton more worthwhile exclusives after that). -The things were constructed very poorly, and went to shit pretty quickly (from what I've been told, many issues you see in Game Gears today such as the darkening screens were present even soon after the GG came out) +the GG (and the Nomad for that matter) were still more portable than the Virtual Boy SEGA CD -About the CD tech being too young: it's not just that that made the SCD a flop (it is the leading factor, though, due to its batshit price), but the technology of the Genesis itself that the SCD used simply wasn't suited for the type of CD games SEGA kept trying to push; this is most evident in FMV games (one of those "big-draw" genres for the SCD), where the Genesis' inferior video hardware just couldn't cope 32x -They released this thing first in America, a fucking day before the Saturn first came out in Japan. Brilliant. Saturn -you forgot SEGA's amazing tactic of the surprise early launch, leaving it with only six launch titles (at least in North America) -The lack of a big Sonic game in general was distressing, not just the death of X-Treme in particular; the only Sonic presence on the Saturn were a poorly-received racing game, an StH1-3/K compilation, and an upgraded port of the subpar Sonic 3D Blast (it's pretty pathetic that a port of Sonic 3D was deemed as the Saturn's flagship Sonic title) Dreamcast -In addition to the lack of a second analog stick on the controller, the default controller had less non-directional inputs than an SNES controller -This is entirely opinion and bias speaking, but I feel that the Dreamcast came out at the wrong time: --It buried the Saturn and any last chance it had after only four years --While fairly powerful at the time of its launch, it got caught in the worst sort of an "in-between" period possible. Many N64/PS1 gamers (more so N64 gamers considering its 1996 release) wouldn't want to put their respective consoles on the backburner in 1998/1999, so quickly after getting their N64s/PS1s (especially if the Dreamcast didn't have a worthwhile secondary function a la DVD playback on the PS2), and in addition to having such a shortcoming involving the "previous" console generation, the Big Three took their extra time to produce generally more powerful and secure systems, obsoleting the Dreamcast in a very small period of time. --I already mentioned the hasty launch (especially the shipping of blank CDs instead of games) and poor security of the system, so yeah
The only thing Sega did wrong with the Mega Drive/Genesis was killing it too early (the add-ons were a mistake but really didn't affect the MD's success at all). The marketing and better terms for third parties were a genius move, as was pushing for more adult content (you can thank Nintendo for the moral panic about video games). And fuck Bernie Stolar. Him refusing to release 2D games for PS1 during his time at Sony probably led to the anti-2D bullshit that was prevalent during that era.
I agree on the Dreamcast controller, there simply wasn't enough buttons on it. Found it a bit lacking for Vigilante 8 2nd Offense. It's still great console, regardless how much others hated it.
Thank SOJ for that. The Mega Drive wasn't doing well there, so they decided to kill all their systems in either 95 or 96 worldwide to focus on the Saturn. The MD/Genesis was doing very well in North America, and I think outselling the SNES in Europe.
The 32X was a genius idea in hindsight when you consider that: A-nintendo kept making tons of money with the Snes even after launching the N64 because 16bit were cheaper and had more and better games than the nextgen, until 1998 or so. B-the Genesis as popular as it was had problems keeping up graphically with the Snes as early as 1994, and when DKC launched there were no doubts to which console was better in this regard. The 32X was way beyond what the Snes and any of its FXs chips could do, and it was cheap by comparison since games could cost the same as the Genesis'. By mid '94 SEGA knew the Saturn was fucked against the PSX's 3D, launching the 32X as a stopgap until they could redesign the Saturn only made sense...............unless you were SOJ in which case "fuck logic! lets launch a halfassed halfbacked overpriced black piece of shit anyway! these stupid kids can't tell the difference!" EA said they lost money on the Saturn so they wouldn't bother with Sega consoles anymore. Never heard that, source?
It was actually a gaming magazine from a while ago I first read it in (I wish I remembered which magazine, but I'm tempted to say it might've been Tips N' Tricks). Other than that, the only other place I can find on the Internet discussing the blank CD issue is a thread on Digital Press: http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?154214-Interesting-history-of-Madden-series You'll see relevant posts starting like three posts down from the OP. I wish that they had some sources, because now I'm curious about the veracity of this supposed issue (I wasn't 100% on it being real myself when I first posted about it, hence the use of the term "horror stories").
I thought the defective DC launch discs thing was common knowledge at this point. It's certainly been documented well enough on the Internet. http://www.zdnet.com/dreamcast-huge-sales-but-plagued-by-disc-problems-3002073645/ http://edition.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9909/10/dc.problems/ http://www.ign.com/articles/1999/09/10/dreamcast-defects-launch
I only found out about it when buying a sealed Sonic Adventure around 04 & subsequently asking if it was a common problem for some SA's not to boot on this forum years later. Having just read up the links you posted, I find it strange that these discs were reported to boot, yet crash. Mine acted as if no disc was inserted at all, if I am remembering correctly.
