Slashdot Mirror
The Rise and Fall of Sega
jayintune writes "2old2play has a look into Sega's past, examining where they went wrong in the console wars. What did they do to lose their competitive edge, and how did they fall victim to the PS2 and Xbox?" From the article: "Sega started as a small business from which spawned a gaming giant. As with all great Empires, they eventually rot, crumble, and fall from their own ever-grasping hand. After the Genesis they tried to go in too many directions at once and spread their resources too thin. They knew they would have major competition from other game developers, but I bet when they started, they never imagined they would be their own worst enemy."
Had Sega not even considered, not for a single moment, the disaster that was the 32X (and to a lesser extent, conveniently skipped over the Mega CD) and instead concentrated on the Saturn, we could well still have Sega in the running today. Sega post-Mega Drive (Genesis) had no real focus; if they had really tried, they could have stayed in the running against Sega (it was, after all, their market with Nintendo to lose). Souring both customers and retailer's pallets, they really were the architects of their own destruction.
It would have helped a great deal had Sega known how to market at all. So many great computer/gaming companies are prone to this: Sega, Acorn, Commodore, SNK...
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Basically this is one guy ranting about his childhood love of the Genesis and his opinion over the various mistakes Sega has made. It's just one page, no pictures, no research, and not really well-written. It's basically some guy's blog post.
Which isn't to dump on it for having those attributes, but don't expect anything like journalism.
The Dreamcast was pretty much a done deal before Xbox hit the market. It sounds like another case of "Oh, Nintendo doesn't matter in the history of video games because they r teh kidd1!" SEGA failed because the PS1 and PS2 overhyped, and Nintendo got out of the CD add-on game early, leaving the SEGA CD to rot in a market that didn't exist: "People who want a $100+ add-on for a system that didn't have Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy and Donkey Kong Country." SEGA then took the rest of their money, and instead of saving it for the next gen, they decided to kick start a new gen early twice in a row with the Saturn and the Dreamcast. These, as I mentioned before, were killed almost exclusively by Sony advertising and promoting the PS1 and PS2 as machines more powerful than God.
Nintendo had their own fanbase that didn't leave them and didn't buy into the "mature games" fad, mostly because they were actually really young, or really liked FPS games, because the N64 basically only had FPS games and kids games, so that's why Nintendo's still here. That and Game Boy. It was just enough to let Nintendo try again with the Cube, where they got more kinds of games, almost killed the kiddy image, and then still got third place thanks to Microsoft who stole all the FPS games other than Timesplitters (because Free Radical are Nintendo fanboys at heart).
Born to Play
I believe that the Saturn was their downfall. The console was excellent and quite powerful. What they failed to do was market it properly. They charged $399 for it and felt that was justified because you also got three games with it. Sony saw an opening and sold their console for much cheaper and people gobbled them up. The Saturn may have been a better system, but it wasn't marketed the right way. The other thing the Saturn suffered from was that it was complicated to port games to it because of the hardware used. Sure, it made it superior in rendering and all that, but it also made it unfriendly to those third party guys writing for it. The Playstation was easier to deal with.
:) Heck, I still have my Genesis!
In the end, Sony took a foothold that eventually crushed Sega. The Sony name became so big in the console world that years later, then the Dreamcast arrived a full year before the PS2, many gamers said, "We'll wait for the PS2." Wow! That shows you how hard Sony got a foothold. And we all know the rest...
Personally, I am sad that Sega isn't in the console wars anymore. I still think they were the best. I still have my Dreamcast and Saturn.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
When your most loyal fanbase is confused regarding the products you sell, you have a very serious problem. Sega found this out the hard way.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
When I was younger, I'd see Sega commercials on TV, but I never saw much in the way of games that were truly interesting. Looking back, there's still just a handful that were released, and many involved the myriad "peripheral-crazy" systems. I was mildly interested back in the Genesis days, and there were some cross-platform games that were genuinely better on the Genesis. But that was it, for me, until the Dreamcast.
In hindsight, I personally think the Dreamcast could've done very well if for 2 things -- Sega had added another thumbstick to the right side, and they hadn't thrown all their money and goodwill away in the mid 90's. It's still a damn good system, and given the short amount of time it was on the market it has a surprising amount of good games. But given the bad timing and the lack of popularity of its previous systems, it's not surprising that even a good console fails.
I think it comes down to two things:
1) Sega was their own worst enemy. With the release of the Sega CD, then the 32X and the Sega Saturn no one knew what worked with what and those that bought the Sega CD probably felt stupid when they saw the Saturn. Sega splintered their own market by trying to make Genesis into a wanna be PlayStation. Nevermind that the Saturn itself seemed poorly supported and thought out. The upgrade path should have been Genesis -> Dreamcast, but Sega farked that up pretty good.
