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Bernie Stolar interview: Dreamcast, Sega today, prank on Sony
- Thread starter Guy Legend
- Start date
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
I highly doubt that Working Designs released 4 RPG's that sold 250k on the Saturn. Even Atlus hardly ever does that. Even the Persona games only sell like a fourth of that.
Not to be a dick, but I call bullshit.
Not to be a dick, but I call bullshit.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
Fuzzy said:
Ahh I see. Much more believable now.
I think what A Black Falcon doesn't seem to be getting, is that regardless of sales, or niche appeal, having a breadth of genres on your platform is a GOOD thing. Stolar's anti-RPG policy was an absolute joke, especially considering how many quality games in the genre were never released in the US. Even if Sega itself didn't want to translate the games, not fucking up relations with 3rd parties so they could translate, would have been the smart thing to do. In fact, there were a large number of Saturn fans in the US bought the system for the WD support. Hell, back in 1995 or so, I was highly considering the Saturn due to the number of RPGs forthcoming on the thing, compared to, what... Arc the Lad on PS1? Of course, with FF7 I bought a PS1 and couldn't have been happier, one of the greatest platforms ever...
Pretty fucked up that Saturn fans didn't get Lunar 1, 2, or Grandia... and now Sakura Taisen, due to Stolar's fuckups. I could only imagine Grandia with a quality 90's WD translation, instead of the dour and dull PS1 translation, complete with ear-wrecking VA, we got.
Pretty fucked up that Saturn fans didn't get Lunar 1, 2, or Grandia... and now Sakura Taisen, due to Stolar's fuckups. I could only imagine Grandia with a quality 90's WD translation, instead of the dour and dull PS1 translation, complete with ear-wrecking VA, we got.
Segata Sanshiro
Member
Bernie Stolar.
Just typing his name pisses me off.
Just typing his name pisses me off.
Red Blaster
Member
more liek sternie bolar
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
vireland said:
You didn't even typed the word "combined"...
A Black Falcon
Member
Flying_Phoenix said:
I still find it very odd that NPD seems to have estimated somewhere around 91,000 for the four games and he says they actually sold 250,000... is NPD often that far off?
djtiesto said:
Would that be covered in the part where I said that it was a bad idea because the hardcore Saturn fans actually cared about RPGs and wanted them?
I think my point about the Genesis is a good one, how many people cared about the Genesis and Sega CD (and Game Gear) RPGs Sega skipped? Did many people care that we didn't get the GG Phantasy Star RPG, Surging Aura, Shadowrun (Sega CD), etc, outside of the few people (compared to the size of the console's install base) who bought Working Designs games?
The problem is just that RPGs did get more popular that generation here, while Sega's policies against them in the US didn't change or got even stricter. Or maybe it's that the other people all got Playstations because of Sega's many errors not RPG related, and only the small core, including many of those RPG fans, were all that were left... I'm not sure. But still, until FFVII it was definitely a niche genre really, I think. And FFVII was a couple of years into the generation, well after the PSX had crushed the Saturn in the US.
So yeah, sure, you're right that genre diversity is important, but I don't think a lack of it had much of anything to do with why the Saturn lost. PSX built its initial lead without any RPGs either, remember.
Of course it wasn't very nice for Sega's fans who wanted more RPGs, and was pretty stupid business considering how the anti-2d and anti-RPG policies, while based in reasonable analyses of what American consumers wanted at the time, just left Sega with not enough games...
Really though, as I said what Sega really needed was a different system, better at 3d (and hopefully with lower licensing fees too). The key problem for 32X and Saturn was that they existed at all in the forms that they did. Sega needed to somehow stop their internal fights and somehow work together. Of course, that never happened. By '96, really all they could do was damage control, trying to minimize losses until they could get their next system out... and that's why canning the Saturn in mid '97 was a bad idea, there's no way that loses you less money than continuing to release games for it, particularly when fan anger is factored in. They'll buy Dreamcast sooner and more if they don't come in hating you...
Oh, and yeah, English Saturn Grandia would have been completely awesome, I quite agree. It's really too bad we didn't get it.
