The joint SEGA-SONY hardware system - Sega of America and Sony tried to team up

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09-06-2013, 10:41 AM
parallaxscroll

Quote:

Originally Posted by kool kitty89

I'm pretty sure we've been over this before, but:

Bsic premise is sound, but specifics of "cutting down" arcade boards like that doesn't make sense. What you suggest is generally impractical and would make the hardware way too expensive. There's much more cost effective options that are also relatively close to what they already did, but would make the Sega CD far more useful on the whole, and more attractive to both consumers and developers. There's also hard limitations tied to the add-on form factor that makes any kind of elaborate expansion (ie much more than NEC's basic CD drive+RAM+sound) have major trade-offs with just doing a new console altogether.

Well I don't know. The X-Board was 1986-87 tech. By late 1991 or Q3 1992, I do not see why such capability could not be replicated on a far smaller motherboard with far fewer pieces of silicon, ASICs and RAM chips, obviously a 2nd 68000 would've been a must.

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There's Rendition, S3, and ATi to consider too. Also remember this is a console targeting mainly mid/low res graphics (ie mostly around 320x224) and with fixed hardware, so some of the more so-so PC GPUs could have still been pretty impressive. (low res combined with much more optimized programming, and games designed/ported with limitations in mind)

S3 and ATi had terrible reputations during the early PC 3D graphics era. Rendition, I will give you though, as their Vérité V1000 was the first decent piece of 3D consumer silicon in the PC space. Even John Carmack endorsed it as being the standard for PC 3D graphics. That is, until 3Dfx dropped Voodoo Graphics on the scene like an atomic bomb. Perhaps something resembling the Vérité V2000 or V2100 could've been customized for Sega, offering Voodoo Graphics like performance. With that said, it probably would not surpass the 3DO M2 in performance or image quality, and Sega turned M2 down.

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In any case, I don't really agree here since a 1994/95 console release made much more sense for Sega overall . . . having something a bit cheaper and more streamlined than Saturn would have been nice though, and better maintained the position established with the MD.
Actually there's a whole separate argument that could center on releasing a console even earlier than the Saturn in general, and most recenty, I've tied that argument to Sega's declined offer for the 3DO design project in 1990:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post606009

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Investing in FMV like they did wasn't the best, but there's far bigger problems like very lacking Japanese software support, and questionable marketing in general. (and not taking advantage of the low-cost marketing potential of the CD-ROM format too)

Sega could've had decent to good Japanese software support, providing the Sega CD had sold better in the U.S. Sega could've drawn on the support from the PC industry (not to mention Amiga and X68000 games), arcade support, from Sega themselves as well as third parties, as well as original home grown efforts. Phantasy Star V could've been the flagship RPG, even if not for sales. I think in Japan, Sega could've overtaken NEC PC-Engine+CD-ROM without all the different card upgrades NEC offered.
Sega would've had a single 16-Bit console (MD/Genesis) and a single CD-ROM upgrade. While there would've been little to no chance of Sega beating Nintendo in Japan, worldwide, yes. The MD/Genesis was beating Nintendo worldwide in late 1991 to around early 1994.
(correct me if I'm wrong).

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Again, going expensive would not have been a good idea, but there's other changes that should have actually kept price similar or lower while having a significant net performance gain in the majority of real-world scenarios.

I'm not suggesting MegaCD/SegaCD should've sold for $400 but more like $300 in late 1992. Then dropping to $200 in 1993 with combined cartridge+CD systems in 1993-1994 selling for $250 then $200. Then if Sony knew Sega was working on a much more powerful and easy to develop for 3D system in 1994-1995, slated for a 1996 release, Sony's plans may have had to have been altered, significantly. Sony would be going up against Nintendo 64, a potential 3DO/Matsushita M2 release, and an even more powerful Sega machine. No doubt Sony would've still ultimately gained a significant piece of the pie, but not the 60% they did in the PS1 era. More like 30-40% with Sega taking most of what was left, leaving Nintendo and M2 to fight for scraps.

As for Sega's follow-up, it would not be released in Japan in 1998, but given a worldwide release of 9/9/99 with significantly more power. What if Lockheed Martin Real3D bought both Tritech/Bitboys and Videologic in early 1998. Real3D could use the best tech those guys had to offer, and rolled out a machine that was not only incredibly powerful but also efficient (think Videologic's Image Synthesis Processor, rendering only pixels that would be seen on screen, combined with Tritech/Bitboys fixed function shaders) and a DVD drive. Lockheed Real3D would've contributed 75-80% of the GPU design, the rest from Tritech/Bitboys and Videologic. The GPU could've been manufactured by Intel, LM and NEC, providing mass volume of chips, further reducing costs. IBM could've been the best CPU partner, offering a souped up G3 CPU, without the need for strong floating point / T&L performance (since the GPU would handle all of that) As for connectivity, both 56K and broadband would've been perfect. I don't see the inclusion of an ethernet port being very expensive..

