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[Nikodemos]

This story can be easily summed up.

Sega of America was making all the right moves… building the brand and kicking ass.. sega of Japan was jealous and actively hurt the company trying to pull power from SOA.

SOA how a totally different plan going into the 32 bit era.. different hardware different goals. SOJ threw a fit and blocked everything offered up by SOA.

SOA didn’t want the 32x. SOJ pushed it on them.

SOA wanted different Saturn hardware with different launch games.

SoA made plenty of mistakes. Their infatuation with FMV is one, churning out shovelware (which more often than not tended to overlap with their FMV infatuation) is another.

Something worth mentioning regarding Sega's mistakes is that they routinely bungled their console hardware designs.
Even the Master System was bungled. It had a busted color compositor, so it could only use a max palette of 64 colors, instead of the 4096 the graphics output unit was theoretically capable of. And they only fixed that in the Game Gear. It had no native sprite rotation support; if you wanted sprites to point in a different facing, you had to physically add a rotated copy to the game libraries. Storage space being what it was at the time, that was pretty obviously unworkable. Finally, SoJ were cheap shits and didn't release the YM2413-equipped model on the global market, despite the many competent composers who had learned their trade on the SID and Paula (guess they thought beep-boops were good enough for filthy gaijin-san).

And the MD, despite its overall success, had a bevy of issues, which made it highly unsuitable for pretty much everything but 16-bit cartridge games. Which makes their repeated attempts at expand-ons even more tragic, in retrospect.

 

[Havoc2049]

You must had had early internet (in whatever incarnation the net was at the time). Most people I know didnt get the net till later in the 1990s. I didnt know game sites were already talking 32x, Jaguar and PS1/Saturn in 1993/1994.

By the time Playstation and Saturn came to market, Usenet was already a thing and there were Playstation and Sega communities there. There were also America Online (AOL) video game communities. Companies and fans were making websites by then as well.

I was a hardcore Atari fan back then. Atari fans communicating online goes back even further, especially since they were a computer company as well. GEnie had Atari Roundtables and Compuserve had Atari SIGs (Special Intrest Groups), dating all the way back to the 80's. There was also a community digital publication called Atari Explorer Online (AEO), which was a continuation of the old Atari Explorer magazine. I first started reading AEO back in like '92, when they were covering late Atari products like the Lynx II, Atari TT, ST Book, Atari Portfolio (handheld PC), Atari Falcon and eventually the Atari Jaguar in '93. By 1995, Atari.com was already a thing, along with Usenet, AOL and fan web sites.

 

[Havoc2049]

For the Jaguar this did happen, and everyone was singing it's praises, people didn't realize Atari didn't have money for production, lied to devs, and tried hiding people pulling out of contracts once they found out they only had 2 games ready for launch with a gap until the 3rd. Unless you were in the inside or had good information, there was no way to know that the Jaguar would be "shit" because there was nothing giving any hints to that being true, the demos they showed off were deemed impressive, the power was deemed amazing, it's 2D graphics and color were considered an evolution, granted that's the only thing that ended up being true, over the SNES/Genesis).

People didn't know ahead of time that they would be waiting at game stores for weeks after the promised shipments of games because Atari was basically bankrupt and talking out their behind. If todays internet was there then, Atari would arguably be able to push a more deceptive Bullshit campaign, lol.

The Jaguar had four games at the 1993 launch; Cybermorph, Trevor McFur and the Cresent Galaxy, Raiden and Dino Dudes. Like you mention, it wasn't a clean launch. Stock was going out to the San Fransisco and New York City test markets as it came in, hot and fast from the factory. Atari was also selling direct to consumers via mail order and sending some stock to the few Atari computer dealers that were left. Stores like Electronics Boutique were also sending stock out to stores outside the test markets as well. Stock was getting to stores randomly, sometimes systems with no games or accessories or a store would get one system and a bunch of accessories and games. It was a mess of a launch. Stuff was getting made as the checks were clearing kinda launch.

The press also became very negative on Atari (or went back to being typical anti-Atari) as soon as the Jaguar launched and outside of Diehard Gamefan, gave negative reviews of the system and the games right from the start.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Atari Jaguar received a little attention at start, and there is that legendary Gamefan review on Cybermorph, but nobody really paid any attention until Tempest 2000 dropped. Then, all of a sudden, gamers took notice. Add in Alien Vs Predator and Iron Storm (and, in my case, Brutal Sports Football and NBA Jam TE) and Jaguar was looking very good. It’s too bad that early momentum couldn’t be sustained. If only the system had Mortal Kombat instead of Kasumi Ninja. If only Rayman arrived earlier (it began as a Jag exclusive).

One unreleased Jag game I really liked was Space War 2000, a first-person space shooter where two players battled against each other. That had real potential. Same for Ultra Vortex from the same crew behind the excellent Battle Wheels on Atari Lynx.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

A fair point, and I love what they did with the original Xbox. A great console in many ways with a better library of games than it gets credit for. Microsoft did lose a hell of a lot of money on the Xbox, though, so the size of their wallet was still important for them being able to continue. I'm glad they did.

Yeah but only if there was progress being seen and/or goals were being obtained, otherwise they wouldn't have continued. Xbox caused a major shakeup that wasn't expected which led to the 360 so they called it, and they moved away from Nvidia and other bad deals so they wouldn't lose an arm and a leg with the 360 either.

Even the Xbox One at the end of the day likely sold over double the original Xbox after the die down in 2015, and they refreshed the branding with the One S and X, and that was scene as a lost cause before then. The renewed interest, the progress they were making, and the mindshare shift in the later years of the Xbox one is why we even have a Series X, as before that there was according to MS staff and iirc Phil himself that they were considering not even releasing a new console for awhile.

I do wonder though if say, the Saturn was a success until the last year or two, and they doubled the Genesis in terms of cash along with success in the arcades, if they would have kept throwing 10s of millions into the Dreamcast even if it didn't show any silver lining. But then again, one could say that about the PS3, which while the money lost wasn't recovered, the console itself was eventually saved due to the long generation, giving Sony time to restore their mindshare, software sales, and internal growth for game development which led to the success of PS4.

However, one thing to consider that people forget about in these hypotheticals is even a rich Sega would by 2001 be faced with 3 strong competitors, one of which was bringing games from a ex-segregated gaming industry to consoles, one that just came out of nowhere and sold more consoles than anyone before them across a wide demographic, and one was literally surviving off North American consumers and pretty much owned the younger age groups. Sony had much of the edgy teen crowd and college kids Sega used to go for, the Xbox would grab many of those and older adults by default, so who does Sega target in this case?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The Jaguar had four games at the 1993 launch; Cybermorph, Trevor McFur and the Cresent Galaxy, Raiden and Dino Dudes. Like you mention, it wasn't a clean launch. Stock was going out to the San Fransisco and New York City test markets as it came in, hot and fast from the factory. Atari was also selling direct to consumers via mail order and sending some stock to the few Atari computer dealers that were left. Stores like Electronics Boutique were also sending stock out to stores outside the test markets as well. Stock was getting to stores randomly, sometimes systems with no games or accessories or a store would get one system and a bunch of accessories and games. It was a mess of a launch. Stuff was getting made as the checks were clearing kinda launch.

The press also became very negative on Atari (or went back to being typical anti-Atari) as soon as the Jaguar launched and outside of Diehard Gamefan, gave negative reviews of the system and the games right from the start.

Jaguar only had two launch games, or at least during the 1993 "testing" phase when Atari delayed a proper launch until later to be "ready' and guess what they weren't.

As for negative reviews it wasn't right from the start but it was early mostly because by then it was months into 1994 and the 3DO, the expensive competition that couldn't possibly hold a candle to Atari and the amazing super powerful Jaguar as some mags gushed, had games that were running circles around the jaguar by astronomical leaps, so the denial factor evaporated.

I mean if you compare checkered flag to Need for Speed I mean, how do you even reconcile? The previews in spring 1994 alone were talk of the town, and the later demos sealed the deal before launch. Then the delayed Checkered Flag came out a month before NFS and that last grasp of hope was gone.

That is also when things got interesting because the games people did want they would either have the games but not Jaguar console in stock, or they would have the Jaguars but not games and stock, and would wait weeks to months. Sometimes certain games never showed up. Their biggest marketed games, which they barely had money to market, they couldn't even produce enough copies for, so even hits like Rayman, Tempest, AVP, were limited because they couldn't be produced in mass.

