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[Fat Frog]

I mean they could have even put a port of Virtua fighter 3 in lost judgement instead of Sonic fighters...but no...that's beyond the capabilities of Sega...

As always, it's a matter of time.

Yakuza PS2 : Almost nothing.
Yakuza PS3: Oldies from the 80's like Space Harrier.
Yakuza PS4: Virtua Fighter 2... Then Virtua Fighter 5... then Fighting Vipers...then Sonic the Fighter.

The list is still growing, right ?

SEGA Headquarters:
"What about Virtua Fighter 3" ? :

A - "It's planned for Yakuza 9 with Outrun 2."
B - " VF1,4 are planned as well but no VF3 because we hate RAIDEN1 at Sega"

Don't worry, there will be new retro games in the virtual club sega

PS: VF1 is on the Astro mini, it's getting closer for VF 3

 

[SmokedMeat]

I’m curious as to what magically would’ve made Dreamcast successful enough? Because as much as I love their arcade games, the masses don’t give a shit about them. And that was arguably the main draw since third party support was spotty at best.

Sega owes all of its success to Nintendo delaying the SNES to promote Mario 3. That allowed them to grab a huge chunk of the market.

They weren’t grabbing anything until Sonic exploded on the scene. Sonic and great marketing at that point in time helped propel the system, because major third parties weren’t bothering with it, and people weren’t buying it.

 

[Fat Frog]

Just give me nice cheap digital sega games, I'll buy them all.
I'd like to see games that haven't been ported before though.

I also wonder if VF5FS in Club Sega is the Lindbergh version or just PS3 version's code...

If it's lindbergh emulation, that would be porn and mean more cookies to come:

Outrun 2 SP has been enhanced on Lindbergh (DX version)

 

[Fat Frog]

I’m curious as to what magically would’ve made Dreamcast successful enough? Because as much as I love their arcade games, the masses don’t give a shit about them. And that was arguably the main draw since third party support was spotty at best.

Peter Moore said it was finally taking off in the US but Sega of Japan probably thought it was more reasonable to become publisher.

Unlike Vice City, GTA 3 was only 993 mb (Dreamcast GD roms 1,2 GB) and Rockstar probably wasn't against the idea of a Sega reprogrammed GTA3 since GTA2 was released on Dreamcast.(sega has a long history of reprogrammed games)

GTA 3 on a 200 bucks system could be successful.
But that's a dream scenario, i admit.

More realistic, Sega owned 2K sport games/visual concept at the time.

USA...Sport games...USA... Sport games...cheap console.

If Sega kept releasing good sport games there was no reason for a long term failure there... I mean, they didn't even try. The launch was a success there, it's sold ok later but they stopped too early.

 

[Tarin02543]

A Sega branded graphics card or smartphone is the most likely. Once Sega goes bankrupt their rights will be swept up by a Chinese overlord such as Tencent or Huawai.

 

[Fat Frog]

Oh i forgot Dreamcast's price tag.

Master System had a second life in europe, even during the 16bits era...

There is a market for cheap console if the maker keeps releasing games.(Sega did it with the SMS)

 

[The Pleasure]

Yuji Naka might still be around making games and not going to jail i guess.

If you say your best sega game is segaga and your platformer Balan, you goin to jail!

 

[cobaltorange]

The SEGA CD wasn't a gimmicky add-on in any way. It was a great upgrade that brought many new features to the Western market.


Saturn had decent success in Japan and it is a console that moved around 10 millions units. Saying that it did not exist to the public eye is largely debatable. People knew of the console.

If SEGA were still making consoles, they would still be making awesome games and people would still not buy them. Then they would die again and people come and tell us how awesome SEGA and their games were.

In America and Europe though? Saturn was basically nonexistent. Even today, when people are talking about that generation, do you hear people talking about Saturn? At least what I see, it's N64 and PS1.

 

[cobaltorange]

I'm sorry, but the success of the genesis was a fluke. There is insurmountable evidence to suggest Sega actually had no clue how to run their business properly. If not for a final dying gift, they were done even earlier. If half the people who claim to love the Saturn and Dreamcast in 2022 actually supported Sega back then, maybe they would be alive? The Xbox is really where it was going, they just didn't have the deep pockets to make it happen. I'd argue we saw what came next to a degree with their Xbox launch titles.

They had absolutely no clue and were at odds even against themselves. Sega failed much longer than it succeeded, even if we love the Dreamcast. I do wonder if they had used DVD, would Sega had at least lived a while longer.

Sorry to be a buzz kill.

There were plenty of people who became fans after Sega went third party (such as myself). I was under 10 when the Saturn and Dreamcast released.

 

[SHA]

They wouldn’t exist anymore.

Xbox and Sony would outspend them, gaming tastes changed massively from what they were doing on the Dreamcast, and Nintendo has their own corner of the market.

