SEGAbits Forums
Gaming => General Gaming Discussion => Topic started by: CrazyT on December 20, 2012, 06:50:30 am
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I sometimes feel that SEGA had given up too early with the competition they got.
The thing I always wonder, what if SEGA did know its own strength and kept pushing its already established experiences into new competitive games in the market. Would that have broaden the console sales or would it have brought SEGA to an even worse state?
Maybe SEGA was too easily intimidated by the PS2? Or was the easy piracy for the DC never gonna recover its damage?
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I sometimes feel that SEGA had given up too early with the competition they got.
The thing I always wonder, what if SEGA did know its own strength and kept pushing its already established experiences into new competitive games in the market. Would that have broaden the console sales or would it have brought SEGA to an even worse state?
Maybe SEGA was too easily intimidated by the PS2? Or was the easy piracy for the DC never gonna recover its damage?
it would v possibly won or either lose badly.
but they didnt have to compete ps2. to stay existant would be good enough.
the master system for example never ment to fight the NESty. but it stayed alive.
im with ye on this. they gave up too early. but they know why.
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For me it was piracy, now I'm 40 years old with a good job and am able to collect original copies of games, back then I was on minimum wage with a new born baby and a mortgage so it was an easy decision to go down the copy games route.
I regret this now as me and many thousands of others put paid to possibly the best console ever which i now play on most days (I'm building an arcade machine based around it)
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For me it was piracy, now I'm 40 years old with a good job and am able to collect original copies of games, back then I was on minimum wage with a new born baby and a mortgage so it was an easy decision to go down the copy games route.
I regret this now as me and many thousands of others put paid to possibly the best console ever which i now play on most days (I'm building an arcade machine based around it)
may god forgive u. we the sega fans are forgiving u. we will baptise u from scratch and put a sega hat on your head and ull be wearing red shoes of nike..
yeah man ur forgiven. but your atonement will be that u have to buy 10 rare games
and one of them is panzer dragoon saga of the saturn
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Welcome to the forums cooprey! Don't let Semmie scare you away. 8)
I've heard that burned discs kill a Dreamcast's laser, unless that was an old wives tale cooked up by SEGA to curb piracy. If true, I guess SEGA got their revenge over time, as all the people playing tons of pirated games now have broken consoles.
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Welcome to the forums cooprey! Don't let Semmie scare you away. 8)
I've heard that burned discs kill a Dreamcast's laser, unless that was an old wives tale cooked up by SEGA to curb piracy. If true, I guess SEGA got their revenge over time, as all the people playing tons of pirated games now have broken consoles.
its not a rumor. the normal cd rom needs to spin faster to perforrm. skies of arcadia is the perfect example. it is a gd rom game and was compressed to play on cd rom.
what were the consequences.
the power source left of the dc broke 2 times.
so if u say revenge .
yeah for sure
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I think a lot of things killed the Dreamcast. Between the horrid launch of the Saturn here in the states, the momentum Sony had gained with PlayStation, in addition to the PS2's built-in DVD player, SEGA was caught between a rock and a hard case.
I loved the Dreamcast when it came out. I wanted Crazy Taxi, House of the Dead 2, Sonic Adventure and Resident Evil Code: Veronica. While I was excited for the PS2, the launch line-up was shit. I didn't want anything. I figured I'd wait for Metal Gear Solid 2 before picking one up.
Still, I wish SEGA had stayed in the game. Like Nintendo, they weren't looking to dominate your entertainment center; they made consoles, and awesome fuckin' games. That's it....
Just the way I want it, cause' that's the way I need it.
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fella i had demo disk of panzadragoon saga that i sold for £50.00 bout 8 years ago!!!! I am sega through and through, don't get me wrong i love me a bit of N64 and FFVII but all my 3 kids have been brought up playing sega games, my son who is now 12 is just teetering on going into retro stuff as he has an ipod so has sonic n stuff
I have in recent years torn myself away from XBOX 360 clans in COD and BF3 and have embraced the more noble days of gaming!
Oh and by the way i am fully aware of semmie and read his posts with much glee on a regular basis!!! all power to semmmie i say!!!!
