Question about the Genesis Launch

[kool kitty89]

I got a free game with my launch Genesis in 1989. I think Katz was responsible for launching the Genesis and was replaced by Kalinske when it didn't sell a million in one year. I am pretty sure that the Genesis Does campaign was Katz' swan song at Sega. I could open up this book over here to check, but it's all the way over there.

Katz was not there at the launch, he joined a month or so later, and it was a bit later still that his efforts became visible to the outside world. (he probably had a minor effect on their management during the 1989 Crhistmas season, but it wouldn't have been until early 1990 that he really would have made an impact -and probably not until mid 1990 that his efforts hit full-force)

Katz left Atari in February of 1989 with the intention of taking an extended vacation from the industry, but Sega managed to compel him to join late that year (I believe in October or November) and head up Sega of America. (note, he'd already had dealings with Dave Rosen the previous fall when Sega was negotiating for Atari Corp to distribute/manage/market the Mega Drive in North America)

Yeah, if you're going to put Nintendo's first party handheld games against Sega's first party handheld games of that era, it is still a one sided fight in Nintendo's favor.

Probably more an issue of genre preference. (and I meant 1st and 2nd party games -anything primarily published/commissioned by Sega/Nintendo, but possibly outsourced for programming/development)

Also, there's the issue of some of the better games being messed up by technical issues. (several of the Sonic games play great in 256x192, but not so much in 160x144 -probably should have taken the SMS full-screen mode option for those . . . Castle of Illusion probably wouldn't have been nearly as good if it had been cropped -plus, the artifacts from downsampling to the limited LCD screen are surprisingly limited -even text is often legible . . . perhaps in part due to the assumption of RF output on the SMS)

The GB also had a 2 year head start for software development (and userbase), albeit the GG had the SMS library to work with too.

[Bastardcat]

Aside from the color screen, that is one clear advantage I'll give the GG. They could take any SMS game, convert it without cutting anything out and go "You can get this exact same game, on the go!".

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

I actually think that SEGA's marketing campaign may have actually hurt itself at the beginning. Even in spite of the fact that the sales were relatively good at the beginning. Would the idea of bringing the arcade experience home really appeal to the female demographic? Also, would the female demographic want to play a game such as Altered Beast? I think not.

I am not a major history buff. But maybe someone from the forum can correct me but didn't sales pick up when Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced to the market? Wasn't this type of character both appealing to boys and girls alike? It is just something to think about.

We cannot forget that the the consoles from that era were marketed towards youngsters and teenagers. SEGA may have had the opportunity to formulate a better marketing campaign that appealed to a broader audience.

[chessage]

They were definitely running Genesis Does ads in 1990, but my question was whether that specific ad (with the free game offers) was from 1991. (if it was from 1990, then I guess it would be for pre-ordering Joe Montana -which I believe ended up delayed until January of 1991)

The $30 rebate ad should definitely be from 1990 though. (so, pack-ins aside, the Genesis had -at least temporarily- been dropped to $159.99 under Katz)

**Cough! Cough!**:

Joe Montana signed with Sega in March of 1990 (see here & here). It's a September, 1990 commercial:

Sega of America, marketer of Genesis and No. 2 in the field, is going the celebrity route in its campaign, also beginning this week.

[sheath]

I actually think that SEGA's marketing campaign may have actually hurt itself at the beginning. Even in spite of the fact that the sales were relatively good at the beginning. Would the idea of bringing the arcade experience home really appeal to the female demographic? Also, would the female demographic want to play a game such as Altered Beast? I think not.

I am not a major history. Maybe someone from the forum can correct me but didn't sales pick up when Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced to the market? Wasn't this type of character both appealing to boys and girls alike? It is just something to think about.

We cannot forget that the the consoles from that era were marketed towards youngsters and teenagers. SEGA may have had the opportunity to formulate a better marketing campaign that appealed to a broader audience.

Not trying to be a pig or anything, but there practically wasn't a female demographic for games back then and no marketing catered to girls or women for that very reason. I did a study of all of the key terms for advertisements from 1989-90 and the top characteristics advertised for games was an abstract world, violence, and damsels in distress. Somehow I don't think rescuing the damsel appeals to girls all that much.