He didn't have to since it was clearly implied that's what he meant. If you can't tell that from the following post then you have reading comprehension issues.Flying_Phoenix said:
vireland said:
They didn't cover as much of the market back then as they do now so it's easy to imagine all data from back then being far off the actual sales. Hell, after seeing some of the multipliers they have used so far this generation they're not that accurate right now either. It really amazed me that they used the same multiplier across all games sold on a platform no matter the game.A Black Falcon said:
A Black Falcon said:
On the publisher side, KNOWING how many copies we shipped out and were paid for, and KNOWING what inventory is left in the channel, NPD was never CLOSE to actual WD sales - ever. 91,000 total for our RPG Saturn stuff is stupid. We did almost that with just Dragon Force.
And now that Walmart cut them off from real sales figures some years back, I imagine they are even less accurate.
A Black Falcon said:Um... yeah. Is he living in an alternate reality or just not telling the truth? I'll guess the latter. Maybe he just4 doesn't want to admit his role in Sega's failure...
It's not the lead role or anything, lots of people and many decisions were involved, and it started well before he arrived at Sega in 1995, with the US v. Japan internal fighting within the company. Still, he definitely had a part. I'd particularly mention when he said "Saturn is not out future" in May 1996. Saying something like that two years and four months before your next console was going to come out is unbelievably stupid, no matter how much you like the current one.
But no, he admits nothing here.
I mean, I don't dislike him as much as many Sega fans do, he did plenty of things well... but he made some bad decisions as well,
But didn't yout hear, there wasn't a backlash against Sega at all, the Dreamcast didn't suffer because of Sega's legacy! :lol
Saturn was a trainwreck before he ever arrived at Sega. He really wasn't responsible for that.
He didn't make things BETTER, but I don't know if he made things worse... the system was already doomed when he arrived thanks to all of those mistakes Sega had previously made, really. I mean, he wasn't there at the Saturn's launch, or during its early months when the Saturn sold poorly while PSX sold well... he was in charge of SCEA then. He had nothing to do with the 32X's existence, the Saturn's expensive, overly complex, mashed-together hardware, the launch price, the early launch, etc. Sega of Japan was primarily responsible for those things, with Sega of America being responsible for some as well.
Stolar's task was to try to make the system sell in the US despite its poor start... but he couldn't, Sony was too strong. Was this his fault? I'm not sure, probably partially but not entirely. So he got tired of it early and gave up on the system midlife. And I already said how that was a significant mistake, it confirmed once again everything people had been saying about Sega liking to kill its systems off too early. If he hadn't done such a good job at driving away almost all of Sega's few remaining hardcore fans, there wouldn't have been quite a huge hurdle for the Dreamcast to have to leap... (the few who hadn't left after the messes that were the 32X and the early Saturn days)
But even so, Sega's core problem was that they were losing money on Saturn and Dreamcast. Would these small changes have been enough to turn that around and keep them as a hardware manufacturer for longer? That's the key question that leads me to let Stolar off a bit... I don't think his decisions were actually crucial there. He probably did make things a bit worse, but could anyone have actually pulled Sega out of the hole they were in by the end of 1995, with all of that internal fighting doing major damage?
I mean, one of the most important mistakes Sega made in that period was killing off the Genesis in late 1995, and that was a Sega of Japan decision entirely.
Really, I think that more than anything Sega fans hate him for the no-RPGs policy, which he had also done at SCEA in his time there. The difference is, from 1997 on the PSX began to get huge numbers of RPGs, while Saturn in the US never did. So they blame him... but while it was a bad policy, he probably was right that RPGs didn't sell all that well in the US, before FFVII at least. Americans did prefer other genres more. Still, the hardcore liked them, and angering your hardcore fans that much might not be a good idea... but still, it is true that back then RPGs didn't sell all that well.
Also, ultimately I find it hard to imagine how at the end of 1995 Sega could have gotten out of the mess it had gotten itself in. The Saturn wasn't the right platform, but that was a problem for years earlier... they had it now, dropping it too soon would be an even worse idea, as they would see when they tried it. If you're a PR person, you have to stick with your system and say it's awesome, even when you'd rather get rid of it... he didn't do that, and we saw the results.
