Yuji Naka : We never should have stopped making hardware

The Dreamcast was IMHO the best hardware SEGA came up with, I don't think hardware was ever the problem either, rivalry between the US and Japan was always a problem with SEGA, R&D spending not focused enough on common goals, poor marketing on the DC maybe??? SEGA was full of problems and not aligned, look at Sonic Xtreme how much was wasted there???

The PSX success over the Saturn shifted consumers from SEGA to Sony. Despite the mass of AAA titles on Dreamcast consumers lost trust in SEGA but hey look at Sony today, I love my PS3 (now) but in the beginning it was not that brilliant and it could be easily labelled as the Saturn of the 21st Century (in terms of complexity). Although now I think it's a great machine just as the Saturn was but full potential is hard to tap.

But look at Nintendo, IMO the N64 and the GC were poor consoles (software wise) when you compare them to the SFC or the PSX but Big N managed a brilliant comeback with the Wii, though I still need to try to play my Wii on a regular basis, it's pretty, white but a bit useless for me as a hardcore gamer. But fun with friends.

Yes abandoning hardware was a sane business decision, for fans definitely not but hey shit happens... SEGA still makes arcade hardware AFAIK so never say never the industry is constantly on the move, maybe one day who knows, for now there is enough players on the market and SEGA still needs to refocus itself on making good games.

 

oh....those JAPANESE SAMURAIS...'til the last breath..

 

there's so many things wrong but i m too tired to make arguments, someone please take the lead.

 

It amazes me how much Sega fell apart after they quit making hardware, when software was always their strength.

Irony, thy name is Sega...

 

now that I m all good..

The Saturn/PS3 comparison is very inaccurate. The Saturn had fundamental architectural issues that hindered its ability to produce 3D games - the PS3's architecture is supported by good libraries from day one and isn't really THAT complex to manipulate, it just contains an older technology in its graphics subsystem compared to the competition. Considering the wide use of CELL processors they are well documented and applications are not hard to write for those in the know.

Also, the N64 and GC have so far had more good games than the Wii. Big sales don't mean shit, same as the PS1. There's actually more games for me on the n64 and the GC than the PS1 and PS2 that I consider fun. Also, keep in mind that many of the NES/SNES titles were just crap. Those platforms have many games because they were popular, not because the other way around! They didn't become popular because they had many crap games!

 

Yeah OK I could have picked up a better example... Agreed Saturn had fundamental problems.

Sure big sales doesn't mean shit, I agree Wii doesn't offer a lot of great games, let's just say that however good the N64 & GC were they didn't get me too excited. I'm glad you have a different opinion, I'm just sharing mine. Still RE and RE4 got me hooked on my GC for hours.

I think it is fair to say that my preference in term of console generation goes to the MD/SFC/PCE generation so that may hinder my judgement on other generations. Although I am really into the 360 and PS3, I love stuff like GoW and for the first time in my life I finished a GTA!!!

I don't know if I am a Japanese Samurais but I'm learning the language so who knows???

 

hell, naka's right. Dreamcast wasn't selling that bad actually and a lot of people played it. I guess they would have found profits if they had let dreamcast go live on a few more years, it could compete perfectly with the ps2 and who knows if they could have unleashed more potential than the showed in shenmue 2.
It was Peter Moron the on who really killed the dreamcast, I have always thought there was something fishy about him getting that near to microsoft at those days...

 

You are right there.

Yes but you are a self confessed raving nintendo fanboy so your opinion is going to be biased. I am sure if you sat down a wrote an objective list of fun games on the N64/GC and PS/PS2 then I am still sure the PS/PS2 would still have more games...

Back on topic, Dreamcast, Segas best machine? I think not... it was probably the cleanest designed machine and you could argue that the Sega Megadrive / Genesis did better in the west and the Sega Saturn did better in Japan (don't make me pull sales figures up to prove it).

As for Segas other machines, the SG100 was little more then a generic Z80 + Texas Instruments GPU machine (hello Colecovision, MSX, etc), the Mark III / Master System was a nice machine but suffered from a lack of third party support, the Megadrive was nearly there but suffered from nearly being an arcade board but was horriblely crippled taking years before programmers got the best from the machine and the Mega CD was badly sold, NEC knew how to do a CD-ROM upgrade, hello Duo... plus the Super 32X was a nice idea but was a bit too late, underpowered (considering the Saturn...) and lacked decent software... the Saturn was probably the best machine that Sega did but they crippled that with a horrid mish mash of components that only a few companies really got to grips with.

SOA and SOJ seemed to be fighting each other a lot of the time which really made things messy. Although they should have kept making hardware, I can't see what they would have done, either a machine based on a soup up Naomi set up or a generic PC based system ala Xbox.

 

Yes I meant in terms of design.

Nah SEGA's best console was the MD + MCD + 32X I mean what a beast were they trying to beat Lego in terms of block stacking capabilities???

I would add that for me the sexiest one is the Wondermega MkI


ray: ray: ray: ray:

 

Wonder if Sega or Victor designed the Wondermega as it was released by Victor originally... just a pity it was so expensive when it came out, made the PS3 look cheap.

 

I don't know why, I could never get too deep into the PS brand, despite owning a PS1, a PS2 and a PS3 (as well as a PSP) - I think it's the controller layout, my hands hurt after playing too long with them and I hate the fact that I need to extend my left thumb so far out just to reach the stick - this really takes away from the accuracy compared to "home" positioned thumbsticks found on other controllers. The mushroom-top rubber doesnt help either, making me reposition my thumb all the time.

Not feeling connected to the game you're playing really sets the experience back for me and the PS controller puts me off, hence why I don't feel I m having fun with the games.

rant concluded!

 

just how expensive are we talking about?

 

I think it was something mad like 45'000 yen which isn't that far off what the PS3 cost. then again, back in the 80's console stuff in Japan was really expensive. The games cost more then than they do now! Then again they were in the bubble at that time.

Yakumo

 

I'm not a fanboy for any particular brand. All I care about is the games on a platform. It wasn't until after the PS1's lifetime that I ever saw how many games there were for it. I had gotten the N64 first and had the preception that the N64 had a good bunch of higher quality games than the PS1 had to offer. The problem was that I hadn't really sampled a fair selection between the two. The PS1 actually has a very healthy collection of games. You just have to give it a fair shot.

The Dreamcast was a very nice system. I bought one and loved it. I really wish they had the money to back it so we could have seen it move forward. I think that if the DC had kept growing, when the PS2 came out with hardly anything worth playing, the DC would have looked suddenly that much more appealing.

 

Sega: Where egos collide.

 

I agree with you totally here. Never liked the Dual shock.

 

x

 

The Dual Shock isn't my favourite controller either, never quite got on with the d-pad, but ergonomically I've never had any struggles with it. It's a reasonable pad.

 

reasonable doesn't mean good though, and the GC, N64 and XBOX 360 controllers are actually GOOD! =)