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The Sad Story of Sega's Many Mistakes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the glad-sonic-made-it-out-alive dept.

Via Press the Buttons, an interesting interview at the Sega-16 site with former Sega president Tom Kalinske. The company's former head burns bridges by laying blame for failures in the company, discussing the ways in which the Japanese office tried to run things, and revealing some of the phenomenally bad ideas the company somehow managed to overcome. From the article: "He was selling the Genesis with Altered Beast as the pack-in [instead of Sonic], and he was selling it at $189.99. There was also very little software activity going on in the U.S., and he hadn't built the company up (gotten permission to hire or didn't have the budget to), so there was no progress being made. If you remember, Sega sold the 8-bit machine - the Master System - prior to that against Nintendo, and it managed to get a 2% share of the market."

5 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. It all has to do with the names. by Rendo · · Score: 1, Funny

    Sega Genesis... Who wants to get something that has a biblical reference?

    Sega Saturn... Named after a car? A planet? How about something original.

    Sega DreamCast... Perfect name for it. They had a dream and it was so bad they went broke and needed a cast.

    Poor Sega....

  2. The Sega Saga by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    'tis a more worthy name, sir.

    --
    Infuriate left and right
  3. Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by bi_boy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Theres a page 2 and 3 you know.

    --
    Chicken fried butter sticks? Do ... do you use a fork? - Black Mage, 8-Bit Theater
  4. Echoes of other technologies by ObligatoryUserName · · Score: 2, Funny

    A little off topic here (hi Mom!), but the Sony/Sega/Nintendo Playstation story is similar to 2 other stories I've heard lately.

    Microsoft, who had more Mac programmers than Apple, only created Windows when Jobs refused to license their OS more broadly. (Gates was a big booster of what Apple had done and so literally Windows was intended to be a copy of the Mac OS with different licensing.)

    Apple approached Creative about co-branded MP3 players and a joint venture and only created the iPod when they were rebuffed.

  5. Re:Bundled Games by sesshomaru · · Score: 2, Funny
    Did the guy(s) in Altered Beast even have a name?
    I always assumed it was "Altered Beast," I admit it was a bit awkward for him to introduce himself at parties...
    --
    "MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."