But anyway, in the US up until the mid '90s, JRPGs were not a huge sales force. They were frequently passed over, and the majority of the fanbase didn't care much about that. Of course just not knowing they existed was part of that, but particularly on the Genesis, the fanbase just weren't RPG fans, they were sports and action game fans. Sega policy stayed the same on the Saturn, while their few remaining fans gained more interest in RPGs, particularly after FFVII made the genre really popular in the US. Sega policy on them, however, did not change, they (and Stolar in particular) were still opposed. Would things have been different had they pushed them more? Maybe, yeah, if they'd put the PR into it... but would it have been enough to make up for the investment? Was there anything on Saturn that could have fought FFVII? I mean, there wasn't in Japan, in Japan FFVII was one of the key moments in the PSX finally getting ahead of Saturn there... still, of course they should have tried. And that even AFTER FFVII Stolar continued to block RPGs and not make any definitely wasn't exaclty helping (because now he'd given up on the system and wanted to kill it, years before the next system would be ready).
.. But really, to prove that the "no RPGs" thing actually did hurt Saturn in the US, you'd have to show that it actually impacted sales. It seems to me that that was mostly complaining from people who already had the system... if Sega had pushed RPGs more, would it have actually sold many more systems? I doubt that any of the Saturn RPGs they could have ported would have become a FFVII, that's quite unlikely... I mean, yes, Saturn was hurt by all the negative press from its 'fans'. But how much did the lack of RPGs hurt Saturn in the key hardware base building time of its first year or so? Not much, I think, if at all. Playstation didn't have any of them either in its first year and a half, partially thanks to Stolar and partially because there weren't many early on because of how long RPGs take to develop. Playstation won for other reasons entirely unrelated to the RPG genre. Having more RPGs later on would have done nothing to get the Saturn to sell much better, I think. The main thing it would have done would be create a bit more goodwill with those few remaining Sega fans... which is something the company should have cared about. You can't anger your fans again and again and again without there being an impact! Sega went way too far in making its fans mad and suffered rightly for it. But I think that all the aforementioned reasons, like the price, early launch, poor graphics in comparison to Playstation, thin release lineup, and higher devlopment fees were much more important factors in explaining that than a lack of RPGs. Oh, and the 32X fiasco of course.
All in all, given how strong the Playstation was, Saturn was likely never going to do well in the US as it was, but at least they could have tried. Sega didn't. Instead they started with bad ideas (the hardware itself, the early launch, the price), continued with bad ideas (no RPGs, the hardware, the smaller install base), and finished with bad ideas (killing it early). It was a mess from beginning to end, and Stolar was responsible for the middle and latter phases of that, on the US side.
... Or listen to someone who would know.
Wasn't the Dreamcast one of Sega's fastest selling systems? And they had to kill the Saturn early so they could be the first out with a next-gen system. It was practically the only smart move they could do. Look at MS and how that helped the Xbox 360. The Dreamcast didn't last longer than it did because of a faulty medium (GD-ROMs) and rampant piracy.
PSGames said:
Well, the Saturn had to die at some point, but the PROBLEM was that premature Bernie killed the Saturn more than a year before there was a replacement! The Dreamcast didn't arrive as the Saturn was killed off. He was talking up the DC in all the interviews while he still had an underdog system still selling at least SOMETHING and keeping the fans happy, but he decided that NOTHING would be better than SOMETHING and gambled that by shutting down Saturn in the USA it would force Japan to speed up the DC work and release, which didn't work - at all. He just ended up with angry retailers, fans, and a huge nothingness to sell for more than a year. It was a mortal blow to SEGA and even the DC couldn't overcome it.
A Black Falcon
Member
PSGames said:
In addition to what he just said, the Dreamcast also did start out really well in the US, but didn't completely maintain that momentum. It had some... but not enough. Monthly hardware sales were not what Sega was hoping they would be. I really don't think that piracy was one of the major reasons. I mean, PSX piracy was huge in the US, and that system did fantastic... remember that while you could just use CD-Rs, you had to actually download the games, and most people then had dialup... not exactly feasible unless you're really, really dedicated.
Dreamcast was hurt by people remembering Sega's troubled history, hype for the PS2, the fact that it didn't have a DVD drive, and, so soon after it came out, all those questions about how long Sega would be able to keep supporting it. Piracy hurt game sales a bit, but I highly doubt it was a significant factor in why it didn't succeed.
