Why did the Sega Mega Drive bomb so horribly in Japan?

[Aarzak]

Seriously mang!

I've heard only a few mentions of the Mega Drive's stint in Japan, so I decided to dig into the usenet archives to see what I'd find from back in the day, and the early-mid '90's convos I've skimmed through seemed to indicate that the Mega Doraibu was DEAD LAST in the console race in Japan, behind the Super Famicom (ichiban!), the PC Engine (#2) and even the Neo Geo and the original Famicom until it fizzled out. I also read how the Mega Drive and it's games were (figuratively) given away for free after awhile because no one barely bought it or it's games. Apparently the Japanese used game market was flooded with MD stuff (kinda like there's plentiful second-hand Genesis and sports games over here) and well...........it had a disastrous run. Their system also got canned around the time the Saturn was released.............in late 1994. Looks like Sega really was in a hurry to dump it huh?

So I ask............why??? I mean, it looked like Sega went out of their way to try and push their black box on the Japanese market..........they did right???

[megabomberman]

Basically the megadrive was for men, men who like violence, grit, realism, speed, adrenaline and hard hitting sports.... The megadrive gave this in abundance. The snes gave primary colours, childish soundtracks and cutsie wootsie (I want to crush them personally) baby characters.... So the japs lapped it up.

Thats the fanboys opinion there....

Or maybe it was Nintendo had the consumers over there by the b*lls, the appeal and draw of the predecessor to the incredible (-ly outdated) Nes was too much to give up, gamers in America and Europe were no where near as hard core as their Japanese counterparts (there were some yes) but for the majority sega was bringing more and more "new" gamers into the market. Not in Japan, who didn't play games in Japan? No one! they all played Nes and therefore continued the repricocity and bought a Snes.

A slightly less fanboy opinion here, but I can give you no more, concession of defeat to a completely inferior opponent is incredibly difficult

[108 Stars]

I think a big thing was the lack of third party support in the early years. Capcom, Konami, Square, Enix...they were all tied to Nintendo. When companies like Konami and Capcom finally began working on MD games it was too late and too half-hearted. Also RPGs were a huge factor in Japan, with the two most popular franchises Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy being Nintendo-exclusives and gazillions of other RPGs too.

[Zebbe]

I hardly believe it was behind the copycat Neo Geo, which sold 1 million units totally (worldwide) up to 2004, when the Mega Drive sold 3.5 million units in Japan up to 1994.

[Mr Smith]

Basically the megadrive was for men, men who like violence, grit, realism, speed, adrenaline and hard hitting sports.... The megadrive gave this in abundance. The snes gave primary colours, childish soundtracks and cutsie wootsie (I want to crush them personally) baby characters.... So the japs lapped it up.

Damn right!

[Elusive]

Someone has to occupy last place; and when your console is doing far better in other territories, why lose money in a race dominated by Nintendo?

They got the lion's share of the Saturn, anyway, so it kind of balances out, I suppose.

[nat]

Or maybe it was Nintendo had the consumers over there by the b*lls, the appeal and draw of the predecessor to the incredible (-ly outdated) Nes was too much to give up, gamers in America and Europe were no where near as hard core as their Japanese counterparts (there were some yes) but for the majority sega was bringing more and more "new" gamers into the market. Not in Japan, who didn't play games in Japan? No one! they all played Nes and therefore continued the repricocity and bought a Snes.

Let's not forget the venerable PC-Engine (TurboGrafx-16) that actually led the console market in Japan for a few years before the Super Famicom was released (1987-1990). Yes, it even outsold the Famicom during that era. It's interesting-- NEC and SEGA played mirror roles in the US and Japan during those years.

I think things would have been much different in the US during the 16-bit wars had the TG-16 not been the victim of bad timing, NEC's poor, poor marketing choices, and Nintendo's now-illegal "exclusive third-party" contracts.

Also, the cultural factor plays probably the biggest role, to be sure. While the PCE had a fairly well-rounded library, it certainly had an abundance of anime-type titles and life sims. In the late '80s and early '90s sims of that type were not popular in the US but huge in Japan. Did the Megadrive have many anime titles or sim games? I doubt it, and I would be willing to bet my next paycheck it didn't have half as many as the PCE did.

The comment made about the Megadrive being for "real men" is actually not far off base, but should probably be amended to read "real *American* men". With an abundance of sports and fast-action titles, the Genesis flourished here in the US, but was DOA in Japan when it tried to compete with the PCE's larger library (NEC had a two-year head start, after all) and generally more detailed & colorful graphics. In the US SEGA had no problem trouncing the TG-16 early on due the factors mentioned above, plus most of the really excellent PCE arcade ports couldn't contractually be released in the US, again, because of Nintendo's third-party monopoly. What was left to import were games US gamers weren't interested in and crappy console-exclusive titles nobody cared about. While there WERE some really good TG-16 games released during that critical, defining period (near-perfect port of R-Type, the Bonk series, etc) it wasn't enough. The TG-16 had virtually no sports titles initially, and when it finally got some, they turned out to be crappy non-licensed bullshit that people ignored. The writing was on the wall at this point, and SEGA quickly had NEC down for the count in the US. With the TG-16 out of the way as a major contender, the remainder of the 16-bit wars were spent fighting, and eventually losing to the SNES.

In summary, it's really not a huge surprise the Megadrive did not fair very well in Japan when you consider the bigger picture. Gamers' genre preferences as a result of culture, big-name third-party contracts, and marketing decisions all played huge parts in how things played out during what we remember as the "16-bit wars". And because of these factors, things went down in a radically different way in Japan.

