What Sega could have done and how it would be today

Well, after some reading i just thought about what Sega could have done by giving more independence to their America and Europe affliates.That could have meant sega being No.1 today.

1.- Giving a little more of lifespan to the Genesis
If they had not discontinued the Genesis until maybe 2000, it could have superseeded the SNES in Sales.
2.- Using Playstation
Sony offered Nintendo at first, then Sega to sell the patens of the Playstation, but they denied the offer and Sony launched at its own, and became the leader.
3.- Not having released the 32x as an add-on and used Sega CD as a new console.

Sega CD looked promising, with far superior quality than all consoles of its time, unfortunately it was flooded with crap FMV games. 32x had some games, but releasing it as an add-on looked like a desperate attempt to correct all the errors Sega had done.

So what do you think about it?

I think Sega put the nails in it's own coffin with the Dreamcast (it would have done better for them if it didn't play pirated games out of the box). I think you need to add "Fully think out their products before releasing" to your list.

Such a question is pointless. Sega did none of those things and without a crystal ball it is impossible to know. Sega's death knell was certainly the mediocare CD and 32X add ons, but the Saturn being crushed by the Playstation and subsequent Sony dominance was the end.

That's silly... the DC didn't play pirated games out of the box, it just lacked additional security: hackers had to exploit the modem port and a cable intended for developers only to rip the GD-ROMs and then exploit the other issue with was booting CDs as games on production consoles...
An oversight, but still more a fear than actual threat to developers. (it made serious bootlegging easier, but with the internet the way it was at the time, casual piracy would be extremely limited)

Still, it was that perception that hurt the DC... not so much as Sony's hype and Sega's past stigma in the west though.

I'm not sure why it had a relatively weak market share in Japan though, perhaps simply Sony's crushing hype as well. (the Saturn was falling steadily behind Sony's rapid spread int he JP market from 1997 onward)


That and Sega gave up, possibly partially tied to Peter Moore and his confidence int he Xbox, but probably other issues too: ias it was you could argue that haning onto the DC longer would have put them in a better position to drop to 3rd party than what they did, especially since they obviosuly weren't interest in jumping onboard the PS2... the Xbox was probably a bad idea though, GC at least did a lot better in Japan, but in hindsight the DC (with established library and low cost) could have possibly beaten the Xbox and GC. (plus they were already doing pretty well with their PC releases and could have expanded that, perhaps even started going multiplatform while still supporting the DC or maybe choosing region by region depending on how things progressed)



We've speculated on all of this and more before, and the variables in the topic post are by far not the biggest issues with Sega. But other than that there's a whole bunch of factual errors:

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Originally Posted by villahed94

1.- Giving a little more of lifespan to the Genesis
If they had not discontinued the Genesis until maybe 2000, it could have superseeded the SNES in Sales.

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MD/Genesis was declining after 1994 (its peak), it was old and time to start shifting to the lower key budget side of things, but it could have stayed near the forefront until 1996 at least, they cut it back more to 1995 and there were a few significant releases that never made it to the US either. (even some older titles, and some which did make it to EU and soem only Sega channel in the US)
As it was, the Genesis should have been supported as a fading budget system (perhaps with modest marketing and obviously further cost/price reduction and popular rereleases) as late as 2000, Majesco did pretty well int he budget market in '98 and '99.

That's regardless of how exactly the Saturn (pr alternative) was launched.

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2.- Using Playstation
Sony offered Nintendo at first, then Sega to sell the patens of the Playstation, but they denied the offer and Sony launched at its own, and became the leader.

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Sony never did any such thing.
Back ~1989 Nintendo partnered with Sony to develop a CD add-on for their Super Famicom (not yet released), it seemed to make particular sense given the Sony produced SPC700 sound system in the SFC/SNES.

However, in 1991 Nintendo notice a fatal flaw in the contract which gave Sony total control over any software released for the CD unit. Nintneod quickly pulled out and sided with Phillips at the last minute, shocking Sony at the 1991 CES.

Sony initially worked on a standalone unit based on the SNES CD design dubbed the Play Station, but later dropped that entirely for a new, far more advanced 3D and multimedia oriented console which it announced fall of 1993.

Tom Kalinske and Olaf Olafsson (head of Sony Imagesoft at the time iirc) had been collaborating on several Sega CD titles and decided to work on a proposal for a joint nextgen optical platform based on Sony and Sega software teams' input as well as partnering over the next console released. They did some preliminary work and Sony was very interested but SoJ turned down the idea.
I'm not sure of the date, but it seems like that experience may have contributed to the very developer friendly (not to mention multimedia oriented) nature of the final PlayStation. (especially if they'd continued getting more detailed input from developers in the industry; the decision to buy Psygnosis and have them design the very developer friendly SDK would also seem to likely be tied to that)
That would certainly explain why the PSX was so tuned to the majority of developers of the time, or at least partially explain it. (even had Sega not been interested in such a partnership, taking input from common 3rd party developers would certainly have been wise)

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3.- Not having released the 32x as an add-on and used Sega CD as a new console.

