The first thing I tought when I saw the first DCs pictures (and that they were working with MS) was: "this is it: Bill is buying SEGA, now every exclusive franchise will be available in PC". Little I knew at the time that the money was in publishing, not console hardware and licensing. So if that had happened SEGA (or the MS division formerly known as SEGA) would beat any profit records today, since we could expect their game sales of the hardware years to ten-fold if released in every kind of hardware available. Obviously I would've been extremely piss-off at SEGA at the time if they had decided to make something like that, even when if we look how things are today that situation actually sounds like a great idea. But that wasnt the case at all... If MS is famous for something that is buying small competitors, stealing their shit or just destroy them so they dont have to compete againt 'em. Now, fast foward (or reverse?) to 2002: SEGA is flat broke, and people think is going to be bought by either Nintendo or MS. None of them shows any interests, and pretty soon Sammy closes the deal. But why didnt MS bought SEGA? well becos they had the Xbox already on sale and the DC was officially dead... "well duh! then if they were asociates since the DC conception then why MS didnt do something before the downfall?" MS was already developing the Xbox even before the PS2 was unveiled, which pretty much shows they were following their at-the-time defacto modus operandi (sounds smarty eh?:lol which was helping the small company just to steal their tech (there's more than just similarities between the Xbox and the DC). The irony is that if we look at the Xbox results and the X360 today, MS would've really benefited from SEGA's experience in this area. The fact that the Xbox ended up being a $4 billion hole in MS's wallet and all the design issues with the X360 (besides the CDX I've never seen a SEGA console burn like that thing) represents by itself a $1 billion loss just in repairs shows you that putting money on the DC would've been a hell of a better deal. Most people seem to forget that when the DC was at $99 it did sell well, and when it went for just $50 it attracted a lot of new users to it, even when it was already well known that SEGA was out of the hardware business. If the Wii is considered "cheap" when its 70% the MSRP of a X360 premium or slightly less than half the price of a PS3, then what about the DC which was a third of the PS2's MSRP at the time? and 1/6 of the price soon thereafter? Plus the DC wasnt that far from PS2 specs, while the Wii is almost archaic when compared to X360 or PS3. If you ask me MS tought "we were unstopable, we drove Apple and Netscape out of the way, we can dominate the console market easily". They never tought of buying an already known brand and make them do all the dirty work. At the end buying SEGA even before things got ugly would've costed them $2 billion, and making the already sucessful DC win the war against the PS2 (it had the games, the potential, it just needed more money for ads and stuff) would've costed them $1.5 billion or less. Then in 2003 when the DC would be 4 years old (US release) MS could have released a new version based on either DC or Xbox tech (if it was Xbox tech then I think they would have decided to use the at the time far superior and cheaper Athlon instead of an intel chip, but thats another story...). So basically is all due to the arrogance of some execs who tought they didnt need any actual knowledge about the videogame market to make a console. Had MS bought SEGA not only they would be profitable (something they barely do today, after many heavy losses) but they would have been in a position that would had put them on top of the market in no time. Thier stupidity has cost them billions, SEGA is ruined and now theres no possible newcomers to the console hardware market, simply becos no company would be able to convince shareholders they can make a console without any big losses, specially when the mighty MS wasnt able to make it...
MS just helped with a Win CE version for DC right? I don't think I saw many games with that logo. Did they do more besides software?
The reason MS never bought Sega: Because none of the Sega exclusives on the Xbox sold well enough to warrant such a purchase.
Some games used it (Railroad Tycoon 2, Sega Rally 2 and some others). http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/books/2002/04/25/opening_the_xbox_excerpt/index.html this is an interesting article, somewhat related to this topic.
I'm talking well before that, like early/mid 2000 when the Xbox was on the blueprint and the DC was sucessful. And btw, the Xbox didnt get even 1 Sonic, VF or Racing game from SEGA, which were all best sellers in every console.
Sonic Heroes and Sega GT? Granted, the Xbox may not have gotten Sega's best sellers, but it most certainly got Sega's best games last gen.
Actually in an interview with peter moore I believe he mentioned microsoft and nintendo had approached them about buying them during the fall of dc but they declined. I'll try to see if I can find the interview online later today.
I remember a old article where Isao Okawa said Bill Gates tried to buy SEGA once, but I can't find the article now...
They may not be true Sonic games, but it did get Mega Collection, Heroes, and Shadow. Then again, so did everything.