Atari was trying to sell a console to make a comeback in the gaming industry, that they couldn't even make. To be fair, Commodore did this same thing so it's not a unique stupidity associated with Atari, but it's still mind numbingly dumb. At least Sega with assistance were able to produce a lot of Dreamcasts, image if they could only produce 100k for the a whole year? They likely wouldn't have bothered launching it.

Atari Jaguar received a little attention at start, and there is that legendary Gamefan review on Cybermorph, but nobody really paid any attention until Tempest 2000 dropped. Then, all of a sudden, gamers took notice. Add in Alien Vs Predator and Iron Storm (and, in my case, Brutal Sports Football and NBA Jam TE) and Jaguar was looking very good. It’s too bad that early momentum couldn’t be sustained. If only the system had Mortal Kombat instead of Kasumi Ninja. If only Rayman arrived earlier (it began as a Jag exclusive).

One unreleased Jag game I really liked was Space War 2000, a first-person space shooter where two players battled against each other. That had real potential. Same for Ultra Vortex from the same crew behind the excellent Battle Wheels on Atari Lynx.

No see this is where people constantly get the Jaguar wrong, there was no momentum to be sustained through software, the momentum had to be sustained through Hardware, and Atari could not produce hardware, they were still late fulfilling rainchecks in 1995. They could have had Crash bandicoot on the Jaguar and they would only be able to make 30 or 40,000 cartridges in a 3 months period. Ok they all sold out, it's a hit, great reviews, now how do you get it and/or a jaguar?

And there's the problem. Rayman could have been a launch title wouldn't have mattered, imagine if Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis which sold 15 million copies and was bundled with the genesis, ran into a situation where Sega could only produce 100,000 Sonic Genesis consoles in a 5 month period? Well it wouldn't be selling that 15 millions more like 300k. If that. One thing you can say about Atari is they had the best PR guys in the business for fooling investors, developers, and consumers, never seen a console so mismanaged it was DOA and now because of either games or the hardware but the production of the hardware, gets me everytime.

 

[RAIDEN1]

Jaguar only had two launch games, or at least during the 1993 "testing" phase when Atari delayed a proper launch until later to be "ready' and guess what they weren't.

As for negative reviews it wasn't right from the start but it was early mostly because by then it was months into 1994 and the 3DO, the expensive competition that couldn't possibly hold a candle to Atari and the amazing super powerful Jaguar as some mags gushed, had games that were running circles around the jaguar by astronomical leaps, so the denial factor evaporated.

I mean if you compare checkered flag to Need for Speed I mean, how do you even reconcile? The previews in spring 1994 alone were talk of the town, and the later demos sealed the deal before launch. Then the delayed Checkered Flag came out a month before NFS and that last grasp of hope was gone.

That is also when things got interesting because the games people did want they would either have the games but not Jaguar console in stock, or they would have the Jaguars but not games and stock, and would wait weeks to months. Sometimes certain games never showed up. Their biggest marketed games, which they barely had money to market, they couldn't even produce enough copies for, so even hits like Rayman, Tempest, AVP, were limited because they couldn't be produced in mass.

Atari was trying to sell a console to make a comeback in the gaming industry, that they couldn't even make. To be fair, Commodore did this same thing so it's not a unique stupidity associated with Atari, but it's still mind numbingly dumb. At least Sega with assistance were able to produce a lot of Dreamcasts, image if they could only produce 100k for the a whole year? They likely wouldn't have bothered launching it.



No see this is where people constantly get the Jaguar wrong, there was no momentum to be sustained through software, the momentum had to be sustained through Hardware, and Atari could not produce hardware, they were still late fulfilling rainchecks in 1995. They could have had Crash bandicoot on the Jaguar and they would only be able to make 30 or 40,000 cartridges in a 3 months period. Ok they all sold out, it's a hit, great reviews, now how do you get it and/or a jaguar?

And there's the problem. Rayman could have been a launch title wouldn't have mattered, imagine if Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis which sold 15 million copies and was bundled with the genesis, ran into a situation where Sega could only produce 100,000 Sonic Genesis consoles in a 5 month period? Well it wouldn't be selling that 15 millions more like 300k. If that. One thing you can say about Atari is they had the best PR guys in the business for fooling investors, developers, and consumers, never seen a console so mismanaged it was DOA and now because of either games or the hardware but the production of the hardware, gets me everytime.

Atari weren't in the game from waaay back....they couldn't counter the NES, their Atari ST was 2nd rate compared to the Amiga, the Jag was bottle-necked by having "that" Motorola processor from a previous generation, Atari needed to be on their "A" game from the start if they wanted to be taken as a serious competitor again...so much for being the first 64 bit system....the N64 would wipe the floor with it...

 

[Alan Wake]

However, one thing to consider that people forget about in these hypotheticals is even a rich Sega would by 2001 be faced with 3 strong competitors, one of which was bringing games from a ex-segregated gaming industry to consoles, one that just came out of nowhere and sold more consoles than anyone before them across a wide demographic, and one was literally surviving off North American consumers and pretty much owned the younger age groups. Sony had much of the edgy teen crowd and college kids Sega used to go for, the Xbox would grab many of those and older adults by default, so who does Sega target in this case?

Even if I love this image from TGS in 2001 where there are four great consoles available, in hindsight it is obvious how difficult this would be for Sega. I love the Dreamcast with all my heart, and at the time I just couldn't understand why people wouldn't see how amazing it was. But this was stiff competition, Sega were out of their league. Arcade games at home wasn't that much of an USP anymore, so I don't know what their magic formula could've been. Except what Nintendo has always brought to the table: great and unique games. Online play was also an argument for the Dreamcast, but they had very little time to establish anything and it was, as we know, early stages in online gaming on consoles.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Atari weren't in the game from waaay back....they couldn't counter the NES, their Atari ST was 2nd rate compared to the Amiga, the Jag was bottle-necked by having "that" Motorola processor from a previous generation, Atari needed to be on their "A" game from the start if they wanted to be taken as a serious competitor again...so much for being the first 64 bit system....the N64 would wipe the floor with it...

The ST was beating the Amiga at first and was a serious competitor. As for the Jag the N64 came out 3 years later I would expect the N64 to mop the floor with it.

The "they couldn't counter the NES" doesn't make sense. How do you "counter" a Japanese company that dominated Japan and made piles of dough from the famicom which in 1986 still didn't have any competition there for another year, who then brought it's product to America associated with two distributors using bully tactics, and pushing a shipment of a million consoles from launch until the end of the year along with a flood of games also produced in large quantities? No one could have seen it coming that Nintendo would enter as hard as they did, the whole history of Atari, Nes, and the crash, continues to be misunderstood at a fundamental level.

What "counter" did Atari have? They produced as much as they could and sold out trying to pick up production to meet demand, so people actually wanted the console despite what the revisionists say. Sega came in with hundreds of thousands of consoles sitting on shelves but only selling a similar amount to Atari by the end of the year. Then Atari shot on ahead as they got their production in order, again showing that there were people who wanted the console. On the other end was the 2600 rebranded 2600 jr. which was selling well and was also still wanted, despite what the revisionists say. Devs were still making new games for it too.

The only "counter" that could be done is suits, but suits about pressuring retailers and other intimidation tactics in the 80's is foolish (plus Atari used to do that themselves) which is why any impact those suits had didn't become known until the 90's. Otherwise? There's not really much to counter given the circumstances, Atari did well making money on millions in product sales despite not being number 1.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Even if I love this image from TGS in 2001 where there are four great consoles available, in hindsight it is obvious how difficult this would be for Sega. I love the Dreamcast with all my heart, and at the time I just couldn't understand why people wouldn't see how amazing it was. But this was stiff competition, Sega were out of their league. Arcade games at home wasn't that much of an USP anymore, so I don't know what their magic formula could've been. Except what Nintendo has always brought to the table: great and unique games. Online play was also an argument for the Dreamcast, but they had very little time to establish anything and it was, as we know, early stages in online gaming on consoles.

They didn't have the games ready to really position online gaming as a must have for console adoption outside hype from magazines and internet. At launch it attracted many users but they needed a lot more time to really get the service going and by then it was more of an inconvenience than a massive consumer draw when people were deciding what console to by. This same issue happened with Netlink but moreso.

The biggest problem is that Nintendo threw out franchises that worked, and they kept bring back those franchises so you would always expect along with new projects, established brands that you knew of so if you liked them you knew they would be there.