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Yes, given the Saturn the 32x made next to no sense. (maybe some sense if they'd been delayed to a late '96 release, but not so much otherwise)

And CD as a new console? What do you mean by that?
Or do you just mean they should have released an affordable all-in one version of the CD too? (which I totally agree with, something cheaper than the contemporary Genesis+CD)

There's a number of other things in the CD's design and marketing that could have been changed for the better as well. (had the CD been cartridge mounted it would have been FAR more flexible in design, though had the Genesis had a few more expansion features that would have been even more useful)

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Sega CD looked promising, with far superior quality than all consoles of its time, unfortunately it was flooded with crap FMV games. 32x had some games, but releasing it as an add-on looked like a desperate attempt to correct all the errors Sega had done

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It wasn't flooded with it, but the marketing int he west didn't promote the diverse library nearly as much as it should have. That and many more expensive cart games (that could easily have benefited from having a CD release) didn't, though SoJ is to blame for that as well. (also for blowing the chance to port a number of scaling arcade games, let alone new games specifically taking advantage of the custom hardware Sega put into it; especially odd given Sega Jumpped at the chance to do so on the 32x when such games were more out of date)

Truthfully, SEGA had the means to make themselves into a powerhouse developer, but they just squandered that. It didn't help any that their most high profile releases are crappy "what do we do with him?" Sonic games.

If they were a kick ass 3rd party developer, I doubt they would get the lack of respect they do now.

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Originally Posted by Mr Smith

Such a question is pointless. Sega did none of those things and without a crystal ball it is impossible to know.

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Oh, come on. Don't you want to write pages and pages of inaccurate videogame company fanfiction too? :P

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Originally Posted by Mr Smith

Such a question is pointless. Sega did none of those things and without a crystal ball it is impossible to know. Sega's death knell was certainly the mediocare CD and 32X add ons, but the Saturn being crushed by the Playstation and subsequent Sony dominance was the end.

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DEBBIE DOWNER

i dont think there was much that couldve been done on the technical side. sega was a smallish company going against big pocketed competition like sony and microsoft. sony and ms could afford to make mistakes, sega could not. nintendo survived by being a smallish company with good business sense. even though the n64 and gamecube "lost" to the competition, nintendo still turned in nice profits during those years, they found their opening with the current generation, took it and is winning again.

sega simply pushed their chips "all-in" one-too-many times and finally lost.

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Originally Posted by chrisbid

i dont think there was much that couldve been done on the technical side. sega was a smallish company going against big pocketed competition like sony and microsoft.

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They could have stopped wasting money on worthless technical development for a start. Even when the Dreamcast was in development they still had competing teams developing console hardware (hence leading to the situation where 3dfx sued Sega). That kind of thing makes sense for a large consumer electronics company with a wide product portfolio, but not for company with one main product.

As for the choices:
1) This wouldn't have been possible. Sega could probably have prolonged its life comfortably until around 97, but the SNES only managed until around then and it looked less dated than the MD/Genesis at the edge of its life (I can't imagine a decent looking version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 being possible on the genesis). Keeping it alive longer may have opened up the option of a more refined Saturn being released later, which could have been a good thing.

2) If this was possible it may have been a decent idea. I can't see it being possible past one generation though, so Sega would have still had a big fight on their hands later.

3) Sega CD as a new console as is = pointless. An upgraded Sega CD as a new console in late 92 - early 93 might have been a good idea though. The 32x shouldn't have been released, SOJ should have spent the money on some AAA class MD games instead.

Even given the 32x fiasco I believe that Sega's biggest mistake was to become complacent and to gravely underestimate Sony. How they didn't spot the effect that the 3D monster, which Sega themselves had a great part in creating, would have on the market is a mystery.

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Originally Posted by chrisbid

nintendo survived by being a smallish company with good business sense. even though the n64 and gamecube "lost" to the competition, nintendo still turned in nice profits during those years, they found their opening with the current generation, took it and is winning again.

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I think it comes down to more than just good business sense. Nintendo had their first-party franchises, which would always give them some amount of leverage in competing with other systems. Nintendo did a really good job of creating and nurturing new franchises compared to Sega, who tended to just throw out new games at random without considering whether the characters and universe would take on an intrinsic value by being part of a series.

Beyond that, the image of the company in general as being the most family-friendly choice probably helped them. In fact when parents started to get more comfortable buying Xboxes and Playstations for their kids, Nintendo started to get into trouble. At one point it really did seem like the industry had outgrown Nintendo and their magic was fading away; there were rumors that they would become a third party after the Gamecube. But then they reinvented themselves with Wii and ended up in a far stronger position in all areas.

But then again they had always dominated the handheld market, so maybe they were never in as much trouble as people say.

I think that Nintendo is a very good indicator of what could have been for Sega if they had not discontinued Dreamcast and went third party. One interesting difference is that Sega itself has published way more games than Nintendo itself, so they could support a service like Wii's Virtual Console all by themselves.

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Originally Posted by Rusty Venture

Truthfully, SEGA had the means to make themselves into a powerhouse developer, but they just squandered that. It didn't help any that their most high profile releases are crappy "what do we do with him?" Sonic games.

If they were a kick ass 3rd party developer, I doubt they would get the lack of respect they do now.

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Well, also remember how big of a portion is actually Sega developed, and how much is only published. (true to some extent back in the 90s, but nowhere near what it is now)

I've enjoyed a few of the post DC Sonic games, but none really come close to matching Sonic Adventure 1 or 2. (especially 2)

They already were a pretty decent 3rd party force on the PC market, though they didn't publish some key games they probably should have. (Panzer Dragoon would have been awesome, Sonic 1 and 2 never made it either, and with average games like Garfield and BUG! coming over it seems particularly odd)
Then they started dropping PC support in the mid 2000s unfortunately. (when a download only installment in a series -ie Sonic 4- isn't on PC, you know things have radically changed) There were also some older Sega published PC/home computer games from the late 80s, mainly arcade ports.