But anyway, it would be like Microsoft announcing that the Xbox was dead in mid 2003, releasing their last game for it in Spring '04, having third party support dry up by the end of that year, and then not releasing their actual next system until fall '05. That means not releasing one single console game for a year and four months, and crippling the system for the full year before that thanks to your statements of how dead it was.
Obviously, that's not what Microsoft did. The last first-party Xbox title was in mid '05, five months before the 360's launch. In comparison Sega's last first-party Saturn titles came out in May or June 1998, a year and four months before the Dreamcast launch. Plus, a full year before that Sega said "Saturn is dead". Microsoft didn't do that with the original Xbox... it was obvious that they had to replace it early, due to the massive losses, but they weren't as obvious about it as Sega. See the difference there?
Slowing system production or something is a good step when you can't make money making the hardware, but you don't stop losses by giving up long, long before you have a replacement ready. But vireland has already said quite well how poor Stolar's thinking was there.
vireland said:
If he wanted DC out so soon, though, why did it take ten months to get it out in the US after the thing came out in Japan? I mean, that's a long time... I'd think it would be smarter to try to get it out a bit sooner. I know they wanted lots of games ready, but still, releasing it earlier would probably have been a good idea. Interesting detail there, but it just adds more questions about Sega's judgment...
grandjedi6
Master of the Google Search
What?Keikoku said:
A Black Falcon said:
True but it's alot easier to make that decision when overall your company is profitable because other divisions couldn't make more money unless they were literally printing it.
That's the part I don't get. The one place to release it early was the US (where the Saturn was doing lousy) and not Japan. (Where it was doing ok.) Then again you're right that Sega does make questionable decisions. Like why the hell do you put extra hardware in the Sega-CD, driving up the cost but then don't go balls to the wall to make sure people actually use it. So few games even use the upgraded sound hardware, not to mention scaling and rotation. Oh and of course why put out an add-on with no pack in at $170 when a next gen system is $300? (And is just much better. Not to mention how hacky it is to install it.)
All these interviews regarding Sega's past, the reminder that we almost got SakuTai here, I can't help but be a bit depressed. As for the current Sega.....at least we got the Yakuza games (that were released), Valkyria Chronicles and the excellent Sega made PS2 Sega Ages collections out of it. Not to mention funding for other groups outings like Bayonetta.
jaundicejuice
Member
Nothing to interject aside from mentioning that Vic totally made the thread.
Well since Vic is posting here, I might as well say I finished albert odyssey a couple of days ago, and it's a great example of a mediocre rpg thats worth playing due to the great WD localization.
I too wish we could've had grandia and/or sakura wars done by Working Designs...
Oh, and screw Bernie
I too wish we could've had grandia and/or sakura wars done by Working Designs...
Oh, and screw Bernie
jaundicejuice said:
Yeah seriously. Vic's insights about what really went down, and the other interviews outside the BS (pun intended) interview, really made for a good read. And the fact that Stolar to this day, sidesteps some of the bad decisions he's made at Sega is very groan inducing. He even stopped WD from selling Saturn RAM carts (officially licensed mind you) when Sega themselves could barely put their own carts out in retail. Still happily have my Dragon Force labeled cart in my possession <3
carlos said:
Yeah, that reminds me, I gotta finish AO sometime, but I've enjoyed what I've played so far! As for Grandia and Sakura Wars, that would actually make for an interesting photoshop thread of "What if..." with US Saturn case designs made as if WD had actually done them. :lol
vireland said:
I have to agree that Kalinske was cool back during the SEGA days but I have to ask this question which I've always wanted to know the answer to, what was the cause of the problem between you and Stolar back during his Sony and SEGA years? I still hold a grudge because of you guys playing ping pong with us over Lunar SSCS and Eternal Blue.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
vireland said:
Hi I'm vireland and I like to lash out at people and make quick judgements to build my self confidence.
Fuzzy said:
I understood what he meant "of the" refers to all in total and not each individual one. I misread that. I just find it odd that he bloats my comments with a harsh town and condemns me with reading comprehension when he goes on highlighting a word in reference from his post that I misunderstood that he didn't even use in the first place.
A Black Falcon said:
The main thing that hurt the Dreamcast was SEGA's financials. They were literally in a battle against time as they were already in the red during the construction of the Dreamcast. Yes the Dreamcast had a very successful launch but SEGA couldn't keep the momentum due to the lack of finances (both for marketing and building support).
