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What if Sega continued making consoles?
- Thread starter Jubenhimer
- Start date
- Opinion Analysis
Too fucking right!
From experience, I was waiting for Saturn games library to justify console purchase. No sonic, sor, golden axe, shinobi (well, shinobi x/legions wasn't as fluid in gameplay etc). Then RE/TR sequels were PS1 exclusive instead of also for Saturn.
Ended up getting a PS1 later on, like '99, didn't pick up a Saturn until like 2002 just to have one for the collection.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
That was always the plan. Dreamcast was never meant to last more than two or three years, and there was no way Sega could survive in a global market dominated by Sony (valued at $60 billion) and invaded by Microsoft (valued at $infinity).
Sorry, kids. By the late 90s, Sega’s plan was to merge with another complaint or seek a buyout. Heck, half the reason SoA pursued the 3DO M2 console was because Matsushita would be the manufacturer for the machine, effectively allowing Sega to exit the hardware business in all but name.
By 1998, it’s very clear that in order to survive in hardware, you needed to control your own manufacturing, have billions in reserve to weather downturns or price wars (Sony & MS could lose billions and never break a sweat), and have key franchise titles that sell millions. Their only AAA franchise at that time was Sonic, and even there we could argue that Sega had over saturated the market with too many Sonic games 1991-94.
Did Sega make great videogames? Absolutely. Did those games deserve to sell millions? Absolutely. But the didn’t, and they weren’t going to. Just look at Sega’s software output on PS2, Xbox and GameCube. Nothing outside Sonic sold worth a hill of beans.
Sorry, kids. Sega was doomed.
RickMasters
Member
I have pondered this before..... And I cant see a scenario, where they would not have had to bow out.
Lets say they went with the chipset that they should went with back in the saturn era albeit with some changes .... instead of two SH-2 chips.....one chip @60Mhz....in addition to its VDP chips, a lockheed maretin designed GPU derived from the model arcade boards....So that would have given them a machine with great 3D rendering in additon to 2D..... And easy to use dev tools. but how would they have competed with sonys marketing, and resources, during that period, even with a better specced saturn? It still would have been a generation where they lost....DC would have still luanched early, making it weaker specced than PS2, xbox or GC, so It may well still have been the last sega console regardless. The saturn was the begining of the end for them as a hardware manufacturer.
The saturn was the machine they got so wrong, it took them out of the race. the pivotal point for them. But then maybe..... there was always gonna be a casualty of that era to join the jaguar, NEC PC-FX and the 3DO/M2.
Which bring me to a WILD possibility....... Lets say MS were somehow permitted to buy sega and they were willing to join MS...... Well that would create an opportunity of sorts, for both companies.. Xbox/MS have trouble selling consoles in japan....perhaps a sega branded xbox for japan would not have that issue though....MS gets the benefit of having sega's entire IP roster, bolstering them with a tonne of japanese exclusives. and segas name would one again be one the front of a console. They could even do special edition 'sega xboxs' in the west for key releases, like yakuza series, sonic, etc....If they acquired sega.
I was once the biggest sega fan......Had a tonne of sega megadrive games. owned the mega CD, bought a UK saturn with my HMV payslip. Even had it modified by CEX to play japanese games......Then I Bought the white japanese model for those imports. I remember buying an import dreamcast and knowing it was something special... but by the time the PS2 was making news, The Xbox was being talked abouit and nintendo was showing off flashy zelda demos, I knew the dreamcast was gonna be segas last console. Initially I bought the OG xbox as I fealt like it was the DCs successor...what with sega making stuff like gun valkerie, sega GT, panzer dragoon and jet set radio for it..... I thought MS was getting ready to buy sega. And as time goes on its crazy that they have not yet. Its what they need in japan....and maybe justy maybe...we get top see that blue and white logo on the front of a console again, and not just for show either.....
Lets say they went with the chipset that they should went with back in the saturn era albeit with some changes .... instead of two SH-2 chips.....one chip @60Mhz....in addition to its VDP chips, a lockheed maretin designed GPU derived from the model arcade boards....So that would have given them a machine with great 3D rendering in additon to 2D..... And easy to use dev tools. but how would they have competed with sonys marketing, and resources, during that period, even with a better specced saturn? It still would have been a generation where they lost....DC would have still luanched early, making it weaker specced than PS2, xbox or GC, so It may well still have been the last sega console regardless. The saturn was the begining of the end for them as a hardware manufacturer.
The saturn was the machine they got so wrong, it took them out of the race. the pivotal point for them. But then maybe..... there was always gonna be a casualty of that era to join the jaguar, NEC PC-FX and the 3DO/M2.
Which bring me to a WILD possibility....... Lets say MS were somehow permitted to buy sega and they were willing to join MS...... Well that would create an opportunity of sorts, for both companies.. Xbox/MS have trouble selling consoles in japan....perhaps a sega branded xbox for japan would not have that issue though....MS gets the benefit of having sega's entire IP roster, bolstering them with a tonne of japanese exclusives. and segas name would one again be one the front of a console. They could even do special edition 'sega xboxs' in the west for key releases, like yakuza series, sonic, etc....If they acquired sega.
