N64/PS1/Saturn/DC sales - US NPD

[j_factor]

Who knows where that decision came from? One thing is for certain, SOJ was still running the show for SOA up until Bernie became COO in March of 97. His hiring to that position was not to save the Saturn; it was to prepare SOA for Sega's next console, by establishing relations with 3rd party developers, creating an in-house development team and to create a better relationship with retail.

Burning bridges on the Saturn wasn't a good way to establish relations with 3rd party developers, nor create a better relationship with retail. It was because of Bernie that EA didn't support the DC, and Eidos wouldn't start developing games for it until after he left.

Dreamcast had a successful launch, but he didn't create a good long-term environment for it.

The problem is that Sega didn't have deep enough pockets to absorb the losses incurred from the hardware sales of the Saturn. You have to remember that Sega at its prime was only a $3.3 billion company, that was much smaller than Sony or Nintendo and didn't have a huge cash reserve they could rely on, should they post losses. Sony went so far as to lower the price of their console to not only put the pressure on Sega, but Nintendo as well. Sega was already pushed to the limits, by selling the Saturn at $200, $149 was almost a knife to the jugular. Sony was telling retailers to sell their older hardware at $129 at one point, before eventually dropping the price to $99.

But they posted bigger losses the following year, when they weren't selling hardware.

They didn't use new games, because they had to have 1st party software to sell. Do you think that maybe the established userbase might get a bit upset about buying the newest games, only to see them being offered for free to someone that just recently bought the console?

Isn't that what I just said?

600K?

You did say that they had sold 400K units during that holiday season. 3 free games X 400K would equal 1.2 million software units sold.

They sold 500k in the month of December. The 3 Free Games promotion started around November 20. I was ballparking another 100k for the period Nov 20-30 to make 600k.

It certainly is. Super Mario Bros. didn't become one of the greatest selling Nintendo games ever, without it being a pack-in title. Wii Sports gets the same treatment, though it was included with almost every Wii sold.

3 times 600k is 1.8 million. If that was counted in those sales figures, that would mean Sega only sold 900k total units of Saturn software in 1996, while third-parties sold 2.7 million. I'm pretty damn sure third parties were not so dominant on the Saturn.

You stated before, that Sega shipped 500K units to retail and that 400K of those sold during the 96 holiday season.

No I didn't.

I saw Saturns being sold at Best Buy for $50, near the end.

Best Buy didn't open in the Bay Area until the Saturn was dead. I certainly didn't see $50 new Saturns anywhere I shopped. I guess things were different regionally.

The Gamecube had a hell of a lot more retail presence than the Saturn. The Gamecube sold pretty well for several years, before it went into limbo. It was outselling the Xbox for at least a couple of years, before it started its decline. Sony's ability to price the PS2 much lower than the Xbox, led to MS bringing that console to an early end, and the Gamecube wasn't seen as a cool console to own during its later shelf life.

I don't remember Gamecube ever outselling Xbox. The Gamecube had a much less successful launch, failing even to match the DC launch sales, whereas Xbox set the new record, significantly exceeding PS2's figures. Halo was a much hotter title than Luigi's Mansion. Then the next year, Mario Sunshine was supposed to be the Gamecube's killer app, but response was kind of tepid and it didn't give the Gamecube any momentum. There were even Nintendo people going on record admitting that their strategy was mistaken. Then you had Microsoft rolling out Xbox Live, while Nintendo half-heartedly released a modem and broadband adapter and didn't really bother supporting them. There were rumors that Nintendo would have canceled the Gamecube modem and broadband adapter outright, if not for PSO.

And I thought the Xbox was brought to an early end due to a dispute between Microsoft and nVidia over the system's GPU.

How do you not talk about the Playstation?

How about when it's not the subject at hand?

It had the retail support, the 3rd party support and was on the minds of everyone that was interested in buying/selling a game console during that time. Even though I was an owner of the Saturn, and was shopping for software for the console, I had retailers shoving the Playstation at me every time I visited a their stores. They weren't supporting the Saturn.

I had a Saturn too, I had the same experience. I was just saying that the experience with Gamecube was similar. Gamecube sold a lot more units than the Saturn, of course, but retailers weren't very supportive of it. It was the third-place console and treated as such. Everywhere I went, the Gamecube section was smaller than the competition. Except for the biggest releases, a lot of games were only on store shelves for a very short period of time. Blink and you'll miss it. There were quite a few Gamecube games that I was "waiting for the price to drop" to get, and it just never happened. Some lesser games were hard to find even on release. I was posting on another Sega board at the time, and multiple posters reported not finding the Gamecube version of Virtua Quest in stock, while they had no problem finding the PS2 version. I was able to find it, but I noticed several stores only had it on PS2. I also had to shop around a bit to find the Gamecube port of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, even though the reviews all said that was the best version of the game.

[A Black Falcon]

That's wrong, EA also didn't support Dreamcast because of how badly the Saturn had gone, and that was a system they had supported. The Saturn caused them to lose a lot of faith in Sega, and Bernie's actions in '97-98 were a very important part of that.

But they posted bigger losses the following year, when they weren't selling hardware.

Well, it is true that launching a new console (like the Dreamcast) is expensive, and companies do have to absorb a loss on that, which they hope to make back later through software sales. That's certainly a big part of that loss there. However, that loss would have been smaller had Sega still been selling relevant amount of Saturn software... which they could have been doing, had they still been trying to do so.

[Aang]

That's wrong, EA also didn't support Dreamcast because of how badly the Saturn had gone, and that was a system they had supported. The Saturn caused them to lose a lot of faith in Sega, and Bernie's actions in '97-98 were a very important part of that.


Well, it is true that launching a new console (like the Dreamcast) is expensive, and companies do have to absorb a loss on that, which they hope to make back later through software sales. That's certainly a big part of that loss there. However, that loss would have been smaller had Sega still been selling relevant amount of Saturn software... which they could have been doing, had they still been trying to do so.