Given how dropping the DC only made things weaker and they continued to decline as a 3rd party, I can't help but think keeping it longer wouldn't have been worse. (unless it caused a complete collapse)

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Originally Posted by chrisbid

i dont think there was much that couldve been done on the technical side. sega was a smallish company going against big pocketed competition like sony and microsoft. sony and ms could afford to make mistakes, sega could not. nintendo survived by being a smallish company with good business sense. even though the n64 and gamecube "lost" to the competition, nintendo still turned in nice profits during those years, they found their opening with the current generation, took it and is winning again.

sega simply pushed their chips "all-in" one-too-many times and finally lost.

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Sega had some very capable hardware development teams: remember they were big in the arcade business and that meant numerous contemporary arcade boards being released.
They also had a tendency to push out new hardware fairly regularly, far more often then most contemporaries. The SG-1000 was all off the shelf and not particularly impressive (though Sega was in an odd position at the time, and Rosen+Nakayma were in the process of reclaiming ownership -which they did in 1984), and all subsequent systems contained a good amount of custom hardware.

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Originally Posted by Silanda

They could have stopped wasting money on worthless technical development for a start. Even when the Dreamcast was in development they still had competing teams developing console hardware (hence leading to the situation where 3dfx sued Sega). That kind of thing makes sense for a large consumer electronics company with a wide product portfolio, but not for company with one main product.

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There was a method behind such competition, but given their position at the time, yes it was probably a bad idea. Had such been the case back in 1993, that could have been very healthy though. (especially if it meant SoA working with SGI and SoJ's engineers working on a competing design)
Though taking advice on hardware design from many 3rd party developers would have been wise as well. (again it seems Sony did that, and if so, it would certainly explain parts of the PSX design)

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As for the choices:
1) This wouldn't have been possible. Sega could probably have prolonged its life comfortably until around 97, but the SNES only managed until around then and it looked less dated than the MD/Genesis at the edge of its life (I can't imagine a decent looking version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 being possible on the genesis). Keeping it alive longer may have opened up the option of a more refined Saturn being released later, which could have been a good thing.

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That's fine, but there's absolutely no way they were doing that without also releasing a new console, and most definitely no later than early 1995 (in Japan), and at that only if SoJ was convinced they could stand up to giving Sony a head start.
The Saturn could have been far, far better oriented to the mass market at the time, but given no other option it was still their best bet (just no 32x and don't drop the GG either). For that matter the SGI chipset might have been a good option, it did end up being extremely cost effective for Nintendo, but it also had delayed development and I have no details on it's actual state of progress in 1993. (there's a ton of variables that would impact that though, and the base chipset wouldn't be limited to Nintendo's design choices either, like the use of 9-bit RDRAM)

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3) Sega CD as a new console as is = pointless. An upgraded Sega CD as a new console in late 92 - early 93 might have been a good idea though. The 32x shouldn't have been released, SOJ should have spent the money on some AAA class MD games instead.

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Well, upgraded might not be the right word, but building on the MD+MCD hardware in an efficient and integrated manner has lots of good possibilities; Chilly Willy proposed a particularly interesting design in that regard a while back.
However, the Sega CD itself could have been far more useful had it been cart mounted and supported video overlay with its own 256 color bitmap display. (somewhat like the 32x in that respect)
THe other side would be an earlier, simpler Sega CD that would actually have a chance at competing with NEC in Japan and be cheaper in the west when released as well.

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Even given the 32x fiasco I believe that Sega's biggest mistake was to become complacent and to gravely underestimate Sony. How they didn't spot the effect that the 3D monster, which Sega themselves had a great part in creating, would have on the market is a mystery.

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The 32x makes very little sense period, in terms of the Mars project or 32x by SoA, the Saturn's timeline totally clashes with it.

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Originally Posted by roundwars

I think it comes down to more than just good business sense. Nintendo had their first-party franchises, which would always give them some amount of leverage in competing with other systems. Nintendo did a really good job of creating and nurturing new franchises compared to Sega, who tended to just throw out new games at random without considering whether the characters and universe would take on an intrinsic value by being part of a series.

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They had a lot of good franchises, many more than Nintendo, perhaps not as many as critical as Nintendo's, but many good franchises that continued for a good time... Though seemed to falter with the Saturn. (no new Phantasy Star among many other things)

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Beyond that, the image of the company in general as being the most family-friendly choice probably helped them. In fact when parents started to get more comfortable buying Xboxes and Playstations for their kids, Nintendo started to get into trouble. At one point it really did seem like the industry had outgrown Nintendo and their magic was fading away; there were rumors that they would become a third party after the Gamecube. But then they reinvented themselves with Wii and ended up in a far stronger position in all areas.

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Well the DS is their real strength... the Wii has sold well, but in terms of software and long-term market position I'm not so sure.
The hardware sells for a good profit thanks to its very high price for such cheap/old hardware, so that's good, but the limited software market for their expanded *casual* userbase limits some things, it's certainly a less risky approach than the massive marketing and price dumping of competitiors. (MS isn't even really worth comparing as the Xbox has not been profitable/successful from a business POV at all afik)

They found a niche and expanded it (actually one they had filled before to a less extreme degree -the NES pushed into the broader/casual market before, though before Sony started promoting terms like "hardcore" gamers casual wasn't even a real category)
The handheld market is a much stronger niche for them though and one they've owned since the GB.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

I think that Nintendo is a very good indicator of what could have been for Sega if they had not discontinued Dreamcast and went third party. One interesting difference is that Sega itself has published way more games than Nintendo itself, so they could support a service like Wii's Virtual Console all by themselves.

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Quite true, except remember that a fair amount of Sega published games had 3rd party developers, and thus would not be as straightforeward to republish as such. In fact, I think that's part of what keeps Star Fox and Star Fox 2 from VC on the Wii.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

There was a method behind such competition

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No, there wasn't. They were just wasting money.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Quite true, except remember that a fair amount of Sega published games had 3rd party developers

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You'd call these companies 1st or 2nd party as they're closely tied to a publisher (i.e. Treasure, Ancient, etc.).