Sega didn't really have an equal. They would just have games, and several which you may like and several you wouldn't, and this made it so that seeing Sega games on a shelf was almost like a gamble because you didn't know if you'd actually LIKE Shenmue, seaman, VF3, House of the Dead among many other games and experimental titles.

By the time of the Dreamcast Sega only had one. There wasn't a Phantasy Star on the Saturn that was the first issue, but then you double down on the internet bet and change Phantasy Star into a completely different thing requiring an online connection? No sequel to IV?

They really only had Sonic as an established franchise, at least outside Japan, and even they messed around with it for the Dreamcast, but that's it.

If I am about to buy a DC, or hey even a Saturn and I see these games on the shelf:

Fighters Megamix
Black Fire
Shining the Holy Arc
Deep Fear
Virtual On
Virtua Cop
Fighting Vipers
Mystaria
Wing Arms
Daytona

What exactly am I buying? Remember, Sega had been around for years switching out game series they focus on they weren't new and trying to establish themselves like Sony where or other new comers. People knew their name, they knew about what games previously they liked or didn't. Are these attractive? they aren't from series I brought the Genesis for? Are they good?

But more importantly if I buy some of these, will they be there for the next console? Or am i going to see Sega market a bunch of new games?

Dreamcast comes out i see these games:

Dynamite Cop
Outtrigger
Phantasy Star online
Alien Front
Seaman
Shenmue
Rez
Space Channel 5
Sega GT

Ok, yes there is Sonic Adventure, but it's been awhile since SOnics had a quality game and there's a new 3D adventure, but what is all this other stuff that's being promoted? Yeah there are some sequels but I likely have no idea those sequels came out or are coming out because there's mass marketing for this Shenmue and I have no idea what it is. Imagine me being the average consumer wondering what system to buy.

Hey remember the Mega Drive? Well no games from that are here except an online came that shared the same title with Phantasy Star, also a new 3D Sonic.

Sega just didn't focus on building on series that worked or had potential to grow bigger. The uniqueness of Dreamcast titles many of which were not even made by Sega if you look at the developer lists, is a double edged sword even now. Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo where known for franchises even after establishing them the first time, Sega was known by the console.

I've seen more talk about the Dreamcast as a whole then mention of the games, than the games first, then the Dreamcast.

I mean it's pretty much Sega's vault Virtua Fighter didn't have the impact it did in Japan in the west on the Saturn because Virtua Fighter was not their western focused game, Daytona was, on the Saturn. Despite the reception of the arcade game they did nothing with that to built up the series interest in the US. People act like early on Tekken and VF were even, but that only applied to Japan. Outside of Japan the small group of Saturn buyers there were outside of bundles were not likely going out and buying Viruta Fighter. So Tekken takes that spot almost entirely by itself, and I mean almost entirely, in the US outside of MK4 no one else was selling anything close to Tekken in 3D fighters, unless you count Smash later on N64.

it also didn't help that Sega kept promoting other fighting games over VF, including ironically Fighting Vipers, which they also did not built up and marketed other fighting games over that too. This same behavior spilled into the Dreamcast which is why few people cared for VF3TB, or knew Fighting Vipers 2 existed. I didn't know FV2 was a thing until I saw an arcade machine in 2001 and looked it up online and fund out there was a Dreamcast port right when the rumors of Sega pulling out was happening.

 

[AJUMP23]

Nintendo Layeth the Smaketh Downeth

 

[Havoc2049]

Jaguar only had two launch games, or at least during the 1993 "testing" phase when Atari delayed a proper launch until later to be "ready' and guess what they weren't.

As for negative reviews it wasn't right from the start but it was early mostly because by then it was months into 1994 and the 3DO, the expensive competition that couldn't possibly hold a candle to Atari and the amazing super powerful Jaguar as some mags gushed, had games that were running circles around the jaguar by astronomical leaps, so the denial factor evaporated.

I mean if you compare checkered flag to Need for Speed I mean, how do you even reconcile? The previews in spring 1994 alone were talk of the town, and the later demos sealed the deal before launch. Then the delayed Checkered Flag came out a month before NFS and that last grasp of hope was gone.

That is also when things got interesting because the games people did want they would either have the games but not Jaguar console in stock, or they would have the Jaguars but not games and stock, and would wait weeks to months. Sometimes certain games never showed up. Their biggest marketed games, which they barely had money to market, they couldn't even produce enough copies for, so even hits like Rayman, Tempest, AVP, were limited because they couldn't be produced in mass.

Atari was trying to sell a console to make a comeback in the gaming industry, that they couldn't even make. To be fair, Commodore did this same thing so it's not a unique stupidity associated with Atari, but it's still mind numbingly dumb. At least Sega with assistance were able to produce a lot of Dreamcasts, image if they could only produce 100k for the a whole year? They likely wouldn't have bothered launching it.



No see this is where people constantly get the Jaguar wrong, there was no momentum to be sustained through software, the momentum had to be sustained through Hardware, and Atari could not produce hardware, they were still late fulfilling rainchecks in 1995. They could have had Crash bandicoot on the Jaguar and they would only be able to make 30 or 40,000 cartridges in a 3 months period. Ok they all sold out, it's a hit, great reviews, now how do you get it and/or a jaguar?

And there's the problem. Rayman could have been a launch title wouldn't have mattered, imagine if Sonic the Hedgehog on the Genesis which sold 15 million copies and was bundled with the genesis, ran into a situation where Sega could only produce 100,000 Sonic Genesis consoles in a 5 month period? Well it wouldn't be selling that 15 millions more like 300k. If that. One thing you can say about Atari is they had the best PR guys in the business for fooling investors, developers, and consumers, never seen a console so mismanaged it was DOA and now because of either games or the hardware but the production of the hardware, gets me everytime.

The Wikipedia entry is wrong, just like several other parts of the Jaguar Wikipedia entry. The copyright dates for Cybermorph, Trevor McFur, Raiden and Dino Dudes are all 1993. The launch date was around November 23rd. I say around, because launch dates with Atari were always a little chaotic and even in the test markets, not all the video game stores got stock on that day. I bought my Jaguar in early December of 1993. Cybermorph was the pack in game. I bought an extra controller, composite av cables and copy of Raiden. I could have bought Trevor McFur and Dino Dudes, but I had heard the control in Trevor McFur was stiff (a no go for a shooter) and Dino Dudes isn't my type of game, although I eventually bought both those games. The national roll out was supposed to be March of 1994, but like I said, Atari was selling direct to consumers and Atari computer dealers in 1993 and EB and Babbage's was sending Jaguar stock out to stores outside of the test markets.​

​

In this thread and other you have said that the Jaguar launch was delayed. Do you have a link or press release? I don't ever remembering that happening. Atari introduced the Jaguar to the press and the public at the 1993 Summer Consumer Electronics show in Chicago. At that event, Atari said they were going to launch with 50k Jaguars in November of 1993 and the test markets would be San Francisco, New York City, London and Paris. Then there would be a full national roll out in March of 1994 in the United States. Atari did meet those dates, but the test market launch was only in San Francisco and New York City and Atari was only able to produce and sell 17k in 1993. Even though that is a pathetic number, the funny part is that the Jaguar actually outsold the 3DO in 1993. The 3DO was sent out to die at the $699 price point and they only sold like 9k units in 1993.​

 

[Nikodemos]

Hey remember the Mega Drive? Well no games from that are here except an online came that shared the same title with Phantasy Star, also a new 3D Sonic.

That's an issue inherited from the Saturn. I think it was Sega Lord X on YT who mentioned, that one of Saturn's fundamental issues was that almost none of the MD's established series were brought over on the Saturn (not in the West, at least).

