Why did Japan never really support Sega?

[Da_Shocker]

From what I understand confidence, arrogance and "attitude" are seen as unlikeable traits in Japanese culture so this may have had something to do with why Sonic was never as popular, I remember reading an interview with the makers of Crash Bandicoot once (one of the only western made games which became popular in Japan back in the day) and they actually put a lot of effort into appealing to Japanese tastes, even going as far as to hire a Japanese company to look through the whole game and give them pointers on what they should do, the company apparently came back with lot of feedback on changes which needed to be made to make the character acceptible for Japanese audiences, its been a while since I read it so I can't remember the exact details anymore, I think one of the issues was with the way Crash Bandicoot's smile was drawn, being too "toothsome" or something

If I remember where I saw it then maybe I'll read up on it again.

I remember reading something liek that too. I know when I was reading about Yao Ming it was considered rude in China to dunk on somebody. I think asians are more conservative in certain aspects.

Video games in general are an American invention as well. (Ralph Baer, Space War, Pong, etc.) so I doubt that Nationalism played any role whatsoever in Sega's success in Japan. If anything it contributed to it in a positive manner.


Another thing that I feel is interesting in this context is the Americanism in some games developed by Sega of Japan. - The best example would be Golden Axe which looks very American, there's nothing Manga or Anime about it at all. - Even its [original] cover artwork looks American.

I'm not sure how the 2600 fared in Japan but the 360 just cracked 1 million in Japan. GM car sales in Japan are putrid http://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/18/g...japan-by-2011/

It did not bomb. It wasn't a million seller but it did not bomb. That is quite a difference.

It also sold rather well in Europe, Australia, Korea, and Brasil. It just didn't sell as good in the US.

The NES sold 62 million worldwide compared to 13 millon for the SMS. That's over a 49 million difference.

Again, it did not bomb. It sold well from '88 to '94 when they released Saturn and from then on focussed on Saturn. (which is exacly what Kalinske/SOA didn't - and missed the bus)

It finished in 3rd place behind the PCE which sold around 6-7 million in Japan the MD moved around 3 or 4 million in Japan. Again those numbers are downright terrible

Dreamcast was officially discontinued in January 2001. Way too early to say if it would have had a chance in Europe or Japan. It was incredibly successful in the US though,.

It was released a year earlier than in the US and it flopped big time. Sega should've released the DC first in the US really since the Saturn had bombed in the States whereas the Saturn still had some life in Japan.

[retrospiel]

Nah, I'm judging it from a Japanese perspective. The fact that it took months after those two games launched for more software to be released is also a factor for sure. Space Harrier II and Super Thunder Blade are awful launch titles, the ports themselves are not very impressive and you weren't getting much value for your money (quick arcade port--no extra options/modes). Also, put this into perspective the Mega Drive lacked third party support initially (other then Technosoft).

Are there release lists for other Japanese consoles so we would have something that we could compare our data with ?

i think the nationalism thing has effected MS's success in Japan though.

Anything that would hint at that ?

Hmm, I though the SMS broke a million in NA.

I was referring to Japan. (which is a much smaller market than the US anyway)

they probably could have milked it a lot longer though in terms of releasing games as well. Not in Japan, but at least in Europe, and to some extent in the US.

Late European Mega Drive games didn't sell at all. People shifted their focus towards Super Nintendo, PC and PlayStation (and later Nintendo 64).

Well, he didn't want the 32x, they were forced to do that by Nakayma (others at SoJ also disagreeing with this though), and it could have ended up even worse with the originally planned upgraded genesis idea.

An updated Genesis actually sounds much better than some add-on...

- I really would like to know more about who decided what and for what reason in regards to the 32X/Saturn debacle. It's a really interesting topic imo.

Had they not released the 32x, focused on hyping the Saturn instead with the same kind of advertising they put into the 32x, and launched the Saturn in the US when originally announced, I think things could have gone a lot better.

Yup.

Not to say Kalinske hadn't made his own mistakes.

Well, he managed to ruin GG/SCD/32X/Saturn and loose something like $600 million US Dollars in three years until they finally showed him the door.

It finished in 3rd place behind the PCE which sold around 6-7 million in Japan the MD moved around 3 or 4 million in Japan. Again those numbers are downright terrible.

3 or 4 million is quite a lot. - It would translate to about 8 million units in the US.