Sega should have released the Sega Nuptune and not the Sega Mars (Sega Saturn) so that the people who bought a Sega 32X would not have been screwed over and to help prevent video game piracy.

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Originally Posted by Defolto

Sega should have released the Sega Nuptune and not the Sega Mars (Sega Saturn) so that the people who bought a Sega 32X would not have been screwed over and to help prevent video game piracy.

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Neptune is the Genesis/32X combo isn't it? I don't see how you think that would've been better for Sega. I mean we saw what happened with Nintendo and their cart based console. Granted, things have worked out for them in the end, but the N64 got dominated and things weren't looking much better with the Gamecube

Anyway, I think if Sega was a juggernaut like Sony or Microsoft and had more cash then they would probably be on top of the gaming industry. If you look at a lot of so-called modern "innovations" you can trace them back to Sega.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

No, there wasn't. They were just wasting money.

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No, if they were in a healthy position, such competition could improve quality and optimization of the final product... Especially if such competition worked out better than trying to colaborate over designs given how SoJ seemed to lack interest in taking advice from SoA or western developers. (that's half of the Sony partnership thing, even if not joining with Sony was a good idea -which I tend to agree with- using input from developers to make a system that the entire industry wants most definitely was a good idea)

So, yes, a waste, but if it was the only way to effectively have an impact on the Japanese hardware design then that's still better than having no influence at all. (which was obviously needed with the Saturn -regardless of the 32x or Mars, neither of which made sense given the circumstances)

Wasting some money on R&D, but having a much more suitable, cost effective piece of hardware is definitely worth it in the long run, provided you have the funds in the short run to facilitate such. Certainly better than doing something odd like suggesting a new system's release at the same time as another, competing new system from the same company. (ie Mars/32x and Saturn both planned for late 1994 releases) Mars most certainly by definition, not sure when Saturn was pushed there, but at least by spring of 1994, so not long after the meeting with SoA on Mars, if not before -Saturn supposedly started its redesign in late fall of 1993, so depending on how things were progressing, an interim unit may have seemed attractive, but certainly not with the dates they set for the Saturn.
--Saturn would have had to be at least 6 months later in Japan to make any sense at all, and even then the existence of the Sega CD and the fact that much of what the 32x was used for was easily possible on the CD made it make even less sense -especially with the Sega CD and games being equal or cheaper than the 32x by the time of its release; hell an SVP add-on+CD would have made more sense allowing for some simple texture mapped 3D, though still limited in color -so Star Fox or Vortex level 3D but with higher resolution, polygon count/framerate and textures. (almost every 32x game could have been handled then, at least to some extent: Virtua Fighter or Stellar Assault/Shadow Squadron would probably be OK in 16-colors+tile BG, Doom probably wouldn't look so good depending on the amount of dithering/blurring going on, might have been reasonably possible though, probably fairly ugly on anything by composite/RF)

None of that would even have been a problem had the Sega CD been designed a bit differently though, but that's already been addressed. (higher color, high framerate, less limits on animation, etc, etc; if only the Sega CD had been cart mounted and had a simple 256 color bitmap display integrated with 32x like overlay; hell even a 16-color display would be more useful in several aspects -namely no DMA or VRAM issues tied to the MD VDP and an expanded master palette, plus the ability to have all memory flat mapped to the MD 68k via the cart slot -flip top CD drives are cheaper and the expansion port could have been removed later on)

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You'd call these companies 1st or 2nd party as they're closely tied to a publisher (i.e. Treasure, Ancient, etc.).

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I was including a LOT more than that, and don't forget games that were published by Sega only in the west (like Silpheed, which is a Game Arts title).
There's a fair amount for JP stuff, and also games licensed and ported by Sega like Ghouls n' Ghosts.

If you include western developers, there's many, many more to consider. (Novatrade, Travelers' Tales, Virgin, etc)

Besides, 2nd parties can be issues too... like what happened with RARE to some degree. (though I think in Nintendo's case, they kept the rights to everything they published with Rare, but not the Rare published stuff)

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Originally Posted by Contra-God

I think Sega put the nails in it's own coffin with the Dreamcast (it would have done better for them if it didn't play pirated games out of the box). I think you need to add "Fully think out their products before releasing" to your list.

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Wait a sec. I know the Sega CD could play copied games because they didn't have to worry about copies back then, but the Dreamcast can play CD-Rs as well? I assume the Saturn too?

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Originally Posted by cheaterdragon1

Wait a sec. I know the Sega CD could play copied games because they didn't have to worry about copies back then, but the Dreamcast can play CD-Rs as well? I assume the Saturn too?

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DC seems to have omitted significant security due to the assumption that Sega's custom format was foolproof and it was ... until hackers figured out how to dump GD-ROMs via the network expansion port from the DC itself and also discovered that there was no preventive measure for games booting off CDs/CD-Rs.

Saturn requires a mod chip or a finicky swap trick to read pirate/backup copies. (at least early models work with with the swap trick, like on the PSX -early PSXs had no proper security at all iirc)

Still the vulnerability was really limited to easier bootlegging: maybe a few peer to peer groups meeting and swapping discs (or doing so through the mail), but not the online piracy of today by any means (internet was WAY too slow, even the less common broadband or cable connections were much much slower than today).
So it was a bit more like casette or flopy sharing of the 80s/early 90s if anything, except then, anyone with a tape deck could copy a tape and anyone with a floppy drive a floppy, but you needed a CD burning drive for CD-Rs and while getting common, many were still read only drives.