I was once the biggest sega fan......Had a tonne of sega megadrive games. owned the mega CD, bought a UK saturn with my HMV payslip. Even had it modified by CEX to play japanese games......Then I Bought the white japanese model for those imports. I remember buying an import dreamcast and knowing it was something special... but by the time the PS2 was making news, The Xbox was being talked abouit and nintendo was showing off flashy zelda demos, I knew the dreamcast was gonna be segas last console. Initially I bought the OG xbox as I fealt like it was the DCs successor...what with sega making stuff like gun valkerie, sega GT, panzer dragoon and jet set radio for it..... I thought MS was getting ready to buy sega. And as time goes on its crazy that they have not yet. Its what they need in japan....and maybe justy maybe...we get top see that blue and white logo on the front of a console again, and not just for show either.....
RickMasters
Member
Well, I did....All the games you mentioned, plus Gun valkerie, JSR, and panzer dragoon...... Then getting ports of guardian heroes, radiant silvergun, ikaruga, and bangaio-O on X360 (all of which I still play even now via BC on my series X) , in addition to the AM2 ports (VF2, fighting vipers, daytona USA) ......
I wish they would give me the rest. Wheres my arcade perfect ports of sega rally(1 and 2), scud race, moto raid, virtua racing , VF1 ( just for nostalgia sake) ...powerdrift, out runners, Afterburner climax never got the BC treatment...and sega should have already made a 'super scaler' collection.....
Unknown?
Member
That's nice and all but peak Xbox never produced anything close to peak Sega in the console space and that was 18-20 years ago with the OG Xbox.
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Well there was SEGA Sports, but that got killed off by the EA-NFL deal and reincarinated into a Sonic spinoff series.
Virtua Fighter, while not as big as other fighting game IPs, was a decent seller but Sega just let that one expire for some reason.
nush
Member
That was actually by design, the Saturn was conceived in an era of multimedia set top boxes. They didn't want "Kiddie" shit on it. Remember this was an SOJ gig, the Megadrive was a failure to them and they wanted to do their own thing. By the time of the western releases this concept was watered down.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
The lack of Sonic always stung, my own personal theory is that SoA held out on getting the 3DO M2 console for a 1996 release, and Sonic would have been the key launch title (alongside an NFL Football game). Unfortunately, that deal fell through and left the company scrambling to put something, anything together, which became the infamous Sonic Xtreme soap opera.
Streets of Rage was missing b/c the beat-em-up genre had burned out at the end of Generation Four. Far too many brawlers just killed the market, and titles like Guardian Heroes and Three Dirty Dwarves failed to sell. Can you believe GH wasn’t a hit? What was wrong with us back then?!
Die Hard Arcade seemed to be pretty popular in the arcades, but the Saturn version didn’t seem to sell much. Again, what the heck?
There was a Shinobi game for Saturn, but it was 2D, used digitized graphics and FMV clips, and wasn’t anywhere nearly as good as the Genesis Shinobi titles. Sega wouldn’t even publish it in North America, leaving that to Vik Tokai, which always felt like a vote of no confidence.
There was a Golden Axe game, but it was a fighter instead of a beat-em-up, and pretty average at best. I personally would have preferred Revenge of Death Adder, but the genre was all but dead by 1995. D’oh.
Sony getting exclusives to RE2 and TR2/3 surely hurt Sega, but the Saturn was dead in the water by 1997, sadly, and Sega was already working on what would become the Dreamcast.
Aside from Sonic and their 2K sports line, Crazy Taxi (PS2/GC/XB), Super Monkey Ball 1/2 (GC) and Virtua Fighter 4 (PS2) also sold well in US.
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Elysion
Banned
I think the only way Sega could’ve conceivably remained in the hardware space is if they‘d released a proper handheld again, for which the best (and last) opportunity would’ve been in the early 2000s imo. At that time the competition in the console space was simply too strong and numerous, while in the handheld space it was only Nintendo they had to take into account. Imagine if Sega had released a 3d-capable handheld in 2001 or so, to compete with the GBA. I think at that point something on the level of the DS would’ve been possible; the GBA was actually somewhat underwhelming in terms of power, and considering that the PSP managed to deliver Dreamcast level graphics just 3.5 years later, I think a handheld with PS1/DS level graphics in 2001 would’ve been feasible.
A handheld with proper 3d graphics at that time would’ve blown people’s minds, especially in comparison to the GBA. Hell, maybe Sega could‘ve brought back an idea they originally had for the Nomad, namely a touch screen. Yes, you heard that right, Sega originally intended to ship the Nomad with a touch panel, but abandoned the idea for cost reasons. By 2001 this would’ve been much more feasible, and would’ve been a killer feature just like it was for the DS. A backlit, 3d capable Sega handheld with a touch screen would’ve been significantly more expensive than the GBA of course (probably 249 or 299 like the PSP at launch), but I think it could‘ve sold well nonetheless, at least on par with the PSP. By the time Nintendo and Sony released the DS and PSP respectively, this hypothetical Sega handheld (let‘s call it the Sega Pluto) would‘ve already had a large install base and game library, and would‘ve already seen several price cuts by that point, which means it‘s not inconceivable that the Pluto would‘ve outsold Nintendo‘s and Sony‘s handhelds, in the same way the PS1 and PS2 outsold their later released rivals.