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The Wikipedia entry is wrong, just like several other parts of the Jaguar Wikipedia entry. The copyright dates for Cybermorph, Trevor McFur, Raiden and Dino Dudes are all 1993. The launch date was around November 23rd. I say around, because launch dates with Atari were always a little chaotic and even in the test markets, not all the video game stores got stock on that day. I bought my Jaguar in early December of 1993. Cybermorph was the pack in game. I bought an extra controller, composite av cables and copy of Raiden. I could have bought Trevor McFur and Dino Dudes, but I had heard the control in Trevor McFur was stiff (a no go for a shooter) and Dino Dudes isn't my type of game, although I eventually bought both those games. The national roll out was supposed to be March of 1994, but like I said, Atari was selling direct to consumers and Atari computer dealers in 1993 and EB and Babbage's was sending Jaguar stock out to stores outside of the test markets.​

​

In this thread and other you have said that the Jaguar launch was delayed. Do you have a link or press release? I don't ever remembering that happening. Atari introduced the Jaguar to the press and the public at the 1993 Summer Consumer Electronics show in Chicago. At that event, Atari said they were going to launch with 50k Jaguars in November of 1993 and the test markets would be San Francisco, New York City, London and Paris. Then there would be a full national roll out in March of 1994 in the United States. Atari did meet those dates, but the test market launch was only in San Francisco and New York City and Atari was only able to produce and sell 17k in 1993. Even though that is a pathetic number, the funny part is that the Jaguar actually outsold the 3DO in 1993. The 3DO was sent out to die at the $699 price point and they only sold like 9k units in 1993.​

Yeah, that's the delay they were supposed to do a nationwide launch in 1993 but didn't until 1994 like you said. Also I don't know what you mean by wikipedia, the earliest models that were sent out during the test run where just two games, Raiden and such came a bit later but if you were a first adopter you had to wait for them even if it wasn't too long a time to wait. Even then after those were ready not every place Atari send test stock too even had them, some stores only had one game, I saw a couple of those myself.


As for only 17k, that's assuming they actually produced 50 million to sell, they didn't they produced 20 million, and used that as a sign that the Jaguar would be hot stuff by the national launch, get third-parties and other partners on board(lol) and retain their contracts.

Star Tribune feb 18 1994

They wanted to hit 500,000 machines by late 1994 before the competitors get established, which ignores the 3DO which was already widening the gap massively because of that low production test run. Turns out by late 1994 that 500,000 consoles was not even possible because Atari didn't have the money or capacity to produce them, or it's games. They ended production LTD at a max of 250,000 before the console died.

Your 9k unit claims of the 3DO are also wrong,

San Fran examiner May 1st 1994

This is going over the the sales of the introduction of the 3DO last fall in 1993. When it was $700 for Deleuxe with gun and less for the console only box.

They sold in the US in 1993 at least 30,000 out of 40,000 shipment, but we don't know if that's the fully shipment till the end of the year so it may have sold more than that. In japan, which it launched in 1994 just a month earlier in April, it sold 40,000 out of a 50,000 shipment, which would be the only current sales at that time people knew of from Panasonic.

Keep in mind this is not including Goldstar 3DO's just Panasonic, which recently put out a limited run.

So at minimum by this article, but likely more, the 3DO had sold 70,000 units on the Low end, so it was already outselling the Jaguar 2:1 at a much higher price and in the US case, less games, during Atari's self-claimed "impressive test" of 20,000 shipment of Jaguars selling out. But the 3DO is likely over 100k by this point realistically.

3DO was always and hyped and wanted device and had a status to it that people wouldn't be able to buy in the millions range until 1995, however it did cut it's price gradually. I don't know hwere you got 9k from but it's wrong, 3DO was always ahead of the jaguar from the start.

That's an issue inherited from the Saturn. I think it was Sega Lord X on YT who mentioned, that one of Saturn's fundamental issues was that almost none of the MD's established series were brought over on the Saturn (not in the West, at least).

Don't know who that is, but it's not just that there were no established series brought over, but of most new games some of the gameplay styles the favorites had didn't even have a substitute. Even Sony had a bunch of 3DO ports early on and familiar games from PC and new games in formats people were familiar with so there was some familiarity when you brought one.

 

[Havoc2049]

Yeah, that's the delay they were supposed to do a nationwide launch in 1993 but didn't until 1994 like you said. Also I don't know what you mean by wikipedia, the earliest models that were sent out during the test run where just two games, Raiden and such came a bit later but if you were a first adopter you had to wait for them even if it wasn't too long a time to wait. Even then after those were ready not every place Atari send test stock too even had them, some stores only had one game, I saw a couple of those myself.


As for only 17k, that's assuming they actually produced 50 million to sell, they didn't they produced 20 million, and used that as a sign that the Jaguar would be hot stuff by the national launch, get third-parties and other partners on board(lol) and retain their contracts.

Star Tribune feb 18 1994

They wanted to hit 500,000 machines by late 1994 before the competitors get established, which ignores the 3DO which was already widening the gap massively because of that low production test run. Turns out by late 1994 that 500,000 consoles was not even possible because Atari didn't have the money or capacity to produce them, or it's games. They ended production LTD at a max of 250,000 before the console died.

Your 9k unit claims of the 3DO are also wrong,

San Fran examiner May 1st 1994

This is going over the the sales of the introduction of the 3DO last fall in 1993. When it was $700 for Deleuxe with gun and less for the console only box.

They sold in the US in 1993 at least 30,000 out of 40,000 shipment, but we don't know if that's the fully shipment till the end of the year so it may have sold more than that. In japan, which it launched in 1994 just a month earlier in April, it sold 40,000 out of a 50,000 shipment, which would be the only current sales at that time people knew of from Panasonic.

Keep in mind this is not including Goldstar 3DO's just Panasonic, which recently put out a limited run.

So at minimum by this article, but likely more, the 3DO had sold 70,000 units on the Low end, so it was already outselling the Jaguar 2:1 at a much higher price and in the US case, less games, during Atari's self-claimed "impressive test" of 20,000 shipment of Jaguars selling out. But the 3DO is likely over 100k by this point realistically.

3DO was always and hyped and wanted device and had a status to it that people wouldn't be able to buy in the millions range until 1995, however it did cut it's price gradually. I don't know hwere you got 9k from but it's wrong, 3DO was always ahead of the jaguar from the start.

There was no delay of the launch of the Jaguar. When Atari introduced the Jaguar to the public at the 1993 Summer Cunsumer Electronic Show, Atari's plan was to always do a test market release in the Fall of 1993 and a national roll out in United States and Europe in the Spring of 1994.

From my own personal archive, the October 1993 issue of Gamepro covering the Atari press conference introducing the Jaguar to the public. I also have the issues of EGM, Video Games and Diehard Gamefan covering this event.

As for that 500k number that you keep mentioning that Atari wanted to hit, that was by a rep of Maxis (Sim City), not Atari. It even says so right there in the article you posted. He was saying that before Maxis would port their games to the Jaguar, Atari would have to hit 500k consoles sold.

I don't have a link to my 9k claim, but this info is getting old and as time goes by more info is lost. Atari shipped 20k, but they only sold 17k in 1993. I remember seeing something that Panasonic only sold 9k 3DO systems in 1993. The newspaper article you posted is from 1994 and never once does it say how many consoles they sold in 1993.

I also don't know where you get that deluxe model with a light gun and base model stuff for 1993. Panasonic made one 3DO player in 1993 and it sold for $699. The light gun and the light gun games like Mad Dog McCree didn't come out till 1994.

Anyways, to get this somewhat back on topic, you should post info about the $50 million dollar lawsuit that Sega lost to Atari. It wasn't in 1996, but it didn't help that it was right around the time Sega was getting ready to launch the Saturn.

 

[Griffon]

Thanks a lot OP, this is an awesome read.

I knew they were in trouble but I never knew Sega got caught in so many bad initiatives in so little time. I thought the Genesis add-ons were bad enough...

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

There was no delay of the launch of the Jaguar.

Yes there was.

I don't have a link to my 9k claim, but this info is getting old and as time goes by more info is lost. Atari shipped 20k, but they only sold 17k in 1993. I remember seeing something that Panasonic only sold 9k 3DO systems in 1993. The newspaper article you posted is from 1994 and never once does it say how many consoles they sold in 1993.

Bro, Panasonic literally provided the numbers for the 3DO in the article which were the MINIMUM for 1993. There is no 9k. The minimum numbers in there article line up with what they ended up selling later in 1994 when they talk about

But regardless I did have an article that does have Matsushita report that they sold over 60,000 3DOs in the first few months in the US

Jan 12th 1994 Orlando Sentinel

So I have no clue where you are getting this 9k thing from. The article also shows they were projecting 600,000(up from 500,000 from another article) so you were wrong on that too.

By holiday season 1994 they literally sales consoles sales are approaching 500k

So if they were selling such low number in 1993 as 9k, then it would have sold similar low number for 1993 until the price cut. The number is just bad.