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fella i had demo disk of panzadragoon saga that i sold for £50.00 bout 8 years ago!!!! I am sega through and through, don't get me wrong i love me a bit of N64 and FFVII but all my 3 kids have been brought up playing sega games, my son who is now 12 is just teetering on going into retro stuff as he has an ipod so has sonic n stuff
I have in recent years torn myself away from XBOX 360 clans in COD and BF3 and have embraced the more noble days of gaming!
Oh and by the way i am fully aware of semmie and read his posts with much glee on a regular basis!!! all power to semmmie i say!!!!
thank you and welcome to the forum fellow :)
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It wouldn't have made a difference sadly.
The PS2 was *the* console to get (myself included as I wasn't a SEGA fan back then). What SEGA did was a brave and bold decision.
Despite the early death, in the long run it was for the best....they survived and are now making incredible games as of late!
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It was going to be a lose-lose situation, I'm afraid.
For a number of reasons:
-The Playstation brand in 90's was as strong as Nintendo;
-A big deal of loyal SEGA fans were pretty much upset that SEGA had abandoned it's Saturn console;
-As impressive as the Dreamcast was in those days, it had peaked as far as overall performance in 2001, just as the PS2 was still in it's early infancy, I can't remember the exact details, but I do remember at one point Tecmo saying that the Dreamcast was barely able to handle Dead Or Alive 2;
-Piracy, often cited as one of the easiest consoles to crack, till the PSP came along;
-Lack of DVD player, the Playstation 2 arrived at the right time just when people were moving away from Video-CD;
-SEGA not reaching the intended userbase, I don't think SEGA ever released the Dreamcast's actual sales numbers, that was telling;
-Major IPs that were made to be console sellers,but most of 'em underperformed;
-Not enough marketing, or rather effective marketing;
I could go on.
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I want to say Dreamcast could have easily held around with PS2, since that system took forever to make anything visually appealing, but DC would've definitely bombed when Gamecube and Xbox launched. Piracy was a huge issue, and suddenly most people did care about a game console having DVD support. The benefit to leaving when they did was having the dev kits available to port games to the later systems near launch.
I am curious though if Xbox would've happened when it did if SEGA hadn't bowed out of the hardware market. DC was their first dip in the pool with Windows CE support, so I'm curious what their attitude would've been if SEGA's console stuck around. Maybe they would've partnered for the next SEGA console instead of taking to the market by themselves.
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I want to say Dreamcast could have easily held around with PS2, since that system took forever to make anything visually appealing, but DC would've definitely bombed when Gamecube and Xbox launched. Piracy was a huge issue, and suddenly most people did care about a game console having DVD support. The benefit to leaving when they did was having the dev kits available to port games to the later systems near launch.
I am curious though if Xbox would've happened when it did if SEGA hadn't bowed out of the hardware market. DC was their first dip in the pool with Windows CE support, so I'm curious what their attitude would've been if SEGA's console stuck around. Maybe they would've partnered for the next SEGA console instead of taking to the market by themselves.
I agree with this. Also, there was a DVD Player attachment and HDD attachment in the works, wasn't there? I remember reading about them in Dreamcast magazine (that beautiful, beautiful dreamcast magazine).
Could Sega have perhaps released a model 2 version with a dvd player attachment built in, and eventually moved all of their new games to DVD only towards the end of the life cycle?
All speculation though.
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-Piracy, often cited as one of the easiest consoles to crack, till the PSP came along;
The PSP does well in Japan though. XD
It's sad really....I think SEGA should have either released the Dreamcast earlier (and perhaps used that as a replacement for the Saturn in the west), or they could have made the Dreamcast use the Wii's price model....make the parts as cheap as possible to make the console profitable on every sale.
I think they knew Sony would come out with something impressive, but they were ill prepared...especially when the American R&D team's idea were shot down despite their ideas being slightly better (not by much).
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I want to say Dreamcast could have easily held around with PS2, since that system took forever to make anything visually appealing, but DC would've definitely bombed when Gamecube and Xbox launched. Piracy was a huge issue, and suddenly most people did care about a game console having DVD support. The benefit to leaving when they did was having the dev kits available to port games to the later systems near launch.
