Did the industry die along with Sega? Discuss!

[OriginalName]

It was about 2003 when the Industry changed imo...right when Sega started to go downhill too (not just becaming 3rd party)

It wasn't just Sega putting out interresting games from 1999 to 2001...there were loads of games like Jet Set Radio, Rez or Space Channel 5 out on PS1 and early PS2. Gitaroo Man; Mr. Misquito to name a few.
That died down after a a while, and only the more generic products came to the market from both Japan and the West.
I'd say only Clover and Sony Japan were the only ones delivering interresting games like Sega did during the Dreamcast and Saturn Era.

I can't help but think that Animal Crossing, Pikmin, Chibi-Robo, Odama, Cubivore, and the Capcom Five may have gotten their ticket to ride from the former arrangement as well. Honestly, I think that the industry creatively peaked at the turn of the millennium, which is unfortunate because it could just as easily have kept going. I'm not so blind as to think that Sega were the only creative ones out there, but damned if these kinds of games didn't seem to've come to the forefront because of their influence. Good on Platinum and those PlayStation second-parties, though.

[pirovash88]

Games like Journey and Machinarium show me that the industry is alive and well.

[Trippled]

How influential was Sega outside of the Arcade market tough?

I recall...Sonic, Phantasy Star early on, Jet Set Radio, and then music games by UGA and then Shenmue.

Personally alot of good Sega games merely were already established concepts done really well, such Panzer Dragoon, Shinobi, Streets of Rage etc. etc.

The Arcade market tough is a whole different story. It just so happened that in the 80's and 90's, the Arcade market overlapped heavily with the mentality of console gaming, with fighting games, racing games etc. etc. making it seem that Sega moved console gaming forward when it was initially just designed for Arcade.
As it is, Sega still does innovative things for Arcade, for what the market is still willing to be provided. And that market is very much less so focused on traditional games as we know it, and not very relevant to us.
Companies are still ripping of Sega with Konami's clones of Border Break and maimai, and Sega were actually the first ones to do Card games for Arcade.

[TJKitsune]

Hmm.  I've always seen Sega as more of an Arcade publisher.  Their consoles were just an awesome way to get them to the general consumer who didn't want to spend quarters and their evenings away in smokey, dark arcades and were willing to shell out the extra dough without buying a full, dedicated arcade machine.  In my eyes, Sega's still doing that, with releases of Miku on the PS3 today, and some of the past releases, aside from Binary Domain and Anarchy Reigns, but those were more experiments for their home consoles, much like ToeJam & Earl were.
Now with arcades being less and less, Sega doesn't have much to pump out to home consoles, or don't see people interested in that sort of stuff with things like Call of Duty or Assassins Creed.  I do find it interesting though that Sega's helping Namco in releasing Dead or Alive Ultimate to Arcades.  I'm actually surprised the US isn't seeing a huge jump with fighting game arcades, but then again, they're still really expensive and the ROI on those things can take years...

Someone mentioned something about Free to Play games and subscriptions..  I honestly think if the Dreamcast were to be around today, or any incarnation by Sega on the Dreamcast, we'd see that from Sega.  I'm sure they'd port over Phantasy Star Online 2 on that thing right away and slap subscription fees all over that, after you downloaded it from their servers.  I really think Sega would've gone down the same path as Microsoft or Sony.  Otherwise, they'd be in the same boat Nintendo is and not make the machine do much else other than play games.  More people are using their game systems as an all-in-one entertainment machine these days.

I guess I'm just in a strange transition though, as I'm spending more time on shorter, older games because of my recent hobby of getting into arcade systems and don't have time to sit and play online in massive multiplayer games, or games that take 60+ hours to get through.  I'm wanting a quick, exciting, exillerating rush of a game fix that House of the Dead 4 and Outrun gie me.  It just sorta sucks I have to drive an hour and 20 minutes to a GameWorks to get that perfect feeling though.

So yeah, just give me back my edgy, gritty sega that made awesome beat 'em ups, shooters, and racing games and let me sit down with an arcade stick and whatever system Sega thinks can handle their arcade games!

[Barry the Nomad]

Had SEGA continued with consoles and was somehow able to stand toe to toe with Sony and MS, I could see them having a very strong digital service.