A Sega handheld with PS1/DS level graphics would’ve probably received ports of Saturn games, both from 3rd parties and Sega itself. Since barely anyone had a Saturn (at least in the west), most of these ports would’ve been totally new for the vast majority of players (similar to how Wii U ports helped fill out the Switch library). Imagine handheld versions of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Deep Fear or Virtua Fighter 2. There probably also would’ve been quite a few PS1 ports from 3rd parties, since the PS1 was not dead yet at that point. Cartridge space would’ve been an issue early on (I doubt Sega would’ve gone for optical media), but that would’ve been alleviated once bigger cards became available (the DS cards went up to 512MB). Considering the N64 port of RE2 managed to fit into just 64MB, I think PS1/Saturn level games would be possible. The DS got games like that, after all. And thanks to the touch screen, Sega‘s Pluto even might have started the ‚casual‘ gaming trend years before the DS.
I‘m actually curious what Nintendo would’ve done under these circumstances. Even if Sega’s handheld was more expensive than the GBA, it’s safe to assume it would’ve stolen at least some of the GBA’s install base it would’ve had otherwise, during a time when Nintendo‘s handheld business was arguably more important than its console side (since the GC was a bit of a flop). Would Nintendo have still released the DS as we know it, despite looking like they’re just copying Sega‘s touch screen idea? Would they have made the DS more powerful in response, or would they think dual screens would be enough of a differentiator? And what about the PSP? Might Sony, having seen the success of Sega‘s Pluto, put a touch screen on the PSP too?
A scenario like this would’ve been pretty much the best case scenario for Sega, and the only way they could’ve kept a foot in the hardware door imo. Considering that the 3DS and Vita didn’t come out until 2011, Sega would‘ve had a lot of time to milk their handheld and still be able to release a successor before Sony and Nintendo. I imagine they could’ve released a Pluto successor that was roughly on par with the 3DS (but without 3d or dual screens) in 2009 or so, giving the Pluto a nice, long life-span of 8 years, while still giving its successor (let‘s call it Pluto 2) a decent head-start over the 3DS and Vita. And this pattern could’ve continued, if the Pluto 2 had been succeeded by a Pluto 3 in 2015 or 2016. Hell, at that point Sega could’ve re-entered the console market through the backdoor by making the Pluto 3 a hybrid like the Switch. And all of us would be playing on our newly released Pluto 4 (2TF handheld mode, 4TF docked, 16GB RAM) right now…
Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
A handheld with proper 3d graphics at that time would’ve blown people’s minds, especially in comparison to the GBA. Hell, maybe Sega could‘ve brought back an idea they originally had for the Nomad, namely a touch screen. Yes, you heard that right, Sega originally intended to ship the Nomad with a touch panel, but abandoned the idea for cost reasons. By 2001 this would’ve been much more feasible, and would’ve been a killer feature just like it was for the DS. A backlit, 3d capable Sega handheld with a touch screen would’ve been significantly more expensive than the GBA of course (probably 249 or 299 like the PSP at launch), but I think it could‘ve sold well nonetheless, at least on par with the PSP. By the time Nintendo and Sony released the DS and PSP respectively, this hypothetical Sega handheld (let‘s call it the Sega Pluto) would‘ve already had a large install base and game library, and would‘ve already seen several price cuts by that point, which means it‘s not inconceivable that the Pluto would‘ve outsold Nintendo‘s and Sony‘s handhelds, in the same way the PS1 and PS2 outsold their later released rivals.
A Sega handheld with PS1/DS level graphics would’ve probably received ports of Saturn games, both from 3rd parties and Sega itself. Since barely anyone had a Saturn (at least in the west), most of these ports would’ve been totally new for the vast majority of players (similar to how Wii U ports helped fill out the Switch library). Imagine handheld versions of Panzer Dragoon Saga, Deep Fear or Virtua Fighter 2. There probably also would’ve been quite a few PS1 ports from 3rd parties, since the PS1 was not dead yet at that point. Cartridge space would’ve been an issue early on (I doubt Sega would’ve gone for optical media), but that would’ve been alleviated once bigger cards became available (the DS cards went up to 512MB). Considering the N64 port of RE2 managed to fit into just 64MB, I think PS1/Saturn level games would be possible. The DS got games like that, after all. And thanks to the touch screen, Sega‘s Pluto even might have started the ‚casual‘ gaming trend years before the DS.
I‘m actually curious what Nintendo would’ve done under these circumstances. Even if Sega’s handheld was more expensive than the GBA, it’s safe to assume it would’ve stolen at least some of the GBA’s install base it would’ve had otherwise, during a time when Nintendo‘s handheld business was arguably more important than its console side (since the GC was a bit of a flop). Would Nintendo have still released the DS as we know it, despite looking like they’re just copying Sega‘s touch screen idea? Would they have made the DS more powerful in response, or would they think dual screens would be enough of a differentiator? And what about the PSP? Might Sony, having seen the success of Sega‘s Pluto, put a touch screen on the PSP too?