Instead of selling at $200, it would've been $300. The combined value of an extremely powerful, dev friendly machine, with DVD and 56K+broadband, along with Microsoft on board. I believe both Lockheed and Microsoft (even perhaps IBM) could have and would have helped subsidized the cost. Sega could've been in a position to at the very least, split the market with PS2. The GameCube would've been sidelined to a greater extent than it was. Microsoft would not enter the market until 2004-2005, with their first console being
of Xbox 360+ caliber, forcing Sony to spend even more on PS3's development.

All revisionist history, but fun to think about, from a Sega-fan perspective. Certainly not all of what I'm thinking would be feasible, but some would be.

Really just fun stuff to think on, without being too serious :)
09-06-2013, 11:30 AM
sheath

From all of the other discussions it sounds to me like the Genesis design is more at fault than the Sega CDs. All the Sega CD needed was its own "Super" VDP, or the Genesis needed a VDP with even faster bandwidth and the color RAM expansion lines hooked up. Then the Sega CD itself would have needed an "Arcade Card" like RAM expansion over time to show its fullest potential. The real world Sega CD can already do things with its Graphics CoProcessor that the Arcade Scaler boards could not and it becomes a huge apples to oranges comparison of rendering types and sprites versus "objects".

In this sense I like Kool Kitty's alternate reality line with a bare bones 1989 Genesis CD with a total plan for future bi annual expansion carts. I still think the Genesis' color limitation is blown way out of proportion today, chiefly because people are playing the games in emulators which are sharper than RGB.

But, if the VDP had been designed more around future expandability than backward compatibility with the Master System we would be in an alternate universe. The time storm would have kept the Berlin Wall from being knocked down, and the resurgence of the Mongol empire complete with germ warfare through catapulted prairie dogs would have killed off all programming talent in Western Europe by 1995. However, Sega would have remained at the top of the US sales charts into the new millennium because the Genesis would have had more colors by 1991. A small price to pay?
09-06-2013, 07:39 PM
kool kitty89

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheath

From all of the other discussions it sounds to me like the Genesis design is more at fault than the Sega CDs. All the Sega CD needed was its own "Super" VDP, or the Genesis needed a VDP with even faster bandwidth and the color RAM expansion lines hooked up. Then the Sega CD itself would have needed an "Arcade Card" like RAM expansion over time to show its fullest potential. The real world Sega CD can already do things with its Graphics CoProcessor that the Arcade Scaler boards could not and it becomes a huge apples to oranges comparison of rendering types and sprites versus "objects".

Edit: moved reply to Sheath here:
http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...ty-stuff/page4

Quote:

Originally Posted by parallaxscroll

Well I don't know. The X-Board was 1986-87 tech. By late 1991 or Q3 1992, I do not see why such capability could not be replicated on a far smaller motherboard with far fewer pieces of silicon, ASICs and RAM chips, obviously a 2nd 68000 would've been a must.

Consolidation would have been possible, but it would still be expensive . . . and not particularly well suited to the overall nature of the Sega CD either, especially as an add-on. Then again, if they didn't care about compatibility this might have been interesting to do in a standalone new console instead of doing a CD add-on at all. (except you could do something much cheaper and more flexible with the blitter-like approach used in the Sega CD . . . and there's a better argument for maintaining Genesis backwards compatibility at least, especially for a mid-generation release like that -particularly given Sega's overall trends with the SG-1000, SMS, and MD in that respect; so we're back to the context of the thread I linked to earlier)

Also, multi-CPUs are not a good idea . . . arcade boards often did it since cost was no object, and it made some design aspects easier even if the added CPUs didn't get much use. (that's not to say more specialized added processors wouldn't have made sense too, like a DSP) This gets addressed in that other thread too.

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S3 and ATi had terrible reputations during the early PC 3D graphics era.