I also don't know where you get that deluxe model with a light gun and base model stuff for 1993. Panasonic made one 3DO player in 1993 and it sold for $699. The light gun and the light gun games like Mad Dog McCree didn't come out till 1994.

I was wrong about the gun, but you could buy a 3DO itself without stuff like the included Crash N' Burn for a bit cheaper.

Anyways, to get this somewhat back on topic, you should post info about the $50 million dollar lawsuit that Sega lost to Atari. It wasn't in 1996, but it didn't help that it was right around the time Sega was getting ready to launch the Saturn.

Except that Sega was swimming in cash at the time and made that money back quickly and it was equal to toilet paper. This is why 1996 is an important year, they started the year out strong.

 

[NecrosaroIII]

5 Truths of Sega

1 - Sonic games were never good
2 - The Genesis controller is one of the worst controllers in gaming history
3 - The only good sega console was the Dreamcast.
4 - Sega's success in the 90s is due to marketing, not due to quality games.
5 - It's due to Sega that the Western game industry was able to take off like it did, leading to the shitty state of the industry now.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

5 - It's due to Sega that the Western game industry was able to take off like it did, leading to the shitty state of the industry now.

?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????/

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Eddie-Griffin I have a question to ask you. Do you have a personal gripe with Sega as a company? Did they do you wrong at some point in the past? Were you at some point an employee with them or a company that worked closely with them and felt burned and still have some type of resentment about it to this day?

Because while these factual insights are interesting, there's always an emotional drive to anyone looking to discuss information, humans are logical and emotional creatures, after all. And you seem to focus a lot on Sega in particular when it comes to market blunders, a lot more so than other companies including those who made arguably even bigger market blunders during the same time period.

And, when I mentioned the parallels between some of Sega's decisions in the mid '90s and some of Microsoft's decisions WRT the Xbox brand today, you got oddly combative and defensive against it, even though nothing I mentioned in that other thread was factually contested. Again, I appreciate the info dumps WRT articles and newspaper clippings etc. reporting on Sega business ventures and moves during that time period, I think it's important information that generally helps with the discourse around the company's decision making of the era.

That said, you have an peculiar focus on just them in this regard and 9/10 when people are like that about any specific thing, there's an emotional factor motivating it, usually tied to some past bad experience(s). That's all I'm saying.

 

[cireza]

This topic had me thinking that it would be an interesting parallel to make but to display what this company actually released during this very dire period they were going through.

So there it is, a quick reminder of what SEGA, a company that was making reactions, mistakes, missteps, poor or misguided decisions, released in 1996 :

Hope this reminds you some good memories !

 

[Roman Empire]

I'm going to have to sit and read everything later. For now, I'll leave my comment here to bump the thread up.

 

[VN1X]

SEGA is the worst!

Any Sonic enjoyers in the chat?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

And, when I mentioned the parallels between some of Sega's decisions in the mid '90s and some of Microsoft's decisions WRT the Xbox brand today, you got oddly combative and defensive against it,

Because the parallels were dumb, and I addressed all of them and you backed off, to come back and make this post accusing me of hating Sega for pointing out blunders, in ONE made thread and partially in one other thread not made by myself in a discussion that was already occurring, and in that conversation blunders were only a small part, it was primarily graphics that were discussed not blunders. This only makes you look like a typical narrow-minded fanboy who wants to accuse people providing valid criticism, especially to ridiculous Xbox comparisons which you stopped responding to valid skepticisms of, as being "anti-Sega" with no basis.

I say to all of you who do this constantly over the years the same thing, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason why some people bring this stuff up is because these mistakes are what caused Sega to drop out the market and many of these games won't be played again or have sequels, and we won't be able to play them on new Sega hardware again? Had that ever crossed your mind instead of automatically going to the lesser argument of "you said a thing i don't agree with so you must hate the company" every time? I also find it very peculiar that this only has become a very common response when discussing Sega, no one else, just Sega. This happens on many forums not just with you, but your following the usual script to the letter.

What makes things worse is you start being dishonest as shown below

That said, you have an peculiar focus on just them in this regard

And you seem to focus a lot on Sega in particular when it comes to market blunders, a lot more so than other companies

? I've barely talked about them across my history or any other companies to even make this statement. You're imagining things or trolling me.

(You're also ignoring the time it took to make this thread, which is the only one I've done on Sega with this much detail with the recent one being a much shorter work and that one wasn't about blunders. The only other thread I put a similar amount of time in was the early 3D computer thread because I had record/get the gifs made for what I didn't already have gifs of. Trying to act like I singled out Sega because i made one elaborative thread on them is nonsense. So to say I was avoiding others and focusing on them is just as foolish. What are you comparing too? I barely made threads until recently, heck i don't think I made any until the last couple weeks as far as I remember))

Eddie-Griffin I have a question to ask you. Do you have a personal gripe with Sega as a company?

No but it seems you have the reverse of one which may be just as bad as what you're accusing.

While i found it a bit silly, I though the discussion we were having about Sega and Xbox parallels was interesting, but if you were only doing it to pull a stunt instead of actually being interested in discourse then that's a shame.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Because the parallels were dumb, and I addressed all of them and you backed off,

Backed off? No, sir, I have a life and other things to do. There's not enough time in the day to make big posts/responses, considering some of the things that might be the subject warrant such responses.

to come back and make this post accusing me of hating Sega for pointing out blunders, in ONE made thread and partially in one other thread not made by myself in a discussion that was already occurring, and in that conversation blunders were only a small part, it was primarily graphics that were discussed not blunders.

But you did harp on blunders in that other thread. This one? Fair enough. Because that's the main topic. But that wasn't the case with the other thread.

This only makes you look like a typical narrow-minded fanboy who wants to accuse people providing valid criticism, especially to ridiculous Xbox comparisons which you stopped responding to valid skepticisms of, as being "anti-Sega" with no basis.

I could easily make a giant thread on the parallels between a good number of Sega's business, technological and even product line-derived decisions in the back half of MegaDrive/Genesis and into Saturn era, to what Microsoft have done with Xbox Series and GamePass. Again though it's a matter of time weighed against other things I have (and want) to do. I'm always fair in my analysis, particularly nowadays.

Also I just asked a question, calling it an "accusation" sounds like I'm calling in the mods or something. That's not what this is about.

I say to all of you who do this constantly over the years the same thing, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the reason why some people bring this stuff up is because these mistakes are what caused Sega to drop out the market and many of these games won't be played again or have sequels, and we won't be able to play them on new Sega hardware again? Had that ever crossed your mind instead of automatically going to the lesser argument of "you said a thing i don't agree with so you must hate the company" every time? I also find it very peculiar that this only has become a very common response when discussing Sega, no one else, just Sega. This happens on many forums not just with you, but your following the usual script to the letter.

What? I'd bring up the same type of response if people did this with NEC & Hasbro, or even Nintendo. I've done it for those who do it with Sony, and have done it with those towards Microsoft in the past. Save the selective bias argument for someone else.

As to your other point, I think many of us have a decent idea at the very least it was Sega's own hubris and lack of recognizing certain limitations relative to other more entrenched competitors, as to why they made the mistakes they did, and why they are now a software publisher. I didn't say I didn't agree with what you mentioned; if you read carefully I said you have a certain tendency to mainly just focus on Sega when it comes to these type of analysis and, to what I've seen anyway, you don't seem to personally have too much preference for any particular chunk of their classic library so I don't get why the need to frame these discussions as an answer to why we won't see sequels or returns of those IP, actually carry any personal attachment with you?

Unless I've missed something there. Feel free to correct me.

What makes things worse is you start being dishonest as shown below




? I've barely talked about them across my history or any other companies to even make this statement. You're imagining things or trolling me.

(You're also ignoring the time it took to make this thread, which is the only one I've done on Sega with this much detail with the recent one being a much shorter work and that one wasn't about blunders. The only other thread I put a similar amount of time in was the early 3D computer thread because I had record/get the gifs made for what I didn't already have gifs of. Trying to act like I singled out Sega because i made one elaborative thread on them is nonsense. So to say I was avoiding others and focusing on them is just as foolish. What are you comparing too? I barely made threads until recently, heck i don't think I made any until the last couple weeks as far as I remember))

My statement actually wasn't about the number of threads you've made, but your posts in various threads where the topic of Sega during this time period comes up. I'm just going off recollection, but it does tend to be one of your more favored topics to address in various retro threads.

