Kalinske - "Stupidity kills brands"

[pirovash88]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2015-02-23-is-sega-the-next-atari

Thought some of you might appreciate this article. I had no idea that Kalinske tried to buy back the rights to the Atari name a few years ago. Could Sega be the next Atari?

[Jumbomax]

Yeah, I just read this last night. It's pretty interesting.
As for Sega being the next Atari? I don't think so. But it's possible.

[JRcade19]

Not personally. For me a few differences stand out.

1. Sega's vast diversity compared to Atari even at peak from a business standpoint.

2. If you go back to Atari about 13 years ago, you will see that their profits dropped and their losses continued to grow. Sega has done the exact opposite. 10 years ago it would not be uncommon to see Sega report losses of upwards of half a billion, with some sectors losing hundreds of millions(such as consumer R&D). Now? Most of Sega's divisions are break even or small dozen million dollar losses, on an alternating big release schedule which often sees profit during certain phases. Sure they still total up, but nowhere near as bad as back then.

TLDR there, Atari continued to lose more money, Sega has consistently lost less money as time went on.

3. Sega doesn't sell IP, despite the wishes of fanbase segments. Atari's collapse was accelerated by the fact that, the overwhelming majority of their games became licensed properties, rather than in house. They ended up losing the publishing rights to Unreal to Midway, they sold Civilization, Xcom, Railroads ect to Firaxis/2K. They sold of Falcon to Graphism, they sold hasbro back most of their IP rights with some exception. They even sold away in house development studios after acquiring them while knowingly building up debt. Something Sega has not done.

Atari was in a league of HERP DERP that is far bigger than Sega is currently, or looking to be. The comparison sounds good on paper, but in reality is something entirely different.

[George]

SEGA has the second highest income out of the top 6 Japanese publishers. Did they account for that? No. I mean, I like Tom and he was nice enough to do a interview on our podcast. But I think he is letting these clickbait articles cloud his judgement. I do agree they aren't in a great position when it comes to delivering quality games and their name brand is hurt.

[Team Andromeda]

I do tire of this man's lies and spin . SONY Japan was locked into a contract with Nintendo and only SONY Japan do the R&D and had (at the time) what could be called a Hardware console section, So there was no hope of SONY America and SEGA working on a system together no matter how much Tom goes on about it  . Far better if know it all Tom wasn't so lose with SEGA America money and put all his efforts behind the Saturn to make sure SEGA had a decent 32bit market share

[George]

It wouldn't even make sense in a business standpoint for them to do this. SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive ate up 45% of the console market, or whatever, Sony had 0% of the console market. Now, if Sony even came up to you as a company and asked you to do a joint console so they can get their foot in the gaming door and you guys split the money the console makes or doesn't make down in half and you keep all your money your franchises makes. Would you take it?

Personally, I wouldn't. SEGA didn't know what was going to happen with the Saturn or the Dreamcast. So don't use that to cloud your judgement.

[crackdude]

Sega of Japan insisted in the Saturn's architecture with the japanese market in mind.

Kilinske has a very interesting interview on RetroGamer magazine couple months ago.

[Team Andromeda]

Sega of Japan insisted in the Saturn's architecture with the japanese market in mind.

SOJ went on what they could do best with the tech they had could afford given that all SEGA tech is always based on off the shelf before the SEGA engineers tweek the desgin on how they see it . The Saturn architecture wasn't made with the Japanese in mind it was made to give the best console SEGA could produce with the best tech they had and in many ways the Saturn is better than the PS and in others less so

Kilinske has a very interesting interview on RetroGamer magazine couple months ago

Total lies and spin . Its should be rememebered its not hardware that sells its games and PR that's what wins .

[MadeManG74]

It wouldn't even make sense in a business standpoint for them to do this. SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive ate up 45% of the console market, or whatever, Sony had 0% of the console market. Now, if Sony even came up to you as a company and asked you to do a joint console so they can get their foot in the gaming door and you guys split the money the console makes or doesn't make down in half and you keep all your money your franchises makes. Would you take it?