DC has security for games on a GD-ROM, but not for applicatinos on the mil-CD format... all the DC ISOs etc. are in the mil-CD format, with all region flags set so that you can run the game in any region...

You cannot burn a DC game if it was intentified as a GD game to the DC. DC uses exact same copy protection setup as Saturn, except the ring is in the middle not on the edge... if there wasn't mil-CD stuff, we'd be swapping discs like with Saturns.

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Originally Posted by Sega Genesis

I'd say if they skipped sms

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Hold on there a second matey. The Master System tanked in the US but was rather popular elsewhere and made Sega a recognised brand by the time of the MD/Genesis, especially in Europe and South America. Nintendo couldn't get a stranglehold on the European console market and we have the SMS to thank for that.

Well its funny that the Saturn has better security than DC.

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Originally Posted by TmEE

DC has security for games on a GD-ROM, but not for applicatinos on the mil-CD format... all the DC ISOs etc. are in the mil-CD format, with all region flags set so that you can run the game in any region...

You cannot burn a DC game if it was intentified as a GD game to the DC. DC uses exact same copy protection setup as Saturn, except the ring is in the middle not on the edge... if there wasn't mil-CD stuff, we'd be swapping discs like with Saturns.

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Ah, OK that's more of an exploit than I realized... and there's the whole method hackers/pirates had to use to rip the GD-ROMs too (lacking the necessary custom firmware to do so on PC CD-ROM drives).

Didn't late DCs end up expanding security to mil-CDs as well? (such that a boot+swap trick is necessary)
Had that been implemented from the start, a mod-chip/swap trick would be necessary... that and Bleemcast would have had to be officially licensed by Sega. (or was it?)

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Originally Posted by Silanda

Hold on there a second matey. The Master System tanked in the US but was rather popular elsewhere and made Sega a recognised brand by the time of the MD/Genesis, especially in Europe and South America. Nintendo couldn't get a stranglehold on the European console market and we have the SMS to thank for that.

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I totally agree, but I think he deleted his post you're responding to. ;) (plus I think the SMS, while limited in success, was still profitable in the US and even Japan)

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Well its funny that the Saturn has better security than DC.

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No, I was wrong, Tiido corrected me... It had equal security and more in the sense of the custom format, but hackers found some very interesting exploits that Sega apparently hadn't considered. (one for ripping the discs using the DC and the other the mil-CD format to play GD-ROMs modified to ISOs)

Nevertheless, piracy was likely much more prevalent on the PSX at the time (even proportional to userbase), but developers didn't seem to care.



One thing Sega really should have that should have had next to no disadvantages would have been to include VCD playback out of the box on the DC, would have been a selling point in Asia and Japan where the format was popular. I think the CPU is powerful enough to handle VCD playback, so it shouldn't have added to cost (just the cost of firmware) unless there were additional licensing fees for the format.
The DC didn't support VCDs at all afik, unlike the Saturn which supported it as an add-on feature (likely a selling point in Japan/Asia as it had been for the 3DO).
SVCDs support would also have been nice, but I'm not sure the DC was powerful enough to decode MPEG-2 in software. (even at the more limited bitrate of VCDs compared to DVDs)
It would have been interesting if Sega had offered their own multimedia format on the DC with movies on GD-ROM.
Especially if the DC could handle MPEG-2... hell, maybe they could even have collaborated on the SVCD standard with GD-ROM as a better option than CDs (at 2x only ~37/40/45/50 minutes of video per disc -not sure if 800 or 900 MB CDs were even used) and still without the high licensing costs of DVD -then again, there was DDCD too, but Sony owned that and had a shared interest in DVD so unlikely to offer it as a low-cost competing format. (in spite of the fact that normal CD-ROM drives should be capable of reading DDCDs with the proper firmware as with GD-ROM)
Given the Chinese government's involvement SVCD standard that might have complicated things a bit depending on how viable such an option would be.

Had any such deal gone though, Sony probably wouldn't have been very happy. ;)

Support for the Genesis shouldn't have been dropped as it was. We can thank SoJ for that.

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Originally Posted by arnold_the_bartender

Support for the Genesis shouldn't have been dropped as it was. We can thank SoJ for that.

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I think that's greatly exaggerated... The whole thing was a mess at the time, but the 32x+Saturn conflict was probably the worst, though arguably the botched US launch of the Saturn and fiasco with Sony's price slash could be worse.

Yes, SoJ seems to have largely dropped software development by 1996, but the Genesis still got several games that year (rather similar to the SNES in number) and even some into 1997. (not nearly as notable as the SNES, but not far off in sheer number -both only had Frogger released in 1998 and a much better version on the Genesis for what it's worth)

I think advertising was pulled back and production was cut, and it's possible that the cut on development in Japan contributed to some JP releases not getting western releases (granted the Sega Channel exclusives didn't help -rather dumb to do that IMO), then there were some that got EU releases but not even Sega Channel in the US.

