When did Sega, as a console maker, reach the "point of no return"?
We know that Sega stopped making consoles in 2001, with the end of the Dreamcast. But what's the latest that Sega could, so to speak, "un-fuck" themselves and correct the mistakes of their past enough that they may still be making consoles today, or at least well past 2001?
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It starts with the Summer of 1994.Code:/equip head "Hindsight" /ja "20/20" <me>
Cancel the 32X, citing it as a mistake, and commit full power to the Saturn in North America for 1995.
Notify developers and retailers of intent to launch the Saturn in North America early.
Launch the Saturn with at least a dozen games on day one, with support from third-parties.
EDIT: Also, a quality 3-D/2-D Sonic title by the first holiday season. What a no-brainer!
Continue existing Genesis and Game Gear sales and support into as late as 1998.
NEVER HIRE BERNIE STOLAR.
All of the above would have put them on stronger footing for the Saturn era and, at the very least, softened the huge losses they took.
Then, maybe then, they might have seen themselves through the Dreamcast era, It's quite possible they would have still exited the hardware race, though. At the very worst, continue Dreamcast support through 2002, until the PS2 and Xbox developed strong user bases.
Following the Dreamcast, ignore all furry fandom for Sonic. Don't do weird shit with Sonic during the 00s! For the love of god, never have him fall for a human girl!
Continue making the typical software they made during the Dreamcast era, live long and prosper as a unique developer that delivers unique experiences.
Establish themselves as a stronger PC developer and publisher by 2009, noticing all of the commotion and easy opportunities to make money with ports.
Last edited by sfchakan; 07-08-2015 at 12:45 AM.
Sega's success was largely a fluke in timing, the Genesis launching during the NES's lifespan gave it a huge lead. I'm honestly not sure if Sega was every truly capable of capitalizing on their success, as everything after felt like they were coasting on inertia alone.
New Comics for the Week of 10-03-12
The Sega CD was the beginning of the end.
It was expensive and it had alot of crap. Many games were just genesis games with cd audio. Even back then people thought the FMV games sucked.
Honestly, I have no idea on this one. Sega is like a child genius who just can't put it all together as an adult. They've always been talented and eccentric, but rarely have they been able to bring together their great games with popular trends and a solid long-term hardware strategy.
Console gaming in the '90s began shifting away from trying to replicate the arcade experience and started going toward new formats with long-form RPGs and PC-style gaming. Sega has been able to come up with some great RPGs and strategy games over the years, but they've always relied on the strength of their arcade development. When what they were doing was less popular, they didn't make the adjustment, they had a haphazard hardware plan, and they remained extremely Japanese in style. The Genesis in the US was lightning in a bottle. Beyond that, Sega has been busy being brilliant, but not catering to the shift in design. Sega probably could have made brilliant FPS games or WRPGS, but they kept being Sega, making Sega games. They're wonderful and eccentric, and unfortunately just not mainstream after about 1993.
I started to love Sega AFTER the Genesis. I always felt like the Genesis was very average. It was afterward when it was clear that Sega was going to do things their own way, pass or fail, that I started to appreciate them for marching to the beat of their own drum. What makes them great to me is a huge part of what made them fail. I have no suggestions, as I wouldn't trade the Saturn and Dreamcast libraries for an also-ran group of FPS' and western-style games.
I really wish they'd just scale back expectations and produce Sega games on Sega hardware, not attempting to compete with what's new, but just going off in their own glorious direction, but that is entirely unrealistic.
I don't think there ever was a point of no return. They never knew how to properly return on much of anything they did at a hardware level. The Genesis was sheer dumb luck that it paid off given how badly the SMS did. Had the cards fallen into place it just as easily could have been the TG16 and not the Genesis making the waves, and probably would have given they put out more of the good Japanese stuff that would have localized quite well.