Their vision on gaming is a bit different than Sony, the brand should've been matured with time just like Sony , to be honest, all the big three haven't changed much since their early days except for the switch and naughty dog from Sony , generally speaking , everything else is the same.

 

[Fat Frog]

There were plenty of people who became fans after Sega went third party (such as myself). I was under 10 when the Saturn and Dreamcast released.

Correct, i also know several people who couldn't buy the Saturn back then (crazy expensive at launch in europe) or even the Dreamcast.(some were teenagers or students)

In 2023, i think Sega is more famous and popular than before. Even if feelings are very mixed with old fans (i prefere the crazy stupid old Sega, for instance), there are several waves of new fans born with the Sega publisher. There are more Sonic fans than ever due to Nintendo consoles and mobiles, there are Sega PC fans and there are Atlus fans.

The Dreamcast was only a success in the US but in a scenario of a new Sega console (), i would say the Dreamcast 2's success would be more balanced: Sega West Studios from UK (Creative Assembly, Sport Interactive, Two Point) would be popular in Europe and Sega would be stronger in Japan because of Atlus( Persona, Dragon's Crown, SMT, Etrian, Catherine for Japan...)

 

[BootsLoader]

Just imagine if Sega and MS had of worked together. Sega content exclusive to xbox.
Sigh..

Is it Wednesday though?

 

[In Cold Blood]

I kind of feel Sega fans should gravitate towards Xbox, given all the BC games you can only play on Xbox.

Sonic Adventure 1&2
Sonic all stars racing transformed
Sonic Generations
Virtua Fighter 2
Nights
Virtual On
Sonic 3 (with original music)
Fighting Vipers
Superior versions of many genesis games due to the botched audio in the genesis collection.
Golden Axe (arcade)
Altered Beast (arcade)

Etc.

I did. Alot of xbox players came Sega to xbox. It's the spiritual successor to Dreamcast, but it would have been great if Sega went exclusive to Xbox.

 

[jigglet]

They would have gone under completely

 

[Celine]

Then Sega would go bankrupt.

But what if it played out differently? Let's say the Dreamcast was successful enough to quickly turn a profit for Sega, allowing the company to continue making game consoles alongside Nintendo, Sony, and newcomer Microsoft. How would Sega survive among the big 3, and what direction would they have taken? Honestly, even if the Dreamcast ended up profitable enough for Sega to keep making consoles, I don't think it would've dominated the market. The PlayStation 2 was too much of a beast, and Microsoft was quietly rewriting the book on console design with the original Xbox, At best, I think it could've been a solid first-party centric niche platform like the GameCube.

Turning a tidy profits with DC wouldn't be enough, Sega took massive debts (relatively to the size of the company) to aggressively launch the DC and balance out the losses contracted by Sega's subsidiaries with the Saturn (looking at you Sega of America, Sega of Europe and Sega Ozisoft).
With a less aggressive tactics DC would have surely sold less than the already low amount it did in 2 years.

The real question is:
If magically Sega wasn't debt ridden and had free hands on how to handle their next step in the console platform business what would set them apart from the far stronger competition (Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox) and at the same time give them enough appeal to attract a big enough audience to turn consistent profits for the consumer division?

The clear identity that set Sega apart from the other console manufacturers (except SNK which anyway treated their consoles more like boutique products) was their 'arcade soul'.
However by early '00s arcade sensibilities was on their way out in favour of more console-centric experiences...
Sega couldn't even coast in being a "solid first-party centric niche platform like the GameCube" because Sega first-party games never reached the popularity of Nintendo games (Nintendo first-party games sales on N64 alone amounted to 1.5 times the total software sold on Saturn).

The fall from grace of Sega tends to be often misrepresented due to the popularity of the Mega Drive in the west and by looking at the company as a whole and not dissecting the results from the three main business lines.
In the early '90s the consumer business (console) sudden growth represented an extraordinary flywheel for the company that prompted Sega's management to make uncautiously new bets to sustain further growth by leveraging the big profits earned from the Mega Drive' success.
However the console business very quickly turned into an anchor around Sega's neck, in fact the first dramatic downturn happened the fiscal year after the profitability peak for the consumer division that is in the period between April 1993 and March 1994 when Mega Drive was still Sega's flagship console.
From the following fiscal year the consumer division was always in the red and Sega desperately tried to compensate the losses by leveraging the profits from the two business segments related to arcades which were almost always net positive contributor to Sega's bottom line.

 

[Alexios]

Then Sega would go bankrupt.


Turning a tidy profits with DC wouldn't be enough, Sega took massive debts (relatively to the size of the company) to aggressively launch the DC and balance out the losses contracted by Sega's subsidiaries with the Saturn (looking at you Sega of America, Sega of Europe and Sega Ozzysoft).
With a less aggressive tactics DC would have surely sold less than the already low amount it did in 2 years.