The halt in production and market was probably not the best idea though given it could have continued to sell well in the lower profile budget market. (and did in spite of marketing cuts, at least up to stock running out -at which point Majesco stepped in with their offer)


Now, the Saturn in general was not ideal for the market: inefficient, not emphasized at a highly integrated low-cost design (large board, many large custom and off the shelf chips on many separate buses, a ton of RAM -much of it SDRAM- etc), not tuning it to modern trends in programming practice (the dev kits didn't help the issue either), on top of that putting an emphasis on features the market didn't need and then rushing it on top of all that. (contributing to bugs)
So it was less attractive off the bat for 3rd parties other than the Sega brand name. (which only helped until Sony's massive marketing took effect and Nintendo came in with the N64 -which had different disadvantages)

But on top of that you had Mars being pushed (evolving into 32x) for a late 1994 release when that was the same time for the Saturn: so they had several established platforms to support SMS/GG to develop for (generally simple cross-platform development and SMS was being pulled back anyway), MD/Genesis, and Sega CD, which wasn't unusual for Sega's trends looking from their 1983 console beginnings, but then there was 2 new platforms emerging simultaneously in more or less direct competition:
Neither intercompatible, so software would not directly transition to one from the other particularly simply, and only 1 backwards compatible due to its add-on nature (which also meant the 32x+genesis+CD ended up wasting considerable potential resources and design options and costing more than an integrated system incorporating similar hardware) and the other totally new an incompatible as well as far more expensive: but at least with enough resources to be reasonably competitive on the market. (albeit not so cost competitive -so either higher retail prices or greater losses to sega)

So they had 2 more platforms to support, stretching things thinner for software, marketing, manufacturing, and distribution, as well as dividing/confusing the market for developers and consumers alike (in the west at least).
Oddly SoJ seems to have put a lot of software development into the 32x over the Saturn early on: combining with SoA and western 3rd parties to create a library roughly 10x the size of what the Saturn had by the US release -some 30 games vs the 3 on the Saturn. (granted, many western developers were caught off guard planning for the September release, and had the 32x not been released, some of those resources would likely have gone to the Genesis or Sega CD instead, not all to the Saturn -especially if SoJ was still late in releasing the western dev package)


And the horrible March release in 1995 in the US certainly didn't help anything: the emphasis on 32x development starved it for software, plus Sega had left 3rd party developers out of the loop with many expecting to have launch titles getting screwed by the false September date and leaving only 3 games -all 1st party- for the March release, and the many retailers left out of the loop became understandably upset as well. Then there's the fact that it opened the door for Sony to announce the PSX at $100 less.
Had the 32x not been there and Sega been straightforward about the launch date in the first place (at least to retailers and software houses) the March date could have been quite reasonable and with a strong launch lineup, even Sony's price cut wouldn't have as big an impact. (let alone if the marketing budget for the 32x had gone into hyping the Saturn -of course some may have gone toward the Genesis and/or CD in the interim as well)

Stolar's "Saturn is not out Future" statement at E3 1997 made no sense either. By then it was more the final nail in the coffin for the system than a massive blow like the 1995 release debacle, but it certainly didn't make for good PR and didn't help minimize losses for selling off their huge stockpile of Saturn hardware and games.
Mid 1997 was a bit early to really be hyping the DC in the west regardless, but doing so in such a negative and counterproductive manner makes no sense.

I think others have said it before: Stolar was good at launching products (PSX and DC -SegaNet to some extent), but not particularly adept at managing them, at least in the video game industry. (would have been interesting to see what would have happened had he still been head of the Entertainment division at Atari Corp. for the Jaguar's release -left a year earlier in October of '92 and must have joined Sony pretty soon after; interesting how both Katz and Stolar had held the same position at Atari Corp. and later Sega of America -they as well as Kalinske all worked at mattel as well, though Stolar after he left Sega while the others before -Stolar in the same position as President of Mattel as Kalinske)

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

it's possible that the cut on development in Japan contributed to some JP releases not getting western releases

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I think that this is highly unlikely.


Let's stick with the facts: 12/1995 was the end of the Mega Drive era in Japan, but in the West it wasn't until 12/1996 with a couple of releases in 1997 like you mentioned. Plenty of time to localize some Japanese games if they'd have been interested in doing that.

Edit: There even were a handful of Japanese games developed by and/or for Sega in Japan in 1996 and published exclusively in the West. See Virtua Fighter II, Power Rangers, and Power Rangers The Movie.

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Oddly SoJ seems to have put a lot of software development into the 32x over the Saturn early on: combining with SoA and western 3rd parties to create a library roughly 10x the size of what the Saturn had by the US release -some 30 games vs the 3 on the Saturn.

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This and Sony's price drop were the main issues why Saturn never caught on in the West. Well, let's throw in the awful & nearly non existant marketing too.

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

I think that this is highly unlikely.

Let's stick with the facts: 12/1995 was the end of the Mega Drive era in Japan, but in the West it wasn't until 12/1996 with a couple of releases in 1997 like you mentioned. Plenty of time to localize some Japanese games if they'd have been interested in doing that.

Edit: There even were a handful of Japanese games developed by and/or for Sega in Japan in 1996 and published exclusively in the West. See Virtua Fighter II, Power Rangers, and Power Rangers The Movie.

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OK, but here's the question: for previous localizations of SoJ titles, who decided if they were to be brought over, and who did the translations?

Anyway, there are several cases where they did get translations and were released in the UK/Europe but not North America, or only on Sega Channel. (which seems really stupid... I don't see why they needed Sega Channel exclusives: it should have simply been a service to provide demos as well as a cheaper/more convenient source for games as well -that could be had on cart for a considerably higher price -not taking the Sega Channel subscription costs into account)

3d Party Japanese stuff would have been a bit of a different issue unless Sega got licenses to translate those titles. (as was the case with a few 3rd party JP games that were Sega published in the west -of course there's also the western developers who took their own initiative to do translations, like Working Designs)

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This and Sony's price drop were the main issues why Saturn never caught on in the West. Well, let's throw in the awful & nearly non existant marketing too.