Rad Agast said:
The list of grievances is far too long to post. There's some UNBELIEVABLE stuff he did, too, that I've never talked about.
Nutshell:
At Sony, his no-rpg policy really delayed our arrival on Playstation. I actually went to Japan and implored the SCEI guys to let us end-run around the policy to release Arc the Lad. They wouldn't interfere. The US got Beyond the Beyond.
Then, at SEGA, we had supported SEGA well and had a good relationship with the Japanese and US side. Bernie arrived and all that went to hell. The biggest, and most obvious slap in the face was E3 that year. We had paid SEGA to be in their booth (something like $25,000 - maybe $50,000? I don't remember) and literally weeks before the sold-out show with no way to get booth space on our own at that point, Bernie tried to pull the rug out and rescind the deal. We went around him and got SoJ to FORCE him to honor the deal, but since we planned to show FOUR new Saturn games at a show where Bernie wanted to show NO Saturn support, he put us in a walled off area OUTSIDE the SEGA booth proper, BEHIND it, completely out of sight. He didn't want us ruining his storyline of the dead Saturn with announcements of four new releases, consequences to us be damned. I cancelled the games the day before the show once I saw what they did.
There's a huge amount of other notable items in Bernie SEGA death march that would shock and awe, but it's not worth rehashing. While typing this, I did remember his worthless, low-wattage sidekick's name, though. It was Gretchen. She may have had value in some other industry, but in games, she was a one woman demolition (demoralization?) crew.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I say it should be, because I find this fascinating, and am more than happy to accumulate more reasons to dislike Stolar.vireland said:
Flying_Phoenix said:
Well, the tone of your original post was less than polite in print. Of course, in person it may have been the most friendly of exchanges, but we're not face to face. And so, I took it as less than polite and just pointed out that you misunderstood my original post because there was a clear implication that you missed.
Now then,
Definition of highlight:
"To mark (important passages of text) with a usually fluorescent marker as a means of memory retention or for later reference."
I didn't highlight the word in the original text, because the COMBINED was implied from the context. There was no COMBINED to highlight. I simply laid out (in all caps) the word that expressed what you missed. It was helpful, right? You ultimately got the point of the original post, right? I'm sorry that you didn't understand the original post and decided to make your best effort at a snarky reply, but we don't have a time machine to fix that, so let's just go forward, confident in our newfound knowledge that context is important and understanding that can make us all better citizens.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
vireland said:
I'm sorry.
Let's be friends.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
After all this SEGA talk I gotta say it's pretty sad to see them go. Lately I've been getting into MEGA-Drive emulation and I'm surprised to see how enjoyable some of these games are. SEGA certainly filled a hole in the console arena that wasn't covered and made them very unique. IMO this console generation shows this more than ever.
It's pretty sad though really. The company had so many chances to succeed but unfortunately corporate culture wars got the best of them.
It's pretty sad though really. The company had so many chances to succeed but unfortunately corporate culture wars got the best of them.
goldenpp72
Member
I wonder if sonic had been handled in japan like it was in america, would sonic have been a bigger deal?
dreamcastmaster
Banned
vireland said:
Acclaim and the folded contract signature.
GillianSeed79
Member
Crap. I can't believe I made a stupid post in a thread created by Vic Ireland. I do have to say one of the reasons I bought a Saturn was the promise for great RPG's like we got on Sega CD ala Lunar and Lunar 2. I still have both btw. Huh, all these years my Sega hate has been misdirected at Kalenskie instead of Stolar.
Open Source
Banned
Does this article cover all of his failures, or only the ones at Sega?
ShockingAlberto
Member
I remember when he attempted to revitalize Robotech: Crystal Dreams - or at least claim he would - at Mattel, then sat on the license so no one could ever release it.Open Source said:
Fucker.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
The Sega prank I always remember is that the day before the Dreamcast launched, it was all over the internet that somebody has gone over to the Sony building and plastered a giant "BEST IF USED BEFORE 9.9.99" poster over the front doors. (this was before the PS2 was announced).
rod furlong
Member
Full copy/paste, OP? I guess no one read that article about why MTV Multiplayer was screwed?