I am curious though if Xbox would've happened when it did if SEGA hadn't bowed out of the hardware market. DC was their first dip in the pool with Windows CE support, so I'm curious what their attitude would've been if SEGA's console stuck around. Maybe they would've partnered for the next SEGA console instead of taking to the market by themselves.
But wasn't Sega actually gaining sales during the period of 2000/2001 in the USA? I always thought that they did leave to early rather than wait another year because it wasn't like the PS2 had the killer games it needed to sustain its system until 2003. And i think the good opinion with the system was starting to make an impact.
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I think the better question would be giving up on the Saturn too early. The system could have and should have gone on to 2000.
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I think the better question would be giving up on the Saturn too early. The system could have and should have gone on to 2000.
interesting interesting.
cause if they would v supported saturn more then the anxiety of the consumer would never have died on sega.
thats just said straight up my thumb
and as ROJM said wasnt it that sega became populair just later on. e said usa. but i saw in europe everyone starting to buy dc. it was cheap i must say.
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No, the anxiety people felt when they shelled out their hard earned cash on one of Sega's rather expensive machines predates the Saturn. Remember, in 1996, they were releasing games on something like six consoles - MegaDrive, Saturn, Master System, Game Gear, Mega-CD, 32X and Pico. Sega never managed to focus during that time, so a lot of the systems never lived up to their potential. Hell, they also had the Neptune being hashed out, and within a year they began working on Eclipse and two separate 128 bit projects.
At the end of 1996, Sega dropped support for everything but Saturn. They let a number of quality Genesis games go unadvertised. They killed the 32X, roughly a year and a half after it was released. Consumers were pissed. So we're third parties.
Next year, in 1997, the company said the Saturn was not the future of Sega. It took two years. Two. Understandably, the system sold horribly in 1997, and barely at all in 98. How many games did Sega put out on Saturn in 98? 3-5?
If Sega had focused on the Saturn, never spent money on the 32X, or Neptune, or Eclipse or any of that, the system would have done fine. Sega could have rebounded from a disastrous launch by 97, and all the money they could have saved would have gone in to games. Moreover, many of the games released early in the Dreamcast's life cycle would have gone to Saturn, and since many of them started on Saturn anyway, they could have been completed cheaper and more quickly than they originally were. Bringing back things like the Sega Scream would have helped to. It seems like the company could have done just fine sticking with Saturn for two or three more years, and probably could have probably fixed their image problem in time for a Dreamcast in 2000 or 2001.
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No, the anxiety people felt when they shelled out their hard earned cash on one of Sega's rather expensive machines predates the Saturn. Remember, in 1996, they were releasing games on something like six consoles - MegaDrive, Saturn, Master System, Game Gear, Mega-CD, 32X and Pico. Sega never managed to focus during that time, so a lot of the systems never lived up to their potential. Hell, they also had the Neptune being hashed out, and within a year they began working on Eclipse and two separate 128 bit projects.
At the end of 1996, Sega dropped support for everything but Saturn. They let a number of quality Genesis games go unadvertised. They killed the 32X, roughly a year and a half after it was released. Consumers were pissed. So we're third parties.
Next year, in 1997, the company said the Saturn was not the future of Sega. It took two years. Two. Understandably, the system sold horribly in 1997, and barely at all in 98. How many games did Sega put out on Saturn in 98? 3-5?
If Sega had focused on the Saturn, never spent money on the 32X, or Neptune, or Eclipse or any of that, the system would have done fine. Sega could have rebounded from a disastrous launch by 97, and all the money they could have saved would have gone in to games. Moreover, many of the games released early in the Dreamcast's life cycle would have gone to Saturn, and since many of them started on Saturn anyway, they could have been completed cheaper and more quickly than they originally were. Bringing back things like the Sega Scream would have helped to. It seems like the company could have done just fine sticking with Saturn for two or three more years, and probably could have probably fixed their image problem in time for a Dreamcast in 2000 or 2001.
