Why SEGA let Yuji Naka Get Away from SONIC

[retrospiel]

Well you got the evidence right in front of you. All I can do is to link you to it.


Besides, halting production and discontinuing support for the platform are two entirely different things.


I would also like to mention that I myself am pretty sure that Japan was thinking about leaving hardware; no doubt about that. It's just that no one did it.

If you browse Sega of Japan's press server you will find that Sega of Japan confirmed the discontinuation of Dreamcast almost a month after Moore's announcement. By then it was too late anyway.

[Da_Shocker]

You know what really pissed me off with the DC is even though it sold the best in the US we got shitted on with a Hockey game as the last DC game. Then Europe got Headhunter and Rez. This again happened with the Saturn and Genesis. And DC despite selling like dog shit in Japan was still supported till 07 I think. Can somebody please explain the logic in this?

[retrospiel]

One explanation would be that quite a few people were against leaving hardware in Japan. In the US they were looking forward to support Xbox & co. I read somewhere that SOA's staff talked about going third party as early as during the early days of the Saturn.
Understandable if the only thing you're good at is selling games others made. =P

The only reason we got Headhunter was because it was an European game (Swedish IIRC), and REZ because Sega of Europe sold the Dreamcast distribution rights to a tiny German company called Big Ben, a super small import company distributing Chinese accessories for PS1 and N64 (controllers, video cables, etc.) who did nothing of importance prior nor after Dreamcast.

They picked those games that they thought would require little effort to localize and to publish and I think Sega of Japan was pretty happy that they could sell these outside of Japan. Dreamcast's discontinuation cost them billions of dollars.

[Team Andromeda]

Well you got the evidence right in front of you. All I can do is to link you to it.


Besides, halting production and discontinuing support for the platform are two entirely different things.

SOJ pulled the Plug on Dreamcast Production not SOA. After all SOJ actually manufactured the Hardware in the 1st place, they always called the shots on SEGA hardware.

Supporting the system with software is a different matter.

You know what really pissed me off with the DC is even though it sold the best in the US we got shitted on with a Hockey game as the last DC game. Then Europe got Headhunter and Rez.

That always happens. We never got NFL or the like of Get Bass II (which I think is the best finishing game ever made) on the Dreamcast, never mind how the Online code was taken out of the like of Daytona USA 2001 ECT
I'm glade we got Deep Fear though, could never work out why SOA never picked up that one , or the likes of REZ or Headhunter for the DC.

[retrospiel]

SOJ pulled the Plug on Dreamcast Production not SOA. After all SOJ actually manufactured the Hardware in the 1st place, they always called the shots on SEGA hardware.

Supporting the system with software is a different matter.

Think back when Nintendo still sold the GameCube or N64. Its sales aren't as good as expected and Nintendo looses money with each sold console. Now Nintendo of America issues an official press release announcing Nintendo's withdrawal from the hardware market and their new line up of games for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Do you think this press release could somehow be undone ? After Nintendo's stock crashed ? After distributors, mainstream press and customers lost interest in Nintendo's hardware - which already wasn't doing too well even before the announcement ?

I don't think so. And I think that in Sega's case, Sega of Japan wasn't 110% opposed to leaving hardware. I think they openly discussed it, and probably consulted SOA/Moore about it.

EDIT: They gave him a target number that he had to achieve. Major mistake. SOA couldn't sell the units, so Moore decided to call it quits:

"But then we had a target from Japan that said – and I can't remember the exact figures – but we had to make N hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift N millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business.

So on January 31 2001 we said Sega is leaving hardware – somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese."
- Peter Moore, Guardian UK Interview

The funny thing is that after Moore announced Dreamcast's discontinuation, Sega really started loosing money.

[Team Andromeda]

Think back when Nintendo still sold the GameCube or N64. Its sales aren't as good as expected and Nintendo looses money with each sold console. Now Nintendo of America issues an official press release announcing Nintendo's withdrawal from the hardware market and their new line up of games for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Do you think this press release could somehow be undone ? After Nintendo's stock crashed ? After distributors, mainstream press and customers lost interest in Nintendo's hardware - which already wasn't doing too well even before the announcement ?

I think it was NOA that 1st told the world that the N64DD would only be released in Japan. SEGA Japan manufacture the DC and sold it to SOA and SOE. SEGA Japan calls the shots, just like MS America call the shots and MS Japan doesn't.

The blame lies at SOJ feet for dropping the DC, but then they had too, with massive losses each year, most of that thanks to DC production and being sold at a loss

[Elliotw2]

You know what really pissed me off with the DC is even though it sold the best in the US we got shitted on with a Hockey game as the last DC game. Then Europe got Headhunter and Rez. This again happened with the Saturn and Genesis. And DC despite selling like dog shit in Japan was still supported till 07 I think. Can somebody please explain the logic in this?

You have to remember, most of those games that came out between the DC's death and 2007 were small games, with small publishers. Sega was still done with the system, all of the mainstream devs were done, it was just people who decided that programming a game on the DC would be easier than on the PS2.

[retrospiel]

@Team Andromeda: I think we can discuss this until I turn green. I have said what I had to say. I backed it up with quotes. That's all I can do.