It was released a year earlier than in the US and it flopped big time. Sega should've released the DC first in the US really since the Saturn had bombed in the States whereas the Saturn still had some life in Japan.

That would have been a good idea I think. People still would have complained about the lack of software.

The Japanese might glamorize certain aspects of American culture, but believe me - it ends there.

That is true and goes for both, Germany and Japan, that certain aspects of American culture are welcome but much of the culture is very different (language, typical behaviour, social rules, etc.) and the general population tends to be pretty damn Anti-American.

I was referring to artists and people in creative industries though. The percentages of people admiring American culture is way higher among e.g. comic artists and video game designers than among e.g ordinary factory workers.

The same goes for business people too - especially those working in companies founded by Americans.

[jesus.arnold]

The NES sold 62 million worldwide compared to 13 millon for the SMS. That's over a 49 million difference.

The NES isn't a fair yardstick to judge success from, even later consoles like the SNES and Mega Drive's sales paled in comparison to the NES, mainly due to the fact that the system completely monopolised the North American market for so long. The Master System was popular in Europe yes, but it far from monopolised the market here as it was always in competition with the C64, Spectrum, MSX or NES depending on which European country you're talking about.

The Master System was a success in a fair European market, whilst the NES was a success in a monopolised North American market with no competition.

[Da_Shocker]

You also forgot about Japan.

[kool kitty89]

Saturn/32X/SCD was a disaster because they were sold as high priced multimedia machines while they actually did a terrible job at being anything other than old school game consoles.

SOA's market reseach probably came up with the idea that people now would demand multimedia machines with graphics "like in the movies". So they took the hardware they got from Sega of Japan, like the Sega CD, and claimed that it was meant for those multimedia games with graphics like in the movies - while it obviously was just a CD-ROM drive meant for Mega Drive / Genesis games with CDDA instead of FM music and without the space limitations of a regular 4- or 8-Mbit ROM cartridge.

Well, It was more than that, it added the graphics ASIC, 2nd, faster, CPU, and 8-channel PCM chip. Plus the added space of the CD is one thing, but the 512 kB of program ram is a rather substancial limitation compared to 8+ Mbit ROMs. (4Mbit of course fitting in that space nicely)

As for the "multimedia" aspect, that was pretty much everywhere in the US with any system featuring CD-ROM drives, so it was natural to push it on the system, and a lot of it didn't look that bad IMO. (varying case by case of course, and how blurred the dithering is in your video, Sewer Shark would look much worse in RGB than the soft composite of a Model 1) Digital Pictures actively looking for a platform for their games is part of this as well. Soul Star and Road Rash have some of the best looking video on the system, Dragon's Lair looks pretty good too. And Silpheed looks so good many are fooled into thinking the BG is realtime. (because it was rendered in a genesis compatible color palette)

They shouldn't have hyped FMV as much as they did, especially the arcade LaserDisc style interactive movies, and shouldn't have invested in the multimedia lab, but those games really did sell, so rejecting them would have been a bad move. (and even some multiplatform games were originally released for Sega CD, and often play better than other versions, like NovaStorm compared to PC or PSX, or the poorer controls in 3DO Sewer Shark, though that's fairly common for 3DO games apparently) A more balanced marketing campaign probably would have helped though.

And I think the Sega CD outsold the Saturn in the US...

An updated Genesis actually sounds much better than some add-on...

- I really would like to know more about who decided what and for what reason in regards to the 32X/Saturn debacle. It's a really interesting topic imo.

From what I read it's not very attractive sounding, some kind of moderate color upgrade and maybe some othe rminor modifications. The problem being that current Genesis/MD owners would need to buy a whole new system rather than upgrade (although if they had released it at the same price as 32x that really wouldn't have mattered, helped if anything). If it was to use dual MD VDPs fed together to provide 256 color palettes like Chilly Willy suggested could be done in some previous discussions, that might have been a good route, and pretty inexpensive.
But the main problem remains th esame as with 32x, it was planned as a stop gap for the Saturn's release, so it would have confused things just the same.

OTOH, designing a true successor to the MD/Genesis, heavily derived, and compatible with existing hardware could have been a neat idea, saving some time and cost, and though probably somewhat complex, probably less so than the Saturn, and at least somewhat familiar to previous Sega developers. This was all brought up before, and there are a good number of ways to go about it, but many would result in something rather like (if not more capable than) Sega's "Giga Drive" concept.

