It is Pre-1994 SEGA; What Do You Do to Make the Company into the World's Biggest Gaming Juggernaut by 2014?

[Nz17]

I'd say that 1994 was when SEGA was at its financial height. These days it is a mere shadow of its former self, and while it does still output some good new games, it is nowhere near the output it used to have year-by-year. That got me to thinking about how things could have been different. How instead of today's big three being Nintendo, SONY, and MicroSoft, it could have been Nintendo, SONY, and SEGA... and that's where you step in.

Hindsight is 20/20, so tell me how you, as the benevolent guiding spirit of SEGA, would have steered the company from 1994 onward to make it into the king of gaming by twenty years later in 2014.

[Tanooki]

Sega CD had come out in 1992. Up against the threat of the SNES and the rumblings of a drive for that, I would have gone all full throttle into developing a crap ton of quality CD titles. Many CD games barely used the dumb thing, the few that did for the extra depth it allowed really shined, and I would have even by license denial forced people not to cut corners on those games. 32X would have NEVER happened, they had to at some level argued somewhere in the building it could splinter things. I would have found a cheaper better process to follow that SVP band wagon to go pound for pound up against the FX(1%2) chips and ripped Nintendo off as well making more custom chips to really push the limits like their SA1 chip which was like a mini-cpu in part there. Then for the dedicated system, I would not have rushed that damn thing out or playing the pricing pissing match with Sony, they showed their hand early enough along. I would have made that system using better parts of their arcade hardware or something new, but to use a non-3D system to do 3D in math was really retarded and hurt them horribly against the PS1. No 32X, and a properly created Saturn would have put them neck in neck with Sony and had both those companies stnading on each one of Nintendo's nuts with their 64bit cartidge box. Dreamcast, because the Saturn wouldn't have flopped, would have been back another 1-2 years in development/release and more closer if not exceeding the capabilities of the PS2, kind of like the xbox, considering the WinCE environment the DC used, the knowledge was there. I'd think had those few huge steps been done, they'd be rocking it well into the 2010s and beyond just fine and not a double bought out joke they are now being a total quality crap shoot.

[Tupin]

First off, I would have made it so American Sega and Japanese Sega would see each other less as competition and more as actual partners. I would have thrown the full force of content behind the Sega CD, releasing it as a stand-alone system rather than an expansion. The Saturn would be designed from the ground up as a 3D system, and would be given a lot of lead-up time for American retailers and developers to make games for it. I would likely kill the Game Gear, it being a drain on R&D.

As for the Dreamcast, the absolute most important thing: I would make sure it had DVD playback. As Tanooki said, since the Saturn wouldn't have failed, the Dreamcast could be made stronger and be competition with the PS2. I would have released the Broadband Modem in the USA, and would push online functionality hard. I would have done whatever I could to make sure I had EA on board, and if not I would produce Sega's own series of sports games. I would redesign the controller to be more ergonomic and more importantly, to have a second analog stick. Since backwards compatibility was one of the PS2's major points and the Saturn would have been much more successful in this case, an attempt would be made at backwards compatibility, perhaps with an add-on.

[Natty Bumppo]

I can tell it things not to do:

Change platforms as often as possible in order to confuse/alienate customers and everyone involved in making the games.

Make absolutely no provision for backward compatibility - either in any new hardware itself or adapters of some sort

Make sure that every time you change the platform that the peripherals all have to be replaced.

Ignore the potential in your solid niche markets - if they can't buy RPGs (or whatever) then surely they will buy crappy sports games or whatever you think they should buy.

Whenever you change platforms be sure to ensure that the last few titles made (which not surprisingly are often the best) are released in such limited numbers that most of your customers have no chance to get them new (unless they pay exorbitant prices to the profiteers who siphon most of the limited supply off before it even hits the shelves)

Jack up the prices on the games made for your work horse platform to their highest levels while at the same time cheapening the product - oh lets say by replacing sturdy plastic cases with flimsy cardboard ones and when called out on it say it is for the environment - and producing cheap black and white manuals (after all they contain the same information as the nice color glossy ones so why should your customers care).

Don't tap into many of the best games you have available in Japan and translate them for your customers - even though you have at least one company doing that very well on your platforms.

Don't worry one iota that by doing all of this you will alienate long term customers who will eventually wise up and go with companies that don't pull this garbage.

Above all don't wonder why you can longer compete until it is too late.

[spman]

I would have released the Broadband Modem in the USA, and would push online functionality hard.

I read this a lot, but in reality while online was fun on Dreamcast, they were a bit too far ahead of their time with it. Consumer Broadband internet was really in its infancy in that era, and online gaming on consoles didn't really take off for several more years with X-Box.