But your forgetting that the gaming audience had drastically changed by 98-99, and they had no clue what the saturn was let alone Sega's previous add on hardware. The old gaming audience that did have a grudge against Sega either went back to Nintendo, went with PSX or went to PC gaming or dropped out altogether. PSX didn't hit the mainstream until after FF7 and that's when they started to draw a audience who weren't longterm gamers. by 99 the damage was done as this new breed of gamer believed all the BS that Sony spun, Playstation made gaming grown up(when that had started in the previous generation) Sony made gaming cool(which started with the Genesis and even then back in the golden age with atari) Sony made gaming mainstream(it already was mainstream or sony wouldn't have bothered to join the console race in the first place) and Sony moved gaming into the highstreet(which it already was in the highstreet). Another real disgusting factor with this new audience was what happened with the DC. Not so much in the states but definatly it happened in the UK. When the DC was ignored despite the many great games for it. Now gamers want o play the best games regardless of what system its on. The reason why the Genesis vs SNES battle was so compelling was because each side brought out a new great game or killer app every few months or every year. And each time you not only saw the sales of the game be high butt he sales of the system as well. That is one part of gaming that defines the gamer consumer. During the abysmal psx period this didn't happen. They waited for the PSX2 and then when it failed to deliver the best games, still waited. I'm sorry but that was not a gaming audience that was dominant, just a bunch of bandwagon jumpers who had a warped idea about games and thought of it as a fashion peice ratherthan something to express or improve a particular skill.
People can try to intellectulise it about, well its because Sega did this and that but they are forgetting that real gamers are a forgiving bunch. With all the shit that we as an audience had to put up with during the years by numourous companies? We always come back because we still want to play the perfect games. If we werent then Sega would have been out of buisness way before the DC came out and Nintendo after the stuff they pulled down the line? I know a lot of nintendo fans who hasn't forgiven them for the Liberman video council/violence fiasco but they still went back and brought the following nintedo games and systems. What happened during 98-2001 was a black mark in gaming and not the actions of a gaming audience. Luckly some sembelence to actual gaming has returned now with the xbox360(remember the xbox was technically a falure but it managed to get the proper gamers back in the fold which by the time the 360 came around made that system as a more viable competitor.) In my whole life it was a depressing sight to see and thanks to that i wouldn't officially support any Sony products(Ie buy the system through legal sources). Im not saying Sega cant get the blame for what they did but what people seem to forget what that the dynamics of the audience had changed. A lot of gamers be they hardcore or general gamers weren't driving the games audience during that time, half of them became PC gamers and we are seeing what happened when they came back to the console market when a domininat field in PC gaming ended up becoming the mainstay in modern console gaming, the FPS. If anything though was that the Sega audience hasn't recovered from the fallout of the Saturn and DC. Where the Sega fan is few and far between and is now dominant by fans of a particular Sega franchise rather than Sega gaming overall. And that's sad to see.
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For me it was piracy, now I'm 40 years old with a good job and am able to collect original copies of games, back then I was on minimum wage with a new born baby and a mortgage so it was an easy decision to go down the copy games route.
I regret this now as me and many thousands of others put paid to possibly the best console ever which i now play on most days (I'm building an arcade machine based around it)
Yeah actually I(we) have been guilty of this as well for the exact same reason. Little money, most of us were still young so we didn't have a job either. And begging your parents kinda sucked so when we found out there was a big market of people selling DC copies for the cheapest possible prices, we jumped on the bandwagon pretty quick. It's not that we didn't buy 0 games after that, but defenitly a lot less than we would have before finding out about the hacking. When we found out HOW easy it was ourselves, it was a simple matter of downloading and burning. Couldn't believe it was "that" easy :S
When I look back, I highly regret it, but then again it was really SEGA's fault. SEGA saturn still has a better security for hacking, which is odd when the console was made with earlier technoligy.
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I'm a boy scout. I don't think I've ever pirated a game, at least when the company was actively selling copies in stores. The first time I've played a game on an emulator was, I think, Genesis roms in the early '00's. I also have attempted to play GBA games, but they suck emulated.
I've never copied and played any SEGA games from the Saturn era through to the Dreamcast era, though I did attempt (and fail at) burning Propellor Arena a few years back.
I've never even touched pirate copies of MS or Sony titles. In fact, I don't even think I have anything in my collection that would constitute as a pirated or copied game.