It shouldn't have even been about the balance sheet for 1997. It was about pr by that point. Even if not all retailers were keen on carrying Saturn, Sega could've offered stores like Walmarts or Targets the Saturn on consignment. That's what my local Kmart did with the 3DO during it's last years around 1996-1997. TRU and EB Games would have likely still stocked the Saturn, albeit in limited numbers. But by killing it off at E3 1997, Stolar was setting up the Dreamcast for failure. There was almost no way that DC could have survived after the public saw what happened with Sega CD, 32X and then Saturn. Sega got a reputation as a company that abandoned it's systems and that's a cardinal sin in customer service: you never leave your user base hanging high and dry. And if you did, there is no point coming back as NEC and Panasonic/3DO would realize. That's why even with the greatest lineup of titles in the history of video games, the public didn't purchase it in fear of Sega abandoning it. It became a self-fulfilling prophesy after what happened to Saturn.

All that moron, Stolar, had to do was shut up and keep supporting the Saturn for a couple more years. He's full of BS when he's telling G4 that the Saturn had no fun games. There were tons of good games that got left in Japan. And even the later games brought over here were very enjoyable: Fighters Megamix, Manx TT, Burning Rangers, Last Bronx, Dead or Alive, Crimewave, Die Hard Arcade, Sega Touring Car. Sega needed to keep this system on the market for at least 2 more years before releasing the Dreamcast. Stolar was nothing more than a self-serving opportunistic prick who saw the DC's promise and thought he could be heralded as the CEO that saved Sega by cancelling the "hated" Saturn. The man knows squat about public relations or marketing and his vision was short-sighted. And when SOJ started realizing his character flaws, they fired him before the launch. Likely because of him, Shenmue for Saturn was canned along with VF3. He wouldn't even bring Deep Fear to the US market. Shenmue could have showcased what the Saturn was capable of to the skeptics and provided the DC a greater chance of success in Japan with Shenmue 2. It could have easily led to a much more successful DC (with DVD) launch in 2000 worldwide and that system could have at least become a strong No.2 (cause nobody was going to beat PS2 it seems) with beefier specifications and, more importantly, more faith in the brand from the general public.

[j_factor]

Well, it is true that launching a new console (like the Dreamcast) is expensive, and companies do have to absorb a loss on that, which they hope to make back later through software sales. That's certainly a big part of that loss there. However, that loss would have been smaller had Sega still been selling relevant amount of Saturn software... which they could have been doing, had they still been trying to do so.

I was referring to the year in between, when Dreamcast wasn't out yet, but they were selling practically zero Saturns. Their losses were worse that year, compared to the previous year. Which was their first year in the red.

[gamevet]

Burning bridges on the Saturn wasn't a good way to establish relations with 3rd party developers, nor create a better relationship with retail. It was because of Bernie that EA didn't support the DC, and Eidos wouldn't start developing games for it until after he left.

Bernie and Larry Probst were friends. EA lost a lot of money by publishing games on the Saturn. EA's decision was about business, not friendship.

Dreamcast had a successful launch, but he didn't create a good long-term environment for it.

That was a team effort. The continuation of the DC was in Moore's hands after the launch.

But they posted bigger losses the following year, when they weren't selling hardware.

Sega did not make money off of hardware and they certainly would have lost more money had they sold the console at $129 and $99 in 1998.

They sold 500k in the month of December. The 3 Free Games promotion started around November 20. I was ballparking another 100k for the period Nov 20-30 to make 600k.



3 times 600k is 1.8 million. If that was counted in those sales figures, that would mean Sega only sold 900k total units of Saturn software in 1996, while third-parties sold 2.7 million. I'm pretty damn sure third parties were not so dominant on the Saturn.

They did not sell 500K units in December and they most definitely did not sell a million units in 1996. As matter of fact, I don't think they even sold 2 million units in North America. Those numbers are inflated and more than likely based off of shipped consoles, not sold units. You have to remember that the NPD took sales samples from select retail chains and the Saturn wasn't in as many retail outlets as the N64 and Playstation. You'll have a hard time even finding software sales numbers for the Saturn in North America, because of how poorly sales were tracked.

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/22/sega-saturn/

This article (with business sources listed) says that the Saturn had only sold a total of 1.5 million units in North America by the end of 1998, with 1.2 million by the end of 1996.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Sega_Saturn#cite_note-2

By the end of 1996, the install base in the US was 1.2 million.[3] It sold close to 6 million in Japan, twice the combined total of the rest of the world.[4] By the end of 1998, only 1.5 million units were sold in the U.S.[5] Sega Saturn reached an aggregate total of 7.56 million units as of the end of fiscal 1996.[6]

Best Buy didn't open in the Bay Area until the Saturn was dead. I certainly didn't see $50 new Saturns anywhere I shopped. I guess things were different regionally.

I have already posted receipts from when I was loading up on Saturn titles in January of 1998. Best Buy was dumping Saturn software and hardware to make room for Playstation and N64. They had the Saturn priced at $149 that 97 Christmas and I had seen pallets full of the console sitting on the sales floor. They dropped the price down to $99 in January and a little later it was dropped to $50.

I don't remember Gamecube ever outselling Xbox. The Gamecube had a much less successful launch, failing even to match the DC launch sales, whereas Xbox set the new record, significantly exceeding PS2's figures. Halo was a much hotter title than Luigi's Mansion. Then the next year, Mario Sunshine was supposed to be the Gamecube's killer app, but response was kind of tepid and it didn't give the Gamecube any momentum. There were even Nintendo people going on record admitting that their strategy was mistaken. Then you had Microsoft rolling out Xbox Live, while Nintendo half-heartedly released a modem and broadband adapter and didn't really bother supporting them. There were rumors that Nintendo would have canceled the Gamecube modem and broadband adapter outright, if not for PSO.

The Gamecube started out pretty well; It kept pace with the Xbox for the first year or so, but started to slip back once LIVE was launched in 2002 and the online games started to come about. I don't recall Halo being an overnight sensation, but its status in the gaming community grew through gaming forums and it really gained a lot of momentum in 2002.