A scenario like this would’ve been pretty much the best case scenario for Sega, and the only way they could’ve kept a foot in the hardware door imo. Considering that the 3DS and Vita didn’t come out until 2011, Sega would‘ve had a lot of time to milk their handheld and still be able to release a successor before Sony and Nintendo. I imagine they could’ve released a Pluto successor that was roughly on par with the 3DS (but without 3d or dual screens) in 2009 or so, giving the Pluto a nice, long life-span of 8 years, while still giving its successor (let‘s call it Pluto 2) a decent head-start over the 3DS and Vita. And this pattern could’ve continued, if the Pluto 2 had been succeeded by a Pluto 3 in 2015 or 2016. Hell, at that point Sega could’ve re-entered the console market through the backdoor by making the Pluto 3 a hybrid like the Switch. And all of us would be playing on our newly released Pluto 4 (2TF handheld mode, 4TF docked, 16GB RAM) right now…
Thank you for reading my fanfiction.
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TheMan
Member
Yeah, I don’t see how sega could have survived in a battle of specs between MS and their unlimited wealth and Sony their first party stuff. The world does not need a third box that does the exact same shit. Maybe if they had gone their own like Nintendo, turning their storied arcade divisions to home development to make something ubiquitous. Not sure what that would have been though
Fat Frog
I advertised for Google Stadia
I didn't...but your first lines nailed it.
The gameboy didn't kill the Gamegear, ridiculous battery did...
You're godam right, a handheld would have been the perfect fit for Sega's huge library.
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Gameboy killed the Lynx and the Gamegear because of Tetris. it was accessible, and cheap to buy a GB with it, and GG and Lynx didn't have a competitor ready and any advantages they had was removed because of it. GG and Lynx couldn't drop the price low enough ASAP either because there were production issues at the time for their color/backlit screens.
It also doesn't help that Game gear relied too much on downgraded ports form the Genesis/SMS ports instead of original games which actually devalued it.
Wouldn't work when the PSP would come out 3 years later, GBA was dealing with imploding competition with Swan and N-gage but it still ended up selling slower and being a weaker entry because of the PSPS and DS later taking attention away faster than expected in most parts of the world.
Sega couldn't possibly compete with either.
Ironically, the best way for Sega to have stayed on board, was to lower sales expectation and release a console based on their non-arcade attempts, and maybe some of the bigger arcade franchises.
One of the things that hurt Sega most for their last too consoles was focusing too much on arcade entries when people wanted more depth as well, and while Sega had those games, they were not in the spotlight, nor was Sega doing much to have those games share the spotlight. You had few exceptions like Shenmue, which was an unnecessary money sink. But many favorite arcade ports or enhanced entries on the Dreamcast for example, could have been replaced by other games in the public mindshare.
A Sega console with fewer focus on those, and more on their more unique games could sell 10-20 consoles per cycle and still be profitable. Possibly could be higher.
That's pretty bad when each of the three consoles had dozens of developed/published games across them and a dozen or more that were exclusive to each one ON top of that.
That's also not counting PC Sega never had such a large output and never will again, and almost all of it was below expectations or worse.
I actually think they should have had less output focusing on just two platforms like Xbox and PS2, and I think they should have limited GC and PC entirely. Sonic exclusivity on the GC was a bad mistake as seen with Sonic Heroes and Shadow.
Komatsu
Member
One thing that absolutely still blows my mind is how SEGA, almost IN SPITE OF ITSELF, was able to create this hard kernel of a fan base that is still out there creating magnificent things to this day.
There are whole dedicated teams of people out there localizing Saturn games (with DUBBING) for free, running on nothing but passion:
The Sonic fan game community is still working on and putting out bangers such as Sonic Robo Blast 2 (a fan game running on a modified DOOM engine) and SRB2 Kart:
Sometimes there are brief moments of clarity when SEGA taps into this rich vein: see the runaway success of Sonic Mania, developed by a team of former fangamers. And it goes on and on and on: Phantasy Star Online and Universe had their server software completely reverse-engineered and there are people still playing PSO on their Dreamcasts, to this day, on private servers. Whole websites dedicated to cataloguing every SEGA arcade game ever. An Outrun sorceport for a million platforms, etc.
It is inconceivable to me that a company capable of bewitching generations of people into spending thousands of man-hours translating, spreading, modding etc their properties could not find a way to be profitable.
If SEGA had not spent the latter half of the 90s warring with its US division - it's an open secret how many execs under Nakayama were jealous of the runaway success Tom Kalinske and his team achieved in the West - SEGA could have been well positioned to carve out a "fourth" lane, perhaps with a Lindbergh-lite console like one of the posters here mentioned.
