The truth about Phantasy Star 4 insane price (by Vic. Ireland)

[Team Andromeda]

The same guy that said he would NEVER work with Sega as long as Bernie Stolar was still employed there. Bernie got fired and Vic was asked about that and he said that he wouldn't go back due to the low DC sales.

Far be it for me to stick up for VIC, But DC sales were rubbish for the most part, most 3rd parties didn't go near SEGA and it wasn't like the DC had that many great RPG's for WD to translate . Its not just Vic too, I'm sure Dave Perry said he'll never work for SEGA again as long as Bernie was there, only to totally drop SEGA too. I dislike Vic holding a gruge and he and his company lost out BIG time but thinking it could appeal to the SONY casuals rather than the Hardcore lot that bought the Saturn and to a point the DC , but it's not like many 3rd parties belived in the DC (bar say for Ubisoft)

This is the same guy that wouldn't do cart games because of the risks involved with manufacturing

Sounds like TomK : In one Edge interview he's talking up the 32X and saying it be the best selling mass market gaming system of 1995 and 1996, only to slag off Carts and the high risks of them when having a pop at the N64 . Nice one Tom

[Zebbe]

Today maybe, but when development on Pier Solar began 12 years ago, all tools were made from scratch and there was nearly no documentation about the system at hand at all. That's one of the reasons development began on the Mega-CD - there was no audio engine or documentation about it until TmEE made one himself.

[Da_Shocker]

Far be it for me to stick up for VIC, But DC sales were rubbish for the most part, most 3rd parties didn't go near SEGA and it wasn't like the DC had that many great RPG's for WD to translate . Its not just Vic too, I'm sure Dave Perry said he'll never work for SEGA again as long as Bernie was there, only to totally drop SEGA too. I dislike Vic holding a gruge and he and his company lost out BIG time but thinking it could appeal to the SONY casuals rather than the Hardcore lot that bought the Saturn and to a point the DC , but it's not like many 3rd parties belived in the DC (bar say for Ubisoft)



Sounds like TomK : In one Edge interview he's talking up the 32X and saying it be the best selling mass market gaming system of 1995 and 1996, only to slag off Carts and the high risks of them when having a pop at the N64 . Nice one Tom

But sales for the Sega CD and TGCD weren't exactly breaking new records. It could be that once Vic started doing PSx and PS2 games big sales numbers actually meant something to him. What exactly did Dave Perry say about Bernie as I an unaware of any issues he had with him. Other than bein in the bed with Sony. IIRC Wild 9's was supposed to be better on the Saturn than PSx.

[Team Andromeda]

Today maybe, but when development on Pier Solar began 12 years ago, all tools were made from scratch and there was nearly no documentation about the system at hand at all. That's one of the reasons development began on the Mega-CD - there was no audio engine or documentation about it until TmEE made one himself.

The Mega CD version I'm willing to bet was dropped due that still today so little documentation of the system and any sort of meaningful knowledge base or development know-how and there lies the big difference between the systems . Pier Solar even used the internet for very start of the project - Thanks to Mega Drive fans pages forum groups: members of the team talked about and set about making the project possible - even that wasn't there for wannabe Mega Drive developers back in the 1990, 1991 There was no world wide web at all . So even on that basic priciable of talking and about making a game, having people for different aera's of the globe work on diffrent parts of the game. It was totally different mind set and way of working back then.

[Thief]

True that, TA. But you're forgetting the same applies to the SNES back then and the SNES was harder to program for. So the Genesis still had advantages in back then dev environment.

[Sik]

Also the knowledge you can find today is... not that much better than what they had back then. Somebody the other day asked me where to look for and I just directed him to the official documentation. People overestimate the quality of unofficial documentation, I tend to find it as erroneous if not even more than the official docs, they just happen to be wrong at different places.

The one thing that improved was the tools. I mean getting tools to even run back in the day was a piece of shit, DOS didn't really get decent until the version that shipped with Windows 95 =O)

[Flygon]

There might be easily accessible documentation (namely - it's easier to produce something unlicenced nowadays than it was back then), but there isn't exactly the tech support nowadays you can get by being a licenced SEGA dev, and ringing up for help if something that really should be working doesn't.

It's really really easy to underestimate the power of tech support when it comes to game dev.

[Melf]

Sounds like TomK : In one Edge interview he's talking up the 32X and saying it be the best selling mass market gaming system of 1995 and 1996, only to slag off Carts and the high risks of them when having a pop at the N64 . Nice one Tom

I'm amazed that you still don't understand marketing at all. Are you mad at Howard Lincoln for criticizing the violence of Mortal Kombat AT A US SENATE HEARING only to release the sequel mere months later with all the blood and gore intact, or Nintendo constantly criticizing optical media during the 32-bit era only to embrace it the next? Protip: CEOs say whatever is best for their product on the market at the time, regardless of whether it's actually true or not. All companies do it.