And I thought the Xbox was brought to an early end due to a dispute between Microsoft and nVidia over the system's GPU.

Nvidia could not drop the price for the GPU in the Xbox. Once the PS2 dropped under $149, MS decided the losses were too much to continue with the console. Oh the irony! Sony prices Sega out of the 32-bit market with the Playstation and then they do the same with the Xbox the following generation.

http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-...ispute-551775/

I had a Saturn too, I had the same experience. I was just saying that the experience with Gamecube was similar. Gamecube sold a lot more units than the Saturn, of course, but retailers weren't very supportive of it. It was the third-place console and treated as such. Everywhere I went, the Gamecube section was smaller than the competition. Except for the biggest releases, a lot of games were only on store shelves for a very short period of time. Blink and you'll miss it. There were quite a few Gamecube games that I was "waiting for the price to drop" to get, and it just never happened. Some lesser games were hard to find even on release. I was posting on another Sega board at the time, and multiple posters reported not finding the Gamecube version of Virtua Quest in stock, while they had no problem finding the PS2 version. I was able to find it, but I noticed several stores only had it on PS2. I also had to shop around a bit to find the Gamecube port of Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, even though the reviews all said that was the best version of the game.

That was years later. The PS2 got all of the retail attention, but the Gamecube still had solid retail support. By the time they had released the $99 Platinum GC, the console's sales had plummeted. I remember seeing the same Platinum GC sitting at my local Walmart for over 6 months. You could see the layer of dust on the box inside of the display case.

It's just the way the market is. Once the customers have decided what the hot/cool console to buy is, no amount of advertising or games will change that perception and a console will just drop out of the public's conscience. Think about it though, if the Gamecube had trouble keeping retail and 3rd party support, why would the Saturn have any chance of continuing on past 1998?

That's wrong, EA also didn't support Dreamcast because of how badly the Saturn had gone, and that was a system they had supported. The Saturn caused them to lose a lot of faith in Sega, and Bernie's actions in '97-98 were a very important part of that.

It was a financial decision by EA. They had lost money publishing titles on the Saturn and Probst asked that Sega not have competing sports games on the DC. Sega couldn't do that, since they would make more money from their 1st party sports games, than they would have made from royalties though EAs games and they had already invested $10 million into Visual Concepts.

Well, it is true that launching a new console (like the Dreamcast) is expensive, and companies do have to absorb a loss on that, which they hope to make back later through software sales. That's certainly a big part of that loss there. However, that loss would have been smaller had Sega still been selling relevant amount of Saturn software... which they could have been doing, had they still been trying to do so.

They had a solid lineup of software in 1997. It's not like the software supports wasn't there that year, but the sales numbers weren't.

Sega's revenue wasn't keeping up with their operating expenses. PR takes a back seat when your current products and staff expenses are killing your profits.

[Da_Shocker]

That's wrong, EA also didn't support Dreamcast because of how badly the Saturn had gone, and that was a system they had supported. The Saturn caused them to lose a lot of faith in Sega, and Bernie's actions in '97-98 were a very important part of that.


Well, it is true that launching a new console (like the Dreamcast) is expensive, and companies do have to absorb a loss on that, which they hope to make back later through software sales. That's certainly a big part of that loss there. However, that loss would have been smaller had Sega still been selling relevant amount of Saturn software... which they could have been doing, had they still been trying to do so.

EA wanted Sega to use the 3DFX chip not Power VR them not supporting the DC had NOTHING to do with the Saturn.

[A Black Falcon]

EA wanted Sega to use the 3DFX chip not Power VR them not supporting the DC had NOTHING to do with the Saturn.

EA gave several different reasons why they didn't support the Dreamcast, including that they'd lost a lot of money on Saturn software and didn't want to get burned on Sega hardware again and that they wanted Sega to go with 3DFX instead of PowerVR. Both are thought to be important reasons for their "we should have exclusive rights to do sports games or else" demand. So no, the Saturn's failure was absolutely central behind EA's decision.

I was referring to the year in between, when Dreamcast wasn't out yet, but they were selling practically zero Saturns. Their losses were worse that year, compared to the previous year. Which was their first year in the red.

I know, and I was pointing out the fact that before you launch a new system you've got big resource & development costs related to it. This always happens. However, more functional companies make up for that by selling more of other products, not killing all of their other products, and thus maximizing their losses... but given that they were ramping up the Dreamcast, it makes sense that they'd lose more in FY'98 than they did in FY'97, even not considering their abandonment of the Saturn.

It shouldn't have even been about the balance sheet for 1997. It was about pr by that point. Even if not all retailers were keen on carrying Saturn, Sega could've offered stores like Walmarts or Targets the Saturn on consignment. That's what my local Kmart did with the 3DO during it's last years around 1996-1997. TRU and EB Games would have likely still stocked the Saturn, albeit in limited numbers. But by killing it off at E3 1997, Stolar was setting up the Dreamcast for failure. There was almost no way that DC could have survived after the public saw what happened with Sega CD, 32X and then Saturn. Sega got a reputation as a company that abandoned it's systems and that's a cardinal sin in customer service: you never leave your user base hanging high and dry. And if you did, there is no point coming back as NEC and Panasonic/3DO would realize. That's why even with the greatest lineup of titles in the history of video games, the public didn't purchase it in fear of Sega abandoning it. It became a self-fulfilling prophesy after what happened to Saturn.

All that moron, Stolar, had to do was shut up and keep supporting the Saturn for a couple more years. He's full of BS when he's telling G4 that the Saturn had no fun games. There were tons of good games that got left in Japan. And even the later games brought over here were very enjoyable: Fighters Megamix, Manx TT, Burning Rangers, Last Bronx, Dead or Alive, Crimewave, Die Hard Arcade, Sega Touring Car. Sega needed to keep this system on the market for at least 2 more years before releasing the Dreamcast. Stolar was nothing more than a self-serving opportunistic prick who saw the DC's promise and thought he could be heralded as the CEO that saved Sega by cancelling the "hated" Saturn. The man knows squat about public relations or marketing and his vision was short-sighted. And when SOJ started realizing his character flaws, they fired him before the launch. Likely because of him, Shenmue for Saturn was canned along with VF3. He wouldn't even bring Deep Fear to the US market. Shenmue could have showcased what the Saturn was capable of to the skeptics and provided the DC a greater chance of success in Japan with Shenmue 2. It could have easily led to a much more successful DC (with DVD) launch in 2000 worldwide and that system could have at least become a strong No.2 (cause nobody was going to beat PS2 it seems) with beefier specifications and, more importantly, more faith in the brand from the general public.