Yes, but give that context, as I did above, and you've got a lot more to consider in respect to a console. Personally I'd favor S3 in general for cost/features/performance in the 1996 area as they had pretty nice low-res 32-bit color performance . . . the Rage II was a bit faster and much more DirectX compatible but the perspective correction and texture filtering was worse, among a few other things. The main problem with both of those was driver support combined with modest peak performance for the standards of high-end PC gamers . . . but far more reasonable by console standards. (in a console setting, the ViRGE 325 should have fared pretty well next to the N64's RDP in real-world performance . . . and been a lot more open to programmers in terms of optimizing performnace/detail)
The Rage II would have fared even better in terms of raw speed with all effects enabled, but the visual quality was worse and likely cost more. Though it did have MPEG acceleration features and if you focused mostly on 16-bit color, the visual quality over ViRGE is less obvious. (though low res alpha textures will look bad due to lack of alpha texture filtering on Rage)

Also remember the generally bad reputation PowerVR cards/drivers had on PC, yet it ended up exceptional on the Dreamcast (and even adequate for directx). And ViRGE, by comparison was a much more "normal" architecture, and the main concern would just be optimizing around the performance and limitations which is something every console developer had to deal with to some extent. (rather than having to optimize for a unique/exostic graphics pipeline with tile-differred rendering)
This is the same reas I'd argue against using the NV-1 . . . potentially really powerful, fexible, nd interesting, but also very exotic and not condusive to established programming or 3D modeling, let alone multiplatform development.

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Rendition, I will give you though, as their Vérité V1000 was the first decent piece of 3D consumer silicon in the PC space. Even John Carmack endorsed it as being the standard for PC 3D graphics. That is, until 3Dfx dropped Voodoo Graphics on the scene like an atomic bomb. Perhaps something resembling the Vérité V2000 or V2100 could've been customized for Sega, offering Voodoo Graphics like performance. With that said, it probably would not surpass the 3DO M2 in performance or image quality, and Sega turned M2 down.

It's not just about performance, but practicality and cost. (this would apply to M2 as well) If cost wasn't a concern, than Voodoo would obviously be the winner in 1996 and ViRGE and Rage would be of no concern. Then again, the V-1000 might have been a better compromise for the time than the ViRGE, in terms of cost, performance, and features. (and Rage II still falls somewhere in there too, mainly due to the speed advantage over either of those others and MPEG acceleration, and fuller features than the ViRGE 325 in some respects, but weaker visual quality for texture filtering and perspective correction)

Rage I was pretty much a non-option though . . . slower than ViRGE and weaker features (and crap for DirectX -only OK for a few Rage-specific games).

There's also a few others worth mentioning like Lagoona 3D, but that's in a similar performance vein to Rage II. (out earlier though)

But again, all this is moot anyway given my actual argument regarding Sega waiting until '95/96 for their next-gen console. :p
That, and, once the Saturn was out there, rushing out another new system wouldn't make that much sense, another reason the M2 would have been questionable.

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Sega could've had decent to good Japanese software support, providing the Sega CD had sold better in the U.S. Sega could've drawn on the support from the PC industry (not to mention Amiga and X68000 games), arcade support, from Sega themselves as well as third parties, as well as original home grown efforts. Phantasy Star V could've been the flagship RPG, even if not for sales. I think in Japan, Sega could've overtaken NEC PC-Engine+CD-ROM without all the different card upgrades NEC offered.
Sega would've had a single 16-Bit console (MD/Genesis) and a single CD-ROM upgrade. While there would've been little to no chance of Sega beating Nintendo in Japan, worldwide, yes. The MD/Genesis was beating Nintendo worldwide in late 1991 to around early 1994.
(correct me if I'm wrong).

Yes, it should have ended up better overall, and they at least could have competed more directly with NEC for 2nd place in Japan.
Having more JP support may very well have directly contributed to SoA handling things differently. (with solid JP support, they'd have more brething room, and maybe wouldn't have gone in head first for FMV like they did . . . not avoided it entirely mind you, but perhaps gone into multimedia in a boarder and more varied manner, and looked more at what the computer game world was doing)

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I'm not suggesting MegaCD/SegaCD should've sold for $400 but more like $300 in late 1992. Then dropping to $200 in 1993 with combined cartridge+CD systems in 1993-1994 selling for $250 then $200.

The Sega CD already WAS $300 in 1992, and $230 in 1993 (MCD2). In Japan in 1991 it was roughly $380 US with the exchange rates of the time iirc.
09-06-2013, 10:59 PM
Da_Shocker

Guess it time to toss in my 2 cents wort:

First of all the 32X didn't need to exist and I know this is going to sit well with sheath but I have my reasons. There is nothing wrong with liking the 32X. Hell I own 2 of the fuckers. I also loved my Nomad when I had one with that being said it was still trash as a portable. Battery life was terrible, the thing was even bigger than the massive Game Gear. IMO Sega should've used the time and effort for the Saturn and trying to build a revamped GG. Does anybody actually think that the PS4 is going to mop the floor with the XBone just because it costs 100 dollars more. Granted M$ had a shitty E3 but regardless folks want the Xbone.