Personally, I wouldn't. SEGA didn't know what was going to happen with the Saturn or the Dreamcast. So don't use that to cloud your judgement.

I actually probably would. Don't forget Sony were hardware virtuosos in the 90s, and they had a very very powerful brand name behind them. Sega was doing well but they could have really cornered the market with a partnership with Sony.

Not knowing the particulars, it's hard to say, but I think it would have been very viable.

[George]

Your letting their success now cloud your judgement. IF you have almost 50% of the console market, you don't share that with someone that is capable of making consoles. They don't want you because of your brand, they want you to get into the console market . They are more than capable of creating their own console. IMO I think Nintendo and SEGA both thought that Sony wanted a foot in and then they would go solo. Again, the thing was for ONE console.

[MadeManG74]

Your letting their success now cloud your judgement. IF you have almost 50% of the console market, you don't share that with someone that is capable of making consoles. They don't want you because of your brand, they want you to get into the console market . They are more than capable of creating their own console. IMO I think Nintendo and SEGA both thought that Sony wanted a foot in and then they would go solo. Again, the thing was for ONE console.

I would imagine they would have some kind of no compete clause in a contract that was written up? I know that works for individuals, not sure if businesses do things like that, but I can imagine they would.

Surely you could see the advantage of having a hardware GIANT like Sony manufacturing a Sega console when Sega in turn could focus on the software?
Even Nintendo who did have the majority of the market went to Sony to create their add-on for the SNES (which later became the PlayStation).

There must have been compelling reasons, although I do see your side 100% in that you'd want to keep them at arms length to avoid becoming a competitor. I guess the idea could also have been that if a partnership was made they would prevent exactly that from happening?

[George]

The thing is they had no experience in the console race then if your going 50/50, that means they get to decided on 50% of everything. Considering that SEGA Japan and SEGA West didn't even get along; imagine adding more Japanese and American branches to the mix from another company. If SEGA West just pushed the Saturn and brought more Japanese stuff I could have seen them do fine. Not gangbusters like Genesis, but good enough.

Honestly think the biggest mistake was not supporting the Genesis after, they should have continued to make smaller games on it, sell it and have that fund advertising and ports for Saturn.

[pirovash88]

I could see George's point, but i don't see why SOJ didn't think about the fact that Sony could enter the Market without anyone's help(like they did). If i'm Sega and someone like Sony wants to help me manufacture a console and split costs, revenue, etc. I would definitely do it. It's would have been better to keep someone like Sony at your side, rather than compete against them like they ended up doing anyways.


Sure, there's no way that Sega would know that that was an option, but they should've at least considered the possibility of Sony jumping in regardless.

[George]

The only reason they got a foothold was because the Saturn was a bomb. IF SEGA did really well, like they did with Genesis, and continued that success we probably wouldn't have another console.

Its not like its today where we only have the big companies releasing consoles. Back then EVERYONE wanted a piece of the pie. Even big ass companies like NEC with the TurboGraphx-16, Phillips with the CD-i, SNK with the Neo Geo and later Atari wanted to come back. SEGA fought them all off. NEC and Phillips where bigger name brands than SEGA was in 1989. Now only that, they fought the biggest boy on the block, Nintendo and came out with a huge chunk of market, a world wide mascot that was bigger than Mario and actual name brand for themselves.

I'm just saying, Tom is cool but I can totally see why they choose not to. Now that we know the facts, its easy to say "STUPID SEGA" but was it really that stupid?

[Tad]

It's hard to see with hindsight being so glaring, but I do think this points out just how bad Sega were and are at times. The whole Sega 32x/CD/Saturn thing was just mind numbingly stupid even back then. Regardless of what happens or who ends up owning Sega in the future, I suspect they'll be around for a very long time.