Good point, Sega did have some good games in '97-'98, if they had bothered to properly market and sell them, instead of giving up on everything.

[Vector2013]

You should have quoted not only my picture of unfinished post, but youtube video and text describing everything more directly underneath it.

I started writing a reply then it crashed and I don't feel like rewriting all of it, but here is video I starting writing about hence "EA didn't support DC for this and this only" video and time 1:53 to 2:35

If you watched the video, then you heard it from the guys mouth so it's not wrong. EA "centrally" refused making games for DC because of the constant changing of minds with boards. I'm not saying Saturn never factored in, but you heard what the VP from EA then said in video.

[A Black Falcon]

Bernie and Larry Probst were friends. EA lost a lot of money by publishing games on the Saturn. EA's decision was about business, not friendship.

Yeah, and they'd have lost less money had Bernie not made such stupid decisions those years at Sega.

Sega did not make money off of hardware and they certainly would have lost more money had they sold the console at $129 and $99 in 1998.

I'm sorry, but the idea that if Sega had, say, sold twice as many Saturns in the US as they did that they'd have lost MORE money overall is simply incredibly hard to believe. And given that 5th gen hardware sales didn't peak until December 1998, Sega selling more than 300,000 systems in 1997 and 1998 combined had they not given up is extremely, extremely likely. They would have stayed in third, but could certainly have sold another million or two systems, maybe more, those two holiday seasons. The DC launch would probably still have needed to be in 1999, because Saturn was a weak platform, but it could have MADE IT to the DC launch, which would have made all the difference! Those people who gave up on Sega because of how often they killed their systems early probably would have given the DC more of a chance, EA might have supported the system, and it's very unlikely Sega would actually have lost more money overall. Very unlikely.

Also, wasn't the N64 still $129 in '99? When did the systems drop to $100?

They did not sell 500K units in December and they most definitely did not sell a million units in 1996. As matter of fact, I don't think they even sold 2 million units in North America. Those numbers are inflated and more than likely based off of shipped consoles, not sold units. You have to remember that the NPD took sales samples from select retail chains and the Saturn wasn't in as many retail outlets as the N64 and Playstation. You'll have a hard time even finding software sales numbers for the Saturn in North America, because of how poorly sales were tracked.

http://www.vgchartz.com/platform/22/sega-saturn/

This article (with business sources listed) says that the Saturn had only sold a total of 1.5 million units in North America by the end of 1998, with 1.2 million by the end of 1996.

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Sega_Saturn#cite_note-2

1.2 million by December 1996, 300,000 after that... really shows how effective Stolar was at killing one of his only revenue streams (it was that and PC games, and Sega PC wasn't above mediocre).

I have already posted receipts from when I was loading up on Saturn titles in January of 1998. Best Buy was dumping Saturn software and hardware to make room for Playstation and N64. They had the Saturn priced at $149 that 97 Christmas and I had seen pallets full of the console sitting on the sales floor. They dropped the price down to $99 in January and a little later it was dropped to $50.

Sure, it makes sense that some retailers would be dumping the Saturn and selling off their stock at Holiday '97. What else would you do with that stuff, with Sega not caring anymore, and the system not selling?

The Gamecube started out pretty well; It kept pace with the Xbox for the first year or so, but started to slip back once LIVE was launched in 2002 and the online games started to come about. I don't recall Halo being an overnight sensation, but its status in the gaming community grew through gaming forums and it really gained a lot of momentum in 2002.

I don't think the GC ever actually matched the Xbox, no... but it is true that the GC was doing better in 2001-2002 than after that; the system faded after a decent start. You can see this in third-party support. A lot of publishers scaled back their Gamecube support in 2003-2004. However, it did sell over ten million systems more than the Saturn did in the US, so it's not entirely comparable, even if they both were third-place consoles.

Nvidia could not drop the price for the GPU in the Xbox. Once the PS2 dropped under $149, MS decided the losses were too much to continue with the console. Oh the irony! Sony prices Sega out of the 32-bit market with the Playstation and then they do the same with the Xbox the following generation.

http://www.geek.com/games/microsoft-...ispute-551775/

Actually, as I said, MS was losing vast sums of money all along, at a tune of a billion dollars a year all four years of the Xbox's life. It is true that the high manufacturing costs were a big part of why they were losing so much, but it's not like they had been doing well before $150; they hadn't been, at all. They lost huge amounts of money before that, and huge amounts afterwards too. And that's why the 360 was designed to be cheaper to build. Of course they messed up badly in its design (RROD...), and that cost them a lot of money, but even so, MS did FINALLY get the losses under control after that, and 360 has been profitable for some years now... though it'll take MS a long time to make back those billions they lost in their early years in the industry, if they even stay in it long enough to do so.

But yeah, that link there is part of why MS has not used an NVidia GPU in its consoles since the original Xbox. They want cheaper options. NVida makes great GPUs, but ATI/AMD's are cheaper...

That was years later. The PS2 got all of the retail attention, but the Gamecube still had solid retail support. By the time they had released the $99 Platinum GC, the console's sales had plummeted. I remember seeing the same Platinum GC sitting at my local Walmart for over 6 months. You could see the layer of dust on the box inside of the display case.

As I said above, the GC's big falloff was in '03-'04. Sad time to be a Nintendo fan, in terms of success. At least we were getting some good games, though. Nintendo's Gamecube library was kind of weird, and some of the games worked and others didn't, but overall it was a really great console. Unique, but great!