Which, hey, cool. If you're just that interested in it, fine by me.

No but it seems you have the reverse of one which may be just as bad as what you're accusing.

While i found it a bit silly, I though the discussion we were having about Sega and Xbox parallels was interesting, but if you were only doing it to pull a stunt instead of actually being interested in discourse then that's a shame.

No, I wasn't doing that to pull a stunt; I genuinely have seen a few such parallels and FWIW at least at some point I saw some between them and Sony (or Sony and N64-era Nintendo). There are always certain parallels that might pop up since history has a way of repeating itself in cycles, if in different fashions. Maybe sometime I'll go into those parallels a bit more, how strong or weak they are, etc.

Anyway, I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers or seem like I was accusing you of some negative bias. I don't necessarily know where your interest level is with Sega's historical output during this period if the interest in that is indeed a reason you like to focus (very intently btw, which is a good thing for actual discussion) , but I guess that doesn't matter and they don't have to meet some arbitrary criteria to validate an analytical perspective.

So I apologize for that.

 

[cireza]

That's it thicc_girls_are_teh_best , the truth has been spoken about you. Your arguments are dumb and you are a typical narrow-minded fanboy.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

But you did harp on blunders in that other thread. This one? Fair enough. Because that's the main topic. But that wasn't the case with the other thread.

Barely, this thread was made was a result of the bit of discussion that did take place there. It's not really "focusing" on Sega "over" any other company, it's basically one discussion that continues with this thread.

so I don't get why the need to frame these discussions as an answer to why we won't see sequels or returns of those IP, actually carry any personal attachment with you?

You kind of took that line out of a paragraph which involved other things, I didn't really frame the discussion around sequels that's just one of the several things I brought up in general.

Anyway, I didn't mean to ruffle your feathers or seem like I was accusing you of some negative bias. I don't necessarily know where your interest level is with Sega's historical output during this period if the interest in that is indeed a reason you like to focus (very intently btw, which is a good thing for actual discussion) , but I guess that doesn't matter and they don't have to meet some arbitrary criteria to validate an analytical perspective.

So I apologize for that.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't immediately (ironically) assume the worst and reacted as harshly as I did in response, so I apologize for that.

Which, hey, cool. If you're just that interested in it, fine by me.

As you are well aware common wisdom about Sega historically is generally inaccurate, and I always like to present things good and bad, as they happened. I am interested in gaming history and have much in the way of material related to gaming from the crash(es), Nintendo, Atari, Tandy, 3DO, Nokia, Gamecube and more across many companies and devices.

At some point I want to compile all this information I've collected over the years into something. Maybe a book, or perhaps a website would be a more appealing format. Would be educational, especially for those who get their gaming history from Youtubers, Wikipedia or IGN.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

respect all the data, OP.

also, friendly reminder to all that Nights has always sucked.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

respect all the data, OP.

also, friendly reminder to all that Nights has always sucked.

You sure you aren't getting confused with the sequel on the Wii? The one on the Saturn was decent.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

That's it thicc_girls_are_teh_best , the truth has been spoken about you. Your arguments are dumb and you are a typical narrow-minded fanboy.

Well I've been playing heaps of Shining Force III the past few weeks more than anything else and that's a Sega game so I guess it's partly true

Barely, this thread was made was a result of the bit of discussion that did take place there. It's not really "focusing" on Sega "over" any other company, it's basically one discussion that continues with this thread.

I understand and, good thing to move said discussion to a new thread rather than derail or shift the old thread from its original topic.

You kind of took that line out of a paragraph which involved other things, I didn't really frame the discussion around sequels that's just one of the several things I brought up in general.

Yeah I might've ignored some of the surrounding context when I did that, it was the part of your quote which stuck out to me though.

I'm not going to pretend I didn't immediately (ironically) assume the worst and reacted as harshly as I did in response, so I apologize for that.

No problem; we both made some snap judgements between those posts.

As you are well aware common wisdom about Sega historically is generally inaccurate, and I always like to present things good and bad, as they happened. I am interested in gaming history and have much in the way of material related to gaming from the crash(es), Nintendo, Atari, Tandy, 3DO, Nokia, Gamecube and more across many companies and devices.

Well you and I are similar in that aspect, we both have a deep interest in gaming history. Mines is more in the vein of seeing parallels between events and decisions back then (particularly from the '90s) to market conditions and corporate decisions today.

Yours seems more broad in terms of time periods you discuss (a lot of '80s stuff for example, not a decade I necessarily follow console gaming-wise or especially WRT microcomputers) and more in terms of broad-range cataloguing particularly with things often missing from mainstream discourse, but not really doing so in a way of what parallels (if any) those could have in the modern market.

There's a lot of appreciation out there for both types.

At some point I want to compile all this information I've collected over the years into something. Maybe a book, or perhaps a website would be a more appealing format. Would be educational, especially for those who get their gaming history from Youtubers, Wikipedia or IGN.

Best of luck to you being able to do that, and such a book would be something I'd be interested in reading. While at it and you might be aware of them already, but it'd also be worth reading up on stuff from guys like Kevin Williams, who's had some really good reports on Sega's Joypolis operations.

He also had some good ones on their late '90s arcade hardware releases, going into the logic behind some of them given the associated costs, etc. (those were on a very old GameSpy site though and I haven't been able to find them in over a decade).

 

[jimmyd]

Today I learn of the existence of the Sega Nomad but also learn why I never heard of it before.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Today I learn of the existence of the Sega Nomad but also learn why I never heard of it before.

Well if it was handled well it was an interesting idea, especially while the Genesis was going into it's peak years. Turbo Express before the TG16 and consumer interest in NEC did well early on because it was basically like carrying a console on the go, so a better marketed, better handled version of that idea had a market. But the Nomad ended up different than people expected, and because Sega kept wanting to save the Gamegear they didn't really push the Nomad until later when it was too late.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

So I found this digging through old files from The Charlotte Observer Oct 13th 1996 that may be of interest

This is fascinating.

Not only did Sega send the press a fake arm with a note saying "no N64" to make mockery of the N64 controller, to gaming mags as well I assume.

But it seems that Sega actually believed that Sonic 3D Blast was going to do....something for the Saturn as a counter attack to the N64. Apparently they were looking into 3D Blast for the Game Gear too? Or maybe that's Sonic Blast they were thinking of, a similarly named but different game.

Now, it could be that the article cut itself off and the Sonic 32-bit game may have been a different title, but considering that it was followed up with Sega planning a massive marketing campaign specifically for 3D Blast, it really does seem that Sega was actually banking on 3D Blast to help their fortunes.

I'm not saying it's a bad game, but next to Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64, the response is Sonic 3D Blast?? It's an overhead 2D game with 3D bonus stages in the Saturn version if not mistaken. Not exactly comparable.

Otherwise, I wonder if there are any pictures of that fake arm that Sega sent to the press.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Evening Telegraph July 1996

More about Sega's pivot to PC gaming to support their bottom-line, a move that wouldn't help the Saturn much but Sega was trying to expand their options. This was in the UK, so this move didn't seem like it was a red flag because a lot of the problems that were starting to show for Sega at this point weren't really in Europe yet, but in japan and NA.

This can be seen here

This UK expert gives the N64 a big thumbs down, Sega and Sony have already sold a ton, it's too late, N64 has no chance. No credibility.

Little did he know that his whole world was about to turn upside down. Actually both Saturn and the N64 didn't do that well in the UK but the N64 did decent based on where they were before.

This is fascinating.

Not only did Sega send the press a fake arm with a note saying "no N64" to make mockery of the N64 controller, to gaming mags as well I assume.

Sadly I have given up on this one for now anyway. Every instance I can find 9which is hard enough) of the press making mention of Sega sending a fake arm or fake prop to mock the N64 they never include a picture. Just text.

it's unfortunate, I would have liked to see what these props Sega sent the press looked like.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

https://www.recordnet.com/story/news/1996/08/15/computer-gamers-team-up/50844255007/

Continued to partnered with companies for PC outreach, brought the Star Hill brand.

There always seems to be something to find in 1996 related to Sega, it's fascinating how many moves necessary or not they did.


I still am looking for another media sources that shows a picture of the fake third arm Sega sent to the press to mock the N64. Very confusing how to find reports on it but no one is printing a picture of the prop. That's going to be bothering me for awhile.