Sega had to make people want the Saturn when it came out. Instead they ended up sending out mixed messages with the 32X and the Saturn and the whole situation ended up being a disaster. How could the 3DO and Jaguar be perceived at threats? The 3DO asking price was way to high and the Jaguar despite having a great price point it had lackluster software. So in 4th quarter of 94 instead of 32X Sega releases Pulseman, a bastardized version of Yu Yu Hakusho (like what they did with Last Battle.) Golden Axe 3, Wily Wars and a couple more other games that should've made it over here. Alien Soldier arrives sometime in the late 1st quarter of 95.

4th quarter-SoA tell SoJ to get them the Saturn development kits asap so they can start schooling the 3rd party's on the difficult Saturn programming. Sega offers 3rd party's reduced licensing fees. And after every 5th Saturn they can publish one for free. Sure this leads to a glut of crappy 3rd party games but also some quality 3rd party games are released too.

E3-SoA say that the Saturn will come out in Septemer 2 1995 at a price between 300-400 dollars. Sony the next day says that the PSx will indeed be 299.99 with Sept 9 release date. Because the Saturn price is still in the air Sony doesn't still to much thunder from the Saturn. VF is found out to be canned and it replaced by VF Remix in order to better compete with Toshinden. Daytona is delayed due to QA. Sega shows off souped up versions of Star Wars and Virtua Racing. With textured mapping these games look better than there arcade counterpart and that is what Sega marketing team comes up with for the initial run of Saturn. Why buy a PSx that only looks as good as the arcade when you can buy a Saturn and it looks better than the arcade. The general public eats it up but the gaming media questions Sega. Sega also shows off Sonic Chaotic, Doom and NFL 96 that uses a revamped SCD engine .

September 95-With Sega mainly focused on the Saturn, Sega sales 100K units in the opening weekend. There is a shit ton of great looking and playing software and nobody is questioning the Saturn's 3D prowess. Sony is licking it's chops and wondering was it the right thing to do and try and challenge King Sega?
09-06-2013, 11:19 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

. Does anybody actually think that the PS4 is going to mop the floor with the XBone just because it costs 100 dollars more. Granted M$ had a shitty E3 but regardless folks want the Xbone.

Yes!

MS is focusing to0 hard on presenting the Xbone as a media do-all console. People just want to play games and worry about the additional features later. Hell, who wants a Kinect?
09-06-2013, 11:26 PM
sheath

For the record, the 32X being a bad idea based on real history and the way it was treated I am totally okay with. For 1994 I think Sega made a "good" decision releasing it in the West, perhaps not the absolute most wonderful and consumer satiating decision, but a good one for their already failed financials.

On the Xbone comparison, I really don't see it. These aren't game consoles, they are all set-top boxes with gaming capabilities. They aren't promising anything, we don't know what the games will look like or what they will offer even over the current generation. These are all set-top boxes, and I am counting on my octal core HTPC build from last year being able to handle anything the consoles get for at least two years.

I have never been in that place before and it actually was fun to say.
09-07-2013, 01:40 PM
Da_Shocker

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

Yes!

MS is focusing to0 hard on presenting the Xbone as a media do-all console. People just want to play games and worry about the additional features later. Hell, who wants a Kinect?

I think a lot of people do hell just look at presale numbers unless M$ is lying they're selling out pretty quickly.

http://www.videogamer.com/xboxone/fo...nch_again.html
09-07-2013, 03:14 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

I think a lot of people do hell just look at presale numbers unless M$ is lying they're selling out pretty quickly.

http://www.videogamer.com/xboxone/fo...nch_again.html

They're both going to sell out the first week. I wonder how many of those will be flipped on to ebay for price gouging?

Once you get past the early adopters, the real sales potential of a console will rear its ugly head.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheath

On the Xbone comparison, I really don't see it. These aren't game consoles, they are all set-top boxes with gaming capabilities. They aren't promising anything, we don't know what the games will look like or what they will offer even over the current generation. These are all set-top boxes, and I am counting on my octal core HTPC build from last year being able to handle anything the consoles get for at least two years.

I have never been in that place before and it actually was fun to say.

The only reason I would buy either of those consoles is for gaming. I couldn't care less about the whole NFL Redzone app while watching a smaller screen of my Cowboys game on Sunday, or flipping from my game to television on-the-fly, when I can already do most of that with my television.

