I've written a new article with some very interesting info that I've translated about the Sony-Sega partnership that never happened:
Sega and Sony: New Insight into the Partnership That Never Came to Be
Thoughts?
I've written a new article with some very interesting info that I've translated about the Sony-Sega partnership that never happened:
Sega and Sony: New Insight into the Partnership That Never Came to Be
Thoughts?
This isn't really new but still interesting. Tom said this in multiple interviews some time ago. A few years ago on a YouTube interview was my first exposure to the news and mentioned more in-depth about this and spec sheets and such. It's another what if and easy for some to speculate it would have sold like the PS1 but given SEGA's marketing in the US...maybe not, then again I don't know if he was gone by then. I'm sure TA will come in and say Tom is a liar again and was all his fault Saturn failed tho. As a SEGA fan yes I'd love to see that marriage happen but in reality, I'm not convinced it would have been for the better as a whole for the industry. PS1 needed to happen to grow the market like it did. I'm not sure it would have been the success PS1 was but let's say that it was. Their next system I don't think would be the Dreamcast as DC was a response to everything that went wrong with Saturn. So SEGA like Sony and Nintendo have done after a huge success...be arrogant and not try as hard the next time. SEGA was poor at managing money anyway. May have ended up out of the console biz anyway just a little later.
Trust me, this is new. This goes way beyond the few tidbits Kalinske has thrown out over the years.
Nice article. Love your website this what the internet was made for! You can wonder where is NAMCO now? Not in a better or worse state then SEGA. So in hindside it wouldn't have made a big difference.
Its not hard to prove TOM lies. For starters, he sites one of the reasons for him leaving SEGA was the turning down of SONY hardware, yet he left in 1997 and only really left because his main backer at SEGA Japan, Nakayama-san was stepping down. If you're upset over SOJ turning down SONY's hardware, the moment to have stepped down was in 1993 and join up with your best mates at SONY not leave some 3 years after the Saturn 1st launched. That's to overlook noone has ever back up Tom's claims be that inside SEGA America, SEGA Japan or anyone from SONY. Maybe that's because the only one that was offered real SONY hardware was Nintendo and 'if' SEGA America did know of the SONY hardware then it would have known the tech spec's and that forget the Saturn, the 32X wouldn't have a chance with what SONY was working on .Quote:
Originally Posted by SegataS
But in EDGE's making of the PlayStation, the moment Nintendo dropped SONY, the order from the very top came to 'chart their own course' and work alone and that was way back in 1991 so no hope for SEGA's follow up to the Mega Drive. Phil Harrison even joked and laughed saying how SONY used SEGA to gain knowledge on CD-Rom development. He said when SEGA was pushing Ground Zero Texas, he was secretly showing off prototype PS Hardware that was the size of an Office photocopier. So much for a friendship with SEGA America
[IMG]https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1595/...fb23d8ab_o.jpg2016-01-18_08-56-53 by Mega Drive, on Flickr[/IMG]
Well another thing is Nintendo tried to buy Namco in 2003 but they got Monolith out of it instead. Tho I'd say Namco or Bamco is in a better place despite being merged. They are making a lot of well seelling quality games. SEGA I just can't think of much outside Yakuza & Atlus.Quote:
Originally Posted by highlandcattle
I think that Paramount representative who died of a heart attack was actually Gulf + Western’s founder and chairman, Charles Bluhdorn. G+W owned Paramount and Sega at the time.
WTF does Phil Harrison know?Quote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
Kalinski knew that there was no money from hardware sales and wanted to have Sony absorb some of the costs. I don't doubt that he and Olaf didn't try to pursue that.
I don't want to go there. The horse has been beaten to death.
Harrison was head of SONY Software development, so knew quite a lot, was one of the longest-serving members of staff, from the original staff and was part of the Software group with the PS, PS2, PS3Quote:
Originally Posted by gamevet
Olaf was never head of R&D since SONY America never had an R&D division, and even Olaf had enough of the SONY Japanese paymasters after he resigned over the pricing of the PS and SONY Japan sutting down SONY Canada, just after the launch of the system until 1995 and so Olaf resigned
If SEGA America and SONY America were looking to share hardware and tech, why did SEGA America request the SH-2's and not the MIPS CPU's of the PS design? or look to want the Saturn to use a Motorola CPU lol
Tom not only spins over SONY, he spins over SEGA America and Japan not getting on, it's been backed up by key staff at the time, like how Scott Bayless, Marty Fran and the late great Joe Miller never back up Tom's claims of working with SONY Hardware, much like none of them ever back up his claims over a bad working relationship and the same goes for the Key SEGA Europe staff that were Nick, Barry and Mark; none of them say that SEGA had a chance to work with SONY and all say SEGA Japan were a wonderful team to work with.
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If TOM was so unhappy with SEGA Japan over not going for the SONY Spec he worked on and then forcing the Saturn launch may day on him, why did he wait until mid-1997 to resign, some 3 years later? I think the only reason Tom left was becasue his main backer at SOJ was stepping down
I was just looking at the release list on SEGA's website and apparently they only have one game planned with a fixed date. How strange is that?Quote:
Originally Posted by SegataS
I shouldn’t even respond to this, but your Tom Kelinske BS is getting old. You can’t even get the date right, about when he resigned. He resigned near the beginning of 1996 and remained for about 6 months to allowQuote:
Originally Posted by Team Andromeda
SEGA of America to transition to new leadership. David Rosen wouldn’t have left the board, if Kalinske was lying. That’s been documented to death.
Harrison was not a part of Sony software around 1992-1993, when this whole thing would have happened. There was no Sony video game division in Europe back then either, but there was Sony Imagesoft in North America that worked closely with SEGA to distribute CD software.
Kalinske resigned in July 1996. Nakayama and Rosen also stepped down that month. I doubt they both would have left if Kalinske was lying. And Nick Alexander mentioned the problems with working with SOJ. Its treatment of SOE with the Game Gear was the whole reason he left the company.
Quote:
Sega-16:Former SOA president Tom Kalinske told us about the internal competition between the American and Japanese branches of the company, and how there was a certain level of resentment by Japan over America’s success. What was your relationship with Japan like? How involved were they in the decision-making process?Nick Alexander: The relationship between Sega Europe (SOE) and SOJ was complex and at times very challenging. The best example would be the Game Gear. Japan was very keen to achieve bigger numbers for this system. However, we had a negative gross margin from memory of -11%. Every one that we sold we lost more money. In order to sell more than originally planned we would have to reduce the price, increase the marketing, or increase the value of packs. All of these would increase our loss per unit even further. I had a long debate with Japan about this which culminated in the instruction to sell more units but not increase the losses. Clearly impossible if Japan would not reduce its price to us, which it would not. It was at this point that I decided to move on.Sega-16: Was there ever any situation where the rivalry between the American and Japanese branches affected Europe specifically?Nick Alexander: Our skills were in marketing, sales and distribution, theirs were in product design and development. This was not always understood. This inevitably led to some disagreement and confusion. I suspect that we had similar issues to the ones that Tom Kalinske had to deal with at SOA.
I believe that the July date was when his resignation was made public. Did he not make it known behind closed doors 6 months prior, that he was leaving? I know that he already had a job lined up when he left, so it wasn’t like this was some sort of immediate decision.
*Edit. Just checked out. He remained on the board until September, so it appears that July was when he let them know he was leaving.