[TimmiT]

Indies and part of Sony still do a pretty good job making arcade-like games IMO, Assault Android Cactus and Resogun are pretty good examples of such games.

Also Platinum Games in general.

[George]

I think SEGA is missing a huge opportunity not porting their arcade games on PSN/XBLA/other digital services. After the games are played out (2spicy, SEGA Race TV etc) they need to do a port.

The game is already done, hire someone to port it to consoles. Doubt there are many playable 2 Spicy arcade machines in Japan.

[TimmiT]

I think SEGA is missing a huge opportunity not porting their arcade games on PSN/XBLA/other digital services. After the games are played out (2spicy, SEGA Race TV etc) they need to do a port.

The game is already done, hire someone to port it to consoles. Doubt there are many playable 2 Spicy arcade machines in Japan.

I have been wondering for a while why Sega doesn't just port their arcade games to consoles. I doubt that it'd cost a lot to port, so it'd be easy money. There are so many good looking arcade games by Sega that me and a lot of others will never get to play because of those games being arcade-only.

[Nameless 24]

I don't think the Industry is "dead" so to speak without a first party SEGA, but it is certainly "lacking".

Not one of the big three have constantly made new IPs for their consoles like SEGA have. At best, Nintendo's Handheld side has satisfied....and Sony are trying to learn that too on the Vita/PSP....but it's not as innovative since they have relied on the gimmicks of the machine more than SEGA ever did for theirs.

[Team Andromeda]

I don't think the Industry is "dead" so to speak without a first party SEGA, but it is certainly "lacking".

Not one of the big three have constantly made new IPs for their consoles like SEGA have. At best, Nintendo's Handheld side has satisfied....and Sony are trying to learn that too on the Vita/PSP....but it's not as innovative since they have relied on the gimmicks of the machine more than SEGA ever did for theirs.

That's not true at all . SONY have made a ridiculous number of new IP for the PS2 and with the PS3 they've again done pretty well with new IP like Last of Us, Drakes, Infamous, Resistance, Little Big Planet, Motostorm to name but a few and SONY are going to launch new IP this year like with Puppeteer, Beyond 2 Souls .


It not so much to do with the death of SEGA and more to do with the death of the Japanese industry that's to blame imo . Japense developers no longer take risks and have been totally outclassed by Western corps these days thank to Japanse developers taking the safe and easy options and backing HH

[Barry the Nomad]

I think it's unfortunate that while SEGA West is putting together an incredibly strong collection of Western studios, people still cannot accept Relic, Creative Assembly, and Sports Interactive as internal.

George and I talked about this a bit on the podcast. I noted that I'm kind of sad that there are walls up between SEGA fans and Relic, Creative Assembly, and Sports Interactive fans. I say take down the walls!

[tarpmortar]

I think it's unfortunate that while SEGA West is putting together an incredibly strong collection of Western studios, people still cannot accept Relic, Creative Assembly, and Sports Interactive as internal.

George and I talked about this a bit on the podcast. I noted that I'm kind of sad that there are walls up between SEGA fans and Relic, Creative Assembly, and Sports Interactive fans. I say take down the walls!

To be fair, I'll respond by each studio:

Sports Int.: I actually get the apprehension with these guys the most 1. Most Americans (a large swathe of SEGA's fans) think soccer blows, 2. large parts of the core gaming community (which many SEGA fans are part of) frown upon sports games in general, 3. even the FBM fans I do know agree that the oft-joked title "Spreadsheet manager" isn't far from the truth.

Relic: RTS as a genre is very alienating; the amount of dedication to become decent is much like a fighting game on consoles, one must accept that becoming good at multi means getting your ass handed to you repetitively until you learn. Console folk should be ok with Relic. If you aren't, go buy Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine right now, it's a rather good TPS and shows Relic is probably better suited to multiple genres than most might think.

Creative Assembly: Also alienating though Total War is one of the best ways to jump into RTS due to its partially turn-based format. However I can also get apprehension with these guys if you are a console SEGA gamer, Viking wasn't the best impression, though I never played Spartan: Total Warrior.

