Sega and Sony: New Insight into the Partnership That Never Came to Be

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05-05-2019, 12:42 PM
Team Andromeda

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

You still haven't acknowledged the point I had brought up about Atari's Jag CD having a 2X speed drive, bundled with 2 games and it was only $150. It came out around the time when the US Saturn was originally planned to launch. 2x speed CD ROM drives were actually getting phased out for quad speed drives (PC) in 1995.

You haven't brought up any documentation to back up the $99 price point, so its a little rich But at a guess it could be because like you say Chip and Pints are rubbish or it could also have been because the Jaguar CD was also dead on arrival and no doubt shops looking to offload stock at rock bottom prices. I mean, I picked up my Jaguar in 1995 from Rumblows for £50 with the shop looking to sell off stock (ok it had serious money issues too lol) . You could have a point with Chip and Pints, But Gameloft or what about DieHard, also from June 1994

https://i.imgur.com/imTr4AF.jpg

Quite clear the SEGA CD wasn't $99 in 1993, much less 1994. But less me guess... all the shops are wrong and you are right.
05-05-2019, 12:42 PM
Gryson

gamevet, what are you trying to argue? That the Saturn's CD-ROM drive was not expensive?

Could you tell us how much it cost then? For the drive subsystem (including the SH1 and RAM).
05-05-2019, 01:02 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gryson

gamevet, what are you trying to argue? That the Saturn's CD-ROM drive was not expensive?

Could you tell us how much it cost then? For the drive subsystem (including the SH1 and RAM).

TA’s arguement was that the Saturn was expensive, because of the CD drive. I pointed out that it wasn’t an issue for Sony, and they were able to sell their PS for $300. SEGA was not paying a $100 more for CD technology; they were paying $100+ more for the Saturn, because of all of the silicon they had put behind the design of the console. There was no way for them to downscale all of that later in the console’s life.
05-05-2019, 01:12 PM
Team Andromeda

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

TA’s arguement was that the Saturn was expensive, because of the CD drive. I pointed out that it wasn’t an issue for Sony, and they were able to sell their PS for $300. SEGA was not paying a $100 more for CD technology; they were paying $100+ more for the Saturn, because of all of the silicon they had put behind the design of the console. There was no way for them to downscale all of that later in the console’s life.

CD drives were expensive in the early 90's . SONY was not only part inventor of the CD, it also had a huge manufacturing capacity, but even with that and SONY taking a hit on the price, the PS cost a hell of a lot of money. You tried to counter that with a price point of $99 dollars for the SEGA CD in 94 and yet again couldn't back it up., Why did the NEC FX system cost so much money (more at launch than even the Saturn in Japan) with far less tech inside than the Saturn, why did the CD ROM2 cost so much more than the base PC Engine, when it had next to no extra hardware inside, and one look at the Duo shows CD systems weren't cheap.

And maybe you'll can back up the $99 price point of the SEGA CD in 93/4 with some sort of documentation?
05-05-2019, 01:40 PM
Gryson

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

TA’s arguement was that the Saturn was expensive, because of the CD drive. I pointed out that it wasn’t an issue for Sony, and they were able to sell their PS for $300. SEGA was not paying a $100 more for CD technology; they were paying $100+ more for the Saturn, because of all of the silicon they had put behind the design of the console. There was no way for them to downscale all of that later in the console’s life.

Well, Sega was undoubtedly paying more for its CD-ROM system than Sony, simply because it was buying all of its parts from outside companies, while Sony was manufacturing its own parts. Sega also used a brand new RISC processor and 2x the cache for its drive. It must have been costly. But of course it's not the only reason why the Saturn was more expensive than the PlayStation. It's just one of many.
05-05-2019, 02:20 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

CD drives were expensive in the early 90's . SONY was not only part inventor of the CD, it also had a huge manufacturing capacity, but even with that and SONY taking a hit on the price, the PS cost a hell of a lot of money. You tried to counter that with a price point of $99 dollars for the SEGA CD in 94 and yet again couldn't back it up., Why did the NEC FX system cost so much money (more at launch than even the Saturn in Japan) with far less tech inside than the Saturn, why did the CD ROM2 cost so much more than the base PC Engine, when it had next to no extra hardware inside, and one look at the Duo shows CD systems weren't cheap.