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The 32x certainly didn't help (the Saturn didn't help the 32x either, Mars would have been no better in that respect as I said, it's dividing resources which are already distributed broadly as was common for Sega to do).
I'll say that going with Saturn over 32x would be preferable for sure, but even going with 32x would have been better than doing what they did with both. (especially if going with 32x would have meant another new console -not just Neptune or even Neptune CD- earlier than the DC -that would fit Sega's trend of releasing new consoles/substantial add-ons every 2-3 years since the SG-1000 in 1983)
Sega could have done much better than either though if they had to have a console by late 1994 there should have been much more ideal options.

I think the botched launch in may of '95 in general was big a problem alone: regardless of the limited launch lineup (not really worse than what Japan had gotten) or even the high price, pissing off many 3rd party developers and key retailers was very bad.
Hell, even if they weren't willing to match Sony's price cut initially, they could have made the $400 price temporary for high-end new adopters and dropped it again to coincide with Sony's release: if not meeting Sony's $300 at least dropping to $350. (when they did finally drop to $300 in spring of '95 Sony dropped to $200 only a little later -at E3- and Sega was forced to meet that and take a pretty hefty loss)
Anyone who disliked the "razor and blade" model (which Sony went above and beyond) wouldn't have cared about the high price of the base unit so long as games were cheaper than the competition by a good margin. (which at very least should have been the case in Europe given what I've heard about prospective consumers there -especially with the previous computer gamers opting for more expensive hardware with much cheaper software)
Of course, if Sony had equivalently cheap software it was more of a non-issue.


I think there are a lot more issues than that though, of course some also applied in Japan where the PSX grew surprisingly fast (and attracted former Nintendo favoring 3rd parties over going to the Saturn -just imagine if Square had opted for the Saturn -Konami and even Capcom to a fair extent as well -less so for some 2D games, but in many cases the PSX was the preferred platform for that too -Symphony of Night, MM8, and the MMX5 and 6 -3&4 were released simultaneously for PSX and Saturn in Japan, not sure if either version was better -MM8 was missing some stuff in the Saturn port iirc)

Sony had the marketing budget across the board, though Sega did some awesome marketing in Japan and some decent western marketing early on. (I rather liked it and it certainly feels "Sega" to me, but I can also recognize that much of the content -especially the theater of the eye- would have been lost on many veiwers and the high production values on top of that probably weren't worth it -I seem to recall being rather impressed by a couple early Saturn commercials as a kid, more so than PlayStation)

Then you've got the technical side where Sony had a killer platform fully tuned to all the most common features used in 3D games of the time and a key one that 3DO and Saturn lacked: hardware triangle rasterization. (both of the others were quad rasterizers, though the Saturn had aenough CPU grunt to pull off software rasterization reasonably well -but putting it een further behind the PSX)
The very powerful GTE coprocessor handling the 3D math (3DO had something similar but slower and the Saturn had a slower one as well, but rarely used due to poor documentation and possibly due to the SH2s being faster)
The PSX had better multimedia capabilities with hardware MJPG and H.261 decoding as well as the ADPCM sound system (Saturn had that too, though buggy). Saturn had the MPEG add-on that a few games used, of course, but most used software decoding, usually cinepak, but apprently some used superior codecs. (I've seem to recall a reference to MPEG or H.261 being used by some games, or a similar custom codec)
Finally, the PSX had very clean hardware meshing well with high-level programming, and on top of that had a very comprehensive SDK put together by Psygnosis (at least in part) with comprehensive programming libraries making it extremely friendly to developers.
The Saturn otoh was not optimized for such and performed best with optimized low-level assembly work and direct hardware accessing, and that's all the early dev kits catered to: simple documentation of the hardware with some sample code from what I understand, more or less similar to what was standard for 4th gen consoles and previous -3DO had set a new standard which Sony expanded though- (of course the SH2s were industry standard parts and Hitachi had C compilers for them at least -so not as bad as the Jaguar for sure, but that's not quite the same as a full API for the platform). The hardware was more complex and there were some significant bugs to work around (audio DSP and broken VDP1 transparency -hence the poorer water effects in Tom Raider and many games using dithered sprites -the other option being software transparency)

Much of that certainly contributed to Square opting for the PSX over the Saturn went dropping the N64 given the Saturn and PSX were pretty even at the time in Japan. (I'm not quite sure how things compared in the west in 1996 though, but a hefty lead for Sony could have been a contributing factor -probably less so with Square's titles tending to be more niche titles in the west... and not released at all past North America up to that point)

The best Saturn software for FMV was the Duck one. I can't remember who developed that software but it was by far the best RMV on the Saturn.

I think there intention was to expand the life of the genesis and thats why the sega cd and 32x came out........once those failed miserably and customer trust was destroyed, they screwed up even harder with the saturn.....

At that point, it was over no matter what......the DC was dead before it ever got started......its a classic choke job....they had incredible momentum with the genesis and choked it all away to become a shell of their former self.......

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

I don't see why they needed Sega Channel exclusives: it should have simply been a service to provide demos as well as a cheaper/more convenient source for games as well -that could be had on cart for a considerably higher price -not taking the Sega Channel subscription costs into account

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This is a myth. Games that were only available on Sega Channel weren't intended as exclusives to promote the device, it's simply that these games weren't seen as justifying the risk of a cartridge release. I doubt that any of them would have been localized if Sega Channel hadn't existed.

You can say that they were silly for not giving Alien Soldier the chance to be one of the big titles that year, but then you could say the same thing about Super Fantasy Zone a few years earlier and prior to Sega Channel's introduction.

That doesn't explain why Willy Wars wasn't released here. You can debate all you want about Alien Soldier but the Mega Man games you can't. Why did SoA decide to localize the mediocre Light Crusader?