[MitsuruX]

In summary, it's really not a huge surprise the Megadrive did not fair very well in Japan when you consider the bigger picture. Gamers' genre preferences as a result of culture, big-name third-party contracts, and marketing decisions all played huge parts in how things played out during what we remember as the "16-bit wars". And because of these factors, things went down in a radically different way in Japan.

I think you hit the nail on the head there... and we are seeing a similar situation with the 360 and the Japanese market... Where it has been embraced in the US its barely a blip in Japan... for alot of the same reasons as the Genesis (excuse me... Mega Drive)

[Elusive]

Basically the megadrive was for men, men who like violence, grit, realism, speed, adrenaline and hard hitting sports.... The megadrive gave this in abundance. The snes gave primary colours, childish soundtracks and cutsie wootsie (I want to crush them personally) baby characters.... So the japs lapped it up.

Haha, yeah. Damn those Japanese and their effeminate consoles!!!!! -_-

But seriously, it's not like there's any lack of 'cutesy' games on the Mega Drive. Ristar? Super Fantasy Zone? Rocket Knight Adventures?

[Aarzak]

Previously I had thought that Nintendo had third-party developers by their balls only here in the U.S, but it appeared to be the same case over in Japan, perhaps even more so as the big-shot developers all originate from Japan. This would explain Sega's "Reprogrammed" *chuckle* ports of games from several developers, notably Capcom. And as mentioned, when some of the big-shot developers finally came over to program for the Mega Drive, either they didn't release many games for it (NOWHERE near as much as they did for the Super Famicom) or they half-assed their games on MD hardware (seriously, Capcom's official Mega Drive ports look and sound so second-rate compared to their Supaa Famicom ports when they could've obviously done much better with the hardware) as if it was on purpose or if Nintendo obligated them to. Even EGM sort of mentioned a blurb of this on their then-recent Video Game timeline on their 2000 Video Game Buyer's Guide ("Capcom & Konami eventually released games on the Genesis, but never dedicated their best teams or efforts to it")

I wonder though, could the Mega Drive have been designed as an "America-centric" console from the beginning? According to that SegaBase article on the Genny among other Sega systems (how accurate are those articles?), Nakayama planned the Mega Drive to be a "mini-System 16" for the home market, but they sure stripped the hell down out of the System 16 into what became the MD, enough so that the ports of the whiz-bang, state-of-the-art arcade titles that made Sega lots of money and popularity in the arcades lacked greatly and bombed on the Mega Drive (THUNDER BLADE, Afterburner II, GALAXY FORCE II). I still think that the FM synth-based sound, lack of scaling/rotation and poor color palette was one of the things that turned Japan off, as elsewhere the Mega Drive had things down pat.

I forgot what website it was, but there was this one Wiki-like site that had a list of the MD titles released in it's first six months..........sweet jesus was that list sparse. And ALL of the titles were in-house, not one from any third-party. There appeared to be large gaps of a month or two where no MD titles were released at all. Maybe that's why the early '89 release date of the Genesis was put off until later that year.

Poor Sega. Aside from the Saturn all of their systems were disrespected in Japan. Especially the poor Master System. Man, aside from Europe it was RAPED by the NES all over the world.

[Rusty Venture]

I wanna travel back in time and punch every single employee at Konami for "Hyperstone Heist".

That game makes me think of a mediocre rom hack....and its a fucking official game from an A-list developer!

[Aarzak]

Nintendo negotiated exclusivity contracts for "Street Fighter II" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time" back in 1992. I believe they were for one year. And that's why the MD didn't receive a straight Turtles in Time port. They had to alter the game drastically (and strip it of all it's memorable levels and characters) just to get it out for Genesis.

Oh, and don't forget Nintendo completely ruining Sega's lead when they pulled out their "Street Fighter II Turbo" card to counter their "Champion Edition" deck. Though the games were virtually identical upon release, the SNES port still came out first and sold way more over in Japan.

Also, anyone notice how in it's early, pre-Sonic years Sega managed to only scrounge up the obscure and/or bottom-of-the-barrel third-party developers (most of which are long gone, like Sage's Creation)? I found that amusing. In those days the Genesis seemed like an "indie" console with few big names. I wonder what were the best-selling pre-Sonic Genesis titles.

[j_factor]

Mega Drive didn't bomb that horribly in Japan. It was unsuccessful, but a phrase like "bomb so horribly" should be reserved for true flops like the Jaguar.

Mega Drive in Japan did somewhat okay for a while early on*, on the strength of Namco's early MD titles, Telenet's games, some shooters, and some of Sega's more popular stuff. Even though it was decidedly third place, it had some hits. Just like Gamecube here.

* by "early on" I mean like, circa 1990, not right at launch.

[108 Stars]

Oh, and don't forget Nintendo completely ruining Sega's lead when they pulled out their "Street Fighter II Turbo" card to counter their "Champion Edition" deck. Though the games were virtually identical upon release, the SNES port still came out first and sold way more over in Japan.

But Sega fought over that one; originally Capcom had produced a 16 MBit-Champion Edition for MD; but by the time it was shown Capcom presented the clearly superior 20 MBit-Turbo Edition for SNES too. Sega was pissed, they had made a deal with Capcom to get the best version: So Capcom had to recode the whole game, pump it up with 24 MBit and tons of features.
Maybe Turbo sold more, but Sega succeeded in getting the best Street Fighter II-version untill SSF II came.

[Dragon Force]

I never really figured that out. I thought the mega drive was the shit but I guess it wasnt over there.