There are whole dedicated teams of people out there localizing Saturn games (with DUBBING) for free, running on nothing but passion:
The Sonic fan game community is still working on and putting out bangers such as Sonic Robo Blast 2 (a fan game running on a modified DOOM engine) and SRB2 Kart:
Sometimes there are brief moments of clarity when SEGA taps into this rich vein: see the runaway success of Sonic Mania, developed by a team of former fangamers. And it goes on and on and on: Phantasy Star Online and Universe had their server software completely reverse-engineered and there are people still playing PSO on their Dreamcasts, to this day, on private servers. Whole websites dedicated to cataloguing every SEGA arcade game ever. An Outrun sorceport for a million platforms, etc.
It is inconceivable to me that a company capable of bewitching generations of people into spending thousands of man-hours translating, spreading, modding etc their properties could not find a way to be profitable.
If SEGA had not spent the latter half of the 90s warring with its US division - it's an open secret how many execs under Nakayama were jealous of the runaway success Tom Kalinske and his team achieved in the West - SEGA could have been well positioned to carve out a "fourth" lane, perhaps with a Lindbergh-lite console like one of the posters here mentioned.
Rest
All these years later I still chuckle at what a fucking moron that guy is.
They'd be defunct. They had terrible management in the US and insane work/office culture in Japan. What SEGA was doing in the 90s wasn't sustainable. And that's not even touching how batshit crazy their asinine hardware market saturation nonsense was or that they couldn't market for shit.
SEGA did what Nintendon't: run themselves into the ground.
SEGA did what Nintendon't: run themselves into the ground.
Komatsu
Member
They had a handful of hits in the 2002-2008 period:
Super Monkey Ball was one of 2002's bestselling NGC games - it ended up selling almost 200k copies and cost almost nothing to develop.
Phantasy Star Online sold more than 1 million units (DC-PC-NGC-XBox). Final tally was probably closer to 1,6 million.
Ryu ga Gotoku (Yakuza) sold 1 million units for the PS2.
Valkyria Chronicles sold 2 million copies across all its platforms (PS3-PS4-NSW-PC).
Elysion
Banned
The GBA had such short life-span only because Nintendo pulled the plug after the DS came out. A Sega handheld that came out a few years earlier, incorporated their discarded touchscreen idea from the Nomad as I mentioned, and was roughly on par with the DS graphically, wouldn’t have that problem. The PSP would be more powerful obviously, but that didn’t prevent it from being outsold by the DS, so it‘s not a given that it would outsell a hypothetical Sega handheld in the scenario I outlined either.
In my scenario it would be Nintendo who are in a weird spot, since by the time the DS comes out, Sega would’ve already have a touchscreen handheld on the market for several years (though with only one screen in Sega‘s case). In that case the DS wouldn’t be nearly as novel as it was in our timeline, and would be kinda sandwiched between Sega‘s handheld and the PSP.
Of course, this Sega handheld would need a library of compelling games, but with Sega‘s console business dead, they would‘ve been able to concentrate fully on making games for said handheld system, so I don’t think a lack of software would’ve been a problem, especially when there‘s also a huge selection of Sega games from the Saturn and everything before that that they could port.
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Eddie-Griffin
Banned
yes and no, sales were never at the usual GB level (GBC exclusded) with the GBA, it was never as strong as the other handhelds.
PSP was massively successful and was on par or ahead of the DS depending on region for awhile and sold an amount a Sega handheld couldn't, mostly helped by a the underutilized but beneficial media format, and Sony's console third-party dominance transferring over, with more console-like games that weren't too different from what you would play on consoles compared to the DS, which was cheaper, more family friendly, and was easier to use.
Sony eventually started pulling back support, but has a good run before then. A Sega handheld probably wouldn't do much better, if not worse, than the GameGear, and would cost more to produce and make games for.
I think people aren't really understanding where Sega was during the Dreamcast. Sega beating Nintendo for a touch screen device ignores all the pluses the DS had that helped it eventually take off and become the star handheld in the market eventually completely overlapping the PSP and whatever else was out.
This is the other part of the problem, the consoles business would die because of a lack of heavy hitters spread out outside sports titles, a Sega focusing all resources on a 3D handheld would just be similar games they were doing on the Dreamcast but weaker hardware, like Powerstone on the PSP levels.
I think their best bet was always to lower expectations, manage budget, and aim for that targeted niche of 10-20 million consoles to a set of users, it's not 80 million consoles, but it could have made them money, and eventually they could built up to be bigger. Restructure the company to avoid overspending on experiments with no proven ROI.
Fat Frog
I advertised for Google Stadia
Tetris is one of the reason the Gameboy outsold the Gamegear but it didn't kill it. Sega did... Me and my friends ditched that console because it had less than 2 hours battery life.It was too expensive to play as a legit nomad handheld, not sustainable.
Games were not the pob. Port or not, kids were delighted to play Sonic (for a few minutes
)
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Those are nice numbers, but in the 21st Century, those numbers are not anywhere sufficient to sustain a hardware platform.
Fat Frog
I advertised for Google Stadia
True. Nonetheless i think a 2023 Sega could be strong enough to survive a brand new console:
Leg 1 > PC
Several episodes of their main PC IPs could reach 10 million units sold.(Total War Warhammer, Football Manager, COH) while other long sellers will get closer to 5 million in a few years like Two Point Hospital, Yakuza, Persona.