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Originally Posted by runback22

I think there intention was to expand the life of the genesis and thats why the sega cd and 32x came out........once those failed miserably and customer trust was destroyed, they screwed up even harder with the saturn.....

At that point, it was over no matter what......the DC was dead before it ever got started......its a classic choke job....they had incredible momentum with the genesis and choked it all away to become a shell of their former self.......

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That about sums it up. Sony didn't help things either. Most of the Playstation fanboys skipped the Dreamcast waiting for the Playstation 2.

A mix of not experimenting much, to focus on quality and to analyse well the "opposition". If so, Sega could have been today the top game producer or a runner up.

It seems that the most critical part of a company's transition is when a new system is planned. Since there is where most cash it's involved.

Still now, I believe that Sega is the only game-developer that has the potential for a physical comeback (system creation).

EA has better shot at making hardware than Sega does. Both M$ and $ony have a shitload of cash. Nintendo has the best selling hardware in both console wars and by a wide margin. Unless $ony and M$ existed the business then I could see Sega jumping in again.

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Originally Posted by Contra-God

I think Sega put the nails in it's own coffin with the Dreamcast (it would have done better for them if it didn't play pirated games out of the box). I think you need to add "Fully think out their products before releasing" to your list.

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Disagree, Dreamcast might be the best designed system, but ironically at the wrong moment. Still today, the 3D feel you get in D games are quite unique and great, that might be a great example of "timing matters".

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Originally Posted by roundwars

This is a myth. Games that were only available on Sega Channel weren't intended as exclusives to promote the device, it's simply that these games weren't seen as justifying the risk of a cartridge release. I doubt that any of them would have been localized if Sega Channel hadn't existed.

You can say that they were silly for not giving Alien Soldier the chance to be one of the big titles that year, but then you could say the same thing about Super Fantasy Zone a few years earlier and prior to Sega Channel's introduction.

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They were already translated and released in Europe... in multiple languages I think, so that's a good bit of risk right there.
And of course, Mega Man, as mentioned would be obvious. (in spite of the slowdown issues)

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

That doesn't explain why Willy Wars wasn't released here. You can debate all you want about Alien Soldier but the Mega Man games you can't. Why did SoA decide to localize the mediocre Light Crusader?

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Pulseman seems pretty decent as well and rather suited to the west too, not some of the weirder Japanese stuff. (like Panorama cotton... though some of that made it over, especially on the Sega CD -like Panic and Keio Flying Squadron)
And Golden Axe III of course.

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

EA has better shot at making hardware than Sega does. Both M$ and $ony have a shitload of cash. Nintendo has the best selling hardware in both console wars and by a wide margin. Unless $ony and M$ existed the business then I could see Sega jumping in again.

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They sort of tried that before... well Trip Hawkins did at least, EA was just kind of pulled in by extension of that. (3DO) Except 3DO kept on as a publisher after the console died too.

EA back then wasn't the company they are today and for that matter EA didn't even support the 3DO much outside of one Madden title.

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Originally Posted by Sega Genesis

That about sums it up. Sony didn't help things either. Most of the Playstation fanboys skipped the Dreamcast waiting for the Playstation 2.

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You cant really blame them though.....Lets face it, who loves the Dreamcast? Sega fanboys. I think the majority of us fall into that category. Who didnt love the dreamcast? Everyone else.

The PSone was one of the best consoles of all time. Customers had every reason to wait for the PS2 and absolutely no reason to get the Dreamcast. Back in 99, if you werent a Sega diehard, why would you side with a company who had 3 miserable system failures in a row and hadnt produced a winner in 10 years? Add the fact that the PSone was just an extreme juggernaut that the industry had never seen before and the rest is history....

Lets not forget, Sega was the "cool" gaming company in the early 90's, but it was the PSone that actually made it cool to be a gamer.....

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Originally Posted by kool kitty89

not some of the weirder Japanese stuff. (like Panorama cotton...

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Which is weird how? Compared to say, Cartoon Network at the time it wasn't anything too 'out there'. Or Space Harrier.
I'd love to hear their reasoning behind not releasing PC on a bigger scale.

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Originally Posted by Alianger

Which is weird how? Compared to say, Cartoon Network at the time it wasn't anything too 'out there'. Or Space Harrier.
I'd love to hear their reasoning behind not releasing PC on a bigger scale.

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Let's market an anime shooter that stars a witch in 94. I'm sorry but that wasn't going to happen back then. And how many games back then were the female was the main protagonist other than those Barbie games. I'm sure there were probably less than 5 or the Genesis alone.

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Let's market an anime shooter that stars a witch in 94. I'm sorry but that wasn't going to happen back then. And how many games back then were the female was the main protagonist other than those Barbie games. I'm sure there were probably less than 5 or the Genesis alone.

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Back then? Probably more likely to happen then, than now considering how the industry has evolved. Many (most?) of the Japanese titles were done in an animé style (which is a broad style in itself) at the time. This didn't stop companies from marketing the games to western audiences (compare box art and magazine ads), and people didn't really notice. Not that I know of anyway.

In Panorama Cotton's case, at its core it was a familiar, successful concept from the 80s arcades done exceptionally well on the Genesis. You have a point about female protagonists being harder to market, and you could argue that the cutesy style went against how SoA was marketing the Genesis... But these are superficial things that could be "fixed" easily. As they were, in many other games at the time. To name a few: Power Blade (NES), Mystic Defender, Bare Knuckle 3, Dynamite Headdy, Contra (in Europe).

Anyway, yes, the game on the surface is 'girly', and 'cutesy'. Weirder things have been done in video games and with great success.