I don't know why PS4 was so expensive, and I doubt it had anything to do with ROM size. I always got the impression that SOA didn't really care that much about the series, and I always took the big "THE EXPLOSIVE FINALE!" starburst on the cover to be its way of saying "here, are you happy? This is going to be the last one, so stop bothering us."

That being said, the argument that SOA decided to localize and distribute a game in a niche genre JUST to spite Vic Ireland seems far-fetched. As Retrospiel said, it was making money in other genres that were much more popular in the US at the time. Why divert resources to a game in a genre that wasn't a priority? And why would SOA want to piss off the producer of two of the best-selling Sega CD games? Why was Working Designs made a Saturn licensee then? I think there's a lot of revisionist history in Vic's story.

[Sik]

I always took the big "THE EXPLOSIVE FINALE!" starburst on the cover to be its way of saying "here, are you happy? This is going to be the last one, so stop bothering us."

I always assumed that had more to do with the fact PSIII was a trainwreck in respect with the series (heck, it probably wasn't even a Phantasy Star game originally). PSIV goes to some serious extents to avoid calling itself as the fourth entry in the series, the only part where IV is ever mentioned at all is at the very end of the staff roll ("PSIV TEAM"), so it really looks like they were trying to make it become the real PSIII, and also ensured that the ending wouldn't allow room for any sequels to avoid another disaster (which is also why PSO has to start anew).

So yeah, that may have been actually Sonic Team not wanting the series to be messed with again.

[tomaitheous]

I always assumed that had more to do with the fact PSIII was a trainwreck in respect with the series (heck, it probably wasn't even a Phantasy Star game originally). PSIV goes to some serious extents to avoid calling itself as the fourth entry in the series, the only part where IV is ever mentioned at all is at the very end of the staff roll ("PSIV TEAM"), so it really looks like they were trying to make it become the real PSIII, and also ensured that the ending wouldn't allow room for any sequels to avoid another disaster (which is also why PSO has to start anew).

So yeah, that may have been actually Sonic Team not wanting the series to be messed with again.

I got PSIII when it had just come out, and was really disappointed with the game overall. It ruined PS series for me (reason why I skipped PSIV). I have no idea if anyone else felt the same, outside my circle of friends, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Team Andromeda]

I'm amazed that you still don't understand marketing at all..

Stop being so insulting... I'm well used to and well aware of the tactics used by sales people and the PR dept and there's nobody better at that than TOM K (even worse than Phil Harrison) . Forget Vic Toms lies and spin make Phil Harrison look like a saint

I don't know why PS4 was so expensive, and I doubt it had anything to do with ROM size.

That it isn't, why did a 24 Meg game cost so much , it doesn't make any sense .

Why was Working Designs made a Saturn licensee then? I think there's a lot of revisionist history in Vic's story.

SONY was given a Saturn license, SEGA number one rival at the time . Some times parties just get a license to hedge their bets

[Team Andromeda]

True that, TA. But you're forgetting the same applies to the SNES back then and the SNES was harder to program for. So the Genesis still had advantages in back then dev environment.

Huh ? I've always said the Snes was a harder systems to develop on , the N64 was a hard too . So I never used that and alway get wound up when I see people use it againt the Saturn. But too many do not take into account what it was like for developers back in the day and the tools and development set up theyhad to use . Looking over all that Pier Solar is really don't nothing more than what Square was doing back in 1993 on the Snes when all is said and done.

In fact I'm sure it was CORE that said that back inthe 1990 SEGA didn't even supply developers with tools and libraries for any Mega Drive devloper you had to make them all yourself . All you got was a badly translated Hardware documentation sheet

[Gogogadget]

The thing about the Saturn is it seems developers never actually did work out how to develop for it. It's library is just full of hot messes of badly performing games.

[Team Andromeda]

The thing about the Saturn is it seems developers never actually did work out how to develop for it. It's library is just full of hot messes of badly performing games.

Plenty of developers worked out how to use the system and used it to the max , but they were the ones who didn't use rubbish excuses about the system being hard to develop on, rather than say the real reason was poor market share and the fact that most of the time the Saturn port was given low priority and low resources .

[Thief]

The thing about the Saturn is it seems developers never actually did work out how to develop for it. It's library is just full of hot messes of badly performing games.

Sub-Terrania was supposed to be like just programmed on the fly, which made it very hard for Sega to organise the code better for testing. According to a Sega-16 Interview I recall reading.