Yeah, my 15-2500K @ 4.7 Ghz coupled with an EVGA GTX 670 FTW! is going to be my next gen gaming rig for at least another year. I'm in no hurry to purchase a PS4 or Xbone, until they have a decent library of games to play. I may even buy another EVGA GTX 670 FTW! at the end October, once I cash in La Quinta points for Amazon gift cards.
09-07-2013, 09:06 PM
kool kitty89

Quote:

Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

Guess it time to toss in my 2 cents wort:

First of all the 32X didn't need to exist and I know this is going to sit well with sheath but I have my reasons. There is nothing wrong with liking the 32X. Hell I own 2 of the fuckers. I also loved my Nomad when I had one with that being said it was still trash as a portable. Battery life was terrible, the thing was even bigger than the massive Game Gear. IMO Sega should've used the time and effort for the Saturn and trying to build a revamped GG. Does anybody actually think that the PS4 is going to mop the floor with the XBone just because it costs 100 dollars more. Granted M$ had a shitty E3 but regardless folks want the Xbone.

Agree on the 32x issue . . . on the Xbone comparison, see my responce to Gamevet below.

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Sega had to make people want the Saturn when it came out. Instead they ended up sending out mixed messages with the 32X and the Saturn and the whole situation ended up being a disaster. How could the 3DO and Jaguar be perceived at threats? The 3DO asking price was way to high and the Jaguar despite having a great price point it had lackluster software. So in 4th quarter of 94 instead of 32X Sega releases Pulseman, a bastardized version of Yu Yu Hakusho (like what they did with Last Battle.) Golden Axe 3, Wily Wars and a couple more other games that should've made it over here. Alien Soldier arrives sometime in the late 1st quarter of 95.

Agree, though they also could have leaned on the Sega CD more in '94 in leu of the 32x, and there's the various possibilities and trade-offs for usin SVP more (or doing a basic add-on with it instead).

Still even after the 32x was on the market, Sega could have handled thing MUCH better than they did in '95/96. Having the 32x out there complicated things for sure, but what they did just made that situation more blatantly bade and generally worsened the situation with 32x and Saturn across the board. (at very least they should have gone on damage control for 32x and very careful planning for Saturn in regards to that and Sony and Nintendo's actions at the time)

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4th quarter-SoA tell SoJ to get them the Saturn development kits asap so they can start schooling the 3rd party's on the difficult Saturn programming. Sega offers 3rd party's reduced licensing fees. And after every 5th Saturn they can publish one for free. Sure this leads to a glut of crappy 3rd party games but also some quality 3rd party games are released too.

After some recent talks on the issue with Chilly Willy, and some good magazine quotes TA pulled up, it seems that SoJ was reasonably quick about getting saturn docs and hardware out to SoA as such, but SoA themselves probably could have been more aggressive about translating that and building up their own tool while SoJ was still developing their own. (as it was, much of the work from the 32x SDKs contributed to SoA's Saturn SDKs, but I'd imagine they could have focused more on Saturn specifically, and added to what SoJ provided -and potentially outsourced some of that overhead too . . . particularly to some of the more talented 3rd party programmers they were working with at the time, like CORE, Clockwork Tortoise, or Scavcenger -actually kind of Sad that Clockwork went under before completing anything for the Saturn)

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E3-SoA say that the Saturn will come out in Septemer 2 1995 at a price between 300-400 dollars. Sony the next day says that the PSx will indeed be 299.99 with Sept 9 release date. Because the Saturn price is still in the air Sony doesn't still to much thunder from the Saturn. VF is found out to be canned and it replaced by VF Remix in order to better compete with Toshinden. Daytona is delayed due to QA. Sega shows off souped up versions of Star Wars and Virtua Racing. With textured mapping these games look better than there arcade counterpart and that is what Sega marketing team comes up with for the initial run of Saturn. Why buy a PSx that only looks as good as the arcade when you can buy a Saturn and it looks better than the arcade. The general public eats it up but the gaming media questions Sega. Sega also shows off Sonic Chaotic, Doom and NFL 96 that uses a revamped SCD engine.

Yeah, or be even more vague about the price and perhaps avoid Sony's $299 price altogether. Ie if there was still speculatiuon that the Saturn might be closer to $500, Sony might have been less aggressive there, leaving Sega more open to more options. (including losing less money on hardware sales)

And all this would still apply after the 32x was released too . . . just with that added complexity to deal with too (ie keeping 32x PR up along with Saturn, and try to actually make some profits from the 32x venture too). With that in mind, re-using some existing 32x development more on the Saturn should have allocated resources better . . . upgrading 32x games/ports for Saturn would take some work, but should be considerably less than a ground-up Saturn development. (and games intended to be both Saturn and 32x from the start would be even more efficient -albeit certainly more work thatn just doing a Saturn version, but I'm talking about making the best of the situation at hand)

That added software boost for both 32x and Saturn should have helped general PR and sales for both systems, and made the Saturn's launch lineup at least a little better. Granted, the BIG difference would be from holding back the Saturn to late summer or early fall, and having many more games and most with more polish than they originally got in 1995. (aside from various western games, some of the JP stuff might have gotten more tweaks, and Virtua FIghter Remix would have been there for launch)

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

Yes!