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My reasoning is mostly laziness, and the fact that there is so much trial and error. Also, if I care enough to pirate a game, I'd want to buy it anyway. So why pirate?
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It was going to be a lose-lose situation, I'm afraid.
For a number of reasons:
-The Playstation brand in 90's was as strong as Nintendo;
-A big deal of loyal SEGA fans were pretty much upset that SEGA had abandoned it's Saturn console;
-As impressive as the Dreamcast was in those days, it had peaked as far as overall performance in 2001, just as the PS2 was still in it's early infancy, I can't remember the exact details, but I do remember at one point Tecmo saying that the Dreamcast was barely able to handle Dead Or Alive 2;
-Piracy, often cited as one of the easiest consoles to crack, till the PSP came along;
-Lack of DVD player, the Playstation 2 arrived at the right time just when people were moving away from Video-CD;
-SEGA not reaching the intended userbase, I don't think SEGA ever released the Dreamcast's actual sales numbers, that was telling;
-Major IPs that were made to be console sellers,but most of 'em underperformed;
-Not enough marketing, or rather effective marketing;
I could go on.
Yep Pretty spot on .
For me it was piracy
Not really people seem to forget how piracy made PS sales explode - that console must have been one of the most pirated consoles around and it never hurt SONY at all.
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Absolute tosh. I think Sega's marketing was effective during the early part of the DC lifespan but a few things got in the way, mainly SOA blowing their marketing budget on a MTV promo/movie that never worked, which left no money for anything else and Sega Europe's ad campaign getting banned by Ofcom.
Sega's marketing problem was the same as it is now, not enough is set aside for a marketing budget.
2) Piracy. Sega dealt with that problem with the second/third generation DC systems that wouldn't play pirate discs.
3)The DC couldn't handle Dead Or Alive 2? Should tell it to the DC. ::)
And regardless how loyal Sega fans felt about the DC it didn't really stop the DC having a very strong launch in america or a good launch in Japan. I think Europe/UK was pretty bad. So the saturn comment is not only slightly erronous, it as i was saying before didn't change or effect the DC considering the saturn's marketshare was never that big.
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With the Dreamcast, it had a pretty poor release in Portugal. I remember going to that huge Toys 'R' Us store in Oporto and seeing rows of Dreamcast consoles just sitting there on the shelf. My parents bought mine for Christmas. It never got sold out over here.
Playstation 2 on the other hand... You can pretty much walk into a convinience store and still see a bin with tons of games (not just those trashy budget titles, but stuff like Resident Evil 4, Just Cause, GTA III and several others).
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I think Sega's marketing was effective during the early part of the DC lifespan but a few things got in the way, mainly SOA blowing their marketing budget on a MTV promo/movie that never worked, which left no money for anything else and Sega Europe's ad campaign getting banned by Ofcom
SEGA America did it best with limited funds it had and it run a very effective and quite brilliant campaign, unlike that French Baboon in charge of SEGA Europe who adversing was to have prime time TV adverts with not a hint of game footage and instead line the pockets of Robbie Williams , spend a fortune on Football sponsorship with 4 teams across Europe with out a single decent football game to call your own and come with this 6 billion players logo with out a single on-line game for months and then Pal users couldn't enter their own ISP details (and so doing so that killed with on-line side in the UK ECT)
In the DC era it was SOA that was able to produce healthy games and Hardware sales, but they were badly let down by Sega Europe and SOJ .
) Piracy. Sega dealt with that problem with the second/third generation DC systems that wouldn't play pirate discs
Piracy never really killed the DC- The PS was one of the easiest and most widely moded consoles of all time , but SONY had the name on the street and enough mum and dads paying for games and consoles on the High Street to counter what it lost in sales to copies, SEGA didn't sadly.
Almost anyone that had a PS had it modded to play copies
The DC couldn't handle Dead Or Alive 2? Should tell it to the DC.