Either go that route, or go simple: don't bother with compatibility, focus on simplisity of design, with low cost and freindly programming environment as primary factors, rather like the Dreamcast. (that way they might have been able to go head to head with Sony, both price wise and attraction for 3rd party developers, though the price would probably come as hardware capability, still as long as it could compete reasonably in tat regard, good marketing, the Sega brand, and ample software should have been plenty able to suplament this)

[gamevet]

The most successful system in Japan was the Saturn which sold a mere 7 million units. .

I believe the actual number is around 5 million in Japan, and between 9-10 million worldwide.

This is actually wrong. The Dreamcast was discontinued in AMERICA in 2001, and discontinued in Japan in 2006, but the last game made for it in the japanese market was in 2007 (Puyo Pop Fever, I think was that title). However, it did get off to a good start in America during its launch, and probably could've lasted longer if the american branch of Sega hadn't cut support.

The hardware was discontinued in 2001 though. It was part of Sega's commitment as a 3rd party publisher.

[kool kitty89]

An updated Genesis actually sounds much better than some add-on...

- I really would like to know more about who decided what and for what reason in regards to the 32X/Saturn debacle. It's a really interesting topic imo.

Not much, but here's the blurb from http://www.sega-16.com/feature_page....%20a%20Failure (though you probably know of this already)

The system that would be known as Project Mars was given birth on 8 January 1994, the night before the opening of the 1994 Winter CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, in a hotel room during a conference among top-level Sega executives from both Japan and America. Those present at this meeting included Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama, Sega of America president Tom Kalinske, his special assistant Joe Miller, Sega of Japan's Hideki Sato, Sega of America's Paul Rioux, and a couple of other Sega of Japan personnel. Surprisingly enough, Nakayama was the one who first broached the subject at this meeting. As such, it is he and not Sega of America's Joe Miller who should be given credit as being "the father of the 32X." Miller remembers this meeting well.

Quite simply, Nakayama-san had directed the company to design and produce a cartridge-based 32-bit platform and bring it to market before the Christmas selling season of 1994. This was a lengthy, somewhat heated meeting - but in the end there was no question that Sega of Japan (in the form of a classic Nakayama mandate) had determined that this was what we were going to do. It was [now] up to the senior team to figure out and go execute. The difference, this time, was that Sega of Japan was actually inviting Sega of America into the process - instead of creating new platforms in a vacuum and throwing them over the ocean at us when it was too late to have meaningful input ....Sega of Japan was completely committed and was [ready to] mobilize whatever internal resources were require to finish the design and produce it in quantity for Christmas.

As first presented by Hideki Sato and his team of engineers, the original concept for Mars was little more than a Genesis with an extra 32-bit processor (a Hitachi SH-1, according to some reports) and an expanded color palette (128 out of 512 possible colors on screen). Joe Miller, who was in fact chief technical wizard at Sega of America, was appalled at the suggestion. "That is a horrible idea," he told them. "If all you're going to do is enhance the system, you should make an add-on. If it's a new system with legitimate software, great. But if the only thing it does is double the colors ...." There was some grumbling about this, but in the end Sega of Japan conceeded the point. They had several other hardware projects in the works, so this one was to be left up to the Americans. Mars was to be Sega of America's baby, although senior management staff from Sega of Japan would be present and oversee it through to production. By the time all was said and done that could be accomplished at that meeting, Nakayama was so excited at the prospect of Project Mars that he wanted its "core senior design team" to leave CES before it had even started and get started working on the new system right away. Miller, Sato, and the rest wound up attending the rest of the show, but went ahead and began the process during a series of late night meetings in Miller's hotel room over the next four days.