MS is focusing to0 hard on presenting the Xbone as a media do-all console. People just want to play games and worry about the additional features later. Hell, who wants a Kinect?

Yes, and yes. PS4 is technically more powerful, generally as easy to develop for, physically more compact, more affordable, and got off to a better start PR-wise. The added gimmicks aren't really that compelling overall (let alone without substantial software support) . . . and were somewhat to blame for the existing PR issues anyway. :p It's not JUST because of the $100 price point advantage, of course.

With newer TVs offering more and more multimedia features built-in anyway, much of this is moot, and HTPCs are a better option for those who really want a good home theater set up.

Having those multimedia features should be an extra convenience, or even an expected default feature set given the 7th gen standards, but not something to blow out of proportion as the main selling point. And Kinect might have some interesting potential, but needs a LOT more effort on the software development end to actually be worthwhile, and as it stands it's certainly not worth adding over $100 to the price tag. (I say over since the base Xbone hardware should be cheaper than the PS4)
The WiiU gamepad presents a similar problem. (with that not standard -or not used at all, or 3DS used in its place, etc . . . Nintendo could have made an actually decently powerful low-end next-gen competitor at the same cost as the WiiU . . . and having a decent step beyond the previous gen hardware -more than the existing WIi U- at an aggressive price point would have been pretty nice, especially combined with the ESTABLISHED wiimote gimmicks/features already there, and neat potential like 3DS connectivity ;) )

The Xboxone will almost certainly do OK on the market, but as things stand, I see no reason why not to assume what Sony is going to be the stand out market leader this generation. With Nintendo and MS both screwing up in different (and some similar) areas, it'll be interesting how they'll make out as time goes on.

At least with MS and Sony both going the AMD 8-core architecture route, we'll probably see more optimization and support specific to that, and potentially a better competitive edge for AMD than they've been seeing in the PC market since Bulldozer launched. (granted Phenom II was kind of struggling too, but it was at least more in the ballpark of Intel's top offerings, and had more a price-performnace edge back then for mid/lower rage stuff)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheath

For the record, the 32X being a bad idea based on real history and the way it was treated I am totally okay with. For 1994 I think Sega made a "good" decision releasing it in the West, perhaps not the absolute most wonderful and consumer satiating decision, but a good one for their already failed financials.

I'm going to have to disagree here.

The 32x can be somewhat justified and explained given the 1994 context at Sega, but it still was a generally bad idea for the time (NOT just in hindisght).

Sega had many other, more practical, less risky, and/or technically better alternatives at the time, and SHOULD have had the management and talent to recognize that. For whatever reason that didn't happen though.

Now, if you bring hindisght into the equation, you can more easily argue specific issues Sega was concerned about that were uninportant in the long run, and also point out how Sega needed ro better prepare for their non-console renevue/profit streams taking major hits, or take steps to avoid that problem itself. (ie arcade/ammusment decline) I'm not arguing these ports though, or at most I'll point out how they had an impact, but not that Sega made obviously flawed decisions at the time.

It's the same sorts of things I argue about for Atari or Nintendo . . . except Atari (especially Inc) can be typically explained by generally bad management and conflicting management/bureaucracy from Warner (or prior to that, generally poor business sense and lack of responsibility of Bushnell), or just questionable management and/or bad luck and limited funding/etc in the Atari Corp years. And Nintendo is just generally weird and stubborn . . . which more loosely applies to the culture of many Japanese companies. (significnatly different from the typical western bureaucaratic corporate BS)

Some things are pure hindsight, but I really try to focus on things that were odd mistakes in the context of the time whey were originally made, not just in hindsight.

Things like SoJ engineers rejecting the SGI chipset DO make sense though, and there're fully explaned and generally warented and reasonable. The 3DO hardware proposal being shot down in 1990 leaves me with more questions though. (especially if it never actually got past upper management and down to SoJ engineers to actually review, as with SGI later on)

Sega turning down the Lynx back in '88/89 also made reasonable sense in general . . . though pushing GG development a bit earlier might have been smarter. (GG has a lot of merits for Sega over Lynx and some raw technical merits, but could/should have meen able to make a '89 release like Lynx)
Atari Corp turning down the Mega Drive distribution license in '88 also has some reasonable arguments for it (especially depending on the actual terms and how it was only for NA), and much more so for Atari Inc turning down the Famicom license in '83.