If you want to check out Relic/CA and give these SEGA studios a shot, I'd suggest Dawn of War II and Shogun II or Napoleon as your entry points to them. Dawn of War II forgoes base building entirely and focuses purely on a very small/select few units. Whatever you do, use them to work your way towards the first Company of Heroes, the best real time strategy game of all-time.

It does suck though, I have a friend who played Starcraft and refuses to ever give another RTS a shot. It angers me because Starcraft (often referred to as Spamcraft by the Company of Heroes community) or even Warcraft represent so much of what's wrong with the RTS genre.

Finally, take solace that your beloved SEGA is once more king; just not in the way you remember them, now they are kings of the beloved strategy genre on PC.

[Nameless 24]

That's not true at all . SONY have made a ridiculous number of new IP for the PS2 and with the PS3 they've again done pretty well with new IP like Last of Us, Drakes, Infamous, Resistance, Little Big Planet, Motostorm to name but a few and SONY are going to launch new IP this year like with Puppeteer, Beyond 2 Souls .


It not so much to do with the death of SEGA and more to do with the death of the Japanese industry that's to blame imo . Japense developers no longer take risks and have been totally outclassed by Western corps these days thank to Japanse developers taking the safe and easy options and backing HH

Okay then, I admit that Sony have made new IPs consistently, but they never seem to stick with them unless they sell gangbusters (Even SEGA stuck by Panzer Dragoon when it didn't sell that well, although modern SEGA is just the same as Sony in terms of not supporting any of their other IPs, however they seem to support Yakuza well enough).

Parappa never really got a sequel (although it got a spin-off) and some of their IPs have died because of the lack of marketing, but it was a great concept. You also don't really see them support their Japanese division all that well (unless you count the Portable Teams, who have a great reign on what they do).

In regards to the Japanese Industry dying, I actually blame this on their refusal to adapt to the market trends. Call of Duty sells despite the questionable quality. Assassin's Creed sells despite being an even more stealthier game than Splinter Cell (both series are pretty similar) and you have those MMOs that make money such as Starcraft II, World of Warcraft and possibly Diablo (I don't care for any MMO...not even Phantasy Star Online).

What the Japanese are doing is trying to either copy the Western Studios (Capcom), attempt to HD their franchises at the cost of making a blander experience (Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 13) or just sticking to the handheld market only (Nihon Falcom) and ignoring the west entirely with the portable games (SEGA, Square Enix).

I don't mind the direction of portable games...but they won't localise the games as the west don't like portable experiences (and they damn should!), if the Japanese Studios can't adapt to HD, then they'll stick to handhelds...and even that market is shrinking and turning into freemiums to which they sadly won't survive despite the potential revenue they assume they will get (Breath of Fire 6).

I can sadly see gamers turning to PC (something I don't want to do...since I use my PC for research only and buying), to which Japanese Devs such as Nihon Falcom have adapted to really well! The consoles are the only place where the Japanese Developers are struggling with, and that is where most of the profit margins are, but they don't know how to manage R&D costs like the west can (well...the sensible ones anyway), so what we are seeing now is what I just mentioned. Less risks, trying to change to our way of making games (which doesn't work for most of them) and just overall lengthy timescales.

Of course, you can disagree with my points since we both have different ideas on where th e industry is going, but I hope you respect my thoughts on the industry as I will to you.

Anyway, I will end this saying that I love Dragon's Crown and wish Vanillaware all the success!

[Team Andromeda]

Okay then, I admit that Sony have made new IPs consistently, but they never seem to stick with them unless they sell gangbusters (Even SEGA stuck by Panzer Dragoon when it didn't sell that well, although modern SEGA is just the same as Sony in terms of not supporting any of their other IPs, however they seem to support Yakuza well enough).

Again that's not really true at all . SONY made a follow up to ICO ( a game that didn't sell great) sequels to the likes of Locorocco , Siren, Motor Toon and plenty of other IP that didn't sell in huge numbers.

Parappa never really got a sequel (although it got a spin-off) and some of their IPs have died because of the lack of marketing, but it was a great concep

Sorry it did get a sequel on the PS2 .

[Trippled]

Sony is greatly supportive of IP's that didn't sell that well. Infamous, Motorstorm, LittleBigPlanet...

however they seem to support Yakuza well enough

They have been milking it as much as Sonic