Single speed CD drives were expensive in the early 90's, but that was not the case by the mid 90s. Atari managed to build a double speed CD drive for their Jag using a drive built by Philips. They certainly didn't pay $150 for it.

Quote:

And maybe you'll can back up the $99 price point of the SEGA CD in 93/4 with some sort of documentation?

Obviously that was proven by the JcPenney ad that was posted by Gryson, which is way more reliable than those crappy resellers like Chips & Bits. I was already moving away from that and focusing on a more modern CD drive like the Jag CD. That subject is dead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gryson

Well, Sega was undoubtedly paying more for its CD-ROM system than Sony, simply because it was buying all of its parts from outside companies, while Sony was manufacturing its own parts. Sega also used a brand new RISC processor and 2x the cache for its drive. It must have been costly. But of course it's not the only reason why the Saturn was more expensive than the PlayStation. It's just one of many.

Yeah, they're paying more, but it's certainly not 100% more. Sony gets theirs for say @$50, while Sega gets theirs from someone like Philips for @$75-$85.

Sony was also using a RISC processor as well and it wasn't even that new. They fucked up by letting Hitachi make promises they couldn't keep and were forced into using a double CPU setup, because of the SH-2's lack of power compared to the old MIPS 3000A used in the PlayStation. Those Hitachi CPUs had to be pretty expensive on their own, considering that they were a new product. Anybody know how much a single SH-2 costed in 1994?
05-06-2019, 03:39 AM
Blades

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

Single speed CD drives were expensive in the early 90's, but that was not the case by the mid 90s. Atari managed to build a double speed CD drive for their Jag using a drive built by Philips. They certainly didn't pay $150 for it.

To be fair that Philips drive was absolute garbage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

That can't be true or was it just in the USA? Core was happily making a new software in 1994 with the announcement of Soul Star and BC racers. You also had Eternal Champions, the USA release of Lunar II, The Adventures of Batman & Robin, Dracula Unleashed, Flink, Fahrenheit, coming late 1994 to 1995.

Japan. Here's the source (EGM Dec 1993). It makes sense considering Sega's giant push for the Saturn at all costs.

https://woxkgg.by.files.1drv.com/y4m...&cropmode=none

Quote:

Sony was also using a RISC processor as well and it wasn't even that new. They fucked up by letting Hitachi make promises they couldn't keep and were forced into using a double CPU setup, because of the SH-2's lack of power compared to the old MIPS 3000A used in the PlayStation. Those Hitachi CPUs had to be pretty expensive on their own, considering that they were a new product. Anybody know how much a single SH-2 costed in 1994?

I'd like to know this as well.
05-06-2019, 05:21 AM
Team Andromeda

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

Single speed CD drives were expensive in the early 90's, but that was not the case by the mid 90s. Atari managed to build a double speed CD drive for their Jag using a drive built by Philips. They certainly didn't pay $150 for it.

CD systems and the Ram needed adding hugely to the price. Like you usual, if you say something, you think it's true, but can never back it up with factual information, not once have you be able to verify the SEGA CD 99$ price point. On the one hand, you look to rubbish Chip and Pints only to then use them for your argument, you really couldn't make it up

Seriously, Why did the Neo Geo CD cost 49,800 yen on its launch or why did The PC-FX 47,000 yen on its launch, what they packed more tech than the Saturn?
The PS wasn't cheaper either launching at 39,000 yen compared to the Saturn's 44,800 yen (just a £30 difference ).
05-06-2019, 05:28 AM
Team Andromeda

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blades

Japan. Here's the source (EGM Dec 1993). It makes sense considering Sega's giant push for the Saturn at all costs.

Japan is really what I meant to say because there was still software coming in the West late in hence why I listed them.
To me, SEGA Japan never really bothered with the Mega CD and were a huge part of the reason why the system never took off. We should have had plenty of SEGA scaler coin-ups on the system: like I said many a time, I also thought moving PS IV from the Mega CD to the Mega Drive was a complete kick in the teeth, for Mega CD owners and showed SOJ cared little for the format. It's to SOA credit that they made the system worth owning and were the ones who really showed off what the system could do, with Batman Returns
Just a shame SOA got so caught up with the FMV fad.
05-06-2019, 10:37 AM
Gryson

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blades

To be fair that Philips drive was absolute garbage.

