The Sad Story of Sega's Many Mistakes

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."

Comments

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

[Square Snow Man]

You can make almost anything a succes by just marketing a product down peoples throat. This may sound weird but its true because most things are not even worth before you bought them. (just think of a game you recently bought, was it worth it?)

Re:Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

[fastgood]

make almost anything a succes by just marketing a product down peoples throat

Actually if it's a consumer product that depend on repeat purchases, you drastically shorten the product lifecycle when extra-heavy marketing is applied to inferior goods.

Re:Marketing, Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

[7Prime]

Hey, the "SEGA!" screem was quite possibly some of the best marketting of our age. It was new, it was unique, it was edgy, it was memorable, and it was done using JUST the company's name! As an advertisement producer, myself, if I could figure out a memorable quip that simply used the company's name, I would use it in a heartbeat. I mean, people started saying it in public, it was so popular... kids would yell it at each other in jokes. One guy I know even yelled it in the middle of the movie theatre! It's like getting a free word of mouth campaign. It's no coincidence that this was used at the very height of their coorporate history, when the Genesis was selling like hotcakes. When I think back on what the Genesis had to offer, and what the SNES had to offer, it seems like a no brainer to go SNES, but Sega did inspire a lot of people with their marketing.

Now, the rest of their marketing was total bullshit. Though, not nearly as bad as Turbo Graphics' "Johny Turbo" TurboDuo comic book campaign (quite possibly one of the worst marketting campaigns in history).

The Playstation exists because Sega doesn't?

[RyoShin]

I remember we had a document that Olaf and Mickey took to Sony that said they'd like to develop jointly the next hardware - the next game platform, with Sega, and here's what we think it ought to do. Sony apparently gave the green light to that. I took it to Sega of Japan and told them that this was what we thought an ideal platform would be - at least from an U.S. perspective - based on what we've learned from the Sega CD, and our involvement with Sony and our own people. Sega said not a chance. Why would it want to share a platform with Sony? Sega would be much better off just developing its own platform, and it's nice that we had some ideas on what that platform ought to be and they'd consider it, but the company would be developing its next platform itself.

Wow... So the entire reason that the Playstation is as big as it is now is because both Sega and Nintendo turned down agreements with them?!

I knew about Nintendo's part, but I had no idea that Sega was involved with Sony as well.

This is insane! Someone mod the interview +1 Insightful.

Many? Two.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Pulling support for consoles before they even have a chance to fight on the market (SegaCD, Saturn, Dreamcast)

2. An utter disregard for advertising. I've said it a thousand times; I'll say it again - you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting a PS2 or X-Box commercial. Even Nintendo had their share of marketing blitz. The Dreamcast? Word of mouth does not work well in console sales.

Okay, maybe three.

3. 32X.

Seriously, the only DC commercials I remembered seeing were for a Sonic game, months after hardware production for the DC had been terminated. Erm, what - the - hell? I hope nobody at Sega is wondering why they were the first true casualty of the modern console industry.

Same as it ever was

[27,000]

Through the early and mid 90's Sega had two things: the Genesis and Sonic. Yeah, the Genesis died an early death, but hardware won't last forever. The marketing was great though those days, and some lessons should have been learned, but somehow everything Kalinske mentioned worked was forgotten on the Saturn and DC. Because, as he said, Japan hated the American division's success.

And what have they done with the Japanese/American Sonic property since the days it more or less saved the company? They made it Japanese. And killed it. Since Knuckles' Chaotix, when they started loading in additional characters, piling on fluff at the expense of gameplay, the franchise has been struggling. Sonic Adventure 1 and later continued that theme while adding DESU SUGOI KAWAII SUPER RADICAL AMERICAN ATTITUDE ^___________^ without realizing that in America, the fad had thankfully disappeared in the mid 90's. It's grown more popular in Japan, at the cost of losing North America and European audiences. Now, even as Sega's only household franchise, Sega's made no efforts to save it. A run of OMG ATTITUDE games with poor controls and poor quality, Battle, Heroes, Shadow, has pretty much eclipsed what fond memories American gamers had for the series. The game for the Wii might change public opinion and bring the franchise back, but it's too early to tell.

So Sega's bludgeoned the American influences from their company and development... and looking at the last five years, can anyone say that was a good move? Can anyone rationally guess why?

Re:Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

[27,000]

Oh, Sega of America killed in those days. 2 to 50% market share is almost unheard of.

Sad because Sega of Japan actively sabotaged SoA in revenge, and nearly killed Sega as a whole by ignoring SoA and the strategies that built the company.

Re:Many? Two.

[Steve525]

Yea, and of all the dumb slogans: "it's thinking" is what I would usually say as my computer pauses and is thrashing away as I switch programs, etc. Not exactly a positive image for a computer/video game.

Sega built up a reasonable buzz and had a very successful launch for the Dreamcast. But they didn't really keep it up or do a good enough job against Sony's FUD.

Re:And the N64 chipset too

[Kuukai]

So Sega could have rolled out a CD-based system as powerful as the N64, and also been first to market. Too bad about those childish execs at Sega Japan.

Well, Sega wouldn't even have gotten the chance if it wasn't for the same foolish mistake being made at Nintendo. That entire generation of management pretty much proved it needed a new competitor in order to force it to get its shit together, and in doing so they brought in Sony... The irony is that now Sony's execs are screaming "we don't derserve to stay in the console business" even louder than Sega or Nintendo ever did. This industry has no learning curve.

Advertising

[HalAtWork]

They couldn't advertise the Dreamcast because they had spent most of their money investing in producing the hardware and games. They put all their money into the Dreamcast hardware launch, what little money they had left after dropping the Saturn and not having any profits for quite a while (save for some declining arcade game sales). Before dropping all their money on the Saturn and then terminating its life early to start work on the Dreamcast (which required $$ for R&D as well), they had spent a lot of money on the ill-fated 32X launch. Sega simply did not have the cash.
 
As for the 32X being a failure, that was mostly because SOA did not know that SOJ was producing the Saturn at the same time as the 32X, so they launched the 32X as their next-gen 32-bit platform, and then SOJ launched the Saturn as their next-gen 32-bit platform. Consumers were confused and enraged.
 
The biggest part of this failure was that Sega had released the Sega CD and not produced so many games on it (although enough to satisfy gamers), then produced the 32X with hardly any games on it, then dropped it and left gamers in the dust. Then they had the gall to expect that gamers would jump on the Saturn. They shot themselves in the foot. If they just had never made the 32X, Sega could be in a whole new place right now, but as the article mentions, SOJ wanted to run things without informing SOA, who was trying to do their best according to what SOJ did tell them to do.

The REAL reason of SEGA's failure: upgrades

[Yvan256]

First there was the SEGA Master System against the NES. Fine.

Then there was the SEGA Genesis against the SNES. Fine.

But then, we got the CD-ROM extension. And then the 32X extension. And then the Saturn.

Then there was the Dreamcast (with games that look better than most PS2 games).

The problem here is that SEGA killed their own customers with the CD-ROM, 32X and Saturn. People were tired of paying for new SEGA hardware. People didn't buy the Dreamcast not because it wasn't a good console, not because there wasn't any games. They were wondering if the Dreamcast would last even one year, given SEGA's habit of releasing new hardware too fast before that.

New hardware every 4-5 years is a good thing. New hardware every year will simply destroy the credibility of your current system.... unless that new hardware can play the old games too.