The real question is:
If magically Sega wasn't debt ridden and had free hands on how to handle their next step in the console platform business what would set them apart from the far stronger competition (Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox) and at the same time give them enough appeal to attract a big enough audience to turn consistent profits for the consumer division?

The clear identity that set Sega apart from the other console manufacturers (except SNK which anyway treated their consoles more like boutique products) was their 'arcade soul'.
However by early '00s arcade sensibilities was on their way out in favour of more console-centric experiences...
Sega couldn't even coast in being a "solid first-party centric niche platform like the GameCube" because Sega first-party games never reached the popularity of Nintendo games (Nintendo first-party games sales on N64 alone amounted to 1.5 times the total software sold on Saturn).

The fall from grace of Sega tends to be often misrepresented due to the popularity of the Mega Drive in the west and by looking at the company as a whole and not dissecting the results from the three main business lines.
In the early '90s the consumer business (console) sudden growth represented an extraordinary flywheel for the company that prompted Sega's management to make uncautiously new bets to sustain further growth by leveraging the big profits earned from the Mega Drive' success.
However the console business very quickly turned into an anchor around Sega's neck, in fact the first dramatic downturn happened the fiscal year after the profitability peak for the consumer division that is in the period between April 1993 and March 1994 when Mega Drive was still Sega's flagship console.
From the following fiscal year the consumer division was always in the red and Sega desperately tried to compensate the losses by leveraging the profits from the two business segments related to arcades which were almost always net positive contributor to Sega's bottom line.

That makes no sense, I get not making much profit, but how could they be losing that much money, especially after the consoles actually launched so it's not their R&D costs? Did they keep making/shipping consoles left unsold on paid for shelves? They lost more money than they had ever made?

 

[Fat Frog]

The hardest fight of the Dreamcast ?

Fighting against the shadow of the Playstation 2... There was hysteria, gossips about the unlimited Pixar Power of that console. In europe, day one, there were brawls in Virgin Megastore shops (for Fantavision ).

For the PS3, it took time but gamers finally understand : Sony consoles are great, their power is cool but there was also unrealistic expectations.(high polycount but horrible IQ so people were sometimes disapointed by many non AAA games).

As a result, at PS3 launch in the Champs Elysees Fnac (Virgin shop doesn't exist anymore), there was only... 1 guy waiting for the PS3 launch line.


My point ? People finally understood there was also a lot of hype around the PS2.
Dreamcast was crushed by the hype...

But in a C) scenario, the tremendous gap between Dreamcast and PS2 would have been reduced a lot and then practical arguments like price would have been more and more convincing for the Sega console:

Father: "Ok, the ps2 has more details (geometry), but,son, daddy cannot spend $300 for your birthday", maybe next year. Maybe..."

Father: "What about this one (150bucks Dreamcast), graphics are cool too, look, there is Sonic."

Son: "Nah, PS2"

Father: "Can't. I can buy the Dreamcast or nothing".

Son: "Fine "

At home:

Son: "OH MY GAAAAAD"




Almost a true story (i remember a friend who wanted Ninja Turtles with the Nes for his birthday. His father bought him the brand new unknown 16bits Sega system. My friend thought "what is that shit, it's not the Ninja Turtles and the Nes" and then "power on"... Blast processed kid forever )


S Sega boys
What could be the easy change on the Dreamcast to reach the game changer $99 price tag without too much damage ?(a low cost dreamcast for family)

Remove the 56kb modem ? Remove VGA port ? Any ideas ?

Sega lowered the Megadrive cost back the with the ugly megadrive 2 but i think it could be a good idea for efficient costs on the Dreamcast.


$99 Dreamcast: Great IQ (best of its generation), vibrant colors... Inferior to the Xbox version but not ridiculous at all, as you can see. It would have been a blessing for poor families with Sonic, Rayman, 2K sport games...(the last regular price of the Dreamcast was 150 bucks, not that far from the crucial 99 price tag)

Step by step, reality (DC isn't ridiculous) would have been more visible to consumers and the wallet argument would have been very important.

 

[the_master]

Nah, you’re right. Shenmue is the ultimate example of Sega at their worst when it came to decision making. It was a $50 million glorified tech demo that Yu Suzuki had no business being allowed to make, because there was no way it would ever be a big enough success to recoup development and marketing costs. It flat out wasn’t fun to play back then and it definitely did not stand the test of time. I was outright confused when the gaming press and some gamers lost their minds over the Shenmue 3 announcement years ago. Then the game came out and everyone hated it, and I’m like… it’s literally what ya’ll asked for. The original had terrible gameplay too.

Meanwhile, Blizzard went and made World of Warcraft for around the same amount of cash back in 2004.

Shenmue was an amazing game at the time and Shenmue II was a masterpiece. Shenmue II It was ported to the Xbox and was a great game to play again, with great gameplay. Of course, 3D gameplay has evolved a lot and some of the controls do not compare to todays standards, like most 3d games that used only one analog stick.