You have to remember, most of those games that came out between the DC's death and 2007 were small games, with small publishers. Sega was still done with the system, all of the mainstream devs were done, it was just people who decided that programming a game on the DC would be easier than on the PS2.

Most of these games were NAOMI ports (Dreamcast arcade board). Even Sonic Team's Puyo Puyo Fever was a straight port of the NAOMI version. All of those post-01/2001 games were published by Sega of Japan though: http://sega.jp/dc/ - As you can see support slowed down in 2005, some four years after Moore's announcement.

[kool kitty89]

Personally I think Sonic Team were working on / experimenting with a 3D Sonic right after Knuckles Chaotix but couldn't get it done on a level that was visually appealing. (I think Crash Bandicoot was the very first 3D platformer on either PS1 or Saturn that looked okay.)

Umm, were there any real 3D platformers on the PSX or Saturn prior to that. (I mean aside stuff like Jumping Flash)
The only real 3D platformer in the modern definition that I know of on the Saturn is Croc... but that came after Crash. (and was multiplatform of course)

There were these Sonic stages in Nights (1996), then Sonic World in Sonic Jam (1997), then Sonic Adventure (1998).

They really needed something by late 1996... though '97 still could have been significant. 3D platformers were a huge new genre and both the PSX and N64 had numerous examples, but the Saturn had very few. (all I can think of is Croc, but there has to be more than that)

As it was, Sonic R was closer than anything up to Sonic Adventure on the DC IMO. Then again, Robo Blash shows another route that could have been taken to allow some really decent speed on the Saturn. (unless using polygons could have been as fast as a ray casting engine... certianly the best option for the 32x) That fish-eye engine PC game wasn't even really a proper 3D platformer given the constricted perspective. (a ray caster wouldn't be either, but it would feel a lot more like one, and if polygonal character models were used, it would add to the illusion -nice, animated, high-res 2D CGI characters might be preferable in some ways though)

We had fun with Clockwork Knight, Astal, and Shin Shinobi Den / Shinobi Legends. And hoped for a port of Knuckles Chaotix.

And how many people think Chaotix is mediocre? That's a really hit and miss game... Sonic CD would have been more significant, though I'd agree Chaotix would also be better than porting common games like with Jam and 3D blast.

As for the others on that list, 2D and 2.5D may have still sold somewhat, but they weren't going to be system sellers at all: mass market was all 3D, unless you're saying Sega should have aimed at a niche market.

A 2D Sonic was what we were waiting for, really.

Who is "we"? Are you really going to argue that 3D wasn't the big thing for most people at the time and 2D stuff (especially sidescrollers) weren't getting pretty worn out by then?
Again, mass market, mainstream, etc, there was always a niche for 2D, there was still a fair market for mainstream 2D, but an increasingly smaller one.

People weren't buying the PSX or Saturn (or N64) expecting to have nice, well animated, smooth, high color 2D graphics, but new cutting-edge 3D experiences that hadn't really been on consoles before or were entirely new. (there's always the exception, but if that wasn't the case, you'd have seen a lot more nice 2D on the Playstation or N64 -ironically you've got Yoshi's Story: a 2D game and rather mediocre at that but one that sold rather well... but then again it had the Nintendo/Mario name/franchise to boost it)

Might be my wording: Moore made a deal with Microsoft. This deal secured Xbox exclusivity for Shenmue 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future, Toejam & Earl, GunValkyrie, and half a dozen other Dreamcast games.

That was in the US only, right, given Japan and Europe got Shenmue 2. (or was it only exclusive for consoles other than Dreamcast)

Still, that was a bad move, they shouldn't have been doing exclusivity deals at all at the time. (especially as that could weaken their PC market -which was their only established 3rd party platform)

Practically all other games Sega had in the pipeline (which were A LOT) and that weren't included in this deal ended up on Dreamcast, GameCube and PlayStation.

There were a fair number of GC exclusives, more than were PC or PC and GC only, and some others that were GC and/or PC and/or Xbox but not PS2. Again, PS2 seemed to be the last platform they went for. (which makes sense given the bad blood with Sony)

Yeah, absolutely, but Moore pulled the plug even before Phantasy Star Online was released.

As I said in my last post, I don't think that's the real picture. Unless you've got more evidence than the interview you've posted before, I don't see that Moore "canceled the Dreamcast" rather than it being a composite decision.

The Dreamcast was never much in Japan, it was pretty good in North America, and not so great in Europe either from what I recall (I'd thought it was OK in Europe too, but I got corrected on that in another recent discussion). So it easily could have been a decision from Japan that pushed the cancellation of the Dreamcast (which was apparently bleeding money way more than the Saturn ever did -due to the far higher software development costs, marketing, and huge losses on hardware -at least initially).
I still don't see what would have been so bad about a console that was mainly present in the US though, and also don't see why it couldn't have held its ground against the Xbox and Game Cube. (not even coming close to PS2 was a given)

It's been exactly the same disaster as usual: They had the hardware, they had the software, but management ruined everything.

But with the Saturn they didn't have the hardware or the software to really compete on the mass market.
I mean, the hardware was good enough (could have been a lot better or a lot less costly for what it was), but certain aspects made it fundamentally limited compared to contemporaries (namely time/resources to develop for compared to the PSX). That was in part a hardware issue, but also in huge part due to software development tools (later addressed somewhat but still not nearly what Sony had).