It's just the way the market is. Once the customers have decided what the hot/cool console to buy is, no amount of advertising or games will change that perception and a console will just drop out of the public's conscience. Think about it though, if the Gamecube had trouble keeping retail and 3rd party support, why would the Saturn have any chance of continuing on past 1998?

All it needed to do was get to late '99. A Sega which didn't need to start the next generation way too early would have to change more than just their 1997-1998 policy, you'd need to go back to 1994 to try to get that one. But even in '97 Sega could still have saved things just enough so that the Saturn would get within the same calendar year as the Dreamcast, at least.

Oh yeah, and as I've said in other threads, abandoning the handheld market really was a big mistake of Sega's. Sure, the GG wasn't exactly the most successful system ever, but it was the most successful handheld not from Nintendo or Sony, and that's something. I'm sure it was profitable, too. Giving up on a handheld market where they had a real share, in favor of essentially nothing, was not smart.

It was a financial decision by EA. They had lost money publishing titles on the Saturn and Probst asked that Sega not have competing sports games on the DC. Sega couldn't do that, since they would make more money from their 1st party sports games, than they would have made from royalties though EAs games and they had already invested $10 million into Visual Concepts.

Yeah, I mentioned several things about this earlier -- that either 1) maybe had Bernie not tanked the Saturn so early maybe EA would have not been quite as angry about Saturn software sales and thus may have supported Dreamcast without that kind of condition or 2) maybe had they not bought Visual Concepts and agreed to EA's ridiculous demand the DC would overall have done better than it did.

They had a solid lineup of software in 1997. It's not like the software supports wasn't there that year, but the sales numbers weren't.

The sales numbers weren't there because Bernie and Sega weren't trying anymore, not after Bernie got put in charge in March. The sales numbers prove that he never tried to sell the Saturn; note how, as I said recently, March '97 had higher sales than every month after it... and that was Bernie's first month, probably before his anti-Saturn policies got into place. A Sega trying to sell Saturns would not have seen a sales curve like that.

Sega's revenue wasn't keeping up with their operating expenses. PR takes a back seat when your current products and staff expenses are killing your profits.

But that PR ended up being one of the major reasons why the Dreamcast didn't sell well enough, you know. So no. Sega ignored the bad PR, and it helped take down their company even faster in the end. "Too little, too late" basically defines the Dreamcast.

[gamevet]

Yeah, and they'd have lost less money had Bernie not made such stupid decisions those years at Sega.

We've been through this conversation enough. Even though the Dreamcast sold 4 million units in North America, it still didn't have great 3rd party sales numbers. Even if Sega could have sold 3 million Saturns in North America, the 3rd party sales numbers would have been dwarfed by what was being sold on the N64 and Playstation. 3rd party developers would have left for the more lucrative consoles in the N64 and Playstation. Kalinske knew that and left before it got worse, and Stolar did what Kalinske couldn't do with SOJ being the jackasses that they were.

I'm sorry, but the idea that if Sega had, say, sold twice as many Saturns in the US as they did that they'd have lost MORE money overall is simply incredibly hard to believe. And given that 5th gen hardware sales didn't peak until December 1998, Sega selling more than 300,000 systems in 1997 and 1998 combined had they not given up is extremely, extremely likely. They would have stayed in third, but could certainly have sold another million or two systems, maybe more, those two holiday seasons. The DC launch would probably still have needed to be in 1999, because Saturn was a weak platform, but it could have MADE IT to the DC launch, which would have made all the difference! Those people who gave up on Sega because of how often they killed their systems early probably would have given the DC more of a chance, EA might have supported the system, and it's very unlikely Sega would actually have lost more money overall. Very unlikely.

You keep telling yourself that. The Playstation and N64's sales skyrocketed during the 96 holiday season and continued to do so throughout the following year. People aren't going to suddenly start buying Saturns, when everyone is talking about the Playstation and N64. There is no evidence of the Saturn having a chance in 97, with sales being pretty much flat, well before the June 27th announcement. Sega didn't have the retail support that Nintendo and Sony had, because of how retail had reacted to the early 95 launch.

Also, wasn't the N64 still $129 in '99? When did the systems drop to $100?

I don't know, but those systems were selling for $129 in 1998. Sony dropped the price to $99 in 1999, but that was a reaction to the Dreamcast launch. I thought they had lowered the price a bit earlier.


http://vidgame.info/vid1998.htm

June 1998 ◦Nintendo drops the price of the Nintendo 64 in the US to US$129

http://www.ign.com/articles/1999/08/...ystation-to-99

Hot on the heels of former Sega CEO Bernie Stolar's departure, Sony Computer Entertainment America was quick to hit its competitors by officially announcing a $30 price drop for PlayStation. Sony's first console, which launched in North American in 1995 at $299, now sells for $99.

1.2 million by December 1996, 300,000 after that... really shows how effective Stolar was at killing one of his only revenue streams (it was that and PC games, and Sega PC wasn't above mediocre).

No, it really shows that consumers didn't know, or care about the Saturn. They were all hyped up for the N64 and Playstation, and the sales of those console showed that.

Sure, it makes sense that some retailers would be dumping the Saturn and selling off their stock at Holiday '97. What else would you do with that stuff, with Sega not caring anymore, and the system not selling?

The system wasn't really selling well anyways. You're giving the average consumer too much credit in knowing about Sega's decision about the system. This wasn't the information age, with the world wide web letting everyone know about what was going on with the Saturn. The consumers were being bombarded with the hype of the new N64 and the cool to own Playstation. The Saturn was pretty much an irrelevant piece of hardware by then.

Actually, as I said, MS was losing vast sums of money all along, at a tune of a billion dollars a year all four years of the Xbox's life. It is true that the high manufacturing costs were a big part of why they were losing so much, but it's not like they had been doing well before $150; they hadn't been, at all. They lost huge amounts of money before that, and huge amounts afterwards too. And that's why the 360 was designed to be cheaper to build. Of course they messed up badly in its design (RROD...), and that cost them a lot of money, but even so, MS did FINALLY get the losses under control after that, and 360 has been profitable for some years now... though it'll take MS a long time to make back those billions they lost in their early years in the industry, if they even stay in it long enough to do so.