They only did ruin it by doing almost no marketing at all.

If Shenmue had been a Playstation II exclusive title instead, and had the average marketing campaign for such production, we would have had the 15 parts released today and would be one of the most successful games in history.

 

[Celine]

That makes no sense, I get not making much profit, but how could they be losing that much money, especially after the consoles actually launched so it's not their R&D costs? Did they keep making/shipping consoles left unsold on paid for shelves? They lost more money than they had ever made?

Unless you are Nintendo, consoles typically tend to be sold at a loss to buy marketshare. A practice especially loved by big corporations like Microsoft and Sony as a way to submit weaker players like Sega.
As per the admission of Hideki Sato, at launch, Saturn was losing Sega $100 for each console sold (profits comes from software and nowadays services/microtransactions).
Marketing to let people know that your products are "better" than Nintendo and PlayStation costs money (and the other two are going to outspend the marketing budget of little Sega), to pay the employees' salaries you need money (Sega of America around early 1995 had about 600 employees, if you know the actual software output produced by SoA you'd laugh at that number), even still items in warehouse costs money just by taking dusts.
If you have an inventory of "consoles" valued at 100x and then decide to slash the console price of 20% to remain competitive with Nintendo and PlayStation then you suddenly need to "ate" that 20x of inventory depreciation.
If you want to get the license of something famous to attach to your game because you don't fully trust your developers to come up with something original to sell software then you need to fork money.
In America there are in place clauses that might partially protect a retailer from a game bombing (big quantity of unsold inventory on shelves). In that case the publisher buy back stocks or partecipate in the loss caused by slashing the price to try to dispose the unsold items.
You need money to protect yourself from litigation with other companies too. Sega paid Atari in total around $70-$90 million to drop the charge for patent infringement.

There are reasons why historically Nintendo is the most profitable console manufacturer in the World (tendency to sell consoles at parity or even for a small profit, very high sales of first-party games which have high profit margins, lack of reliance on external licenses, small headcount compared to the size of the business generated).

 

[cartman414]

Last I checked sega had two or three consoles (genesis, Dreamcast) that were solid, I understand Saturn had crummy graphics. And sega mixed it up with handhelds which I think is important.

Somewhat in 3d because of its adverse hardware and methods, but it was superior 2d-wise by a longshot.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

They'd probably be out of business now.

The Dreamcast was getting outsold by the MORE expensive PlayStation 1 after hefty price cuts. Mind you the PS2 was already released as well.

Going 3rd party absolutely helped them and I don't think they could have competed with a high-end console or a quirky console.

I don't think they had the development chops that Nintendo had, especially at that point. In reality, had they gone 3rd party sooner, maybe they'd be a bigger name in gaming today than they are.

They probably should have ported Shenmue, Sonic Adventure, to PS2. They obviously should have kept Visual Concepts...

 

[Meicyn]

Shenmue was an amazing game at the time

An amazing game is amazing, regardless of when it was released. It’s why people still play Street Fighter 2. It’s why people still play the original Mario. It’s why people can fire up Phantasy Star 4 and still have a great time.

If visual presentation is doing all the heavy lifting, you have not made a good game. You made a tech demo. Shenmue was ambitious and daring, but in the end, it wasn’t fun to play. Shenmue 3 was more of the same game design and it was a miserable experience.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Chris Chan would still be a free man.

 

[Henry Panic]

Wrong quote

 

[Henry Panic]

Interesting question. I think if Sega were still making consoles, and Microsoft joined the fray anyway, they would have been forced to go with the #2 route: find their own lane and stick with it, like Nintendo did.

Thankfully, Sega had such an option I just think they lacked the corporate synergy to realize it at the time: you know what Arcade1Up are doing nowadays with home arcade cabinets? That's what Sega could've done. Repurpose the Dreamcast/NAOMI hardware into a modular home arcade cabinet. Kind of like what the Konix Multisystem wanted to do back in its day, but now with much better technology and a big company backing it.

Sega would've maybe needed to find a way to keep the costs manageable, and maybe that'd of meant taking a few years out as a 3P publisher bringing their games to other consoles but simultaneously making Dreamcast versions of those games while scaling back on Dreamcast unit production. Keep that going until say 2004, at which point they could do a modular home arcade system with somewhat speced-up Dreamcast/NAOMI/NAOMI 2 power and keep the price manageable (MSRP $299).

Make sure you have some innovative software for it at launch, make it 100% BC with the Dreamcast library & peripherals (most of them, anyway), provide downloadable patches for select Dreamcast games to use the new hardware functions, and keep the production numbers manageable, preferably with a slight profit margin from Day 1 (if that would mean a slightly higher MSRP of say $349...so long as you can convince people, go for it). And an extra discount for those with active SegaNET subscriptions of at least 1 year before picking the system up.