Take the Genesis out of the picture, what successes did they really have that would have put them on a long term path of survival? Game Gear held out fine as a handheld, but what else? 32x they stupidly put out, and even more stupidly nuked fast breaking confidence of their base. The Saturn pops up early and it's not made for 3D which put it into trouble immediately outside of certain types of games it excelled at, and then they say stupid crap, break a lot more confidence, and it gets whacked badly. To somehow recover from their stupiditis, they instead overdose on it and kill the Genesis and GG which had been a revenue stream for them. And finally the Dreamcast, I had it, it was great, but it was doomed to fail when you see what it could do, the limited storage, and the rest against what would come 2 years later. Had the Genesis never taken off they'd have bit it earlier and stuck with the arcade and making games for others.
FMV can be used well, like in FF8's train hijacking scene cinematics and when they had you control Squall moving over the FMV background before smoothly transitioning into the in-engine stuff...but nobody knew how to yet. They should've left such experimentation to the 3DO developers, though.Originally Posted by bb_hood
The 32X should not have been made, simple as that. The Saturn should've had the DMA interrupt or whatever it's called so the CPUs could easily share data between them without s
The problem was with the culture at Sega in Japan, unfortunately. The success of the Genesis made them arrogant enough they forgot that Kalinske had already proven he knew what he was talking about regarding what would and wouldn't work, even though he's the one who was in charge of making it successful. I'll link the same thing I did in the "summer 1996" thread:
That console became the Sony Playstation."One of the key reasons why I left Sega is when we had the opportunity to work with Sony, when [Sony Interactive CEO] Olaf Olafsson, [Sony Corporation of America president and CEO] Mickey Schulhof and I had agreed we were going to do one platform, share the development cost of it, share the probable loss for a couple years on it, but each benefit from the software we could bring to that platform,” he said. “Of course, in those days, we were much better at software than they were, so I saw this as a huge win. We went to Sony and they agreed, ‘Great idea.’ Whether we called it Sega-Sony or Sony-Sega, who cared? We go to Sega and the board turned it down, which I thought was the stupidest decision ever made in the history of business. And from that moment on, I didn’t feel they were capable of making the correct decisions in Japan any longer.” -- former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske, who resigned April 15, 1996.
Supposedly, Kalinske also fought against the early release.
Even before that, when Sega of America first saw the Saturn, it was a clearly overcomplicated, too-large board with too many chips that weren't designed to work together, so they decided to suggest a simpler alternative:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/...of-sega?page=6"We went down the road to Silicon Graphics and met with [SGI founder] Jim Clark. They had bought MIPS Technologies, and they were developing a chipset for use in a game machine. We liked it, so we called up the Japanese guys to come take a look at it. The hardware guys came over, and they really pooh-poohed the whole effort. The chip was too big; there would be too much waste; lots of objections from a technical standpoint. It was upsetting to us, because we thought it was better in terms of speed, graphics, and audio.
"So after we had this meeting, I had to report back to Jim Clark, who was then Chairman of Silicon Graphics and tell him that SEGA wasn't going to be buying, and he asked, 'Well, what should I do now?' and I said, 'Well, there's this other game company up in the Seattle area. I think their name starts with an N.' And of course, he did. He went up there and sold it to them, and that, of course, became the foundation for the Nintendo 64." -- Tom Kalinske
In short: they reached the point of no return when they became jealous of SoA's success and forgot to listen to who they thought of as the "little gaijin people".
I hate it when people write their initials on a game cart's label. Can't get it off without ruining part of the label!
More than just a single issue, BUT if you had to isolate one really poor blunder that turned off many would-be Saturn owners it was releasing the 32x branded as the future, all while barely supporting it and tending to "the real future console" with the Saturn.
Just speaking on personal perspective
No matter how I look at it, pushing Virtua Fighter as their flagship title in the west only added to Saturn's troubles.FMV can be used well, like in FF8's train hijacking scene cinematics and when they had you control Squall moving over the FMV background before smoothly transitioning into the in-engine stuff...but nobody knew how to yet. They should've left such experimentation to the 3DO developers, though.