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

sheath, if your profile is correct, you are around my age so you will probably remember alot of the advertisements at the time. The problem was that gaming companies did not really consider the female demographic and only catered to a male audience. To be quite honest, gaming companies today are not doing that great of a job marketing their products to girls.

The point I was trying to make was that SEGA could have developed a game/game character that appealed to both girls and boys alike. And reformulated their marketing campaign as such.

[sheath]

I saw an hour long news show back in the day that Sonic appealed to girls because he doesn't kill anything and rescues animals. In my experience women don't tend to get into games unless it involves collecting stuff or puzzles and they really don't get into fast twitch action games.

If "girl power" had any influence stuff like the Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series would be really popular among women, and Valis, El Viento and Alisia Dragoon would have been a sensation. I think companies tried to appeal to girls and women, but like so many other experiments they failed to capture their attention. My sister sometimes enjoyed playing the first Toe Jam and Earl with me, but that was about it. My wife will only play Worms and Super Puzzle Fighter with me, but I suspect that is because she knows she can beat me.

I grew up with my feminazi Mom and younger sister, and two of my favorite professors were social historians, but I looked and looked and just didn't find significant female interest in video games. The Industry today is doing everything wrong by focusing on Core gamers who only want to play the same game released at full price every year. Their market is going to fall out from under them very soon.

[Black_Tiger]

I saw an hour long news show back in the day that Sonic appealed to girls because he doesn't kill anything and rescues animals. In my experience women don't tend to get into games unless it involves collecting stuff or puzzles and they really don't get into fast twitch action games.

If "girl power" had any influence stuff like the Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series would be really popular among women, and Valis, El Viento and Alisia Dragoon would have been a sensation. I think companies tried to appeal to girls and women, but like so many other experiments they failed to capture their attention. My sister sometimes enjoyed playing the first Toe Jam and Earl with me, but that was about it. My wife will only play Worms and Super Puzzle Fighter with me, but I suspect that is because she knows she can beat me.

I grew up with my feminazi Mom and younger sister, and two of my favorite professors were social historians, but I looked and looked and just didn't find significant female interest in video games. The Industry today is doing everything wrong by focusing on Core gamers who only want to play the same game released at full price every year. Their market is going to fall out from under them very soon.

I remember girls always picking Chun Li in SFII.

[eddiespruce]

I remember girls always picking Chun Li in SFII.

Ha, my Mom also picked Chun Li when she played SFII.

[Gunstar Zero]

I also pick Chun Li...I'm a dude.....but her moves are easy to pull off and she can damage people by jumping on their heads.

[StarMist]

sheath, if your profile is correct, you are around my age so you will probably remember alot of the advertisements at the time. The problem was that gaming companies did not really consider the female demographic and only catered to a male audience. To be quite honest, gaming companies today are not doing that great of a job marketing their products to girls.

The point I was trying to make was that SEGA could have developed a game/game character that appealed to both girls and boys alike. And reformulated their marketing campaign as such.

I'm of the same age and loosely agree about the past adverts. However characters free of macho vibe and gameplay (which matters equally at least) always succeeded with females, to wit Mario, Sonic, Alex Kidd, Mega Man, Metroid, Link. To this end I feel Sega should've continued producing AK titles on Genesis, adding for player 2 a female counterpart, ie instead of Mario's P2 being Luigi AK's P2 would be a girl, Nicki or whatever equally androgynous name to match Alex's.

However I think currently there's a pretty solid female appeal even if it isn't the top/new IP. Nor should it be credited all females like girly stuff, there are plenty of girl skaters in real life and gaming, so for athletics, so for military training simulators (fps). Plus there's the JRPG factor: very pretty men and sexy women (+ frequently some lesbianism), neither of which applies to a female minority.

[SEGA.GENESIS1989]

Hahaha! Now that is funny. I remember that when we were playing at the Street Fight 2 arcade cab, the occasional girl would definitely choose Chun Li and ironically kick some butt in the process.

But just to briefly return to the issue of capturing the female demographic, maybe an action RPG akin to Legend of Zelda might have been à propos. A bit of action, a few puzzle elements, a good story, etc. In my estimation, that formula would be perfect. From what I can see, the LoZ series has a sizable following among guys and girls.

[kool kitty89]

I actually think that SEGA's marketing campaign may have actually hurt itself at the beginning. Even in spite of the fact that the sales were relatively good at the beginning. Would the idea of bringing the arcade experience home really appeal to the female demographic? Also, would the female demographic want to play a game such as Altered Beast? I think not.