The way I see it, this could've been Sega' Wii moment. Maybe with a somewhat slower start but able to find foothold soon enough. Maybe plan a price drop in Fall 2005 to $249 with a simplified SKU to ward off the 360's cheaper SKU (not that this Sega system would be competing in the same market segment as 360; again this would be more of a Wii strategy for Sega), and I think they'd of been quite successful. I think they'd also need to ensure compatible SDK framework between it and whatever arcade system they would have going forward, so that while you'd get select ports from that to this Sega system and vice-versa, the real use would be in bridging the user experience between the home and arcade environments. Just go all-in with that, make it your distinguishing feature.

I don't really see an alternate future where Sega could have sustained making home consoles competing on the same strategy as Sony, especially if Microsoft joined the fray anyway, Sega just lacked the type of resources and mindshare for that. But I think they could have still been successful with a more distinguished home platform targeting a different type of market segment, and maybe even keep that going with select ports of future games to select console platforms if they were deemed as good multiplatform revenue streams without causing a rift with their own console brand identity (i.e Monkey Ball ports to the Wii, Virtua Tennis ports to the PS3 & 360 etc.). Basically, it'd be Sega staying as a platform holder but also dabbling with strategic 3P support on other platforms the way we've been seeing Microsoft and Sony do today. In fact, Sega had already done this to some extent back in the '80s so it would be nothing new for them.



They did have games people wanted to play. The problem was lack of marketing. Games don't sell themselves in this industry unless they are absolutely massive and even those types of games were few and far between in the '90s and early '00s. Sega didn't necessarily have the best marketing budgets or strategies for key individual games, but they were pretty good at selling their overall brand of the time.

Those are two separate things, however. It's similar to the problem Microsoft has today with Xbox IMHO; they can sell the brand (same goes for GamePass), but are generally pretty bad at marketing & messaging around specific individual games. I agree that Sega needed more games with wider mainstream appeal (and just like I say with Xbox, lack of mainstream appeal does NOT imply lack of quality. These are also two separate things, although at times there can be crossover), but it's hard not to see that they didn't have the best adaptation to advertising/marketing specific game releases in ways to position them as tentpoles, to marketing standards that were developing throughout the late '90s and into the early '00s.

No, people did not want to play Sega games on their consoles. No popular Sega arcade game that had great mindshare, marketing, lines, coverage, sold to reflect that popularity when brought to their consoles.

As a matter of fact, ALL of Segas popular arcade games in countries or regions they had big games in, failed to sell at even close to a similar level to reflect their arcade popularity, when brought to consoles. Except TWO games: Virtua Fighter 1 and Virtua Fighter 2, and only in Japan on the Saturn.

But for other companies in most cases, they never had this issue, but Sega had it constantly from 1983-2001.

 

[consoul]

Honestly, the palette of the Dreamcast version is much more appealing.

 

[Sorcerer]

Sega was very much tied to the arcades. If it were possible for arcades to exist in 2023, (perhaps Sega owned and operated arcades, like they had in Japan) with Sega cabinets and hardware, then I could see them still being in the console race. They would have quite a social/home console niche that would complement each other very profitably. Maybe that is the trick in this day and age, get people out of their houses once again to play video games. This is all fantasy of course, and there are more holes in this post than Swiss cheese, but I would like to think it could possibly happen again one day.

 

[jufonuk]

I'm happy with Sega as a third party, love Yakuza and Sonic, but I wouldn't buy a console for segas current output only.

Their first party output during Dreamcast was great though.

The closest we probably ever got to another sega system was the original Xbox.

I would say the 360 was more sega like

 

[AREYOUOKAY?]

I would say the 360 was more sega like

They both were.

Xbox One however has a disappointing amount of physical copy Sega games and Series X might be the same way. Had all the Yakuza games been ported over sooner and had physical copies I would have gotten them all on Xbox.

 

[Fat Frog]

For the fun, let's discuss new Sega consoles during the 9th, 10th, 11th generations and more .


9th and 10th generations:
Sega would do OK, they have no debt anymore, are not making crazy decisions, they have solid, bankable western Studios, they have Atlus, they have the strong PC and mobile revenues. They wouldn't be leaders but wouldn't do a stupid arm race with Sony and Microsoft.

It would be a safe and square machine, strategy, library helped bu external revenues like PC, mobile.

What about 2030 Sega ?

I think they'll make crazy amount of money and become stronger than ever.

SONIC > Even the half baked Frontiers sold at 2,5 million units in 1 month...(7-10 millions in 2025 ?)
There are now Sonic movies every 2 years, TV shows from Netflix, Paramount, almost 2 billion downloads. Each of them boosting the Sonic games's sales.

Sega will make a crazy amount of money with Sonic.