Those issues alone meant it was going to be more difficult to have dominant 3rd party support, but then there was the fast that the 1st/2nd party stuff, while good (especially in some niche genres) really failed to establish any definitive killer apps (ie long term system sellers) and were deficient in some key genres.
And then there were marketing and management problems on top of all that.

I really would like to know what events and decisions led to the stupid release of the Saturn in May of 1995 rather than waiting until September as planned. (and more specifically, who's idea it was and what the reasoning for it was) Especialy with the related problems of un-informed developers and retailers getting quite upset (understandably) and Sony hitting back with a $300 price point. (which Sega did match not long after the PSX launched, but still stole much of Sega's thunder for the Saturn launch)

Even without the 32x, the Saturn wouldn't have been ideal to push at that point and you'd lose a lot of hype that would be more intense with a late summer/early fall launch (leading up to the holiday season), but with the 32x, it made even less sense not to wait rather than building up with the Saturn and stringing the 32x along for a bit longer at least. (they were stuck with the 32x by that point for better or worse, and supporting it longer and phasing it out more gradually would have made much more sense and made for much better PR than what they did)

The deal was for CT III, Shenmue II and HOTD III, SEGA GT . With the like of Orta, JSRF I don't think any major deals were done, and it was more to do with the team liking the Hardware and SOJ thinking the X-Box would be a massive seller.

Hmm, I thought it was Moore who had convinced SoJ on the significance of the Xbox... after all, it was pretty obvious that it would be a hard push in Japan given it was a foreign console from a new contender in the industry and that turned out to be true given it was pretty much never on the map in Japan. (in hindsight at the very least, I think the DC could have outsold the Xbox worldwide, though, unless something changed dramatically in Japan, it wloud still have been behind the GC -really not sure why it was so weak in Japan)

Only after CSK and SEGA Japan stopped production, has confirmed in a interview with the late great Isao Okawa. SEGA Japan call the shots on hardware, make no mistake about it .

OK, now THAT makes a lot more sense given what Moore has said on the subject.

And in particular it makes total sense in the context of this common quote from him:
"We had a tremendous 18 months. Dreamcast was on fire - we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said we had to make x hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift x millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business. So on January 31st 2001 we said Sega is leaving hardware. We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2. Somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese. I had to fire a lot of people; it was not a pleasant day."

Why should he. Moore and SOA did a far better job of selling the DC, pushing Online and getting decent software sales , in stark contrast to SEGA Japan and the baboons at SEGA Europe (at the time of the DC). His only real cock up was selling Shenmue II USA right to MS

And I'm pretty sure SEGA went to MS, not the other way around. I'm sure there were talks with MS helping with software for the Saturn too. And it's no different from SONY using both SEGA and NCL as a means for to get ready for their own console

Yeah, Moore moved on just like Kalinske and Katz did.

And of course Sega went to MS, that's the point either way, the only argument is context. (I think MS did make offers to Sega earlier on that less to windows CD being officially supported on the DC -win win for Sega it seems as they got a very favorable deal out of it and winCE facilitated ports of several PC games like Episode 1 Racer and MDK 2 -not jut ports either, but good for developing multiplatform PC/DC games)

However, I think it's pretty easy to see that going so strongly with MS with the Xbox with some of those exclusives was not really a good move: the emphasis should have been general multiplatform development and especially tied to the one 3rd party platform they were already established on: the PC. (which did indeed weaken in support a bit later... and when you've got a download only game like Sonic 4 that doesn't even show up on the PC, you know support is pretty much dead )

If you browse Sega of Japan's press server you will find that Sega of Japan confirmed the discontinuation of Dreamcast almost a month after Moore's announcement. By then it was too late anyway.

And??? Just because SoJ didn't confirm the cancellation until after doesn't mean that they hadn't had the final say in the matter, or the only say.
It sounds like SoJ halted production and it fell on Moore to assess the situation manage what happened to the console in the west after that: assuming there was no way to convince SoJ/CSK to start up production again, they'd only have old stock to work with and software releases. (granted they could have kept the DC as one of the platforms they published for with multiplatform releases given the established userbase, but I'm not sure they were really thinking in that regard so much by that point -especially in Japan where it hadn't made much impact)
If the DC was ever going to have a chance to compete directly with the Xbox and GC, it wasn't going to do that with only old stock: especially since 2000-2002 would be largely watered down from hype of the PS2 as well as GC and Xbox and only after that was passed could they again compet on a more even basis.
They had their own problems to get past too though, especially the debacle over the GD-ROM dumping and piracy threat.

The fact that they didn't go full-force into PC publishing seems equally odd though.

You know what really pissed me off with the DC is even though it sold the best in the US we got shitted on with a Hockey game as the last DC game. Then Europe got Headhunter and Rez. This again happened with the Saturn and Genesis. And DC despite selling like dog shit in Japan was still supported till 07 I think. Can somebody please explain the logic in this?

That does seem odd given that the DC had the strongest established market in the US (or North America in general). That went for Shenmue 2 as well not going to DC in the US but being released in Europe.