I am not a major history buff. But maybe someone from the forum can correct me but didn't sales pick up when Sonic the Hedgehog was introduced to the market? Wasn't this type of character both appealing to boys and girls alike? It is just something to think about.

We cannot forget that the the consoles from that era were marketed towards youngsters and teenagers. SEGA may have had the opportunity to formulate a better marketing campaign that appealed to a broader audience.

The Arcade emphasis was indeed one of their problems (a problem in the SMS days too to some extent -among other things -at least the arcade Genesis ads were much better quality than the SMS ads).

That's one of the things that Mike Katz changed when he joined at the end of 1989. (the whole Genesis Does campaign going well beyond the arcade angle -though not abandoning it either)

**Cough! Cough!**:

Joe Montana signed with Sega in March of 1990 (see here & here). It's a September, 1990 commercial:

Oh . . . sorry, I missed that.

So I guess that must have been advertising for vouchers/pre-orders since Joe Montana Football wasn't available on the market at that point.

So that would mean that Katz was effectively expanding the pack-in/bundle options in 1990 too, at least temporarily.

Not trying to be a pig or anything, but there practically wasn't a female demographic for games back then and no marketing catered to girls or women for that very reason. I did a study of all of the key terms for advertisements from 1989-90 and the top characteristics advertised for games was an abstract world, violence, and damsels in distress. Somehow I don't think rescuing the damsel appeals to girls all that much.

Zelda was/is pretty popular with girls iirc . . . albeit the whole "damsel" thing isn't so much the central theme in that. (and it has the puzzle/adventure elements that appeal more to female gamers -on average)

As for the actual market demographics, according to this newscast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHtw1nADT_Y
(see 3:20)
Girls made up some 30% percent of the market in the US by late 1990. (also noted was that around 40% of the market was over 18 years old)

I saw an hour long news show back in the day that Sonic appealed to girls because he doesn't kill anything and rescues animals. In my experience women don't tend to get into games unless it involves collecting stuff or puzzles and they really don't get into fast twitch action games.

There's a fair amount of twitchy fast action games that seem to appeal to girls pretty significantly (and I mean mainstream female audience, not less common exceptions or such).

I'm not sure if Super Smash Bros would really fit in that context, but it's definitely one series that seems very popular with both boys and girls. (in fact, as a kid in the early 2000s, the best SSB players I knew were girls)
That and several racing games on the N64. (including the kart games, but not limited to that)

It's more the theme/style of the action games that matter more, not the genre itself. (though in terms of sheer genres, run and jump 2D platformers seem pretty universal in general . . . and puzzle/adventure/RPGs and such tend to be as well -albeit style/theme are still areas of contention)

Come to think of it, I seem to recall playing Star Fox 64 with girls too. (though SSB was the party game of choice for the most part -at least at that point in time)

If "girl power" had any influence stuff like the Golden Axe and Streets of Rage series would be really popular among women, and Valis, El Viento and Alisia Dragoon would have been a sensation. I think companies tried to appeal to girls and women, but like so many other experiments they failed to capture their attention. My sister sometimes enjoyed playing the first Toe Jam and Earl with me, but that was about it. My wife will only play Worms and Super Puzzle Fighter with me, but I suspect that is because she knows she can beat me.

I grew up with quite a few female friends (and a few relatives) into mainstream games . . . including genres beyond the typical cases too (Shadows of the Empire for the N64 comes to mind -I seem to remember), but also some of the more typical "cutsie" styles/genres out there (things that never turned me off either).
But even with those who had the more typical preferences, it seems they were way more into games than I see many other people recounting (case in point).

Then, again, many of those girls would fall more into the "geek" or "nerd" category to varying extents. (into science and/or anime, and/or scifi, and/or fantasy stuff, etc -some that were into trading card games or D&D style RPGs too) I met a lot of girls like that, even through high school.
And a lot I knew were way into the pokemon craze too. (some more than I was at the time -keep in mind I was about 10- . . . and several of those girls were a couple years older than me -some were into drawing/sketching too, including Pokemon/Anime stuff)

Hell, my mom likes to play games quite a bit . . . especially older/simpler more arcade style games (a ton of stuff on the 2600 she likes, especially multiplayer) . . . she used to like SSB, but she stopped played for a couple years and got too frustrated trying to learn the controls again.
Actually, she used to play 2600 games with her dad and brothers back in the late 70s and early 80s. (at some point she bought one for herself as well after she moved out)


I used to meet up/invite over several female friends back in elementary school and a little going into middle school, but that tapered off in high school mostly (then again, part of that was a fair chunk of my close friends ended up moving or changing schools, and I didn't make new friends quickly -more at-school/casual friends though).