 

[Hastelander]

I don't think it was just 1996, there is just too much beforehand. But the success of the Genesis in America was really an anomaly and lucky. They were successful in the arcades, but they were terrible at home consoles and running that side of the business. They were never a good home console company. They appeared to never have a real logical plan of attack and where way out of touch. Sega CD, 32X, over price game gear, the list goes on.

They were a poorly run business for years, even during the Genesis success. Arcades and innovative software is where they excelled.

By the time they really learned their lesson, we got the Dreamcast. But they were too far gone and even that console had a controller that was so out of touch with where the market was headed. In an alternate timeline the Dreamcast continued on. We all love SEGA, but their mistakes are many, can we stop beating the dead horse

Yes unfortunately Dreamcast had to pay for it.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Sega in July 1996 announced a partnership deal with Ideal entertainment to make a Vectorman movie and to handle merchandising

Sega sets 'VectorMan' movie deal - UPI Archives

Sega of America Inc. announced Monday it has signed a deal with Ideal Entertainment Inc. for the motion-picture, television and merchandising rights to its...

www.upi.com

Sega of America Inc. announced Monday it has signed a deal with Ideal Entertainment Inc. for the motion-picture, television and merchandising rights to its top-selling video game 'VectorMan.' Ideal plans to release a computer-animated movie in late 1997 in association with Tribaltek, the digital-effects producers on the current hit 'Independence Day.'

If the producers find a studio interested in 'VectorMan,' it will be Sega's first property to make it to the big screen. Ideal's president, Jon Shapiro, developed and executive-produced the Warner Bros. feature film 'Richie Rich' and is the producer of the upcoming feature film 'Curious George' for Universal. Tricia Ashford, digital-visual-effects supervisor and producer on Independence Day,' will supervise all digital production aspects of 'VectorMan,' and Joseph Francis, the computer graphics supervisor of 'ID4,' will direct 'VectorMan.' 'This terrific property has both a huge built-in audience and great conceptual allure that combines elements of the 'Star Wars' and 'Terminator' movies,' Shapiro said. 'With 'VectorMan,' Sega has given us the valuable and rare opportunity to create a broad-appeal event suitable for mass exploitation in all mediums throughout the world.' The videogame version of 'VectorMan' is a 3-D graphic adventure set on a futuristic Earth polluted by toxic waste with humankind departed for space, leaving behind an army of mechanized 'Orbots' to clean up the mess. When the Orbot leader goes haywire and starts a robot revolt, only a sludge-barge pilot named VectorMan can save mankind. Sega, which is battling Sony Corp.'s PlayStation for dominance in the advanced-version video players with its Saturn player, already has a animated syndicated television series based on its Sonic the Hedgehog character.

Of course this was pulled back, and seemed to ambitious in the first place where Sega was at the time. But it's just another example of Sega throwing money and ideas around and hoping something sticks. 1996 was quite the year.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Sega had chosen Softimage 3.5, a program by Softimage who was owned by Microsoft for 3D design, intending to use it for Sega Saturn development. The professional version of the product costs $13,995 per product. In 1996.

Softimage 3D Version 3.5 for Windows NT to Ship This Month - Stories

Users Applaud New Features and Functionality; Upgrade Reaffirms Softimage 3D As Most Complete, Powerful 3-D Animation Solution for the Windows NT Platform

news.microsoft.com

• Sega Enterprises Ltd. “Last year, Sega selected Softimage 3D as the official 3-D design tool for Sega® Saturn game developers,”
  said Shoichiro Irimajiri, executive vice president and CEO of Sega of America.
  “With the release of Softimage 3D version 3.5, we have a more powerful tool for all Sega Saturn developers.”

“In particular, we think that Softimage’s polygon modeling features and the polygon and color-reduction tools in Softimage 3D 3.5 are excellent,”
said Yu Suzuki, director of amusement software research and development for Sega Enterprises Ltd.
“We have recently begun using mental ray and feel it has great potential for game designers, both out of the box and to program special effects.”

Of course Sega quickly moved away from using this wasting money on it across the company and with partners once 1997 came around and they shifted focus to the Dreamcast. I do wonder if Sega kept the Saturn support high a bit longer if this may have made development any easier in the long-term, but we will never know.

 

[the_master]

Americans always complain about Sega not suporting the 32X and relesing the Saturn.
The 32X was the mistake. (Although I love it!) They should have put all effort in the new console instead. How would the 32X have competed with the playstation?
I mean, Saturn failed but still could technically compete and released some awesome games.

History should be set straight in this regard

 

[Team Andromeda]

Americans always complain about Sega not suporting the 32X and relesing the Saturn.
The 32X was the mistake. (Although I love it!) They should have put all effort in the new console instead. How would the 32X have competed with the playstation?
I mean, Saturn failed but still could technically compete and released some awesome games.

History should be set straight in this regard

The 32X is what cost SEGA and also allowing the muppets at STI to handle the 32-Bit Sonic project.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The 32X is what cost SEGA and also allowing the muppets at STI to handle the 32-Bit Sonic project.

Cost them what? 32X was selling quickly if anything rug puling support early, and continuing to sell the Sega CD was the mistake burning another bridge with customers who just brought the 32X.

 

[Neff]

I think it's better to move on, myself.

I saw the previews for Crash Bandicoot online, and talked with people on Boards about how people at events were saying it looked better than M64 on the N64

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I think it's better to move on, myself.

You're quoting a post out of context on page one from July? Weird.

Americans always complain about Sega not suporting the 32X and relesing the Saturn.

Most Americans say the 32X was the reason the Saturn failed along with the Sega CD verbatim, as that's the story spread for years by online gaming websites. I usually don't hear the average gamer in America saying that Sega should have supported the 32X, even though the sales data and trajectory does show that they should have supported it a bit longer. Given that they ended up burning almost a million customers in doing so and who knows how many people who were thinking about buying one.

Saturn had more issues than the 32X.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Cost them what? 32X was selling quickly if anything rug puling support early, and continuing to sell the Sega CD was the mistake burning another bridge with customers who just brought the 32X.

The 32-bit battle. The 32X split SEGA's development resources, SEGA's development and PR budgets and worse still split the SEGA userbase; Do you buy a Saturn or a 32X?
People were promised and a all singing and dancing 32-bit system and when they bought their 32X they could see they were short changed, when looking at what true next gen 32-Bit system could do

And people dropped SEGA like a stone and moved to PS. Nice call SEGA America and then you also had those muppets feck up Sonic X on the 32 bit systems.

I wonder if there was friction between SOA and SOJ on the Sega CD like the 32X an/d Saturn, as that may explain how both sides treated the add-on

I think it was more like what happened with SONY and PSVR to a point. Where you a costly add-on that hurt its wider appeal and update where the In-House teams just really could commit to AAA production given the user base of the add-on, compared to the base system. Like with SONY VR mind, when used the experience was amazing omn the Mega CD, sadly like SONY VR it was left to 3rd parties to push, bar the odd amazing 1st part title.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

The 32-bit battle. The 32X split SEGA's development resources, SEGA's development and PR budgets and worse still split the SEGA userbase; Do you buy a Saturn or a 32X?
People were promised and a all singing and dancing 32-bit system and when they bought their 32X they could see they were short changed, when looking at what true next gen 32-Bit system could do

And people dropped SEGA like a stone and moved to PS. Nice call SEGA America and then you also had those muppets feck up Sonic X on the 32 bit systems.

SOJ is the reason why Sonic X-treme got messed up, putting all the blame on STI contradicts accounts. SOJ also approved the 32X so can't really put all blame on SOA, and SOJ brought 32X to japan.

But the problem with your 32X stance is, yes it was unimpressive compared to even the Jaguar, which it was a response to in part, and other 32-bit systems but it was selling fast.

It doesn't make sense to put as much blame as you and others do on the 32X for the Saturn failure, when the Saturn had plenty of its own problems that still would have screwed over Sega without the 32X.