[Jorpho]

Sega CD had come out in 1992. Up against the threat of the SNES and the rumblings of a drive for that, I would have gone all full throttle into developing a crap ton of quality CD titles. Many CD games barely used the dumb thing, the few that did for the extra depth it allowed really shined, and I would have even by license denial forced people not to cut corners on those games.

How exactly would you have made a "crap ton of CD quality titles", though? I think developers just plain weren't ready to take advantage of the medium at the time – goodness knows the PC and TG-CD weren't getting quality CD titles in 1992. I might venture that they would have been better off never going near CD technology at that stage.

[Greg2600]

Fire everyone in a "suit" position at Sega of Japan, and let Sega of America call the shots.

[wizardofwor1975]

Fire everyone in a "suit" position at Sega of Japan, and let Sega of America call the shots.

Your absolutely right. Management was always a serious problem for SEGA. Take the case of SEGA of America CEO Tom Kalinske. With Kalinske at the helm SEGA grew from a $813 million dollar company in 1989 to a $3.6 billion dollar conglomerate in 1993. Additionally, with all of Kalinske’s suggestions implemented SEGA had 55% of the market locked up by 1992 up from a pathetic 8% prior to Tom. A major reason if not the number one reason for SEGA's downfall was when Tom Kalinske was forced out by a series of horrible business decisions by Sega of Japan. Kalinske's departure/resignation kicked off a domino effect from which SEGA was never able to recover from. SEGA of Japan should have accommodated Tom and made him happy in turn he would have continued to do what he did best: making SEGA allot of money.

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/

http://www.sega-16.com/2005/02/tom-k...rican-samurai/

[A Black Falcon]

Okay... starting from 1992.

-Force Sega of Japan to competently support the Sega CD throughout its life. SoJ game support for the SCD in 1991, 1992, and 1995 was minimal; they only tried in '93 and '94, and even then some major titles ended up on cart -- Outrun 2019, Phantasy Star IV. Things were so bad early on that SoA was forced to include third-party multiplatform games (Sol-Feace is a X68000 port, and Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective is also on PC, Turbo CD, and more) and some Genesis ports as the launch pack-in library! Pretty sad. And the next major packin was Sewer Shark, another game which later on got a port (to 3DO). SoJ needed actual games for the system.

-Make up some information for first and third party teams about how to do good sprite scaling on the Sega CD. Few teams managed to figure it out -- Malibu, a couple of SoJ teams (for Beyond the Limit and Sonic CD bonus stages), Core, and not much else.

-Sega Multimedia Studios was a good idea, and their two games are good, but were they worth the significant expense? Also, even IF it was the mid '90s... Wild Woody, conceptually, should have been changed at some point.

-Never release the 32X. It was a huge mistake.

-Somehow get SoJ to understand that by undercutting SoA, they destroyed most of their sales basem, and they could NEVER replace that all with Japanese sales. As much as they hated it, they needed the American market, and needed to focus on trying to stay relevant in it, instead of going for Japan (with the Saturn) and losing when FF7 and DQ7 were announced as PS1 exclusives.

-Don't release the Saturn as it is. Release a more powerful system (the SGI system, the Lockheed system, something else, they had options), either in late '95 or in '96. This would hurt in Japan, but do a lot more good in the West than bad in Japan, overall. Sega went from over 20 million Genesises in the US to not even 2 million Saturns! Absolutely catastrophic, and with better hardware and no 32X the hurt would be reduced.

-Never, EVER hire Bernie Stolar, he helped finish off Sega in the US.

-With a later and better Saturn, the DC wouldn't need to release in 1998, so it could have been more powerful and not quite as dated specs-wise compared to the other systems of the generation. DC maximum polygon counts particularly are limited compared to the GC, Xbox, or PS2.

-Built in DVD drive in the Dreamcast, with DVD playback either included, or via an addon like the original Xbox remote. A LOT of people bought PS2s in 2000-2001 for DVD playback alone! Match this.


If you REALLY want a successful Sega, though, Sega quite simply needed more money. Sega had limited financial resources compared to the other systems, and that is what pushed them out in the end. Even with all these things, Sega probably eventually ends up out simply because of how each generation is even more expensive to stay in than the last one. Eventually Sega's limited finances were going to give out, unless they could manage a series of smash-hit systems and manage to not immediately waste all the money, as they had done with their Genesis money. I don't know if anything could change this. Like, how could Sega get that money? What would they need to do? I guess if they could moneyhat Square and Enix they could win Japan, but Sony could offer much larger moneyhats, and Nintendo too if they believed in such things (which they don't, of course).