The difference was that MS could take the hit, while Sega could not. The losses MS took with the Xbox, would have destroyed Sega within a year. A $1,000,000,000 loss for MS would be like a $100,000,000 loss for Sega.

All it needed to do was get to late '99. A Sega which didn't need to start the next generation way too early would have to change more than just their 1997-1998 policy, you'd need to go back to 1994 to try to get that one. But even in '97 Sega could still have saved things just enough so that the Saturn would get within the same calendar year as the Dreamcast, at least.

Sega was not a rich company. They couldn't afford losses like that and there's no way that company would have stuck around with those kind of losses into 99. Thinking that software sales would have increased significantly is absurd, to say the least. It's not like every person that had bought a Saturn, was still holding onto the console. People do trade in their systems, and you can look at the DC as a perfect example; people were trading in their Dreamcast consoles for PS2s and the software sales started to decline.

Yeah, I mentioned several things about this earlier -- that either 1) maybe had Bernie not tanked the Saturn so early maybe EA would have not been quite as angry about Saturn software sales and thus may have supported Dreamcast without that kind of condition or 2) maybe had they not bought Visual Concepts and agreed to EA's ridiculous demand the DC would overall have done better than it did.

Sega had plenty of chances to provide EA with a software profit on their console. EA did release Madden 98 and several other titles for the system in 97. I don't know about you, but if I had invested money into more than 5 or 6 stocks that ended up losing, I'd kick my financial advisor to the curb.

The sales numbers weren't there because Bernie and Sega weren't trying anymore, not after Bernie got put in charge in March. The sales numbers prove that he never tried to sell the Saturn; note how, as I said recently, March '97 had higher sales than every month after it... and that was Bernie's first month, probably before his anti-Saturn policies got into place. A Sega trying to sell Saturns would not have seen a sales curve like that.

That is total bullshit. The software was there. Sega had the advertising in place, in many different gaming magazines. If you were expecting Sega to have the $$$ to do a massive television ad campaign, I'd call you downright foolish.

But that PR ended up being one of the major reasons why the Dreamcast didn't sell well enough, you know. So no. Sega ignored the bad PR, and it helped take down their company even faster in the end. "Too little, too late" basically defines the Dreamcast.

The PR was there and the console did very well (in North America) for the short period that it didn't have the competition. How can you say that the PR was bad for the DC in North America, when it sold much better here than in the other regions?

You'd have to be a fool to not see that the Playstation 2 was going to be the 800 pound gorilla once it had entered the room. The Dreamcast was a quick next gen fix for some gamers and then they traded the console in for a PS2. The DC would have died sooner, if Sony was able to provide enough PS2s to meet the demand.

[A Black Falcon]

We've been through this conversation enough. Even though the Dreamcast sold 4 million units in North America, it still didn't have great 3rd party sales numbers. Even if Sega could have sold 3 million Saturns in North America, the 3rd party sales numbers would have been dwarfed by what was being sold on the N64 and Playstation. 3rd party developers would have left for the more lucrative consoles in the N64 and Playstation. Kalinske knew that and left before it got worse, and Stolar did what Kalinske couldn't do with SOJ being the jackasses that they were.

Uh, didn't Kalinske leave because Sega of Japan had stopped listening to him, so he wanted out because he had no independence anymore? Or something like that. It wasn't exactly just "he chose to leave entirely on his own will". Sega of Japan didn't seem to want him anymore.

As for sales numbers, I address that below.

You keep telling yourself that. The Playstation and N64's sales skyrocketed during the 96 holiday season and continued to do so throughout the following year. People aren't going to suddenly start buying Saturns, when everyone is talking about the Playstation and N64. There is no evidence of the Saturn having a chance in 97, with sales being pretty much flat, well before the June 27th announcement. Sega didn't have the retail support that Nintendo and Sony had, because of how retail had reacted to the early 95 launch.

Uh, Saturn sales skyrocketed in Christmas '96 as well... sure, they dropped lower than the others, but that holiday season they went way, way up. Your contention that that just naturally stopped, with Sega having no part in the Saturn's retail failure in 1997, is not credible, at all, in any way.

I don't know, but those systems were selling for $129 in 1998. Sony dropped the price to $99 in 1999, but that was a reaction to the Dreamcast launch. I thought they had lowered the price a bit earlier.


http://vidgame.info/vid1998.htm

http://www.ign.com/articles/1999/08/...ystation-to-99

Yeah, it probably did go down to $99 in 1999 sometime. Saturn might not have had to match that, not if DC was about to come out. $129 they would have had to match though, yes.

No, it really shows that consumers didn't know, or care about the Saturn. They were all hyped up for the N64 and Playstation, and the sales of those console showed that.

Holiday 1996 sales show that with the right games (such as NiGHTS) and the right marketing, Sega could sell well enough to maintain a credible third-place position. They gave up instead, pretty much dooming the Dreamcast as well.

The system wasn't really selling well anyways. You're giving the average consumer too much credit in knowing about Sega's decision about the system. This wasn't the information age, with the world wide web letting everyone know about what was going on with the Saturn. The consumers were being bombarded with the hype of the new N64 and the cool to own Playstation. The Saturn was pretty much an irrelevant piece of hardware by then.

The system had sold quite decently in November and December 1996, which is just a few months before the collapse began in April (after Bernie became CEO). I know you like to emphasize again and again how because the PS1 (and N64) were selling no one wanted Saturns, but that's not entirely true; just because other systems are selling better, does not mean that there isn't also a market for a third-place system which didn't sell as well. The Gamecube was supported for five years (first party) and six years (third party), even though the PS2 outsold it massively. Even the Turbografx, which sold under a million systems in the US, managed to have approximately 3 2/3rds years of software support on HuCards, and four to 4 1/2 (depending on when exactly the Turbo CD actually released (late '89 or early '90?) and when exactly its last two retail games actually released (late '93 or, more likely, some time in the first 4-5 months of '94, when who knows I think)) years of support on CD as well, not counting Bonk 3 CD, which released like 8-10 months after everything else, and mail order only.