It goes on to explain parts of development that led to the final 32x design, and some other propositions, though that author never seems particularly adept with the tech side of things. (so take some stuff with a grain of salt)

Anyway, assuming the "128 colors out of 512" is correct, that sounds more like doubling th enumber of subpalettes available (8x 16-color palettes rather than 4), maybe with more BG layers as well, but that still makes it a lot more limited than th ePC engine's subpalettes. (which used 32 16-color subpalettes) And it sertainly wouldn't have helped much with color in 3D games, larger single palettes would have helped much more there, and there would have been ways of building on genesis hardware to do so, especially what Chilly Willy proposed. (doubling the VDP, combining the 4-bit/16-color palettes into 8-bit/256 color palettes, and a lto of other stuff, or they could have gone with a simple additional VDP like in the 32x, both having trade-offs, the former being particularly better for 2D games)

[retrospiel]

though that author never seems particularly adept with the tech side of things. (so take some stuff with a grain of salt)

The problem I have with this author (aside of what you've pointed out) is that he's not reporting from a neutral point of view but a "SOA = saints, SOJ = devils that ruined the company" point of view. He literally manages to blame the Japanese for everything that went wrong and excuses SOA from even the slightest hint of a responsibility.

I was a die-hard Sega fan from 1991 to 1996 and I myself experienced the downward spiral that the company went through from 1992/1993 on.

I became a fan because of Sega of Japan's excellent games and hardware. - I played Sonic, Alex Kidd and Asterix on a friend's Master System and soon bought a Mega Drive because I could play Master System games via the Power Base Converter too.
And I had some incredible fun with the machine until 1993/1994 when they started to announce and release loads of expansive new hardware in what seemed like a few months. They just flooded the market.
- Not only with bad hardware (and I am mainly referring to 32X here, not Saturn) but also and perhaps even more importantly: with bad games.

Long story short: I feel that Sam Pettus' observations as to why they failed to sustain their market are totally different to my own.

Pettus was convinced SOJ was responsible before writing the article, but prejudice affects your research: The way you read an article, the way you pick the quotations from your source material, the way you word your findings. - It all fits together because you want it to fit.

Note that I am not accusing Pettus of lying. I think that he honestly felt that he was doing a decent job. Well, the paper work is impressive, but the result is still utterly wrong and in my eyes not worthy of being published, let alone quoted for half a decade.

Of course, I got my own prejudices, but they are pretty much the absolute opposite to those of Pettus and thus make me read his words twice as carefully as perhaps others would do.

And it sertainly wouldn't have helped much with color in 3D games

I never was a huge fan of 3D games. - There were some exceptions of course, like id's Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, or Miyamoto's Mario Kart 64 or F-Zero X, but aside of those, the 3D era felt much like the 2600 era to me: A novelty tech thing that didn't satisfy the level of visual and artistic perfection I was looking for. Even the CD sound quickly became boring to me and I soon went back to my good old Mega Drive and finally bought a Super Nintendo too.

I to this day believe that Saturn should have been marketed as the 2D powerhouse that it was, and all the resources that they've wasted on those few excellent 32X 2D games like Knuckles Chaotix, Kolibri, Tempo & co. - these games should have been developed and released for Saturn instead.

Because if there was one single genre in which Saturn was really lacking it was 2D platformers. And Super Nintendo and PlayStation had plenty of those.

[kool kitty89]

The problem I have with this author (aside of what you've pointed out) is that he's not reporting from a neutral point of view but a "SOA = saints, SOJ = devils that ruined the company" point of view. He literally manages to blame the Japanese for everything that went wrong and excuses SOA from even the slightest hint of a responsibility.

Yeah, though he seems to go back and forth with SoJ in general, but you're right that he doesn't point out problems on SoA's side specifically. However, he does make positive notes on Okawa and Stolar's radical changes made durring the Saturn's life (because of the money problems), contrary to many other articles. (though again, he doesn't mention SoA's contribution to the budget problem) In particular though, he mentions that a fair number of people at SoJ weren't happy with some of Nakayama's decisions either arround that time. (some of th esame ones Kaliske was fighting, though in many cases different reasons)

Kind of off this point, but I do wonder how Michael Katz would have done in Kalinske's place had he stayed on. (in particular he seemed to be pushing in marketing but was also more conservative overall) Thouch I beleive he wasn't really given a choice, it was Nakayama's decision to replace him.

Of course, I got my own prejudices, but they are pretty much the absolute opposite to those of Pettus and thus make me read his words twice as carefully as perhaps others would do.

Yeah, I'm kind of neutral, although I had thought SoA had made the major screw-ups in general (pushing the Sega CD, and 32x on the eve of the Saturn), but some of those views were tempered by additional information. (prior to reading that article) Overall it kind of seems like a lack of general communication and compromise caused most of the problems between them. Granted there were some SoA specific things, and Kalinske does apear to have been too loose with spending and speculative investments, but the most irreversible problems seem to have come in the '93-95 timeframe and from multiple sourses.