One explanation would be that quite a few people were against leaving hardware in Japan. In the US they were looking forward to support Xbox & co. I read somewhere that SOA's staff talked about going third party as early as during the early days of the Saturn.
Understandable if the only thing you're good at is selling games others made. =P

Umm, didn't you just say yourself that SoJ was quite interested in leaving hardware.
Honestly, SoJ would have had more incentive to leave consoles than SoA or even SoE given the rather mediocre sales it had managed in Japan even compared to the N64.

Any why would SoA have more incentive to support 3rd party platforms (PC foremost obviously as that's what they were already successfully doing, then PS2/Xbox/GC -again probably some friction with Sony making the PS2 the last to really shift to -not to mention development being easier on PC/DC/GC/Xbox)
The company actually making most of the games would have the most incentive to start publishing as a 3rd party though both SoJ and SoA/STI had pushed out a lot of successful and profitable software. (including former SoJ teams working at STI -or working with American staff as well) But, again, by 2000 SoJ must have been getting pretty itchy being limited to being tied to the DC in Japan with its very limited market share and the only mitigating factor would have been popularity of the DC in the west.

[retrospiel]

Umm, were there any real 3D platformers on the PSX or Saturn prior to that. (I mean aside stuff like Jumping Flash)

Yeah, I was referring to Jumping Flash and Bug which looked awful.

The only real 3D platformer in the modern definition that I know of on the Saturn is Croc... but that came after Crash. (and was multiplatform of course)

Croc came out in late 1997, waaay too late. The PS1 version was released a few months earlier. I remember thinking of the PlayStation version as the original while the Saturn version seemed like yet another slightly downgraded port. Might not even have been true for all I know.

Anyway, PS1 had Croc, Crash 1 + 2, Pandemonium, Tomb Raider 1 + 2, and Spyro the Dragon.

Saturn had Croc and Tomb Raider, and no one knew either of those being available for anything else than PS1.

ray casting

Personally I am not a huge fan of ray casting unless used in Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM.

As it was Saturn didn't even have a DOOM port until 1997 or something, and that was based on the PS1 version and ran at like half the frame rate.

How come 32X gets a (super crappy) DOOM port, but Saturn didn't ?

What were these guys doing at SOA ?

And how many people think Chaotix is mediocre?

It got very decent scores and it looked absolutely breath-taking back in the days (on screenshots anyway).

Sonic CD would have been more significant, though I'd agree Chaotix would also be better than porting common games like with Jam and 3D blast.

Jam came in late 1997, at a time when Saturn didn't matter anymore at all.

But yeah, Sonic CD and Chaotix would have been obvious candidates for a Saturn re-release. Or Ristar.

As for the others on that list, 2D and 2.5D may have still sold somewhat, but they weren't going to be system sellers at all: mass market was all 3D, unless you're saying Sega should have aimed at a niche market.

lol, Sega in itself was the nichest of the niche markets at that time. No one knew Saturn existed at all.

People were like "You got PlayStation?" - "No, I got Saturn." - "Saturn? lol, what's that?"

Zero TV commercials, no hyped system sellers, nothing. Games like Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter II or Panzer Dragoon Zwei practically were something like hidden gems to the average [European] gamer.

Who is "we"? Are you really going to argue that 3D wasn't the big thing for most people at the time and 2D stuff (especially sidescrollers) weren't getting pretty worn out by then?

"We" as in "We kids".

But yeah, that was exactly the mindset of the typical Sega employee: "Who cares what these kids want? Mass market wants this and that! So screw you kids. Go and buy PlayStation or Nintendo if you want good games."

People weren't buying the PSX or Saturn (or N64) expecting to have nice, well animated, smooth, high color 2D graphics

I certainly did. (Yes, I know you think I don't count, but I don't care if you think I don't count so no need to repeat that. kthxbye.)

That was in the US only, right, given Japan and Europe got Shenmue 2. (or was it only exclusive for consoles other than Dreamcast)

Xbox exclusivity was US only for Shenmue 2. All the other dozen or so Dreamcast games affected were worldwide though, and Xbox exclusive in general (no Dreamcast release at all).

So it easily could have been a decision from Japan that pushed the cancellation of the Dreamcast (which was apparently bleeding money way more than the Saturn ever did -due to the far higher software development costs, marketing, and huge losses on hardware -at least initially).
I still don't see what would have been so bad about a console that was mainly present in the US though, and also don't see why it couldn't have held its ground against the Xbox and Game Cube. (not even coming close to PS2 was a given)

The way it was it did cost them billions to leave hardware.

And the way they did it was totally chaotic, downright disastrous. They initially didn't even had any third party games ready and literally hundreds of Dreamcast games were still being worked on, most of which ended up cancelled or on other platforms.

But with the Saturn they didn't have the hardware or the software to really compete on the mass market.
I mean, the hardware was good enough (could have been a lot better or a lot less costly for what it was), but [...]

They didn't have the software.

Because they still focused on Genesis / 32X / CD.

[kool kitty89]

Think back when Nintendo still sold the GameCube or N64. Its sales aren't as good as expected and Nintendo looses money with each sold console. Now Nintendo of America issues an official press release announcing Nintendo's withdrawal from the hardware market and their new line up of games for PS3 and Xbox 360.