How said that - They must have been mad. Given DOA II was developed from the ground up on NA@MI hardware and was one of the very 1st 3rd party games to be shown off on the system
Saturn Mag did a speical on the game in last ever issue
In the end what killed the DC was the likes lack of support from EA,not enough 3rd parties giving the DC Big name exclusives , SONY epic Japan PS 2 launch (bull shit hype and demo's and konami showing off MGS II at E3
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Almost anyone that had a PS had it modded to play copies
Oh please, I didn't know a single person that had one and pirated games, and I forgot you even could. With DC, all you needed was a CD burner and no extra effort to have it modded. Just cause an older system had a similar capacity for ripping off games doesn't minimize the impact of piracy on SEGA's ability to keep their system afloat.
Saturn was the first system I had ever seen play burned copies, but it was still a small percentage of owners doing it in 1998 with their fancy 2X CD writers. Plus the swap trip is pretty annoying, I only use it to play Burning Rangers and Panzer Dragoon Saga.
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SEGA America did it best with limited funds it had and it run a very effective and quite brilliant campaign, unlike that French Baboon in charge of SEGA Europe who adversing was to have prime time TV adverts with not a hint of game footage and instead line the pockets of Robbie Williams , spend a fortune on Football sponsorship with 4 teams across Europe with out a single decent football game to call your own and come with this 6 billion players logo with out a single on-line game for months and then Pal users couldn't enter their own ISP details (and so doing so that killed with on-line side in the UK ECT)
date=1356686846]
or that ex footballing SOA president, too.
In the DC era it was SOA that was able to produce healthy games and Hardware sales, but they were badly let down by Sega Europe and SOJ .
Probably,which is why i think they should of stuck with it. The sales for the period of 2000/01 indicated that the system was picking up its sales base in the US before they announced officially the demise of the system. But obviously they couldn't with the markets they had to support and the money that it would have cost to carry on.
Piracy never really killed the DC- The PS was one of the easiest and most widely moded consoles of all time , but SONY had the name on the street and enough mum and dads paying for games and consoles on the High Street to counter what it lost in sales to copies, SEGA didn't sadly.
No piracy didn't it, i was saying that sega sorted out that problem with the chip lock. It was actually the second sales element that helped did in the DC. A lot of gameshops at that time was selling DC games for 20 quid or less and half of the titles were pratically new, which made me wonder if these were second hand titles at all. And this was happening during 2000. If there was a gamestation or similar in a particular town across the UK for example, DC owners didn't need to bother to pay 40 pounds for a new game when they could wait and get it for much cheaper a month down the line. I believe that this seriously impacted on the sales of games at least in the UK.
How said that - They must have been mad. Given DOA II was developed from the ground up on NA@MI hardware and was one of the very 1st 3rd party games to be shown off on the system
Saturn Mag did a speical on the game in last ever issue
mermories...good old days..sigh.....
In the end what killed the DC was the likes lack of support from EA,not enough 3rd parties giving the DC Big name exclusives , SONY epic Japan PS 2 launch (bull shit hype and demo's and konami showing off MGS II at E3
Partly but Sega had proven they can survive without third party support before or the whole thing with the Megadrive/genesis never would have been able to acheive the feats it did. I think its a combination of these things you said and including bad management, bad marketing, not enough Sega local games, not enough Sega famed franchises etc etc.. and extremly bad luck which seems to plague the big blue even now.
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I think Sega quited to fast, but Sega had bad marketing in europe ( compared to the mega drive timeline whe in Belgium had even a Sega promo bus ), there where also shops that not even sold the system and many people waited for the ps2. The ps2 also had a dvd and sold good because it was cheaper than a stand alone dvd player. Here in Belgium where i live was only one store that sold the DC and also told it to the people it was a better game system than the ps2. the shop was closed when the dreamcast was quited. It's a shame that the Dreamcast was doomed, i still play with it every week, even my son enjoy's it also and he is only 4 years old. When he is playing on the 360, he plays sonic & all stars transformed. ( so i make him already a sega fan ;D ).
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Oh please, I didn't know a single person that had one and pirated games, and I forgot you even could. With DC, all you needed was a CD burner and no extra effort to have it modded
You must have been the only one then , it was also piss easy to mod or softmod the X-Box and loads of people did to play Emu's ECT. It never really hurt either Sony or MS has they had the name of the street. There was and is wide spread piaracy onthe Nintendo DS ( a system even easier to mod than the DC) - Did that hurt the money making machine that was the DS, not at all.
