What if the Dreamcast never existed?

You gotta remember that at that time most people didn't had acess to broadband, not because of cost, but because avaiabilty.

 

I believe that Sega wanted to distance itself from creating little more than Saturn updates of its old 16-bit franchises, which may explain why three CS teams were founded with the specific task of developing new and original titles, plus characters such as NiGHTS. Panzer Dragoon was effectively the next level (pun not intended) after Space Harrier, though I'll admit Sega was a little slow with the sequels to After Burner and OutRun. However, most people didn't even notice this gap in the market - or even the lack of a proper Sonic game for a while - because of the sheer number of quality Model 2 and STV conversions that were being pumped out by the AM departments.

Unfortunately, in the end it turned out that by concentrating on new ground Sega was alienating those who just wanted nothing more than flashier looking versions of software they were playing a generation previously. In other words, the company turned its back on the "PlayStation" crowd and tried pleasing the more hardcore Sega followers. By the time of the Dreamcast, this had manifested itself in the form of Shenmue and Segagaga, both titles guaranteed to give even the most difficult-to-please Sega enthusiast a wet dream or two!

This very same era also saw further damage with many groundbreaking arcade games failing to make the jump from coin-op to console, such as the Real Life Career Series (which ironically WAS in development for Dreamcast), SCUD Race (had VF3 been released for the Saturn, this would have become a perfect follow-up) and perhaps the most important loss of all, Virtua Fighter 4. At least Sega has got its act together more recently, though I'm sure you're all more than familiar with the several ill-fated attempts to create new versions of NiGHTS, Clockwork Knight and even Streets Of Rage. Perhaps we should just accept that some games might not be ready yet or even worth trying to resurrect just for the sake of a quick profit. At the moment, Sega needs to concentrate on the very best output. If we ever want a comeback system from Sega then it can't afford to be throwing money away on nostalgia, which may also explain why the AGES 2500 series has recently seen a boost in its quality.

Before concluding what has been a rather large proverbial two cents on this subject, I should add that Sega's own AM units were too busy with other (more important?) projects to handle conversions of Virtua Racing, Indy 500 or Top Skater. These are all coin-op titles many Saturn owners had wished for in the past, and some of these were indeed farmed out to external developers (Time Warner with VR, for example) while others disappeared into relative obscurity. I've read before that Virgin Interactive was contracted to produce a Saturn port of Indy 500 in AM1's absence, but that any work probably isn't worthwhile. As for Top Skater, I doubt this got far (if anywhere at all) since it was another project from AM1, whose only real contributions to the Saturn were Die Hard Arcade and The House Of The Dead - and the latter of these was only supervised by its original staff!

If only Sega had the financial support of Nintendo, Sony or even Microsoft (who remembers those old takeover rumours now?) then perhaps things might have been different. For now, though, let's just look forward to what should be a more promising future and hope they don't make too many wrong moves. The next real step for Sega will surely be how the next generation Sonic is received - surely it can't be any worse than Heroes, Shadow or Riders? This time, I feel that Yuji Naka's head really should be on the block as Sega has already suffered too many "make or break" scenarios that haven't gone its way...