Didn't Nintendo make a claim that they never, ever sold any of their consoles at a loss?

Do you think this press release could somehow be undone ? After Nintendo's stock crashed ? After distributors, mainstream press and customers lost interest in Nintendo's hardware - which already wasn't doing too well even before the announcement ?

I don't think so. And I think that in Sega's case, Sega of Japan wasn't 110% opposed to leaving hardware. I think they openly discussed it, and probably consulted SOA/Moore about it.

Yeah, Sega could have continued to do OK with the DC... probably better than what happened when they pulled out early, but that's not what happened and Moore couldn't make that decision alone.

EDIT: They gave him a target number that he had to achieve. Major mistake. SOA couldn't sell the units, so Moore decided to call it quits:

Yes, they gave him an ultimatum that he couldn't fulfill... sort of like the 1 million units with Katz in '89/90, except that didn't lead to the MD being discontinued, just Katz being replaced.

The funny thing is that after Moore announced Dreamcast's discontinuation, Sega really started loosing money.

Well that's an obvious given: any such major shift was going to cause a crash in a Corporation tied to a product as Sega was which is exactly why it doesn't make much sense that SoJ or SoA would want to cut out like that rather than continue selling and promoting perhaps at a more modest level and gradually shifting to 3rd party at the same time (ie more PC support and start publishing for competing consoles before the DC was discontinued).

Just because you're spending less, doesn't mean you won't be losing more. When you have stock fall and investors pull out, that's worse that spending tons along with healthy revenue (even with zero profits or deficits -ie how SoA operated in the early 90s to a fair extent and how many large corporations operated at times).

I think it was NOA that 1st told the world that the N64DD would only be released in Japan.

What does that have to do with anything... it was probably good that Nintendo never brought the DD out in the west... for that matter it probably would have better off scrapped altogether. (had it been CD based -or other optical format, especially custom like Sega did a year earlier with GD-ROM, it could have been much more significant, but what they did was pointless: drive and media significantly more expansive than optical contemporaries and FAR more limited other than being writable, plus it was too late on top of that)

The blame lies at SOJ feet for dropping the DC, but then they had too, with massive losses each year, most of that thanks to DC production and being sold at a loss

The question was, would that continue, and would that have been any worse than the decline caused after discontinuation.

Profits vs losses is not the only thing to think about: for a big corporation, actual revenue is a huge factor, even with deficits/debt.

Yeah, I was referring to Jumping Flash and Bug which looked awful.

Jumping flash was fine for an early PSX game and wasn't really a 3D platformer in the formal sense usually applied now though.

BUG! looked fine, but wasn't a 3D platformer at all. (any more than Sonic 3D Blast was at least -other than using polygons)

Croc came out in late 1997, waaay too late. The PS1 version was released a few months earlier. I remember thinking of the PlayStation version as the original while the Saturn version seemed like yet another slightly downgraded port. Might not even have been true for all I know.

Exactly, I was just saying that that's the *only* real 3D platformer on the Saturn I can think of. And regardless of that, it wouldn't have been a system seller as it was on PC and PSX as well.

Anyway, PS1 had Croc, Crash 1 + 2, Pandemonium, Tomb Raider 1 + 2, and Spyro the Dragon.

Tomb Raider was on the Saturn first, but was a full multiplatform (PC/PSX/Saturn) title, so not so much a system seller either, but I wouldn't call it a 3D platformer at all either: it's an action/adventure game perhaps with some platform elements, but not really what one would think of in that sense. (I mean would you consider Ocarina of Time a 3D platformer?) Something like MDK is action/adventure too, but in that case has such a heavy platform element that it's a bit of a crossover as well. (really a 3rd parson shooter/action adventure game)

Saturn had Croc and Tomb Raider, and no one knew either of those were available for anything else than PS1.

That was only due to marketing, and I'm sure in 1996, a ton of mainsteam gamers knew about Tomb Raider on the Saturn.
The thing that probably makes people forget that is the fact that Sony later bought up Tomb Raider II as a PSX exclusive (well it was PC too) as well as adding Laura Croft to their roster of mascots used in ads.

Personally I am not a huge fan of ray casting unless used in Wolfenstein 3D and DOOM.

You mean FPSs in general like Duke Nukem 3D (any game using the Build Engine), Star Wars Dark Forces, etc?

What do you think of Robo blast/bobo blast 2? And that's just using the Doom Engine as it is. (the sprites and stuff wouldn't have been pixel-art either most likely: probably high detail prerendered and heavily animated CGA as seen in the Fish Eye Engine, BUG!, Nights X-Treme prototype, etc) They could have used polygonal models too though, and that would really complete the illusion.

As it was Saturn didn't even have a DOOM port until 1997 or something, and that was based on the PS1 version and ran at like half the frame rate.

So what? Doom on the Saturn was a crap port done as a low priority release. Any version of Doom actually designed for the Saturn and reasonably optimized should have run faster than the PSX port. (or at least if it was done with CPU rendering -not sure how the GTE coprocessor would factor in, or the gemoetry DSP in the Saturn for that matter)

How come 32X gets a (super crappy) DOOM port, but Saturn didn't ?