Probably,which is why i think they should of stuck with it.
SEGA America did , it was SOJ that was forced to pull the plug given it was losing money hand over fist .
mermories...good old days..sigh
Well who ever said that was silly - Given it was a NA@MI title to begin with
Partly but Sega had proven they can survive without third party support before or the whole thing with the Megadrive/genesis
If they were't selling the DC at a loss I would agree with you . Its a shame DC did poor in Japan and the UK it could have been a different story otherwise
I think its a combination of these things you said and including bad management, bad marketing, not enough Sega local games, not enough Sega famed franchises etc etc.. and extremly bad luck which seems to plague the big blue even now.
Spot on really . It was a combo of things , such a shame has the system and SEGA really did deserver to do better . They put right so many of their past mistakes and we really trying their best in hardware and Software terms
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The problem in Europe was that the Dreamcast never had a true good football game.
Football is close to number one reason consoles appeal to the mass market in Europe. If they had shown intense footy graphics before the PS2 came in with FIFA 2001, it would have sold millions more.
Sega neglected EA's hugest money making console moving franchise, making only NFL, NHL and NBA equivalents.
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Yep, SEGA could've had a little help from Electronic Arts. The 2K Games were great I'm sure, but even back then EA Sports was a powerful brand.
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I partially agree with the above. Although I don't think SEGA got a huge amount wrong. It just wasn't a battle they could win. The console was well designed. The support amazing and the marketing wasn't bad. They came to market with their biggest name (Sonic Adventure). It could have been better but it was a million times better than the PS2 launch.
Piracy didn't help, the fact you could get games without modding the console can never be good. But there were other factors:
1) DVD Playback - At the time of launch the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player. Even though it had no games in Japan it sat lovingly next to the DVD section in shops.
2) No support from EA - Despite SEGA developing a stellar sports lineup arguably stronger than EA's (NBA, NFL, NHL & Virtua Tennis) the lack of support from the biggest 3rd party company was a severe blow. Especially in Europe where SWWS 2000 was no match for FIFA 2000!
3) Awareness - The amount of people who visited my house and had never heard of Shenmue, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi and left and immediatly purchased a Dreamcast. The other common misconception was that the Dreamcast was aligned to the N64/PSX generation and people 'assumed' the PS2 would have mroe power.
4) Branding - I used to get so frustrated when people would say they were getting a PS2 because it was better. In an argument they had nothing. They just knew the brand.
5) A lack of a true KILLER app - Despite 2000 being one of the greatest holiday periods ever and an incredible games lineup. There were no true killer apps. For the DS it was Nintendogs, the Wii had Wii Sports and the PS2 had GTA3. The SNES only truly boomed when DKC hit the market.
6) Loss leading approach - SEGA lost mountains of cash with the Saturn and pinned their hopes on selling a LOT of DC's. SEGA would have been better to find a scaled down niche approach to the console so it could be profitable with 20 million sales (The Gamecube and Xbox both sold 25 million but the Xbox lost BILLIONS. The Gamecube made a small profit).
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I partially agree with the above. Although I don't think SEGA got a huge amount wrong. It just wasn't a battle they could win. The console was well designed. The support amazing and the marketing wasn't bad. They came to market with their biggest name (Sonic Adventure). It could have been better but it was a million times better than the PS2 launch.
Piracy didn't help, the fact you could get games without modding the console can never be good. But there were other factors:
1) DVD Playback - At the time of launch the PS2 was the cheapest DVD player. Even though it had no games in Japan it sat lovingly next to the DVD section in shops.
2) No support from EA - Despite SEGA developing a stellar sports lineup arguably stronger than EA's (NBA, NFL, NHL & Virtua Tennis) the lack of support from the biggest 3rd party company was a severe blow. Especially in Europe where SWWS 2000 was no match for FIFA 2000!
3) Awareness - The amount of people who visited my house and had never heard of Shenmue, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi and left and immediatly purchased a Dreamcast. The other common misconception was that the Dreamcast was aligned to the N64/PSX generation and people 'assumed' the PS2 would have mroe power.