2) Sony, the original PS and their PS2 bullshit. Sony piled on the type about the Emotion Engine and the PS2's rendering abilites (note that it was Microsoft and not Sony that made the claim about rendering Toy Story level graphics in real time). The Dreamcast sold well initially and Sega couldn't keep up with demand, but it lost steam after the PS2 announcement and, if I recall, games were hard to come by in the first year. Sega just didn't have the financial strength to support Dreamcast after the failures of the SegaCD and Saturn and it is my understanding that they took a chance with the Dreamcast and the chance didn't pay off. You can still find many used Dreamcast units at your local EB Games store that were traded in for PS2s.
I think the writer of the article failed to depict what really marked Sega's doom.
1. SEGA FAILED TO LISTEN TO THEIR CONSUMERS DURING THE TRANSITION TO 16 TO 32 BITS
2. EXTERNALITIES FINISHED SEGA
Let's analyze Sega's success during the 16bit era:
* Successfully executed a 1st moving advantage move: By the time Nintendo came out with the SNES, Sega was developing their 2nd Generation software (Sonic, Shinobi 3, Madden, etc.). Let's be realistic, their 1st gen stuff (Altered Beast, Super Thunder Blade, Golden Axe was very very bad, they were basically technical showcases. No exciting gameplay whatsoever.) The big exception is Phantasy Star II. It served the purpose of turning heads.
* Tapped on the American thirst for high end Sports Simulations: EA's lineup (Madden, college and other franchises) were the start of advanced sports franshises (The NES offerings featured many Super Deformed characters, other than Tecmo's entries, there were no serious sports on the NES).
* Started the successful bashing of Nintendo: While Nintendo NEVER acknolwedged Sega as a competitor (Big example: Nintendo did not Advertise on any Videogame publications, they stuck to Nintendo Power), Sega exploited with "Sega Does what Nintendon't" campaign, the "Blast Processing" campaign against the SNES (which was all Bull... a good lesson that has been applied by Sony in the past generations). This set up the precedent that you can win or slow down a platform on pure marketing speculation.
* Capitalized on a Mainstream Platform: The SNES featured a slower more processor that was more tailored for games, while the 6800 on the Genesis was a more general-purpose and well known platform- This allowed many western developers from Amiga and Commodore to jump and put out impressive software - up to that point, many people thought that American/European developers were not capable of putting out quality products.
* Played ball with 3rd parties: This is partly Nintendo's own making (Read "Game Over"). Once Sega became a "friendlier" player with 3rd parties, the "crown jewel" developers started publishing games on the Genesis. Nintendo managed to hold off Capcom on Street Fighter II (The main Reason why the SNES caught up with the Genesis), but ultimately SFII made it to the Genesis.
After all this success, it was a dogfight, Sega started preparing for the next generation, and Nintendo tried to defuse Sega by speculating on a Nintendo CD (The Phillips/Sony debacle that interestingly was the root of the creation of the Playstation)
At this point Sega put out probably their best technological lineup (examples: Vectorman, Treasure's Gunstar Heroes, Sonic 3 etc.) but Nintendo had the goves off with Starfox, FFIII, the upcoming Donkey Kong, etc. Sega thinks they can replicate 1st mover advantage with a CD platform. Sega CD comes out, and other than Silpheed and Sonic CD and Starwars, the platform is plagued with FMV Crap. So they started developing a next gen 2d platform (Saturn). (ERROR 1: Instead of looking at the future, they decided to fight Nintendo on 2D - They didn't see Virtua Fighter at the arcades???).
At some point during Saturn's development, the biggest mistake is made. For some reason somebody thinks that they can release an 32 bit "add-on" to capitalize on the Genesis installed base. The 32x is born. Sorry Sega, no add on has been successful!!! (Interestingly, some people have not learned this lesson yet; read: Microsoft's Xbox 360's HD-DVD rumored add on).
At this point, the consumer must be very confused. Should we wait for Saturn or buy 32x??? I would have paid money to see those marketing staff meetings.
Final Nail in the coffin: Sony unveils the PlayStation (externality) and Sega rushes to add 3D capabilities to their pure 2D platform. With an overpriced platform that is very hard to program for, Sega manages to release many beautiful games (some of which never make it to our shores). The rest is history, Nintendo blunders again by undermining 3rd parties and ignoring the media leap, and it's all Sony.
Let's hope that we have a dogfight again soon... we will stand to win like we did during the 16bit days.