Doom on the 32x was pretty damn decent for 3 MB and being one of the first console ports (and a bit rushed), it was being developed at the same time as the Jaguar version (which was rushed too, but being programmed by Carmak himself and on a much less limited platform -namely the added RAM, though he also took advantage of the smooth shading the Jaguar could do).
The Saturn's planned release date would have contributed to the lack of a Doom port too: by 1995 (especially late 1995) Doom was already getting a bit old.

Had the Saturn Doom port had the level of optimization the 32x version got, it probably would have been at least as good as the PSX version. (even if as rushed as the 32x port) Remember the 32x was hindered most for such games by the limited RAM and ROM cost limiting cartridge size. (the GBA port of Doom was 8 MB vs 3 MB on the 32x)

You could also ask why the Saturn didn't get a 1st party (let alone good) port of Virtua Racing, but that's the same sort of thing: it wasn't really a priority game anymore. Maybe in Japan in 1994, or if they'd pushed the Saturn out in the US in 1994 (probably at $450 -which would have undercut the 3DO by $50 -the Japanese launch price was equivalent to $450 US, so they might have dropped it even lower and/or had pack-ins or other deals).
Something like Jupiter could have made the most sense if Sega really thought they needed a new system in the west in 1994 though.

It got very decent scores and it looked absolutely breath-taking back in the days (on screenshots anyway).

Umm, it barely looks better than a Genesis game and only a small amout is even done by the 32x (just the "sprites") to the extent that the Genesis could have easily done it other than the added scaling and 3D special stages (SVP would have easily handled that). It could have been done on the Sega CD quite well too other than the Special Stages (and a lot of options there -I like the idea of an on-rails FMV special stage based on Sonic 2's half pipe, but much higher res/detail/framerate)

In fact, all the 2D games on the 32x probably could have been done rather well on the Genesis or Sega CD alone: granted, more color optimization would have been needed, but dithering can do a lot (for RGB users it would be a bit ugly though, but that's not the majority of the market -and practically none in the US). The bigger issue was simply ROM for any games not using fancy software rendering: and the Genesis counterparts could have had better animation/detail/etc with more ROM. (not to mention the potential for on-cart add-ons for streaming decompressed data, or especially sound expansions -the latter should have been implemented by 1992, they really wasted potential with on-cart enhancement: most of which would have rather limited cost overhead, or significantly reduce cost by allowing data to be compressed and use less ROM space -both audio and graphics -the main issue would be any carts adding RAM -probably the biggest issue with the SVP and Super FX on the SNES)

Any games that really pushed beyond the Genesis's limits should have been moved over to Saturn anyway. (Kolibri probably the only 2D game of such 0even that might work OK on the Genesis with some really careful optimization -Jurassic Park the Lost World comes to mind in having a similar style) As well as any 3D games that didn't cater well to SVP (or even SVP+MCD) and the limited color palette.

lol, Sega was the nichest of the niche markets at that time. No one knew Saturn existed at all.

I barely paid attention to gaming TV ads at the time and was way more into Nintendo, but I knew a lot more about Saturn than Playstation up to 1997 at the very least. In fact, I don't even remember anything about the PSX until '97 and I know (or know of) other people who didn't really know what it was either, but knew about the Saturn because it was Sega's next big thing. (I remember anecdotes about some people thinking it was a little kids' educational computer type thing due to the name -in fact, I think mn12bird mentioned something about that when he first saw one in Canada '96)

But that's anecdotal, and in historical terms it seems like the real shift came in 1997 (which was really the first big year for the next-gen consoles on the market) and that went for both Japan and the west.

People were like "You got PlayStation?" - "No, I got Saturn." - "Saturn? lol, what's that?"

Anyone who was even casually interested in new video games would have known what a Saturn was at the time... even if they knew it was a *lesser* system by 1998 (more average people probably wouldn't even know about Stolar's E3 statement or the Saturn's cancellation in 1998 until a fair bit later -if ever knowing the details at all, just like the crash in 1983/84: there's a huge amount of people from the time that had no idea that there was ever any crash -many just noticed there were a lot of games going for really cheap for a while -though that depends heavily on region)

Maybe it's a regional thing for you too, probably not UK/Europe as a whole but Germany more particularly. (in the UK especially I'd bet most knew what the Saturn was, even if they'd never played it, that was certainly the case locally) In fact, given the hype, TV ads, and few people I knew who had it at the time, the Saturn sticks much, much more in my mind as impressive than the Playstation (granted I was only 6-7 years old at that early point and most early adopters I knew of were teenagers or young adults -family friends or their kids or our neighbors -by late '96 you had it a bit broader though and iirc one of my friends had an N64 by then)

I don't remember being impressed by the PSX at the time though (impressed, but not more than anything else on the market), but by the time I really knew much about it the N64 was already looking way more interesting, especially due to the games I'd actually played (blockbuster and Fry's especially) and almost all kids I knew who got new consoles ended up getting N64s. (granted, that was 7-10 year olds, so one of the strongest age groups for the N64) Party gaming was the biggest draw by far for the N64: Star Fox, Mario Kart 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye, etc.

Of course, being somewhat familiar with newer PC games also tempered my impressions of consoles. (and that's how we ended up getting all of our Sega games at the time -Sonic CD, Garfield, Sonic 3&K, BUG!)