Honestly the tech mistakes bother me more, like saying the SG-1000 had a 4-bit CPU and the SG-1000 Mk.II had a faster version of that processor, or that the Mk.III/Master System was Sega's first 8-bit console.

I never was a huge fan of 3D games. - There were some exceptions of course, like id's Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake, or Miyamoto's Mario Kart 64 or F-Zero X, but aside of those, the 3D era felt much like the 2600 era to me: A novelty tech thing that didn't satisfy the level of visual and artistic perfection I was looking for. Even the CD sound quickly became boring to me and I soon went back to my good old Mega Drive and finally bought a Super Nintendo too.

I to this day believe that Saturn should have been marketed as the 2D powerhouse that it was, and all the resources that they've wasted on those few excellent 32X 2D games like Knuckles Chaotix, Kolibri, Tempo & co. - these games should have been developed and released for Saturn instead.

Because if there was one single genre in which Saturn was really lacking it was 2D platformers. And Super Nintendo and PlayStation had plenty of those.

Yeah, that's kind of hit and miss, I'm a fan of some of th early 3D stuff, particularly some of th epre-PSX era stuff. (old PC games and even some of those on the Genesis) The same goes for Atari VCS, but again, in both cases there's a lot of crap as well.

I'm really not sure how a 2D vs 3D campaign would have worked, the whole market (US especially) was hyped for 3D, so you'd really need to be tricky to do that, or not and take a hit in the US and focus more on Europe and Japan. (not sure how strong the 3D hype was in europe)

[jesus.arnold]

take a hit in the US and focus more on Europe and Japan. (not sure how strong the 3D hype was in europe)

During the mid 90s 3D gaming was all consuming in the UK, 3D was "the future" and 2D was outdated and old fashioned, during this time 2D gaming's popularity took a nosedive.

A 2D console released around 95'-97' would've been a huge failure in Britain of astronomical levels

I don't know what the rest of Europe was like though

[Silanda]

Late European Mega Drive games didn't sell at all. People shifted their focus towards Super Nintendo, PC and PlayStation (and later Nintendo 64).

And why was that? Was there anything available late in its life except Fifa rehashes and a variety of crap? The SNES continued to get strong support, the Mega Drive recieved a bullet to the brain. People stopped supporting the Mega Drive because there were no prospects of continued high quality software support. It was obvious that this was going to be the case in '95 and that's why I stopped supporting the MD, there were no upcoming games that remotely interested me. Mortal Kombat 3 was probably the last new Mega Drive game that I bought.

EDIT:

During the mid 90s 3D gaming was all consuming in the UK, 3D was "the future" and 2D was outdated and old fashioned, during this time 2D gaming's popularity took a nosedive.

A 2D console released around 95'-97' would've been a huge failure in Britain of astronomical levels

I don't know what the rest of Europe was like though

I totally agree with this. In that period it seemed like anything 3D, even if it was complete junk, would get far more praise than a 2D equivalent. Hell, some reviewers virtually orgasmed over Toshinden when it was released, despite it being an absolute crapfest that I doubt many people remember.

[kool kitty89]

During the mid 90s 3D gaming was all consuming in the UK, 3D was "the future" and 2D was outdated and old fashioned, during this time 2D gaming's popularity took a nosedive.

A 2D console released around 95'-97' would've been a huge failure in Britain of astronomical levels

I don't know what the rest of Europe was like though

Hmm, here's one thought though: how satisfied would games have been with more limited 3D games like the 32x sported had that (hypothetically) been Sega's mainstay console to go with (as the Neptune etc). The 32x was pretty limited (the RAM limitation being a big factor), and there were certainly better hypothetical propositions in the recent Genesis+CD+32 thread, but even the 32x would have solved one major problem with the Saturn, cost. (the Neptune would have undercut the PSX by a ton)
And it seems UK/EU gamers were more budget minded in particular, so even with the tech limitations, the lower cost and compatibility (plus Sega brand) might have helped a lot.

Or scrap any of that entirely: how do you think consumers would have responded to more SVP/Virtua Racing quality games on the Genesis (particularly with a lock-on cart for a one time buy)? Or some similar add-on, much simpler and cheaper than 32x, but more limited.