Japan. Here's the source (EGM Dec 1993). It makes sense considering Sega's giant push for the Saturn at all costs.

I'd like to know this as well.

Please... never believe anything written in those EGM gossip columns. They are absurdly inaccurate and clearly made up 90% of the time (just look at the second one on there - which is silly because Sega officially released the near-final Saturn specs in October '93).

But the important point here is that SOA was largely independent when it came to the Sega CD. They didn't want Japanese developed titles. Why would they? It's the same old story: Their profit margins were higher on their own titles, and they thought those titles were easier to market in NA.

Of the 30 Mega CD titles that were developed in Japan in 1993, only 11 were released outside of Japan. Of those 11, only about 3 were of any real importance to the system's library. The 11, by the way, are:

Final Fight CD
Panic!
Android Assault
Silpheed
Keio Flying Squadron
Sonic CD
Vay
Lethal Enforcers
Dark Wizard
The Third World War
Mansion of Hidden Souls

So if you're Japanese Sega management, what's the point in spending a lot of money to develop more games like Panic! that SOA might not even choose to localize (remember, they had choice in the matter), and even if they do, they almost certainly won't advertise much. The MD market in Japan was at least big enough to sustain new titles in 1994, but the same can't really be said for the Mega CD market.

If you want to see the many, many unlocalized Mega CD games, go to the Wiki page and sort by JP release date to find titles only released in Japan:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sega_CD_games
05-06-2019, 12:21 PM
zyrobs

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gryson

Please... never believe anything written in those EGM gossip columns. They are absurdly inaccurate and clearly made up 90% of the time (just look at the second one on there - which is silly because Sega officially released the near-final Saturn specs in October '93).

Sega was actually marketing the Saturn as a 64bit machine in Japan (because it had 2x32bit cpus). Hideki Sato mentions in an interview that this was a cheap way of doing it. So at least that specific EGM rumour was correct.

It's also true, as far as I know, that they dried up the Sega CD games by 1994 in an effort to push everyone to the Saturn.
05-06-2019, 12:39 PM
Team Andromeda

Quote:

Originally Posted by zyrobs

Sega was actually marketing the Saturn as a 64bit machine in Japan (because it had 2x32bit cpus). Hideki Sato mentions in an interview that this was a cheap way of doing it. So at least that specific EGM rumour was correct.

It's also true, as far as I know, that they dried up the Sega CD games by 1994 in an effort to push everyone to the Saturn.

Quiet correct. 64 bit is clearly shown on the game flyer that came with launch Saturn in Japan . I wouldn't say SOJ was killing off the Mega CD early in an effort to get the teams on the Saturn (SEGA Japan teams were still working on Mega Drive software for 94 and 95), but more because of the dreadful user base of the Mega CD in Japan. Imo All SEGA In-House teams should have only been working on the Saturn early 1994 onwards
05-06-2019, 03:51 PM
Gryson

Quote:

Originally Posted by zyrobs

Sega was actually marketing the Saturn as a 64bit machine in Japan (because it had 2x32bit cpus). Hideki Sato mentions in an interview that this was a cheap way of doing it. So at least that specific EGM rumour was correct.

It's also true, as far as I know, that they dried up the Sega CD games by 1994 in an effort to push everyone to the Saturn.

The EGM column isn't correct - it says that Sega is "miffed" that the press is alternately calling it a 32-bit and 64-bit machine. Sega is 100% guilty of causing that, though. In old interviews, you'd get one person from Sega talking about the 64-bit Saturn, and then the next calling it a 32-bit machine. That's not really a rumor, though. The rumor part is the 64-bit GPU. In other words, Quarterman couldn't figure out why it was listed as both 32-bit and 64-bit in the media, and he made up some story to explain it.

It's not clear that Sega cancelled a bunch of Mega CD games in 1993 because of the Saturn (as EGM says). Truth is, there probably just wasn't much Mega CD development going on. It's not really surprising that Sega ended development of Mega CD games then, since the console was not very successful and the Saturn was commanding everybody's focus. I mean, if you're a producer, do you want to work on a new Mega CD game that nobody's going to buy since the Saturn has already been announced, or do you want to work on a next-generation title that will push your company forward?