"We" as in "We kids".

You mean a small niche of kids who still wanted more of the same and not the new 3D stuff? For kids/teens/young adults in the target market of the time, I find it extremely hard to believe that that was even remotely close to the case.
Magazines and press in general were pushing hard for 3D, as were most users, and any PC gamers were already getting a taste of that (and increasingly strongly as well).
2D was last generation and becoming niche fast. (and Sony was, of course accelerating that with their even stronger push for 3D and multimedia -multimedia was also a critical part of it as well, refining and expanding upon the uses of FMV and streaming audio prior to that -same goes for PC games)

I certainly did. (Yes, I know you think I don't count, but I don't care if you think I don't count so no need to repeat that. kthxbye.)

You count, but it's silly to think you weren't in an ever shrinking minority (granted, a lot of the members of this site would be in that minority given the general trend to prefer some of those 2D genres).
I'm sure Tomaitheous was in a similar mindset to you. (he'd commented on his aversion to 5th generation 3D games -ie "cheese grater on the eyes")

I wouldn't necessarily fit into the mainstream either as I was always interested in older stuff regardless (very excited about the 2600 when I found it in storage around 1998), We only had an NES up to 1996 when we got a used SNES with about a dozen games (including Star Fox -still probably my favorite game on the console, or at least in my top 5) and we didn't get an N64 until 1999 (rented it a few times before that).
We did have a PC and a few significant games (including some multimedia edutainment games I have very fond memories of) and that was where I did have access to 3D games (X-Wing probably the biggest by far) as well as some neat multimedia stuff like Myst and Return to Zork. (a personal favorite)
Though I didn't have access to any FPSs, not surprising that my dad didn't want me playing that at my age.

The way it was it did cost them billions to leave hardware.

And the way they did it was totally chaotic, downright disastrous. They initially didn't even had any third party games ready and literally hundreds of Dreamcast games were still being worked on, most of which ended up cancelled or on other platforms.

Oh, I wholeheartedly agree, they shouldn't have made the full transition until 2003 (maybe late 2002), and only if things weren't looking positive on the DC by then. (again, it would have made sense to gradually expand into multiplatform development while still supporting the DC)

Then again, they'd made many odd management decisions before: what happened with the Saturn in 1997 and 1998 would be among those, the Saturn's launch in 1995 in the US, the reasoning for mars in 1993, etc. (actually I really would like to know more about the Saturn launch and Mars in particular -Kalinske could at least shed light on the former though)

They didn't have the software.

Because they thought they still focused on Genesis / 32X / CD.

No, they just didn't focus development properly: stuff that came out on the 32x could have helped a little early on, but would have had pretty much no impact by the time it really mattered (late 1996 and especially 1997). 1997 was the critical year and the year they needed to stay at least reasonably competitive in terms of market share to really pull through (after that the best hope was niche, but management in '97 and '98 did anything but facilitate shifting to niche)
That's for 1st/2nd party stuff though, and for 3rd parties there was only so much they could do: they could beef up the dev kits (which they did, albeit too late)

As for the CD and Genesis, if anything those could have been supported a lot better later on (well, CD the whole time, but that's more complicated), and Sega halting production of the Genesis in 1996 was a mistake: they should have continued pushing it and re-releasing games (along with a few new games) up to 1999 at least as it fell further and further to a budget system. (it should have been lower priority for sure from 1996 onward

Running low on venture capital/funding in mid '96 was a real problem though, on top of everything else. (not sure what caused that though -excess spending wouldn't be the issue as strong revenue -in regardless of deficits or profits- tends to be the real factor on funding in such cases, so if revenue was weakening, that could have been the issue) Canceling the 32x likely had something to do with that as well as the reduced emphasis on MD/Genesis/MCD in 1996.
Sheath brought up some interesting points on that issue that I hadn't fully considered before. (though I still don't fully agree with some of his ideas) http://sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?p=287842
Regardless of the 32x (or Mars) being a good or bad idea in 1994, dropping it as they did in '95 and rushting the Saturn out early was a huge problem from many respects. (best case by the beginning of 1995 was keeping the Saturn release date for September and following through with the 32x with good support though 1996 at least -probably releasing the Neptune as well)

[JRedmond3]

You mean more like the 3D Mario games (or Croc, Spyro, etc -the early Crash games were a bit linear and narrow iirc) with large levels to explore? (I'm not sure they'd have had the same feel of speed as the style they used in the SA games)
And hell, Mario Sunshine expanded the overworld significantly more in line with the Adventure Field stuff compared to what Mario 64 had, though that was rather like it too, albeit simpler. (of course, you could draw some parallels to the overworld map in Mario Bros 3 or SMW)

I'd have it be a bit similar Sonic R, have a sort of "track" within the level that the player would have to stay on if they wanted to get a good time but make it so that if you wanted to explore the level you could do that as well. There wouldn't be much actual racing, aside from maybe like a random race with Tails or something.

[j_factor]

Might be my wording: Moore made a deal with Microsoft. This deal secured Xbox exclusivity for Shenmue 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Jet Set Radio Future, Toejam & Earl, GunValkyrie, and half a dozen other Dreamcast games.