Or was it really just the PSX quality 3D that wowed people, with low color shaded polygons still falling behind regardless of game quality?


But that's europe, we were discussing Japan, and on that note... Hmm the same kind of thing. Virtua Fighter was the Saturn's initial killer app, but would Japanese consumers have responded similarly to the game on the 32x/Neptune (hypothetically) -which is even considered superior to the Saturn port in some ways, or even a low-color version of VF using SVP or something similar. (like an SH2 or maybe SH1 on-cart rather than the SVP)

[Silanda]

And it seems UK/EU gamers were more budget minded in particular, so even with the tech limitations, the lower cost and compatibility (plus Sega brand) might have helped a lot.

I'm not sure they were any more budget conscious than buyers in the states. Remember that while you paid $299 and $399 for the Playstation and Saturn, we were paying £299 and £399 i.e roughly $475 and $633 in 1995. The Playstation was still a massive hit.

32x level graphics would not have cut it for long while there was superior competition unless there was something far superior coming over the horizon. A Neptune costing as much as an MD2 could have been a massive success, a Neptune costing as much as an MD2 + 32x (which I suspect would have been more likely given the price of the Multimega) would have been a massive failure.

[acdc]

you know people it was yust a goddamn conspiracy
ask the edge he knows about it

[kool kitty89]

I'm not sure they were any more budget conscious than buyers in the states. Remember that while you paid $299 and $399 for the Playstation and Saturn, we were paying £299 and £399 i.e roughly $475 and $633 in 1995. The Playstation was still a massive hit.

Hmm, yeah, there's that, and iirc some prices were even more skewed in UK/EU compared to US (like the Mega CD)

I think my impression of the budget-minded thing came a bit from how long the old 8-bit computers remained popular there. Personally, I don't really have a good comparison to go by as my family has pretty much always been budget minded in that respect, regardless of income limitations. Almost always buying used and getting consoles fairly late. (N64 and SNES in particular, Christmas of 1999 and 1995/6 in those cases)

32x level graphics would not have cut it for long while there was superior competition unless there was something far superior coming over the horizon. A Neptune costing as much as an MD2 could have been a massive success, a Neptune costing as much as an MD2 + 32x (which I suspect would have been more likely given the price of the Multimega) would have been a massive failure.

Yeah, the Neptune should have been a lot cheaper in that case though, and the planned US launch price was to be $200. The multimega had other issues with cost, many related to it doubling as a portable CD player and also due to the cost of the CD drive in general. A bare bones, integrated CD+Genesis should have been a lot cheaper, and cheaper to manufacture/distribute than the 2 separately, same would go for 32x/Neptune.

As for an actual ideal system, we recently discussed this here: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthr...473#post179473
At least that in the context of an evolutionary design that would also maintain Genesis+CD compatibility.
The other hypothetical option would be go simple, not bother with compatibility or the features of the Saturn, just a simple system with a bit more features than the 32x alone. Probably still the dual SH2 CPUs (which Sega seems to be pushing for regardless), but with much simpler hardware in addition to that, more than the 32x's vary simple VDP, like texture mapping and polygon rasterizing support (preferably gouraud shading as well), but not all the other stuff or 2nd VDP. (maybe have a fixed resolution like 32x as well, with smaller framebuffers, perhaps keeping the smaller 15-bit color palette or going up to 24-bit like Saturn or go in the middle with a 18-bit one like VGA on PC has) Go with a simple sound system, but more than the bare 32x. Probably have the same Main RAM layout as saturn And definitely have CDs, no way around that (to remain competitive), though maybe get away with a cheaper 1x speed drive.

Something like that should be able to handle a lot of contemporary 3D games fairly well and be a lot cheaper than Saturn or PlayStation to manufacture, while also being simpler to develop and create development tools for. Should also be quicker to design and fine tune than the Saturn was. It definitely would have been weaker than Saturn for 2D stuff though, and still more limited than PSX overall. (but a good head start, brand recognition, low cost, and smart marketing should make it pretty competitive)

As long as it had a good portion of 3rd party killer games (Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem 3D, Toomb Raider, etc, etc.) and exclusive killer apps like Virtua Fighter for Japan and it sould have been good. Even if they still had no Sonic game. (though as came up before something like Sonic R as a platformer might have worked, and again there's Sonic Robo Blast using a raycasting engine: a modification of the Doom II engine I believe)