The 32X should not have been made, simple as that. The Saturn should've had the DMA interrupt or whatever it's called so the CPUs could easily share data between them without s
The problem was with the culture at Sega in Japan, unfortunately. The success of the Genesis made them arrogant enough they forgot that Kalinske had already proven he knew what he was talking about regarding what would and wouldn't work, even though he's the one who was in charge of making it successful. I'll link the same thing I did in the "summer 1996" thread:
That console became the Sony Playstation.
Even before that, when Sega of America first saw the Saturn, it was a clearly overcomplicated, too-large board with too many chips that weren't designed to work together, so they decided to suggest a simpler alternative:
http://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/...of-sega?page=6
In short: they reached the point of no return when they became jealous of SoA's success and forgot to listen to who they thought of as the "little gaijin people".
Last edited by theclaw; 07-09-2015 at 02:10 AM.
Lum fan.
I totally agree
Nintendo is doing this and while not KILLING it, they seem to be doing fine.
It surprises me how many people say the Sega CD shouldn't have been made. The Sega CD was itself a good idea, just Sega never really supported it and they pushed all the wrong aspects.
I mean, think about Silpheed--a game that at the time was seen as competition with Nintendo's Star Fox. That game was made possible by the Sega CD, because all the 3D objects you see are actually an FMV sequence running in the background, with hitboxes programmed in the appropriate location.
Personally, if I were running Sega, I would've released the Sega CD, but then aggressively supported it. I wouldn't exactly stop making games for the Genesis, but I would strongly advise licensees that if they ever made a dual-platform game, the CD version should always have more content than the cartridge version (like how Earthworm Jim CD has a new level), while having a few awesome games be CD exclusive, in order to king of wean people over onto the add-on. In addition, I would release a combination console like the JVC X'eye for people who don't already own a Genesis but are considering getting one, or for the sake of the space/power outlet savvy. Also Sega CD games should've come in cases smaller in size, more comparable to what DVDs come in today, rather than the humongous ones they came in.
The 32X though, that was truly a bad idea and should have never even been on the drawing board.
..... hmm.... now I really want to build a time machine AND a mind control device, so I can go back in time and prevent Sega from being stupid.
Yet you could've still had that without them failing commercially, in fact you probably would've seen more experimental stuff if they hadn't.
How's that, then? The message of that post was that Sega's great stuff was no longer mainstream, and couldn't support the needed console sales. How could I have all that stuff Sega made that flopped hard and didn't get any praise until a decade later AND have Sega succeed? Somehow grant them extra developmental resources that they didn't have? Developing more also-ran platformers on the Genesis hardly gives them extra resources or success. Killing the 32X before it starts I get. But that's the only cut I see that frees up resources for Sega to have tried other things to gain traction with the Saturn without compromising the great games they did make.
I would agree that Sega's console future was salvageable in 1994, if not even later. The 32X came out in November 1994 so it could have been quietly yanked in late spring 1994 and the public would not even know about it. Heck, it could be yanked even after the CES announcement, with Sega saying something to the effect of "We're focusing on the Saturn as our future console." Sega would be damaged by this, but the damage would pale in comparison to what the 32X did. Instead of throwing major dollars at the 32X through the holiday season of '94 and first part of '95, don't even release the 32X. Stand behind the Genesis, and keep the CD going in the background. True, the CD had limited success, but it did have some great exclusive games. But the company's biggest asset was the Genesis. By late 1994, it had a very strong install base.
Here's a timeline that would likely give Sega a better future:
Let's start on May 9, 1994. Everything Sega's done prior to May 9, 1994 is done. The Genesis and Sega CD are their consoles. Game Gear is their portable system. They've even got the CDX out. SNES is just hitting its prime (which I consider to be the three full years 1994, 1995, 1996). 32X is in development but very few outside the business know: Summer CES 1994 hasn't happened yet.
By June 23, 1994: Cancel the 32X before CES. Don't announce it. Word will get out years later on retro game forums, but for '94 the secret is probably safe.