4) Branding - I used to get so frustrated when people would say they were getting a PS2 because it was better. In an argument they had nothing. They just knew the brand.
5) A lack of a true KILLER app - Despite 2000 being one of the greatest holiday periods ever and an incredible games lineup. There were no true killer apps. For the DS it was Nintendogs, the Wii had Wii Sports and the PS2 had GTA3. The SNES only truly boomed when DKC hit the market.
6) Loss leading approach - SEGA lost mountains of cash with the Saturn and pinned their hopes on selling a LOT of DC's. SEGA would have been better to find a scaled down niche approach to the console so it could be profitable with 20 million sales (The Gamecube and Xbox both sold 25 million but the Xbox lost BILLIONS. The Gamecube made a small profit).
All great points bar 6). People need to relasie that SEGA never sold the Saturn at a loss (nor the Mega CD) and that was reflected in their High price and debloping the Saturn never made SEGA loss money . SEGA with the 32X and Saturn lost massive ammouts of Market share and that what cost SEGA dear along with Model 3 making its AM# Team post a lost too
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I can understand the Saturn wasn't damaging in terms of money, but what did the addons do that was so bad as people go around saying?
Some say Sega lost tons of money on R&D, others that Sega lost publisher partnerships like EA (though there were EA games on the Saturn). I never fully understood the story.
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I can understand the Saturn wasn't damaging in terms of money, but what did the addons do that was so bad as people go around saying?
I think they just spread themselves too thin and couldn't come up with enough software for them. So the people who shelled out the money to buy them new eventually felt like they weren't getting enough bang for the buck.
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I think they just spread themselves too thin and couldn't come up with enough software for them. So the people who shelled out the money to buy them new eventually felt like they weren't getting enough bang for the buck.
But they didn't sell that well to begin with..wasn't this the main issue?
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But they didn't sell that well to begin with..wasn't this the main issue?
That's not entirely true; at least, it wasn't here in the states. Both the SEGA CD and 32X sold well their first month or two of release. They just didn't have lasting appeal due to several factors. From what I've read, as well as experienced, there weren't enough games released for SEGA CD that really demanded purchase. Many titles were FMV-based, or expanded cartridge games, with very few titles that really took advantage of the CD format or SEGA's hardware.
The 32X was sort of a cluster-fuck. I mean, the Saturn was right around the corner. With SEGA jumping it's North American launch, not to mention the PSX and N64 following soon after, how could the 32X compete? On top of that, not having a steady stream of new titles to support it didn't help matters. It just shouldn't have been made. I love the thing, but SEGA really should've focused their efforts on Genesis, Game Gear and Saturn.
At one point, that were supporting 6 pieces of hardware; Genesis, SEGA CD, 32X, Saturn, Game Gear and Pico. That's a lot of mouths to feed.
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I can understand the Saturn wasn't damaging in terms of money, but what did the addons do that was so bad as people go around saying?
Some say Sega lost tons of money on R&D, others that Sega lost publisher partnerships like EA (though there were EA games on the Saturn). I never fully understood the story
In the years the Saturn 32x and Mega CD were developed SEGA was posting profits of over $100 million . So in R&D terms the 32X, Saturn and Mega CD never lost SEGA any money at all and it must be said for a add-on the Mega CD sold in very good numbers . All those machines were sold at near enough cost price so SEGA never lost money there either. What those machines did was to make SEGA lose market share and support and that's what hit its bottom line , with trying to pay some 3000 staff on a small market share and high developer software costs .
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In the years the Saturn 32x and Mega CD were developed SEGA was posting profits of over $100 million . So in R&D terms the 32X, Saturn and Mega CD never lost SEGA any money at all and it must be said for a add-on the Mega CD sold in very good numbers . All those machines were sold at near enough cost price so SEGA never lost money there either. What those machines did was to make SEGA lose market share and support and that's what hit its bottom line , with trying to pay some 3000 staff on a small market share and high developer software costs .
Yeah, what Team Andromeda said. Hehe.
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Thanks guys. It's a part of Sega history that I never understood fully.