Sega PC revenues are not only steady and strong, they are also growing.(especially Persona)
Leg 2 > Mobile
Sonic Dash games passed 1,5 billion downloads...
No need to explain.
Monster cock (leg 3
) > SonicEven, if Sega would release a new console.
Sonic would remain multiplatform at least on mobile, PC, cloud platforms and possibly on Nintendo consoles (after all Minecraft is still available on Switch)
Before gamepass, Sega sales on Sony and Microsoft were not that impressive. It wouldn't be a big loss (so many Sega IPs bombed and died on PS360)for them to ditch them and keep their games on mobile, PC, cloud(or netflix), and maybe special Sonic agreement with Nintendo for Sonic.(Sega games were licensed on Nec consoles.It could be interesting to imitate this era)
Last aspect of a 2023 comeback, the company itself:
2001 Sega was bleeding debt.
2023 Sega Sammy has probably the same amount but in...hidden cash
#satomi clanA Sega console in 2023 would do fine, the market is more open, there are more ways to make money aside console business.
But you know what ? I think Sega will be more and more stable and a far more powerful company in ten years.
It has fully recovered from 2001's struggle.
It just the beginning for them.
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Hero_Select
Member
Sega can barely make a mediocre Sonic game let alone a console.
Fat Frog
I advertised for Google Stadia
LOL
https://www.metacritic.com/feature/2021-game-publisher-rankings-summary-table
During the last gen, Sega is the only publisher who won twice the metacritic publisher ranking (Not Sony, not Nintendo, not MSFT) because...they have a bunch of solid developers all around the world (The Creative Assembly, Yakuza Studio, AM2/AM1, Two Points Studio, Atlus...)
You're focusing on the exception at Sega to make a point:
Bravo. You just proved the opposite.
Sega has enough solid studios to feed a console.They even created a new Sega of Japan studio lately
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For a "proper" Sega console to succeed it needs to have something unique that the other consoles don't, be it internal hardware, controllers, features etc, just pushing out another PC in a box is not enough. I don't think Sega want to spend the money on that kind of risk, they rake in plenty of money from Steam these days.
I see Sega more interested in retro market, perhaps buying something like the Evercade makes more sense, it would be a Sega console and handheld just one that caters to retro, collectors, etc. very low risk and its something Sega are doing already with the mini-consoles but taken to the next level and moving beyond Sega's own library.
I see Sega more interested in retro market, perhaps buying something like the Evercade makes more sense, it would be a Sega console and handheld just one that caters to retro, collectors, etc. very low risk and its something Sega are doing already with the mini-consoles but taken to the next level and moving beyond Sega's own library.
nkarafo
Member
Yeah, that magazine sucked ass. It's the only magazine i threw away, despite being a game magazine collector, lol. "Games" was mainstream Sony propaganda all the way through. I didn't have a Saturn then but i had a N64 which was also patronized in a similar way in the magazine.
One particular double standard i remember in that magazine was the N64 "kiddie games" mentions. The N64 had that reputation and Games exploited this to death. I remember how they always made sure you know when a game is for kids on the N64, like Banjo-Kazooie. I mean, B-K was THE state of the art 3D platform console game when it was released and got rave reviews everywhere (deservedly so IMO). But if Games was your only source of information, you would never tell, but at least you would know it's good for kids.
Obviously, when a similarly cute game appeared on Playstation, like Crash or Croc, the word "kids" was never mentioned, as if it was banned from PS reviews. You can't have that on the hip Sony console.
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Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
SaturnDave shows off his massive US Saturn “long box” collection. I always enjoy these sort of videos, and while I never liked the bulky US Saturn boxes, they do look great when you have a large library on your bookshelf.
For me, I find these videos to be very helpful when shopping for my next round of Saturn game purchases. There are an endless supply of quality titles to collect and enjoy once you have all the major “classic” titles.
It’s great to hear Dave praise all these Saturn games, which is how all retro game fans should behave. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that he prefers All-Star Baseball 97 over World Series Baseball 98. Acclaim’s series is better known for Nintendo 64, but it’s excellent on Saturn and comes highly recommended.
Also, kudos for praising Daytona ‘95. Get yourself a racing wheel and be amazed at how perfectly AM2 captures the feel of the arcade classic. Add in the murder death cars and 80-lap endurance mode and you have an all-time classic. Yes, it’s rough looking, always was. But it’s a fantastic trip.
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Crash 3, Sonic Adventure.
Tetris is one of the reason the Gameboy outsold the Gamegear but it didn't kill it. Sega did... Me and my friends ditched that console because it had less than 2 hours battery life.It was too expensive to play as a legit nomad handheld, not sustainable.
Games were not the pob. Port or not, kids were delighted to play Sonic (for a few minutes
No, Sega never had a chance, they got their Game gear sales due to the Genesis popularity in the west and the connection to the Master System elsewhere, the software sales were terrible and they were almost never mentioned by Sega and there was very little coverage of them. They had a strategy that gave them a bunch of games because of the SMS connection but people didn't actually care for those games, Tetris completely knocked the GG out the Market as well as the Lynx, and both put out competitors later way after the storm was over.