In comparison, all the Saturn had was three years of first party support, and 2 1/2 years of third-party support, except for MKR, which released six months after the last first-party title. That's really, really weak, for a system that sold more than twice as many consoles as the TG16! Sure it had more game releases in that shorter time, but durability matters too, not only volume of releases. Sega could have done a lot better, if they (eg. Bernie Stolar) hadn't been so stupid.

The difference was that MS could take the hit, while Sega could not. The losses MS took with the Xbox, would have destroyed Sega within a year. A $1,000,000,000 loss for MS would be like a $100,000,000 loss for Sega.

Well, yeah. Of course.

Sega was not a rich company. They couldn't afford losses like that and there's no way that company would have stuck around with those kind of losses into 99. Thinking that software sales would have increased significantly is absurd, to say the least. It's not like every person that had bought a Saturn, was still holding onto the console. People do trade in their systems, and you can look at the DC as a perfect example; people were trading in their Dreamcast consoles for PS2s and the software sales started to decline.

If Sega could not afford to support its only console until it was time to replace it, they had no business releasing another system. But anyway, your theory that supporting the Saturn would have cost Sega more money than it would have made is not one you can prove, certainly, and I, and others, do not agree with that theory one bit.

Sega had plenty of chances to provide EA with a software profit on their console. EA did release Madden 98 and several other titles for the system in 97. I don't know about you, but if I had invested money into more than 5 or 6 stocks that ended up losing, I'd kick my financial advisor to the curb.

Yeah, this is why with a Sega which actually kept trying to sell the Saturn until it was actually replaced, EA would surely have been less angry with Sega -- they'd have lost less money.

That is total bullshit. The software was there. Sega had the advertising in place, in many different gaming magazines. If you were expecting Sega to have the $$$ to do a massive television ad campaign, I'd call you downright foolish.

The proof that what you're saying is totally wrong is is in the sales dropoff immediately after Bernie Stolar took over as CEO. It's near-impossible to believe that the fact that the Saturn never again matched its March 1997 sales, and that that was the same month Bernie became CEO, is a complete cooincidence. It's also completely impossible to believe that the "Saturn is not our future" speech, and narrative, didn't completely shape Sega's 1997-1998 policy in the US -- sure, they'd do a handful of ads and ship small numbers of copies of their games, but they had moved on, and were not going to try to sell any significant number of Saturns anymore, hold promotions that would really push the system, etc. "Saturn is not our future", and Bernie's sales and marketing team clearly was working with that as their main focus. Sega PC probably got more marketing attention than the Saturn did... not that that helped, given that Obsidian (Myst-style adventure game released in late 1996) bombed hard. Poor Rocket Science games, they made good games for their genres, but none sold well, and after Obsidian they went under because of it.

Anyway though, the sales prove that no, Bernie Stolar never tried to sell Saturns. Your excuse, that consumers just didn't care anymore, is thoroughly undermined by the fact that sales weren't as terrible before he took over. Sega sold those 500,000-plus systems in November and December '96, and while in January through March sales dropped worse than Sony or Nintendo, they weren't zero... until "Saturn must die, NOW" Bernie got control, and obviously stopped all serious efforts to market or sell the Saturn. That near-zero Nov/Dec '97 holiday non-bump is 100% Bernie's fault.

Your idea that these two things are coincidences and he actually was trying to sell Saturns even though he said "Saturn is not our future" and was mainly focused on preparing for Dreamcast is too unlikely to believe. And a few magazine ads here and there weren't going to change anything, zero chance.

As for TV advertising, the Saturn had some in '95 and '96, yes? If that stopped, that'd be another sign of them giving up on it prematurely.

The PR was there and the console did very well (in North America) for the short period that it didn't have the competition. How can you say that the PR was bad for the DC in North America, when it sold much better here than in the other regions?

The DC didn't do "very well" in North America, though. It did poorly. Sure, it had a good launch year in 1999, but after that the system faded very fast. Sales in 2000 were mediocre, and the DC finished third in November/December 2000 (behind the PS1 and N64)... of course everyone wanted a PS2, but they were in very short supply. The DC had a good first couple of months, but nothing after that went as planned. Consumer skepticism because of that "too little, too late" issue, which was definitely in many peoples' heads, was one of the major reasons why, and helped enhance PS2 hype for sure.

You'd have to be a fool to not see that the Playstation 2 was going to be the 800 pound gorilla once it had entered the room. The Dreamcast was a quick next gen fix for some gamers and then they traded the console in for a PS2. The DC would have died sooner, if Sony was able to provide enough PS2s to meet the demand.

Well of course the PS2 was going to do great. But systems which finish far behind can still be profitable, if the company is smart about it. The Atari 7800 sold like 8 million worldwide, but was quite profitable. The Gamecube was profitable too, even though it only sold 21 million worldwide. Etc. Sega was just, as always, terrible with money. (And on that note, yes, as I've said before, Sega selling the DC for a loss, at a time when they were in dire financial trouble, was surely a terrible idea.)

[Aang]

We've been through this conversation enough. Even though the Dreamcast sold 4 million units in North America, it still didn't have great 3rd party sales numbers. Even if Sega could have sold 3 million Saturns in North America, the 3rd party sales numbers would have been dwarfed by what was being sold on the N64 and Playstation. 3rd party developers would have left for the more lucrative consoles in the N64 and Playstation. Kalinske knew that and left before it got worse, and Stolar did what Kalinske couldn't do with SOJ being the jackasses that they were.