1. Random surprise retail launch
2. SOJ adding hardware late raising the price to $450, which they got down to $400 but it was still higher than any other consoles available at launch except the 3DO which could be gotten for the same price at some retailers. Then reacted to the PS1 price when sales started sliding and started losing money.
3. Not having any software in its first year to get Genesis owners to migrate over. While the gap between the PSX and Saturn unit sales in the US wasn't that bad from launch until May 1996 when things started changing, Saturns software sales were terrible.
4. Look at all of the things in the OP Sega was doing through the first 6 months of 1996. They were spending their budget and spreading themselves thin in resources more and more with all those poor decisions than anything the 32X caused, not to mention the Netlink gamble, the push for games on portable, and the push for PC development.
5. Sega was using funds on gambles, poorly researched projects, acquisitions, and collabs, many of which failed or produced little benefit to Sega, Instead of using those funds to buy exclusives/timed exclusives, or convincing devs to release their games on Saturn only or first, which would have been beneficial.
6. Rug pulling 32x burning bridges with gamers and retailers who were selling 32X's, but still kept on selling the dead Sega CD.
7. Never marketing games as the face of the Saturn. Sony had Crash bandicoot, Tomb Raider, and later GT as major games that were iconic to the PlayStation as if they were mascots or the reason to buy the platform even if one of those was also on 3 other platforms. For the Japanese market they also had FF7. Sega didn't even give that same treatment for Nights, they marketed it but not long-enough or big enough for people to say "I'm going to buy a console for it" this created a lack of identity for the console. Sega didn't want to sell consumers an identity with the Saturn, they wanted to sell consumers the brand alone. The opposite of what SOA did with the Genesis that made it a success.

With all these problems, killing the Sega CD and keeping the 32X to sell a couple million units would have helped Sega's bottom line as the Sega Saturn still fell apart. Instead they had nothing to cushion the blow.

As for Sonic Xtreme that wasn't ever going to do anything for the Saturn and it still confuses me why people think it would. Sonic wasn't the Saturns problem, the series was already losing the ability (quickly) to sell large numbers of consoles on the Genesis, hype couldn't sell the Saturn entries before people found out they were lacking, and Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast even with the help of being a pack-in could only sell a bit over 2 million copies world wide with more than 8 million consoles sold, with 4 million of that in the US alone. Sega had too many problems during the Saturn era for one game to fix anything, especially Sonic.

I think it was more like what happened with SONY and PSVR to a point. Where you a costly add-on that hurt its wider appeal and update where the In-House teams just really could commit to AAA production given the user base of the add-on, compared to the base system. Like with SONY VR mind, when used the experience was amazing omn the Mega CD, sadly like SONY VR it was left to 3rd parties to push, bar the odd amazing 1st part title.

It seems Sony is attempting to change that with the PSVR2 however, we will see how well and long that goes.

 

[ViciousAgenda]

Great post. I loved my Saturn but I genuinely think it was over after the 299 announcement from Sony.

 

[iQuasarLV]

Ah, trolling a hard worked on historical/informative thread and falsely labeling it a "sega sux thread" interesting projection. I'll just write you off as crazy and move on from there.

So is the new thing Nush just following me around to spam and troll threads?

Fuck yea Eddie! This is the kind of posts I can really get behind. This is awesome, dude thanks!

 

[Team Andromeda]

SOJ is the reason why Sonic X-treme got messed up, putting all the blame on STI contradicts accounts. SOJ also approved the 32X so can't really put all blame on SOA, and SOJ brought 32X to japan.

Sonic Xtreme was a game made on 4 different systems with 2 lines of the same team working against each other and using different level editors and tool A total cock up from start to finish. Sure SOJ made the call for the 32X but that was to counter the 3DO and more so the Jaguar, not the counter the Saturn or PS. When it became clear the Jaguar was a flopp and the Saturn would hit the fall 1994 date, was the day SOA should have dropped the project and moved all production to the Saturn.

No Tom thought price alone would win the day. As for you other points

1) Another bad call by Tom and only rushed through after the 32X flop

2) What was the price of the PS3 at launch again?

3) No different from the PS2 1st year line up really and its Japanese launch software was dire

4) On that I would agree

5) Making games and systems is a gamble, that's a silly point. You do not know what will be a hit or a floop when making a game.

6) Yeah because shops never look to sell off stock, do they ....

7) TR came out 1st on the Saturn and maybe it was different inthe UK. But I remember TV adverts for the likes of Worldwide Soccer, Nights and Panzer Dragoon Zwei.

It seems Sony is attempting to change that with the PSVR2

Really? Name me those Big budget AAA titles that SONY In-House teams are working on for the PSVR 2. I can think of none, even Horzion Zero Dawn been outsourced

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Sonic Xtreme was a game made on 4 different systems with 2 lines of the same team working against each other and using different level editors and tool A total cock up from start to finish.

Part of that was because SOJ prevented STI from getting the tools they needed.

Sure SOJ made the call for the 32X but that was to counter the 3DO and more so the Jaguar, not the counter the Saturn or PS.

The 3DO was never in Sega's vocabulary, they knew about the Jaguar because Atari shipped some test units there and put out marketing, 3DO didn't do that until alter, and didn't launch until around the time frame of the PSX and Saturn in Japan. If Seg=a saw the 3DO stuff that was coming out they would have still likely have added the 2nd processor to the Saturn given that 3Do was visually similar to the PSX at the time.

As for SOj, yes they made the call and that's the point. You're acting like this was an SOA or STI issue when it wasn't. SOJ even went as far as to introduce the 32X to Japan were it would be useless given the Mega Drive was pretty much done and nothing would have increased adoption of the Sega CD wouldn't given how popular the PCE CD was.

32X also sold much faster than the Sega CD, and it's impossible to deny that Sega rug pulling support prevented it from at least given Sega some extra cash for a cushion when the Sega Saturn started to fail in the west for the reasons I listed before. The 32X had little impact on the Saturns lack of adoptions overall. If any.

No Tom thought price alone would win the day. As for you other points

1) Another bad call by Tom and only rushed through after the 32X flop

2) What was the price of the PS3 at launch again?

3) No different from the PS2 1st year line up really and its Japanese launch software was dire

4) On that I would agree

5) Making games and systems is a gamble, that's a silly point. You do not know what will be a hit or a floop when making a game.

6) Yeah because shops never look to sell off stock, do they ....

7) TR came out 1st on the Saturn and maybe it was different inthe UK. But I remember TV adverts for the likes of Worldwide Soccer, Nights and Panzer Dragoon Zwei.

Really? Name me those Big budget AAA titles that SONY In-House teams are working on for the PSVR 2. I can think of none, even Horzion Zero Dawn been outsourced

Tom did what was approved by SOJ, who also sabotaged Tom not long after than kicked him out after they messed things up.

1) There was no 32X flop yet when the Saturn launched. 32X was beating expectations before the support pull.

2) WTF does the PS3 have to do with the Saturn launch? Not to mention price extremely impacted Sony early on to where they had to drop the price several times to keep sales up while losing more money each time. Sega didn't have that much money to lose, the Saturn launch price was an outlier, the 3DO was already having issues still selling at $500 only $50 more than the original $450, at $400 when almost every competitor outside the 3DO is less, in an industry that didn't have a mass market consoles selling more than $250 yet at that time, (until the Jaguar and PSX) was a big problem especially in the west. Add in many other issues the Saturn or Sega had, and the software problems, you ended up with a fatal combo as we saw. By the time Sega started loosing more and more money with the hardware and software price cuts and made itself a good value vs. PSX and later N64 (in the US) it was too late.

3) You can tell you can't really defend the Saturn or Sega's decisions of the time when you make subjective general audience ignoring comparisons to a later consoles selling under different circumstances.

4) Ok

5) Doesn't make sense to agree with 4 and disagree with 5, given that Sega didn't use their money to fund exclusives or to get more games on their platform timed or otherwise, where as they spend an insane amount of money on projects, many of which would do nothing for the Saturn itself.

6) Ships weren't selling "stock" leftovers as you imply. Sega was Still SELLING the CD after crippling and then eventually discontinuing the 32X.

7) Re-read this point again, I never said Sega never advertised games.

Really? Name me those Big budget AAA titles that SONY In-House teams are working on for the PSVR 2. I can think of none, even Horzion Zero Dawn been outsourced

Did you miss the thread when Sony mentioned the studios that will be working on VR, or working in conjunction with others for VR?

Also Horizon Zero Dawn isn't the name of the VR game.

 

[FBeeEye]

I used to be a bitter Sega fanboy that blamed Sony for "killing" the Dreamcast and Sega in general. Then earlier this year I watched a documentary on Nintendo vs Sega and my eyes were opened. Sega's President was just a complete buffoon. This guy made bonehead decision after bonehead decision and didn't let Kalinsky and Co. do their jobs. They were always reacting to something Nintendo did instead of innovating. By time the DC launched it was too late.

Sega deserved to fail.