With that said, you are partially right that Sega also hurt themselves, they had a bunch of games but they barely marketed the best of them, tried to copy and waste money with a TV Tuner which NEC has with the Turbo Express to try and improve sales in Japan and US, and their original Game Gear titles were just thrown out without marketing which is why so few people know about them. This is even true for the Sonic games, until Mega Collection Plus and Sonic Adventure DX on the GC.
Game Gear even at the height of the Genesis in its stronger territories, wasn't moving software in large number. Their idea for the Nomad could have solved the problem the Game Gear has butt hey executed it sloppily and released the Nomad way too late after the Genesis was already declining.
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nkarafo
Member
"When it was released". These were released later.
Also you can argue Crash was your regular on-rails Crash game vs Banjo's open world design. It's FAR easier to optimize visuals on a game where it controls the camera for you, vs a game with huge free-roaming environments where the developer has to take into account a lot more variables and leave some breathing room for any random scenario.
As for Sonic Adventure... It was released a half year later on a much more powerful console.
IMO, no console game could touch Banjo-Kazooie in mid 1998, graphics wise.
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Fat Frog
I advertised for Google Stadia
True but more important, arcade racers fans must secure their Daytona on xbox consoles, it will delisted on February 7th:
https://marketplace.xbox.com/fr-fr/Product/DAYTONA-USA/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d80258410b1d
If the last sales are good enough, maybe Sega will renew the licence, port Daytona 2 and produce Daytona 3 with their magic Makoto Osaki (director of Daytona 2 and Outrun 2)
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Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Not really, Crash 3 was different, all those levels were actually rendered (for most of them) ahead of time instead of by segments, and the devs kind of made this clear on purpose based on the draw distances, and the bonus platformers zooming around the stage to get to the "area" where the bonus stage is, instead of the bonus stage being a separate thing like before, same for the death paths, or the secret passages. Also true for the vehicle levels, especially the ones with free movement. But yes it did release AFTER Banjo as you said.
So as for your statement of if Banjo has the best graphics from any 3D platform game on consoles when it came out, yes that's possible. I suppose Gex 3D would be the competition in that case.
Comparatively, Gex has some higher highs in some areas than Banjo, but the themed levels based on genres make Banjo more "consistent" if you get what I mean. Gex's graphics are inconsistent as a result based on where you are in the game, so yeah I could see that being the case of what you said.
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Gambit2483
Member
Sometimes I dream/Sometimes I dream that the Dreamcast lived!
fart town usa
Gold Member
My two cents is that the fatal flaw of the Saturn was SoA. Bernie Stolar was adamant about not having 2D games or quirky Japanese titles. He wanted 3D western-style titles. The marketing, the surprise launch, etc. Truly mind-bending business decisions.
The Saturn is fucking awesome and while it still would have come in 3rd, there were lots of games that people would have embraced. Some of the best games were given a print run of like 20k in NA, it's so dumb. Most people back then didn't trash the Saturn, it was just an obscure console that most people didn't have a clue about and for good reason, it was tough to know what was being released and games weren't properly stocked anywhere.
Sega Lord X was saying for PDS and a few other games, SoA was only printing enough copies to satisfy preorders. Think of that, imagine if we didn't have digital storefronts and games were that hard to get a copy of. It was a completely different time back then, young ones have no clue how things operated back then and that sometimes you'd have to go from store to store across various towns to find a single copy of something.
The Saturn is fucking awesome and while it still would have come in 3rd, there were lots of games that people would have embraced. Some of the best games were given a print run of like 20k in NA, it's so dumb. Most people back then didn't trash the Saturn, it was just an obscure console that most people didn't have a clue about and for good reason, it was tough to know what was being released and games weren't properly stocked anywhere.
Sega Lord X was saying for PDS and a few other games, SoA was only printing enough copies to satisfy preorders. Think of that, imagine if we didn't have digital storefronts and games were that hard to get a copy of. It was a completely different time back then, young ones have no clue how things operated back then and that sometimes you'd have to go from store to store across various towns to find a single copy of something.
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Bernie was right, it only failed because of Sega of Japan distancing themselves from the Genesis and the western success, and Bernie making bad moves with the little they left him with.
Bernie wanted to continue where the previous western leader left off that Sega Japan fired, which Sega Japan didn't want.
fart town usa
Gold Member
Agree that SoJ also made awful decisions, imagine being legit terrified/motivated by the Atari Jaguar, lmao.
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Make perfect sense in context, no one had any reason to believe Atari was already broke and wouldn't be able to produce their own consoles, or enough of them, they just saw the 3D demos, which were impressive at the time but the tarring of the system by Youtubers for years has made it hard for people to see that. That was before 3DO even had their late event.
However, the Jaguar did have features Saturn and even PS1 lacked, like perspective correction, dither filter, more colors and better blending, and such. It wasn't a bad machine (spec-wise) it was just screwed up massively, so it was difficult to get the jaguar to do anything you wanted it to do, which Ironically, is a problem Sega also had with the Saturn, just not as badly, and things improved massively in the end despite taking too much time to change Sega's fortunes, where as the jaguar has marginal improvement.
