Let me ask a basic question about Sega business decisions circa 1998/1999

TBH I don't see Bernie Stolar with much negative eyes, SOJ was an ass and got in conflict often with SOA, and when he realized that SOJ wouldn't change their posture, he decided to show the crude truth, the Saturn was a failure in the west with no future (small future IMO) and ordered the development of DC to tamper the problems with the Saturn HW that never got the essential support.

But I also know his mistakes, almost banning 2D games (I've heard that Rayearth took so long because of him) was unecessary, he should have seen them as an differential along with the expansion cart, and Sega killing the Saturn a year and half in the west before the DC release there made a large negative reception.

It's quite ironic how the japanese simply decided to be assholes with the americans, who actually created Sega.

 

From a U.S. Saturn fan's perspective it's hard to not hate Stolar. The man hated RPGs and 2D gaming at a time where the former was starting to blossom and the latter was one of the main strong suits of the Saturn. Then him declaring that the Saturn isn't the future of Sega in '97 was just outright moronic.

He did good with the Dreamcast early on, but an inanimate object could have managed the Saturn in the U.S. better than that piece of shit did.

Regarding SoJ being assholish to SoA, that was mostly against Tom Kalinske since he made the Genesis so much more successful in the West. But I do agree, SoJ has a lot of blame for the crap they pulled with him.

 

Was is Stolar that decided Shenmue II shouldn't be released in NA? That one chaps my ass.

 

Peter Moore. Because he had sold out to Microsoft by that point.

After Kalinske Sega of America had downright pitiful leadership.

 

It's sad really...things could have turned out so different had they had some sane people in charge.

 

Indeed, Stolar doing that was bad for Saturn as it could have been a differential for the console, but since SoJ was being an ass over Sonic Xtreme and appearently over the console documentation and support for devs, he didn't see that Saturn would worth to live the entire console generation in the US and that's why the Dreamcast enters in, but as I've said, Saturn being killed a year and half before was a big mistake.

Stolar was fired around 2 months before the NA release of Dreamcast.

 

What I find funny is the the Saturn was successful in Japan. Sega of Europe even had success with it (on a smaller scale) with releases that the US never got. So we can't put all the Blame on Sega of Japan being arse holes. I think it was more of a clash of culture. European in nature is closer to Japanese culture than American. European are less me, me, me and more likely to give and take a little more, hence more releases and 2D games for the Saturn.

Yes, Sega of Japan being assessed is a factor of the failed US Saturn but you have to remember that it takes two sides to cause a problem.

 

Saturn owned most of its success in Japan because of Virtua Fighter being a launch game and being the hottest arcade title over there selling almost 1:1 with the system.

They tried to capitalize on this by packing it in with the US release but ended not working in their favor as most U.S. players were turned off by the stiff gameplay mechanics. Plus surprise launch was a really bad move with no advertising or games to sell it for 6 months.