Sega's goodwill was worth way more than the XBOX when it started. There is no reason why MS wouldn't have bought out SEGA if they could.
Guys, it's important to note that Windows CE was designed to be a multiplatform OS. At the time that the Dreamcast license was hammered out, Windows CE supported Intel ARM and X86, MIPS and the Hitachi SH series. Don't misinterpret the licensing deal as anything more than a reason to get some money into Sega's pocket and Microsoft's logo on the hardware. It's very important to note that Microsoft didn't provide any support for Dreamcast programmers beyond what any other Win32 programmer would have gotten for any other platform. It's also reading history backwards to assume that the Windows CE licensing deal had any practical impact on the development of the Xbox. Somewhere out there is a list of Dreamcast games that booted using Windows CE, but I can't find it easily. I know that a lot of games ported from PC were done this way, like a couple of the Tomb Raider titles, Starlancer and the original Armada. They were not a significant fraction of the library, most of which used Sega's proprietary SDK. In spite of this, a lot of the press at the time assumed that the Dreamcast was primarily a Windows CE system, which is obviously not true.
I wrote all of this myself, so try to find it... Y meant real sonic, SH just like Shadow was just a gameplay experiment gone wrong, and Sega GT tried to capitalize on GranTurismo's momentum. The only good thing the Xbox got from SEGA were JSRF and Orta, games that were initially developed for the DC, but got ported for obvious reasons. I seriously doubt buying SEGA would've costed the $4 billions the Xbox did... The only explanation I can think of is that MS as always tried to buy SEGA for practically nothing becos both sides knew that that ship was shinking. SEGA's stockholders surely didnt like the idea of being paid in PopRocks, so they declined the offer. I know is hard to imagine MS doing something like that (rejecting an overall good business oportunity to make their own console out of nothing) since today they're doing all kinds of efforts to be more open, like the XBLA and giving some of their source code away, but use your memory and remember the MS we're talking about had a complete dominance of the OS market, had just defeated Netscape and had a sizable share of Apple computer, forcing them to use IE as the default browser in all their products. About WinCE, if you follow segafreak's post you'll see how even Gates tought the use of CE on DC wasnt successful at all.
Without wanting to compromise any of your posts, it should be noted that directors make decisions in companies. The directors (mainly and to a lesser extent shareholders, although i have no idea about japanese company law) of SEGA decided that the hardware business was a declining one for them. This doesn't mean that they needed to be merged or bought out partly or in whole by Microsoft. Hence, any lucrative offer made by MS would have been a one-off capital gain that I doubt would further the wide interests of SEGA as it foresaw itself as an independent third party developer and publisher. Everyone has their price, yes, but the currency isn't always hot cash. SEGA is seeing more cash-flow by being the company it is today, in the model of EA in a way, that it would see by releasing and developing games (and losing much of both the creative control and the company's control) for anyone else, including microsoft.
Yes but heavy decisions like these cant be taken by just one person. Is basic knowledge that having 51% of a company's stock gives you the final word in decisions, and most directors are people choosen by the major shareholders of said company, and therefore have to represent them. Only a few companies have directors that are at the same time the major shareholders. Plus the law says you as a shareholder can sue the shit out of said company if you can prove the decisions made by the board of directors have indeed hurt the profits and therefore affected you and your shares. SEGA is still decaying, and a merger with MS would've been a hell of a better deal for both sides. The problem is that maybe MS didnt wanted to pay the 2.5 billions SEGA was worth at the time, maybe they didnt even wanted to pay a billion, and told shareholders they would buy their stake on the company for only a fraction of the real market price. This is very common and reason why some mergers just cant be realised. They've already loose that control to sammy, so I doubt that did worry them at all... I say it was all about money from SEGA's side, and arrogance from MS.
I know I know, but the possibility is there, and when you are a medium-to-big shareholder, is not that difficult. The average joe with his single IBM share cant do shit obviously... I know development of both games was shifted from the DC to Xbox when the decision to halt all hardware production was made official. Do some google, I read that in an article some years ago and it must be somewhere...
I m not familiar with SEGA's shareholders to be honest, but I m sure Sammy is the major one. Other than SAMMY why would any shareholder risk his own money to take the directors to court for a remedy against a director (in the benefit of the company) and with no gain/restitution to his own pocket for the proceednigs? That's why it doesn't happen often in practice.