Remainder of 1994: Focus on the Genesis. Keep making Sega CD games in the background, but Genesis games are priority 1. SNES is coming out with expansion chips like the Super FX. Sega is falling behind technically, so it needs to go the expansion chip route for high end games. Sega's got the Sega Virtua Processor. Use it in several games over the 1994-1996 period. Get working on Sonic X-treme, but start its life as a Saturn game due out in '96.
1995: From January-August, keep focus on the Genesis. Announce "Saturnday" launch in March (they actually did this). Work with third parties and retailers before and during the September 2, 1995 launch. Go for at least 10 launch games, including a good VF2. Kill regional lockout. All Sega consoles from here on should be region free. Localize a majority of Saturn Japanese games. Some games should stay in Japan (i.e. dating sims, mahjong simulators, etc), but things like shooters and fighters need to be in the US. For the holiday season, push the Saturn, but maintain a focus on the Genesis as well, continuing to push out good titles. This is the last year that most focus goes to the Genesis. Start to shut down the Sega CD upon the Saturn's release.
1996: Push more Saturn games. Simplify the hardware and have the first price drop late in the year. Maintain Genesis support - this is the last year with a large number of Genesis releases. Overall, this year is mostly Saturn, but stand behind Genesis as a low cost option. With the Saturn out, this is the year to kill off the Sega CD for good. On Saturn, treat third parties well. This is also the year to release Sonic X-treme. It didn't make it in real life because it started on the Genesis, moved to the 32X, and finally was translated for the Saturn. Cut out even just the 32X bullshit, and Sonic X-treme can make it in stores in time for Christmas 1996. 3D Blast can be the Genesis Sonic swan song.
1997: DON'T SAY "THE SATURN IS NOT OUR FUTURE". Development of Dreamcast should be in earnest by now, and the buzz about the Dreamcast just starting. With third parties treated well, there should still be many cross-platform third party games that appear on the Saturn (And maybe a few exclusives). Keep the number and quality of first party Saturn games high. The 3D weaknesses of the system are becoming apparent, so emphasize some good 2D games as well. 2D wasn't totally dead by '97.
Real collectors drive Hondas, Toyotas, Chevys, Fords, etc... not Rolls Royces.
I think even your what if...list here is a push a real dream. The Genesis wouldn't have propped them up, if anything it would have caused a little bit of a split. Nintendo and much more so Sony still would have buried them even if they did the marketing and so forth of the Saturn correctly. The system was a disaster that companies didn't like either due to the weak output for 3D which they moved towards and because it is a nightmare to code for. Sure you can say this game or that game, but anything they did have was nothing on what Nintendo and Sony could push, sure it would have made already netted Sega fanboys happy but pulling in new blood it would not have at all in the numbers they needed. The Japanese office was stupid and arrogant, hated on the US office especially since they were right and proven so which dishonorably shamed and made their dumb moves public. I do agree the 32X should have never been born to retail. Given the garbage pricing on Virtua Racing at $100, you'd think they'd have tried to make something a little more reasonable and shovel the 32X games over that chip instead. Even if the games due to bulk could have been done in the $70 ish range, they'd have fared better than moving that 32x turd and pulling it so fast ruining their good will with the fans. Anyone can dream about what if this or that, but the laundry list of dumb crap the home office did for a great many years was not going to be reversed as a total labotomy for the lot of them was not going to happen.
Off on that 2 times over thing side topic with Nintendo. They got away with it because the VB was virtual reality which was huge at the time, not a good excuse but it worked sadly. They should have been punished for breaking out with it too early and half baked from what was intended. The 64DD though that is a pass, it was Japan only and stayed there. Had that come to the US with those small discs and weak(mostly) library for it, it would be fair game, but they buried it at home.
Sega Reach This Point?
I do not see where Sega could not do a turn around or have ever reached a point of no return. That said, some games released were better than others. However, in this day and age with android os, & the cost of production dropping (not talking about AAA titles here) they can chose to do a turn around. It will not be easy and it may require plenty of investors like through kickstarter or some other crowd funding but ultimately it can be done.
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Saturn put them in bankruptcy. They could not afford to make Dreamcast but did it in hoping it would save them financially but only made it worse.
Life!? ... What console is that on?
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