Creative Assembly/Sport Interactive
Total War Warhammer and Football manager latest episodes could both pass 10 million units before 2026-27.
Sega West is growing at a steady path.

Arcade center crysis
It's over for Sega. They struggled for years but they almost sold everything. It's sad but no more countdown upon their heads and debts.


Atlus
People didn't really notice but it will become HUGE. Persona was doing well on Playstation (3 million units for Persona 5)

Now it's just became multi : 8 million units with the spin offs, 6 million only with Persona 5 +Royal. It will easily pass 10 million units in two years, maybe 15 with the spin off.

Quick comparison: Final fantasy 15 sold 10 million units and could finish at 13-15 millions.

Persona 5 is now at the DQXI level... Not final fantasy but not that far.(Persona 5 became multi at the end of 2022...Final Fantasy is multi since FF13)

Plus... RE Fantasy could have a boulevard because FFXVI is a PS5 exclusive which means RE Fantasy and the next Persona could spread as a virus on Switch, Xbox, PC if Atlus confirms its multi strategy.

With the growing Asian and South American markets(long Sega history), Sega of Japan games(strong nippon touch like Yakuza games) will be more and more popular.


With such, solid studios and growing brands, a Sega machine after 2030 could perform well.

Sega 2035-40
Same theory but we can add the fusion possibility. Bandai Namco is now out of reach for Sega, Koei Tecmo a little weak, Sega- Capcom could be a dream new company, a monster and of course a console from them would be an over popular beast filled with legendary IPs.

 

[the_master]

An amazing game is amazing, regardless of when it was released. It’s why people still play Street Fighter 2. It’s why people still play the original Mario. It’s why people can fire up Phantasy Star 4 and still have a great time.

If visual presentation is doing all the heavy lifting, you have not made a good game. You made a tech demo. Shenmue was ambitious and daring, but in the end, it wasn’t fun to play. Shenmue 3 was more of the same game design and it was a miserable experience.

I have a fun time playing shenmue II now a days. It is a great game.
Even though time passes ang makes systems or features obsolete. And that is also true for Street Fighter 2, which I also play on the original arcade board

 

[cartman414]

Geez, i didn't realize the level of average japanese publisher was that low...

More and more, it appears a Sega Lindbergh console was the perfect fit for them and for our wallets.
No wonder why japanese gamers don't buy playstation anymore (Japan is Switch Land now), they spent almost 1000 bucks for the PS3+ PS4 for that: (update: Holy shit, it's on PS5 LOOOOL and i saw euro shop sells it 800 bucks )


A PS4 game crushed by the Sega Lindbergh (2006/arcade) :


Even against SF6, VF5 is beaten but not humiliated. This is called style...


As i said, jp games lovers don't need overpriced Sony consoles, japanese publishers don't use playstation's power properly...

Sega Lindbergh was based on Pentium 4.

Something based on Pentium M if not Core would have been more suitable. Even so, Sega would have to avoid the production problems MS had with the XBox that kept them tethered to the same parts.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I’m curious as to what magically would’ve made Dreamcast successful enough? Because as much as I love their arcade games, the masses don’t give a shit about them. And that was arguably the main draw since third party support was spotty at best.

It really needed MGS2 that E3 demo of the game killed the DC for me in the west. The DC just didn't have 3rd parties putting their big AAA games on the format and that's what killed it.

 

[Team Andromeda]

The SEGA CD wasn't a gimmicky add-on in any way. It was a great upgrade that brought many new features to the Western market.


Saturn had decent success in Japan and it is a console that moved around 10 millions units. Saying that it did not exist to the public eye is largely debatable. People knew of the console.

If SEGA were still making consoles, they would still be making awesome games and people would still not buy them. Then they would die again and people come and tell us how awesome SEGA and their games were.

I find the ones with the most to say on the Saturn or Mega CD are usally the ones who never owned the systems or gave them any sort of chance. To say the Mega CD was a gimmick is laughable.

 

[spookyfish]

I would have continued buying them.

 

[bitbydeath]

Just imagine if Sega and MS had of worked together.

They did work together.
MS worked them out of the console market.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Going by their track record of consoles and games, you’d have no sports games from EA and just a handful of 2k games.

You’d also have no popular JRPGs, but tons of Sonic and Yakuza games.

The vast majority of their legendary library of games would never see one tiny beam of daylight.

 

[Fat Frog]

Going by their track record of consoles and games, you’d have no sports games from EA and just a handful of 2k games.

, but tons of Sonic and Yakuza games.

Through time, i guess Sega would have pushed 2K games to develop more sport games (Sega of Japan can also adapt their own sport series to western market like Baseball, Tennis, racing, olympics,beach). 2K games/Visual Concep (not a famous franchise at the time) like NFL 2K was already million seller on the new born Dreamcast... 2K franchise would have been much more popular and recognized on Sega consoles if they didn't give up so early.
A publisher becoming a console maker doesn't have the same strategy by the way... (your Sonic and Yakuza remark)

As for other genres, Sega has no popular J-RPGs ? You forgot they own... ATLUS, a developer that is growing and growing and growing.