SOJ's weak Sega CD support is really questionable and strage though, and the 32x in general (technical and business), and "stupid corporate decisions" doesn't even fully explain that given Sega's general management at the time. (just as strange as things like the 7800 and XEGS releases by Atari Corp . . . not as easily explained by weird/bad management as the 3200/5200 situation -and generally not pushing the 8-bit computers more- back in 1982)
09-07-2013, 09:24 PM
sheath

Quote:

Originally Posted by kool kitty89

I'm going to have to disagree here.

The 32x can be somewhat justified and explained given the 1994 context at Sega, but it still was a generally bad idea for the time (NOT just in hindisght).

Sega had many other, more practical, less risky, and/or technically better alternatives at the time, and SHOULD have had the management and talent to recognize that. For whatever reason that didn't happen though.

That is all because every alternate we have covered is a hindsight theory and nothing more. We have no facts, no price lists, no internal negotiations, and no engineering team interviews to compare with our modern theories.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kool kitty89

Now, if you bring hindisght into the equation, you can more easily argue specific issues Sega was concerned about that were uninportant in the long run, and also point out how Sega needed ro better prepare for their non-console renevue/profit streams taking major hits, or take steps to avoid that problem itself. (ie arcade/ammusment decline) I'm not arguing these ports though, or at most I'll point out how they had an impact, but not that Sega made obviously flawed decisions at the time.

Any issue we have uncovered so far that we KNOW Sega was concerned about has barely been discussed with contemporary facts on the table. Neither has it been proven that new console releases are better than add-ons or incremental upgrades. What has been proven is that if a massive multinational corporation has its funding swept out from under it the shit hits the fan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by kool kitty89

It's the same sorts of things I argue about for Atari or Nintendo . . . except Atari (especially Inc) can be typically explained by generally bad management and conflicting management/bureaucracy from Warner (or prior to that, generally poor business sense and lack of responsibility of Bushnell), or just questionable management and/or bad luck and limited funding/etc in the Atari Corp years. And Nintendo is just generally weird and stubborn . . . which more loosely applies to the culture of many Japanese companies. (significnatly different from the typical western bureaucaratic corporate BS)

Some things are pure hindsight, but I really try to focus on things that were odd mistakes in the context of the time whey were originally made, not just in hindsight.

I don't think we have enough facts to tell the difference in any absolute sense between hindsight and theory. I say we have a long road ahead of fact uncovering, where any one interview might change any theories we might come up with right now. This happened with the recent Yu Suzuki, Yuzo Koshiro, Scot Bayless, Marty Franz and many other interviews in the last few years. We will continue to have our view of the last two decades change, if we care about facts, until we have all of the facts we can rummage.
09-07-2013, 09:29 PM
Da_Shocker

And also look at the ill fated M2 upgrade for the 3DO. Matsushita put 100 million dollars in something that was well we all know how that played out. BTW do they still make Toshinden games.
09-08-2013, 05:24 AM
kool kitty89

Quote:

Originally Posted by sheath

Any issue we have uncovered so far that we KNOW Sega was concerned about has barely been discussed with contemporary facts on the table. Neither has it been proven that new console releases are better than add-ons or incremental upgrades. What has been proven is that if a massive multinational corporation has its funding swept out from under it the shit hits the fan.

I firmly believe that add-ons and upgrades are just as legitimate as full new hardware platforms. However, there's context to both, and there's plenty of things that should be avoided for add-ons and new consoles in general, as well as just generally poor/weak and/or poorly timed releases of either.
And marketing is ALWAYS critical, much more so for a highly flexible/modular system with lots of expansion potential. (part of that would be deciding where to limit expansion too -ie defining the point where marketing/support and consumer confusion becomes impractical -one thing is sure, a console upgrade would absolutely have to be more easily undersood and installed than most PC hardware upgrades . . . there's a reason most people don't upgrade their own hardware to a significant degree)

Anyone who's ever assembled a PC is NOT a typical consumer. ;) Same for anyone who's upgraded CPU, RAM, Hard drive, or video card in their PC. (RAM would probably be the closet to mainstream userbase, maybe hard drive -more so in a lap top or embedded desktop where you just pop in a 2nd HDD into a socket behind a pannel ;) )

One major context is inherent limitations for expansion based on available interfacing and/or inherent architectual limitations. One HUGE miss of almost ever console from the 5th gen onward is lack of main RAM expansion. And I find it terribly ironic that the most recent console to push RAM expansion is cart based (N64), an even more ironic given that was priproietary and rather costly (to manufacture at least -SGI subsidized Nintendo) RDRAM. The Saturn did limited RAM expansion, but it was slow and not on the CPU bus. The N64's full-speed unified main RAM expansion is kind of an ideal example of what optical mass storage consoles should have supported.