Still Sega of Japan was filled with mistakes, greenlit millions into vanity projects that had nothing to do with releasing or marketing games, other than the Pico and Nomad, they also reduced western employees which gave them less games to put out in the west first-party wise, just silly decisions over at Sega Japan.
nkarafo
Member
Gex looks fine on the PS1 but it's low draw distance in any version really seals the deal for me.
I'm interested to see some of those higher highs you mention though. I only played the N64 version a bit and that was probably worse looking than the PS1 version, due to the texture downgrade. But it was an average game for the N64's 3D platform standards so i didn't go far.
Banjo has some pretty high highs though. I especially like how it can effortlessly render the whole landscape from afar, with no loss of texture quality or fog, or frame rate drops and some of those areas are pretty complex:
And the textures are so good...
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
You seem to be posting images of the HD remasters with additional detail in image quality and textures, not the N64 originals.
Remaster
N64 Original
nkarafo
Member
You seem to be posting images of the HD remasters with additional detail in image quality and textures, not the N64 originals.
Remaster
N64 Original
No, my screens are from Parallel RDP at 480p so not nearly the quality of the remaster.
The Remaster does not add any detail and the textures it uses are the same assets. The only thing it improves is make the game widescreen, which my pictures are not. And i think they made the UI look cleaner but i'm not sure.
Eddie-Griffin
Banned
Even in gameplay there are details missing from the N64 version that are in the first pic and your pics, like certain details on the hedges, pop-in, texture blur at distances, missing flowers, missing marks on the ground, flat or missing texture details on various walls indoor and out.
You're shots look very close to the XBLA version in not just these details, but also the lighting, the lack of blur, and it being brighter. The details on the maze hedges are also pretty much the same, where in the N64 original the top was always flat as shown, with minor details when close up.
Still a good looking game though for the time.
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nkarafo
Member
Parallel RDP is a pixel accurate LLE plugin that renders the games authentically and perfectly, down to every single graphical element and quirk.
But fair enough, i made these screens at 480p, which the real N64 doesn't support for this game.
At native resolution the filters hide some of the texture details in the distance but those details are still rendered by the console, it's not LOD taking place here. Object details, lighting, etc are the same, LOD doesn't reduce their quality, the filtering does. And there is no extra pop-in.
This can be improved depending on the CRT and cables you use but you have to mod the N64 for RGB to get the best quality possible. There are also Action Replay cheat codes that remove the VI filters and make those details appear more clearly on the real console. Makes the games sharper but more dithered, like what you would see on the Playstation, but with the N64's grunt.
This is how the same scene looks at N64's native resolution and the VI disabled by cheat codes:
You can clearly see the texture detail that's rendered on the top of the bushes, which shows the N64's filtering is what reduces the quality, not the LOD. Unfortunately, very few games have in-game toggle to turn the N64 filtering off (like how Quake 64 does). In most other games you have to use a cheat code to do that. Here's how it normally looks:
Like you said, there's some "missing" texture detail here but it's not really that, it's just the stupid filtering softening the image. The same filtering that would mangle textures in games like Quake and Quake 2 on PC using GL. Texture/image filtering and antialiasing were overrated during the early days of 3D and did more damage than good IMO. Only in higher resolutions these filters make sense.
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fart town usa
Gold Member
Context I'm taking into account is that even 4th graders on the playground knew the Jaguar was a piece of shit that no one wanted, lol.
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nkarafo
Member
The Jaguar was a good 2D powerhouse in late 1993/1994. It was also good at pseudo 3D FPS games like DOOM so it had a good DOOM port, AVP and the best looking version of Wolfenstein 3D. With some good coding i don't doubt it might be able to pull off a good Duke Nukem 3D port as well.
And games like Rayman look amazing on the Jaguar.
And now the problems: A lot of focus on 3D games. The console was bad at 3D but they made too many bad 3D games anyway. There were also a lot of 68000 CPU 16bit ports that hardly looked any better than the originals and in some cases they were worse. A bunch of Amiga ports or games that looked like they belong in the Amiga. Nobody cared about the Amiga in 1994. Some horrible original games that couldn't compare with the competition. Like Kasumi Ninja. Why wasn't there a Mortal Kombat 2 port instead? The Jaguar could do a great arcade port. And Fight For Life was supposed to compete with the likes of Virtua Fighter and Tekken? Or that janky Formula game that couldn't even compete with Virtua Racing on the 32X. let alone something like Daytona or Ridge Racer.
Another huge problem that most don't mention was the tiny cartridge space. You have a system that was much more capable than the Genesis/SNES but the cart sizes were the same. So even though the console has the grunt to make Neo-Geo and CPS I/II justice, there is no space to store all that sprite data. So those hypothetical ports would suffer as well and probably look only marginally better than similar ports on Genesis/SNES.
So yeah, with all these issues the Jaguar was doomed to have a pretty short lifespan no matter what.
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