 

[SmokedMeat]

It really needed MGS2 that E3 demo of the game killed the DC for me in the west. The DC just didn't have 3rd parties putting their big AAA games on the format and that's what killed it.

Back then I remember coming across an industry related magazine, and in it a couple publishers mentioned how they were using Dreamcast as a stop gap until PS2 arrived. You could see it too, because Dreamcast was only receiving prettier PSone ports, while their new games were headed to PS2.
It was disappointing too see. Also back when the system launched there was some excitement in regards to Namco as they had just pumped out Soul Calibur, and promised two more games. It was like a kick to the nuts when those games turned out to be Mr Driller and Namco Museum. I wonder if that was really the actual plan or did something change?

 

[SmokedMeat]

The SEGA CD wasn't a gimmicky add-on in any way. It was a great upgrade that brought many new features to the Western market.

What new features did Sega CD bring that Turbo-CD didn’t already introduce?

The only two games worth looking at for me were Silpheed and Sonic CD, but even then I wasn’t dropping $300 just for those. Pretty much everything else was either FMV (blah) or Genesis ports with better music, and maybe an extra stage/effects.

Maybe there was a Valis game in there too, but nothing that made the add on worthwhile to me. It didn’t feel like Sega was fully behind it, and just wanted to get a CD system out like NEC.

 

[Team Andromeda]

What new features did Sega CD bring that Turbo-CD didn’t already introduce?

The only two games worth looking at for me were Silpheed and Sonic CD, but even then I wasn’t dropping $300 just for those. Pretty much everything else was either FMV (blah) or Genesis ports with better music, and maybe an extra stage/effects.

Maybe there was a Valis game in there too, but nothing that made the add on worthwhile to me. It didn’t feel like Sega was fully behind it, and just wanted to get a CD system out like NEC.

It was just a CD Drive. I don't get why you think the Mega CD needed to do more than what the AddOn CD Drives did for the PC Eng and PC Dos. The Mega CD also brought in simultaneous scailing and rotation spite effects something not even the Neo could offer .

There were plenty of great games on the System, but SEGA Japan could have done a lot more.

 

[cireza]

What new features did Sega CD bring that Turbo-CD didn’t already introduce?

The only two games worth looking at for me were Silpheed and Sonic CD, but even then I wasn’t dropping $300 just for those. Pretty much everything else was either FMV (blah) or Genesis ports with better music, and maybe an extra stage/effects.

Maybe there was a Valis game in there too, but nothing that made the add on worthwhile to me. It didn’t feel like Sega was fully behind it, and just wanted to get a CD system out like NEC.

Wow, great summary of the usual misinformation we can read about the add-on. Turbo-CD ? It was a fine add-on, yet extremely simple compared to the SEGA-CD. This wasn't released in Europe. There wasn't any Valis game on SEGA-CD either.

You should probably take some time to study a bit more the add-on, its hardware and games, and then we can have a discussion again.

 

[SmokedMeat]

Wow, great summary of the usual misinformation we can read about the add-on. Turbo-CD ? It was a fine add-on, yet extremely simple compared to the SEGA-CD. This wasn't released in Europe. There wasn't any Valis game on SEGA-CD either.

You should probably take some time to study a bit more the add-on, its hardware and games, and then we can have a discussion again.

Study? I’m coming from real life experience, not reading some Wikipedia. Hell back then I worked electronics for a retailer, and Sega CDs collected dust on store shelves.

I noticed you danced around my question without providing an answer.

“Brought many new features to the western market” Like what?
Unless you’re strictly speaking about the European market, in which you should specify “European market”.

 

[SmokedMeat]

It was just a CD Drive. I don't get why you think the Mega CD needed to do more than what the AddOn CD Drives did for the PC Eng and PC Dos. The Mega CD also brought in simultaneous scailing and rotation spite effects something not even the Neo could offer .

There were plenty of great games on the System, but SEGA Japan could have done a lot more.

If you’re going to release a $300 add on, then it should bring with it some exciting new games - or at least that’s what I’d hoped back then.
I’m just speaking as a fan and potential customer. I just didn’t find the system to be worth the money. Not unless you really liked FMV.
For the record I wasn’t impressed with Turbo CD either.

 

[Team Andromeda]

If you’re going to release a $300 add on, then it should bring with it some exciting new games - or at least that’s what I’d hoped back then.
I’m just speaking as a fan and potential customer. I just didn’t find the system to be worth the money. Not unless you really liked FMV.
For the record I wasn’t impressed with Turbo CD either.