Anyway, the most recent case of an actual sit-down gaming session with a girl involved was with the second to last local Racketboy meetup where one of the guys brought his girlfriend (who happens to be into games), and she spent a fair amount of time playing their (I actually seem to remember her spending a fair bit oftime playing vertical shooters on the xbox 360)

I grew up with my feminazi Mom and younger sister, and two of my favorite professors were social historians, but I looked and looked and just didn't find significant female interest in video games. The Industry today is doing everything wrong by focusing on Core gamers who only want to play the same game released at full price every year. Their market is going to fall out from under them very soon.

There's a ton of stuff in the indie/DLC market that caters to female (and more casual) gamers . . . and quite a bit of hard-copy releases too. (especially on Nintendo's handheld platforms, but also on consoles and PC)
It's not the majority, and certainly not the big-budget stuff, but there's still a lot out there.

I also pick Chun Li...I'm a dude.....but her moves are easy to pull off and she can damage people by jumping on their heads.

Same here . . . discovering herplayability was what made me finally get (somewhat) into SFII a couple years back.

Albeit, there's quite a few games with female player characters I like (and not just cases like Tomb Raider or DoA ) . . . and for some reason I tend to pick/make female characters for most open-ended RPGs too.

I'm of the same age and loosely agree about the past adverts. However characters free of macho vibe and gameplay (which matters equally at least) always succeeded with females, to wit Mario, Sonic, Alex Kidd, Mega Man, Metroid, Link. To this end I feel Sega should've continued producing AK titles on Genesis, adding for player 2 a female counterpart, ie instead of Mario's P2 being Luigi AK's P2 would be a girl, Nicki or whatever equally androgynous name to match Alex's.

Not just for girls, but for the general market, it would have been good to push Alex Kidd more, and support it with solid quality games. (albeit Sega had many problems in general with marketing/managing the SMS in the US -and Japan- though Miracle World was quite popular in Europe iirc -as were the other genuinely good Alex Kid games iirc)

You wouldn't need a female counterpart either . . . having male/female leads really shouldn't be the main issue. (the fundamental gameplay/genre along with the art style, tone, and theme of the game are more what really matter) Albeit, having male and female character options would be an interesting addition.

And on the note of Link . . . Sega probably should have pushed more of Zelda-style roaming action/adventure games too, and on their mainstream platforms in a timely manner. (most such games came fairly late to the MD/Genesis, especially the better/more notable ones -many were 1994 or later releases . . . and Landstalker is the earliest I can think of)

However I think currently there's a pretty solid female appeal even if it isn't the top/new IP. Nor should it be credited all females like girly stuff, there are plenty of girl skaters in real life and gaming, so for athletics, so for military training simulators (fps). Plus there's the JRPG factor: very pretty men and sexy women (+ frequently some lesbianism), neither of which applies to a female minority.

Yes, though the actual question is how that applied to female interests in video games in general.
While my experience certainly complies with a lot of girl gamers not specifically gravitating towards "girly" games (though the adventure/puzzle and cartoonie/cutsie/kiddie style games apply too -though those are also genres I like quite a bit, and my experience is also inthe context of growing up with NES/SNES/N64 gaming), there's also the issue that girl gamers (or girls with significant video/computer game interests) are a fair bit less common than boys in general. (perhaps arround 1/2, depending on age group in question -youger age groups seem to be more evenly spread, but I only have enough experience/knowledge to make avague comparison)

[Da_Shocker]

I like how each of those versions has some strengths and weaknesses....yet in EVERY SINGLE ONE...The two headed wolves STILL look like pigs.

I thought I was the only one that noticed that.

[JDB]

I also pick Chun Li...I'm a dude.....but her moves are easy to pull off and she can damage people by jumping on their heads.

I choose Chun Li because when she punches, her tits wobble.
I choose Blaze for the same reason.
Women in video games rock.