Practically all other games Sega had in the pipeline (which were A LOT) and that weren't included in this deal ended up on Dreamcast, GameCube and PlayStation.

Moore had no authority to make such a deal. During that time period, every Sega developer was an independent entity. Moore didn't have the ability to decide what platform(s) they developed for. They made those decisions themselves. All Moore could decide was to publish or not publish their games in the US.

[retrospiel]

Moore had no authority to make such a deal. During that time period, every Sega developer was an independent entity. Moore didn't have the ability to decide what platform(s) they developed for. They made those decisions themselves. All Moore could decide was to publish or not publish their games in the US.

That's not what I heard.

And honestly I doubt that a) Sega's developers operated fully independently, and b) decided by themselves not to publish on Dreamcast at all but to scrap what they had and start again on Xbox (instead of finalizing their almost completed Dreamcast versions and port to Xbox later).

Again, damn language barrier in regard to Panzer Dragoon Orta, JSR Future, GunValkyrie & co., but at least we know exactly what happened to Toejam & Earl:



http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=52703

"The Dreamcast Version was cool - in fact it was very like the Original TJ&E
with the stacked levels, and withOUT all of the gates and keys and bosses
and mini-games and hub structure that Visual Concepts (Sega) made us put
into the Xbox version of the game. We had also built a 2 or 3 player
multi-player mode so that people on different dreamcasts could play
together. We had that working quite well and it was lots of fun, but we
scrapped it when we ported to the Xbox because we didn't have enough time to re-implement it. sigh.

--Greg Johnson (designer of the series)"

http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page....Greg%20Johnson

Greg Johnson: Well, we didn't plan to do it for Xbox originally. It was going to be a Dreamcast game and we got close to a release version before we had to jump tracks and rebuild for the Xbox. For the DC version we had a three-player online mode working that was pretty fun, and we had to can it when we switched over. Anyway, it was great fun to get to build out the characters and the world, and to be able to do it with a talented team instead of just me and Mark. Our original plan was to stick very close to the original game format. We got a fair bit of pressure from Sega to "update" the game as they felt that was too "old school," basically to make it more like Donkey Kong. It was a bit of a tough balancing act. It was really important to me not to lose the original spirit of the game.

Doesn't sound at all like they had a choice.

[retrospiel]

Didn't Nintendo make a claim that they never, ever sold any of their consoles at a loss?

Um... it was just a hypothetical scenario to explain the Dreamcast fiasco. I am surprised you didn't get that.

Yeah, Sega could have continued to do OK with the DC... probably better than what happened when they pulled out early, but that's not what happened and Moore couldn't make that decision alone.

Well, your theory against his statement.

Yes, they gave him an ultimatum that he couldn't fulfill... sort of like the 1 million units with Katz in '89/90, except that didn't lead to the MD being discontinued, just Katz being replaced.

Replacing Katz was bad enough.

Which is exactly why it doesn't make much sense that SoJ or SoA would want to cut out like that rather than continue selling and promoting perhaps at a more modest level and gradually shifting to 3rd party at the same time (ie more PC support and start publishing for competing consoles before the DC was discontinued).

That's exactly my point. If it was a planned move by Sega's executives it would have been a more gradual transition.

What do you think of Robo blast/bobo blast 2?

Very nice for a fan game.

You could also ask why the Saturn didn't get a 1st party (let alone good) port of Virtua Racing

Good point. Yet another 32X victim.

In fact, I don't even remember anything about the PSX until '97

You're waaay too young, and besides I think your observation isn't far off: 1997 was the year PlayStation really started to get more and more attention.

You mean a small niche of kids who still wanted more of the same and not the new 3D stuff?

This isn't a black & white scenario. You can have both 2D and 3D coexisting on one and the same console.

I myself was really impressed by Virtua Fighter, etc. but I also expected more 2D games and I highly doubt I was in the minority among early Saturn adopters when I say that I waited for a 2D Sonic, 2D Streets of Rage, and 2D Thunder Force.

You said that "[Chaotix] barely looks better than a Genesis game". That might as well be the case when judged by today's standards but back in the day it looked rather colorful.

Remember that most people only had access to Mega Drive and SNES back then.

Something like Chaotix or Kolibri looked rather exciting.

Kinda like Mario Sunshine if you're used to Mario 64.

You count, but it's silly to think you weren't in an ever shrinking minority

[The part at ~6:00 is where it starts to get interesting and relevant, I'd still recommend to watch the entire video]

I wouldn't necessarily fit into the mainstream either

Well, you're perhaps one of two or three people on the planet that have a soft spot for FMV games. Not exactly what I'd call mainstream, no. =P

I really would like to know more about the Saturn launch and Mars in particular -Kalinske could at least shed light on the former though

I really don't trust the guy.

I'd prefer another interview with Miller in regards to Sega VR, Activator, and Saturn's hardware (he gotta know something about its design and conceptual history).

No, they just didn't focus development properly: stuff that came out on the 32x could have helped a little early on, but would have had pretty much no impact by the time it really mattered

Well, yeah, they did more than just one mistake - like that they again neglected a huuuge number of excellent Japanese Saturn games (RPGs, shmups, 2D platformers).

But it didn't help that Chaotix, DOOM and Virtua Racing never had a decent Saturn release.