As for the West, canning the 32X and releasing a better Saturn would have worked wonders. How about buying exlusivity (or the studio, even?) to Core Design titles? Core and Sega were close on the SCD/Genesis, and if somehow Sega could have gotten Tomb Raider exclusive, that'd have been huge... (though Sony's moneyhats would have been larger, probably, making this tough; Sega would have needed to get them before they got big, I guess. But at that point, how do you know beforehad it'd be worth it? GEt Tomb Raider console exclusive on Saturn, though, and you help Sega in '96. Also of course... a Sonic game. X-Treme, or something from SoJ, if you force Sonic Team to make a Sonic game instead of NiGHTS. Release one, you NEED it for the US, it's not optional.

However, all of that would only help for a while -- later on console development just got so expensive! Microsoft lost over $4 billion on the original Xbox and shrugged it off as the cost of getting into the industry, while Sega was driven out of the industry with only a tiny fraction of that amount of losses. It's easy to imagine Sega doing a lot better than they did in the 5th generation. But becoming "the world's biggest gaming juggernaut"? That would require INCREDIBLE sales of Sega hardware, and I have trouble imagining a scenario where they could have overcome their massive financial disadvantage, particularly when after the mid '90s Sega's style of arcade-focused game gradually faded in popularity.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

How exactly would you have made a "crap ton of CD quality titles", though? I think developers just plain weren't ready to take advantage of the medium at the time – goodness knows the PC and TG-CD weren't getting quality CD titles in 1992. I might venture that they would have been better off never going near CD technology at that stage.

You mean western developers. Japanese devs such as Falcom were on board from day one and produced some of the finest games of the entire decade in the early 90s for the CD systems in Japan.

[Jorpho]

You mean western developers. Japanese devs such as Falcom were on board from day one and produced some of the finest games of the entire decade in the early 90s for the CD systems in Japan.

I suppose. Maybe they could have developed a more restrictive licensing policy that would have kept the likes of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective and Marky Mark Make My Video off the system, even though I'm sure a lot of people were convinced such games were the way of the future. That would have made for a smaller library, unless the success of the remaining titles gave sufficient incentive for other developers to get on board.

[celerystalker]

Sega needed to recognize the shift in game design that was moving away from arcade-style games and see how console games were becoming increasingly more like PC games. As much as I love Virtua Cop and Sega Rally, the games didn't have the depth players were gravitating toward... RPGs became million sellers after Final Fantasy VII, games like Gran Turismo and Ridge Racer began to move away from timed arcade races into customizable vehicles and career modes. Super Mario expanded into a broader experience in level design and length, showing wide open adventuren exploration, anf collecting were the future, while Sega put out Nights, which was more of a technique scoring arcade expierience, beautiful as it was. Nintendo saw the importance of expanding its most popular franchises into 3D exploration, and Sony saw the shift from the arcades.

I love my Saturn and its arcade ports dearly, and all their quirky risks. However, if I was going to make them successful, it's all about the Saturn's library being something less appealing to me and more to where things were headed. Sonic needed a 3D adventure. Pay for an exclusive Tomb Raider. Remember how huge vehicle combat games were? Twisted Metal, Vigilante 8... Sega could have done it in style. Keep EA happy, no matter how much you want to make your own sports line. Madden is god to many, regardless of how much I refuse to buy it. Konami never loved Sega like they did Nintendo and Sony, so I'd try to repair that. The one thing Sega had right at the time was 3D fighters. With a strong enough library in other genres, maybe more people would have played Last Bronx instead of Soul Edge. Would it have killed you to go after a 3D WCW or WWF game? Wrestling was entering a new age, yet all Sega got was 2 2D Acclaim stinkers.


More than their hardware decisions, Sega lost their grasp on trends and stopped being cool to the generation buying games.

[Greg2600]

Let me expound.....

The library of consoles, or genre of arcades did not sink SEGA. SEGA (mainly Japan) sunk themselves. A litany of poor business decisions, spearheaded by stubborn, xenophobic dinosaurs.

No 32X as SoA didn't want it. Support the Genesis longer. Dumping mainline support in 1995 chased many a secondary market buyer to the SNES.

Make the deal to replace the Genesis with the Sony Playstation. Sony of Japan, nearly as backwards as Sega of Japan, had no interest in challenging Nintendo. They would have been quite content with supplying hardware and games to Sega, and forgoing all the risk.

Quite possible Sony never enters the market on their own. Even if they did, SEGA would have been in a tremendous market position, and would have had ample time to prepare the Dreamcast for eventual launch. Meaning, things like ethernet, hard drive, built in rumble controllers, and DVD playback would have been standard as they were the competition.