PSX should have had provisions for expanding main EDODRAM (especially since that was near commodity when the system was designed, and became commodity by '95/96 as it became a standard feature of socket 5/7 PC motherboards).
-Same for main SDRAM on the Saturn.
-Same for main SDRAM on the DC,
-main RDRAM on the PS2,
-not sure about GC given how slow the 16MB 8-bit DRAM buffer was and the whole 1T SRAM thing (maybe allowed for 1T SRAM expansion, though better would have been using 64-bit wide fast SDRAM in place of that slow DRAM, and much more useful for shared expansion -that DRAM got replaced by fast/wide GDDR3 on the Wii ;) ).
-Xbox should have supported expansion for the DDR-400 it used (which became commodity mid-way through its life), 360 should have allowed GDDR3 expansion (and/or gone with cheaper/lower-latency DDR2 instead),
-PS3 should have supported XDR expansion (weird case since I think GDDR3 came down in price faster, but upgrading video while leaving main at 256MB would be weird and more limiting . . . then again Sony'd vertical integration and relationship with Rambus would counter that -actually I kind of wonder why they didn't go with 512 MB of unified XDR)
-Wii Should have had GDDR3 expansion . . . though it's still got a ton of other bottlenecks to deal with for the time. (which generally aren't practical to upgrade) :p
-Wii U should have had DDR3 expansion . . . though it's got a ton of other bottlenecks to deal with currently. (which generally aren't practical to upgrade)
-XboxOne and PS4 should support DDR3 expansion. (AFIK they don't, but I'm not 100% sure there)

Also, add-ons should ideally make the most sense mid-generation, used to efficiently expand a very useful area of the base hardware, not a costly/bottlnecked chunk of added hardware, and certainly not something that's added on just before (or simultaneously with) the release of a new console in general.
Add-ons to some extent effectively create NEW consoles, or new standards for software for new consoles . . . more or less so depending on the complexiity of said hardware. The Sega CD and 32x ARE new platforms, and might as well be separate consoles entirely for all intents and purposes on the marketing/pricing/etc end. And the 32x REALLY didn't make sense in that context due to the Saturn's timing. (and 32x being directly incompatible on the consumer end, not to mention being a pretty rushed and limited design in its own right)

Quote:

I don't think we have enough facts to tell the difference in any absolute sense between hindsight and theory. I say we have a long road ahead of fact uncovering, where any one interview might change any theories we might come up with right now. This happened with the recent Yu Suzuki, Yuzo Koshiro, Scot Bayless, Marty Franz and many other interviews in the last few years. We will continue to have our view of the last two decades change, if we care about facts, until we have all of the facts we can rummage.

There's limits here, and in any of the really in-depth stuff I tend to branch out dicussion to cover the many holes in available information. (and pose plausible explanations for those situations -beyond typical supposition made by the media and rumor mill)

Given what Atari history has dug up though, there's a LOT of stuff that's still down to major managemetn screw-ups, albeit with different specifics than many assumed originally.

Though, honestly, with the added information, it's only stregthened some of my arguments, or shifted them more solidly towards specific scenarios. Like the whole Atari Corp, 7800, and XEGS thing . . . a VERY good argument for Atari Corp ditching the 7800 enitrely and focusing on the 2600, A8 computers, and ST as their only products. (5200 would get similar legacy support though)
Or back with Atari Inc . . . the whole stupid/contradictory/inefficient dual-management bureacracy is DEFINITELY what led to the software glut, crash, and weird decisions like the 5200 and then the weird turn around with the 7800 (or rather Warner accepting GCC's proposal so rapidly) and 5200 knee-jerk cancellation, and plans to push the Amiga based console out in 1984 along with the 7800. (and prior to that, back with the 5200 itself, weird and kind of pointless next to a cost-reduced Atari 400 with good marketing . . . which they CANCELLED -Atari 600- and then finally introduced a full year later -600 XL- and then the cancellation of the more balanced, lower cost, and 2600 compatible 3200/SS-1000 Sylvia . . . stupid things like horribly overproducing Pac Man on top of rushing a low quality quick port out, and then the whole mess of Warner and ET and Spielberg, and Ray Kassar actually making a GOOD management decision on declining to license ET due to Universal's unresonable terms, but then having the thing shoved down Atari's throat by Warner executives trying to get in with Spielberg, and mandating a very rapid relase of the game on top of all that)

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