(note that it was Microsoft and not Sony that made the claim about rendering Toy Story level graphics in real time)
People keep on claiming this, but miss the truth. Yes, Sony never said the PS2 could render Toy Story in real time. They said it could render the cutscenes from Final Fantasy 8 in real time. Final Fantasy 8's cutscenes were about as complex graphically as Toy Story, so it's a completely equivilent claim.
Yes, Sony never said "Toy Story" but they might as well have. They claimed the same thing.
I'm suprised nobody even mentioned that the Playstation, which was what killed SEGA, was originally a joint project with Nintendo to make a SNES/Super Famicon CD system to compete with SEGA CD. Nintendo saw how bad SEGA CD was doing and bailed on Sony, causing them to lose game developers who had already begun working on games for the new add-on(like Squaresoft's Final Fantasy 7). If SEGA never tried the CD bit then Sony would not be making systems today.
Actually, it took a couple of years after the GD-ROM was introduced that some clever guys figured out how to rip them. Sega more or less tossed the gauntlet into the ring when they made the claim that it was unhackable (which of course was a challenge).
The reason Sega failed was (1) Their VMUs were almost useless, due to short lived batteries, and (2) They pissed their pants when facing another Sega VS. Sony scenario, which wasn't helped by Microsoft entering the fray, and (3) They went with GD-ROM instead of DVD as a storage medium. Sony and Microsoft both capitalized on their abilities to act as "all in one" entertainment systems, complete with DVD playback.
The biggest problem, however, was that Sega didn't learn enough from the Master System's failings, they came close to success with the Megadrive, until Ninendo released their Super Famicom system. Then it went back to reinventing the wheel, waiting to see if market share was available (despite a reluctance to properly promote their consoles), then bailing on it when the bean counters couldn't see why the systems weren't selling. The 32X was an *okay* addon peripheral, but there was so much backing behind the Saturn, that pretty much everyone who bought it were left in the dark with a high tech paperweight. There was so much potential in the Saturn, but they failed to claim their niche, losing to Sony, which resulted in the same. There was even potential in the SegaCD, but again, they failed to market it sufficiently/properly. When you have that many gamers buying into that much hardware, eventually your gamers will give up on you when you fail to support it, if at all. Even Atari demonstrated this fact.
In the end, Sega's failing is simply explained: They lost their focus, and gave up far too easily at the slightest sign of adversity.
And before anyone mods me troll, I put in a few months at Sega of America as a QA tester, and watched as all of the above took place, back in the Genesis days. You wouldn't believe the time they wasted on the SegaCD as a "FMV Box", when it's overall graphical prowess was on a par with, if not obviously superior to the Super Famicom in the day. It was downright embarassing to see how they operated.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
It was not the 32X, Saturn or Dreamcast that led to SEGA's fall in the console business. It was its policy: SEGA forgot that their best arcade games where 3D superscaler affairs (and later polygon affairs). Neither the Megadrive, 32X or Saturn could scale, rotate and polygonize graphics like the SEGA arcade boards did. At the time that 3D was all the rage, SEGA pushed 2D beasts.
What did the arcade player see when he hit the arcades? Space Harrier, Outrun, Powerdrift, Afterburner, Thunderblade, Galaxy Force, Super Hang On, Super Monaco GP, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA (along with a stream of other mostly inferior 2D affairs). But any of those games really suffered as home conversions, because SEGA's home consoles could not afford the twin-68000 supercaler and polygonizer graphics of SEGA's arcade boards.
What SEGA should have done, instead of 32X, is to release a powerful home console with 2x68000 plus custom chips that could do all the effects of the arcades. Yes, it would have been an expensive console, but yet again it would be the only console that one could play a decent game of Outrun. And later they should have released a polygonal beast like the PS1.
SEGA did a similar mistake with Commodore: when the world was going 3D, both SEGA and Commodore insisted on powerful 2D graphics without any support for 3D. Meanwhile, the PC world got Wolfestein 3D and Doom, while the console world got PS1.
Nintendo did not do the same mistake. After their best console ever (the Nintendo SuperNES) which had a limited number of special 3D tricks (mode 7, superfx chip), they released a proper 3D console, the Nintendo 64, which had some awesome games.
As somebody who has owned and sold his PS2 (with about 15 games) and who has recently bought a Dreamcast (second hand with about 20 games) I can safely say that the Dreamcast kicks PS2 ass!
It's only sad that the last commercial games for the DC were created in 2001 or so.
I would have loved to see how a recent game developed for DC would compare to a recent PS2 game; I dare bet the DC's version would have blown away the PS2's.
I guess the most imporantly reason for Sega losing out on the (IMHO) inferior PS2 is the piracy; you could use burned CD's without any expensive hardware modification. They may have failed at marketing, but from what I can see they just didn't make enough money from the games to throw at marketing anyway.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?