[Gunstar Hero]

I absolutely agree with Tanooki in the Sega CD aspect. I think that with better titles it really could have taken off especially after seeing the quality of titles such as Sonic CD. They had to either put everything into the Sega CD, or never release it in the first place and put all effort into the Genesis. Trying to support the Genesis, the Sega CD, and worse the 32X was a bad business decision. A better way would most likely be to just never release the Sega CD or the 32X and to put all effort into the Genesis. I'm going to be the one to say that the Saturn was a flop. I think that it could have done ok if it was backwards compatible with the Genesis and got as much 3rd party support as the Genesis and put out more quality titles. Still, it wasn't entirely necessary as SNES went straight to N64, so could have Genesis went straight to Dreamcast, however that in itself would result in either a premature Dreamcast, or Genesis not being able to survive long enough for the Dreamcast to come out. Sega made it to the Dreamcast still alive, however, and DID put out many quality titles. When comparing the Dreamcast to the PSX or N64, it is the clear victor, but it simply couldn't compete with PS2. As someone mentioned earlier, this could had been avoided if Sony and Sega joined forces and co-developed the PSX/Saturn as one console, then Co-developed the PS2/Dreamcast as one console. The result could have easily challenged Nintendo, and then Sega would have been on top. However, that is not what happened and so here we are with one of our favorite little companies holding on for dear life.

I'll respond with another question then: does anyone think sega has a chance for expanding and building once again? Clearly there are quite a few licenses that they own that could bring in some money and with effective advertising and use of their franchises, I believe its possible for them to pull out of the slump they are in, especially because there is quite a following for many of their games. I'm not saying that they would be restored to their former glory, but anything could happen in regards to them getting out of their slump. Dreamcast 2 still is just a dream with little chance of ever coming out, however they can still make themselves a presence in today's market by appealing to the considerable fanbase they have with more effective advertising and overall more games. Here's hoping for a turnaround.

EDIT: Awesome thread by the way, love the discussion on this

[Zap!]

Put Sonic to rest. After 1994, he did more to hurt Sega than help them.

[WCP]

Man, Sega had so many problems, it's hard to really consider all of the angles.



I think the Saturn was actually the biggest issue that Sega had going against it. The problem is, the Saturn was somewhat outdated technology, before it even released. Sega realized this at the last minute, and tried to add a couple of extra processors to help it out, but that just made things even more confusing. The Saturn was too expensive, and it just wasn't very good hardware. Especially in comparison to the Playstation.


To fix that, Sega would have needed to start the Saturn project much later, so the tech would have been more up to date. They would have needed to have had much better engineers working for them, than they did. Even if I had a time machine, and could go back and show Sega exactly where they went wrong, I'm not sure they could do anything about it. They just didn't have the financial muscle to be able to compete head to head with Sony either via technology or marketing.


The 32X of course was a total disaster for Sega. I'm sure every person that bought into the promise of the 32X left with a very bad taste in their mouths. I bought that crappy thing the day it launched for $169.99 . What a total waste of money. There really is only 2 or 3 decent 32X games, and the rest suck big time. The thing promissed 32,000 colors or something, yet the games don't seem any more colorful than the Gunstar Heroes cart. Where are those 32,000 colors ? The 32X was just a piece of junk, any which way you slice it. You'd think that by spending $170 on something like that, that it could take the Genesis beyond the Super FX Chip, but honestly, I think Starfox is more impressive than any 32X game. It's amazing that they were able to squeeze so little technology into something that cost that much money.


The Sega CD was a major disappointment from the standpoint that they didn't address the single biggest weakness of the Genesis. The lack of simultaneous colors on screen for the Genesis is it's single biggest weakness. Super Nintendo ports looked better with all that color. Heck, TG-16 games looked more colorful in many instances (of course you need a RGB modded TG-16 to appreciate it) . You'd think that Sega's engineers would figure out a way to have the same number of on screen colors as the Super Nintendo, when using a Sega CD, but apparently that was too difficult. Instead we got scaling and rotation that frankly wasn't even as smooth as Nintendo's Mode 7 effect. So, Sega definitely missed a golden opportunity to have the Sega CD address any of the Genesis' technological shortcomings, which I'm sure also partly contributed to the lack of support from developers. Many companies just half-assed ported over their cart games and added better music and a few cartoon cinemas. If the Sega CD really provided something more than just extra storage, maybe developers would have been more hyped about trying to really push the thing. Instead, they kinda just said, "meh", in regards to Sega CD, so it never really got the needed software support.

[Jorpho]

You'd think that Sega's engineers would figure out a way to have the same number of on screen colors as the Super Nintendo, when using a Sega CD, but apparently that was too difficult.

Didn't the 32x use some kind of separate video overlay to work its wizardry? It would seem that increasing the number of colors used for the entirety of each frame would be so difficult as to be impossible.