By 97, it's an accepted fact that Saturn wouldn't have much 3rd party support. I think everybody can agree here. But they had plenty of good Japanese games that could have been localized had they still been serious about selling the Saturn. The North American Saturn owners never got the chance to play great titles like Radiant Silvergun, Thunderforce V, Layer Section II, Bulk Slash, Keriotosse!(great 4 player party game), Terra Cresta 3D, G Vector, Anarchy in the Nippon, Savaki. SOA didn't even bother bringing over Deep Fear which was released in Europe. This is a disservice to the faithful Saturn owners and clear evidence that Saturn had plenty of decent titles for the US market had Stolar not killed it officially in 1997. Doing so only sealed the company's fate for good.

Savaki


G Vector


Keriotosse!

You keep telling yourself that. The Playstation and N64's sales skyrocketed during the 96 holiday season and continued to do so throughout the following year. People aren't going to suddenly start buying Saturns, when everyone is talking about the Playstation and N64. There is no evidence of the Saturn having a chance in 97, with sales being pretty much flat, well before the June 27th announcement. Sega didn't have the retail support that Nintendo and Sony had, because of how retail had reacted to the early 95 launch.

Specialty stores such as EB, Babbages, Software ETC and Toys R Us would likely have not dropped Sega Saturn if not for the E3 1997 comment by Stolar. As for the other big box stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, Computer City, Walmarts, Kmarts, Targets..Sega could have arranged to have a consignment agreement. In addition to that, offer a $10 spiff to the sales clerks working at the specialty stores for every Saturn they could sell. A small incentive goes a long way towards "influencing" a minimum wage clerk's opinion when asked by customers which system to purchase.

No, it really shows that consumers didn't know, or care about the Saturn. They were all hyped up for the N64 and Playstation, and the sales of those console showed that.
The system wasn't really selling well anyways. You're giving the average consumer too much credit in knowing about Sega's decision about the system. This wasn't the information age, with the world wide web letting everyone know about what was going on with the Saturn. The consumers were being bombarded with the hype of the new N64 and the cool to own Playstation. The Saturn was pretty much an irrelevant piece of hardware by then.

If Sega was serious about the Saturn, they could have made a Saturn model 2, include the NiGHTS controller with a revised sleeker design and pushed some 15 second commercials on MTV. Sort of a semi-relaunch with many of the titles I mentioned above include Deep Fear, NiGHTS, Keriotosse! as pack ins. BTW, the internet was alive and well by 1997. Sega.com already had a forum for it's products and being a member, I can assure you that everybody who supported that system knew what Bernie said just like they would if he said it today. As for the retailers, they all would have gotten a memo from head office to liquidate Saturn and Saturn related merchandise which means all the employees at EB, Babbages, Software ETC and Toys R Us would have warned prospective buyers to stay clear from the Saturn since these sales clerks didn't work on commission. But again, had Stolar been smart and had some understanding of this business, he'd have offered a small spiff for every Saturn sold to those sales clerks to help keep the system in the running in 97,98 and possibly 99.

Sega was not a rich company. They couldn't afford losses like that and there's no way that company would have stuck around with those kind of losses into 99. Thinking that software sales would have increased significantly is absurd, to say the least. It's not like every person that had bought a Saturn, was still holding onto the console. People do trade in their systems, and you can look at the DC as a perfect example; people were trading in their Dreamcast consoles for PS2s and the software sales started to decline.

Either stick around until 1999 or cancel Saturn and call it quits cause there was no point for the Dreamcast after what Stolar said. The mistake with Sega is that they thought they were fighting for their existence with Dreamcast when they were actually in the battle for their future with Saturn.

That is total bullshit. The software was there. Sega had the advertising in place, in many different gaming magazines. If you were expecting Sega to have the $$$ to do a massive television ad campaign, I'd call you downright foolish.

Some 15 second ads running once or twice a day on MTV, even MTV2 wouldn't put Sega in much more of a hole than they already were by this point. Keep in mind, this is Sega's last real chance in the hardware business. They named it Dreamcast cause they must have been dreaming if they thought they could come back after ditching the Saturn.

The PR was there and the console did very well (in North America) for the short period that it didn't have the competition. How can you say that the PR was bad for the DC in North America, when it sold much better here than in the other regions?

You'd have to be a fool to not see that the Playstation 2 was going to be the 800 pound gorilla once it had entered the room. The Dreamcast was a quick next gen fix for some gamers and then they traded the console in for a PS2. The DC would have died sooner, if Sony was able to provide enough PS2s to meet the demand.

That's only a testament to the greatness of the Dreamcast and some of the best titles to ever be released on a console in such a short time span. And still, it sold about as bad as the Wii U is doing by early 2000. DC would have gotten much better support had Sega not AWOL from the entire industry for around 2 years. With the games it had, it should have at least sold better than Gamecube. Nobody trusted them after abandoning Saturn only two years into it's life cycle.

[Da_Shocker]

That's wrong, EA also didn't support Dreamcast because of how badly the Saturn had gone, and that was a system they had supported. The Saturn caused them to lose a lot of faith in Sega, and Bernie's actions in '97-98 were a very important part of that.


Well, it is true that launching a new console (like the Dreamcast) is expensive, and companies do have to absorb a loss on that, which they hope to make back later through software sales. That's certainly a big part of that loss there. However, that loss would have been smaller had Sega still been selling relevant amount of Saturn software... which they could have been doing, had they still been trying to do so.

Love how you also forgot to mention that EA wanted to be the only sports publishes on the DC and Bernie wasn't having any of that dumb shit.

[A Black Falcon]

Love how you also forgot to mention that EA wanted to be the only sports publishes on the DC and Bernie wasn't having any of that dumb shit.

Uh, what I was describing was the primary reason why EA tried to do what you're talking about, you know. That didn't just come out of nowhere, they did it because they'd lost a lot of money on Saturn software and because they were unhappy with the choice of PowerVR.

[Da_Shocker]

Uh, what I was describing was the primary reason why EA tried to do what you're talking about, you know. That didn't just come out of nowhere, they did it because they'd lost a lot of money on Saturn software and because they were unhappy with the choice of PowerVR.

EA was just being dicks and they published like 2 years worth of Saturn stuff. And show me some article about them loosing money by publishing games on the Saturn.