CD Drives and memory were expensive back then. I enjoyed the Mega CD far more than my Duo and there were a host of FMV games on the PC Dos too. The Mega CD wasn't all about FMV and for the time I felt the Mega CD had the best versions of Wing Commander and Rise of the Dragon and Batman Returns had the best scailing I seen in the home at the time too

 

[Rhazer Fusion]

If Sega still made consoles? Call me crazy, but gaming might be in a better place at least creativity-wise. Then again it seems like no one want imaginative games anymore. Yeah eventually Sony and Microsoft would have outspent them, but it might have been really interesting.

 

[Fat Frog]

Big picture

Old Sega: $1.5 billion in debt
(number one reason of Sega's choice to give up)

2023 Sega:
sega-sammy-celebrates-a-156-percent-increase-in-net-sales

Night and day situation.

Sega Sammy 2023 could survive 1 or 2 Dreamcast scenarios and the company is still growing...

Sega Sammy 2030 would be even stronger...

 

[cireza]

I’m coming from real life experience, not reading some Wikipedia.

Well that's quite surprising as I own a Mega-CD 2 and many great games, and strangely enough all games on the console are not either FMV or MD ports, which is what you said.
Also, based on the games I played, it is quite obvious that the console brought features that were strictly impossible on MegaDrive, and also PC-Engine CD.

Maybe you live in a parallel world to ours ?

 

[SmokedMeat]

Well that's quite surprising as I own a Mega-CD 2 and many great games, and strangely enough all games on the console are not either FMV or MD ports, which is what you said.
Also, based on the games I played, it is quite obvious that the console brought features that were strictly impossible on MegaDrive, and also PC-Engine CD.

Maybe you live in a parallel world to ours ?

I see you went from “brought many new features to the western market”, to brought features not possible on Megadrive and Turbo CD.
So not actual new features, but rather it did a couple things Megadrive and Turbo CD couldn’t. That I agree with.

Maybe you received different games than we did, but in the US it was largely Genesis ports with additional features, and FMV games.

Funny enough I checked Wikipedia to see what it said about Sega CD’s games, and it echoed the reality that I saw back then.

Given a large number of FMV games and Genesis ports, the Sega CD's game library has been criticized for its lack of depth.[23] Kalinske felt this was a valid criticism, and that while it was useful for releasing collections of games, "just doing cartridge games on a CD-ROM was not a step forward". According to Thorpe, the Sega CD's games did not display enough advancement to justify the console price for most consumers.

I’m glad you have one and enjoy it, but I certainly wasn’t spreading misinformation as you implied. It was probably more popular where you live, but in the US it didn’t do so well.

 

[cireza]

I see you went from “brought many new features to the western market”, to brought features not possible on Megadrive and Turbo CD.
So not actual new features, but rather it did a couple things Megadrive and Turbo CD couldn’t. That I agree with.

Maybe you received different games than we did, but in the US it was largely Genesis ports with additional features, and FMV games.

Funny enough I checked Wikipedia to see what it said about Sega CD’s games, and it echoed the reality that I saw back then.

Given a large number of FMV games and Genesis ports, the Sega CD's game library has been criticized for its lack of depth.[23] Kalinske felt this was a valid criticism, and that while it was useful for releasing collections of games, "just doing cartridge games on a CD-ROM was not a step forward". According to Thorpe, the Sega CD's games did not display enough advancement to justify the console price for most consumers.

I’m glad you have one and enjoy it, but I certainly wasn’t spreading misinformation as you implied. It was probably more popular where you live, but in the US it didn’t do so well.

In Europe it was the only CD add-on available, so it brought a ton of new things here. In the US, even though PC-Engine CD existed, it was still a much more capable hardware that wasn't simply about a CD extension with RAM to load the CD content. There is a dedicated sound processor in the add-on, as well as a dedicated chip for effects and transformations. Pretty decent amount of RAM as well (768 KB). These are used in a good number of games.

In the US, you did have support from SEGA. Sound production in games such as Ecco and Terminator was at unprecedented levels. Terminator was entirely remade by the way. You also have games like Lunar et Eternal Blue. All the Core Design games that make use of the chip (BC Racers, Jaguar, Thunderhawk, Soulstar). Both Batman games, using the chip as well. Snather and its super ambitious sound design. Dune. Shining Force CD. Sonic CD. Popful Mail. Eternal Champions, not a port. Robo Aleste. Keio. Bari Arm. SamSho and FFSpecial arcade ports that retain full size of sprites. Eye of the Beholder. Dark Wizard. Dungeon Explorer. Silpheed. Formula 1 sim that uses the chip. Wing Commander. Night Striker and Ninja Warriors in Japan, as well as many other games there (Shin Megami Tensei, Illusion City, Shadowrun) etc...

None of these are ports from MD or FMV, and when ports occurred, often, there was great sound production value.

Only FMV and lazy MD ports ? -> I will go with No, as far as I am concerned. Anybody can write in wikipedia for information.

My collection is mainly US games by the way.