My main point was that the EGM gossip thing is notoriously inaccurate and most of it seems very made up. People have even written about this:

https://kotaku.com/the-best-video-ga...90s-1699492611

Quote:

Having worked closely with former EGM editors in the past, my understanding is that Quartermann was a mixture of legitimate scuttlebutt about the games industry, wishful thinking about what could happen (sometimes, it would actually come true), and complete bullshit.

Regardless, it's true that Sega didn't release more Mega CD titles beyond 1994, but Japanese developers were developing almost exclusively for the Japanese market at that point, so it's not like continued development would have helped the Sega CD in foreign markets.
05-06-2019, 05:20 PM
gamevet

Quote:

Originally Posted by Team Andromeda

CD systems and the Ram needed adding hugely to the price. Like you usual, if you say something, you think it's true, but can never back it up with factual information, not once have you be able to verify the SEGA CD 99$ price point. On the one hand, you look to rubbish Chip and Pints only to then use them for your argument, you really couldn't make it up

Seriously, Why did the Neo Geo CD cost 49,800 yen on its launch or why did The PC-FX 47,000 yen on its launch, what they packed more tech than the Saturn?
The PS wasn't cheaper either launching at 39,000 yen compared to the Saturn's 44,800 yen (just a £30 difference ).

1st off, your writing is a clusterfuck.

2nd, I’m not the dude that was trying to use Chips & Bits for anything, other than to prove that those morons were still trying to sell the SEGA CD for $229 in 1996.

3rd, I thought that SEGA was already dropping the price of the SEGA CD by the end of 1994, but was mistaken. Big fucking deal.

4th, you have to be dumb if you think the Neo Geo CD was expensive because of it’s CD drive. That’s like saying that the Wondermega was expensive because it had a CD drive.

And finally. The PlayStation also has a CD drive and was only $300. No fucking way was SEGA paying an extra $100 over Sony to have a CD drive in the Saturn. The CD drive motor and lens were not expensive items by 1995, especially considering that the CD drive companies had already moved on to quad speed drives by then.
05-07-2019, 08:45 AM
Team Andromeda

Quote:

Originally Posted by gamevet

1st off, your writing is a clusterfuck.

2nd, I’m not the dude that was trying to use Chips & Bits for anything, other than to prove that those morons were still trying to sell the SEGA CD for $229 in 1996.

I wonder why you look to belittle Chips and even call then morons; only to then use them for the pice of the Jaguar CD. Simple facts were that even with in your own words a basic bare bones double CD drive, The Jaguar CD on its launch cost $150 and £149. Even the boss of Atari at the time talked openly of why the Jaguar didn't come with CD as standard. So even having a basic CD drive added way over £100 to a console list price. Over £100 is a lot of money now, never mind 1995 (taking into account inflation)

https://i.imgur.com/Zha8Q6T.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ZPwP0MK.jpg

Quote:

you have to be dumb if you think the Neo Geo CD was expensive because of it’s CD drive.

You had to factor in, not only the CD drive but also the huge of ammount of RAM that system needed, which wasn't cheap.

Quote:

No fucking way was SEGA paying an extra $100 over Sony to have a CD drive in the Saturn

Couple of things overlooking the launch price war SONY America started that SEGA could ill match and overlooking how the Saturn had double the Video Ram, double the CD buffer Ram, 32k for saves (when a PS memory card on it's own was £30) and was 2nd only to the Neo Geo CD for in terms of RAM in a CD based console system. SONY had the also had the huge advantage of its manufacturing capacity. All those would be factors, you go on about the twin SH-2's being the reason, when the PC FX cost more on launch and shipped with a basic V810 CPU and a chipset in part based on the Super Grafx and let is still cost a lot of money, not helped by the price of the CD drive and Ram needed.

No doubt you'll dimisss this, but here's what an ex SGL member John Edelson had to say and in his opinion, the CD drive was the most expensive component of a system in 1995 and has a owner of Neo Geo CD, PC Eng Duo, 3DO, Sega Saturn at the time I could understand that

https://i.imgur.com/YLa5kH8.jpg

I think its quite clear that in the early to mid 90's, putting a CD drive in your system was far more expensive than putting in a Cartridge port.

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