Slashdot Mirror
The Evolution of Sega
Gamasutra is running an interview with Simon Jeffrey, Sega of America's CEO, discussing the gradual change of the company from a hardware manufacturer to a game publisher. Among other things, he talks about how the transition was intended to help keep up with rival manufacturers at a time when Sega was clearly falling behind.
"We were on the cusp of the next generation, and on the cusp of Nintendo changing into a different company and opening up a new part of the market. So it felt like the time was right for Sega to reinvent itself. Really what I tried to do was ride that train and make the most of that point in time, bringing new people into the company and start building the kind of products that would get a leadership position in the next generation on the Wii and the DS, rather than just playing catch-up with everybody else, which is what we've traditionally done."
All your blue hedgehogs are belong to us!
There are mountains to cross for those that are willing.
...is how all the animosity has gone out of the relationship between Sega and Nintendo. Not just in the corporate world (where most of it was blustering, anyway) but in the minds of consumers as well. When was the last time you heard someone say, "Sega is way better than Nintendo!" or "Nu-uh, Sega beats the pants off Nintendo!" Even when the Dreamcast came out, it was well received on both sides of the fence.
Of course, the wussifying of Sonic the Hedgehog might have something to do with this. Considering that he's now portrayed as a "cute" character rather than "cool and edgy", this might have gone a long way toward changing the public's perception of Sega.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Most companies would keep plodding along, doing exactly what they've been doing because that's what they do. Sega would have fallen farther and farther behind and eventually evaporated to the sound of nobody caring.
This is why executives get the big bucks (not that all of them are worth it). You need somebody able to step back and evaluate where the company really stands.
I hate that they went out of the hardware business, but they did what they had to do. But man, did I love my Genesis, especially taking those pre-Internet trips to the software store at the mall to buy games for it (and programs for the PC before the Net really caught on). Coming home from work to blow off some steam with Sonic or Jurassic Park or Echo the Dolphin. Good times.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
The Dreamcast was imo the best console ever made. Years ahead of its competitors, and could even frequently go head to head against consoles that came out years later.
Have they programmed a game that a girl would rather play with you, rather than go out for breakfast or meet your mother?
It went downhill(in the US at least) with their release of the Sega CD and other crappy genesis add-ons as well as the ill-fated Saturn which were expensive with not much noticeable difference between the original Genesis games. The Dreamcast was good but Sega never quite recovered from the other crap they made, and they were eaten for lunch by Sony and Nintendo.
Seriously. With the exception of the various 2D Gameboy Advance and DS versions of "Sonic the Hedgehog" (which are fun, but nothing very new), their games are horrible. The 3D versions of Sonic for the big consoles have been mostly terrible, and never better than mediocre. They even managed to screw up the Nights sequel.
I guess there is the Virtua Fighter series, which is still well-done. But who plays that anymore?
Basically, Sega churns out junk based on their (formerly) popular franchises.
Allow Yu Suzuki to finish Shenmue series, and I'll be your fan again. Stop already with crappy remakes and Sonic sequels. And get rid of Sammy, that company is destroying you.
Specifically, the Sega that brought you Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio, and Shenmue. Looking at the consoles I've had over the years, the Dreamcast was by far the one with the weirdest, and ultimately most enjoyable libraries out there. Yeah, Soul Calibur 4 looks sweet on the PS3, in high-def and all, but the magic of playing the original, arcade version, on the Dreamcast with no performance or graphics penalty was just amazing.
Sega was that crazy friend of yours who was funny as hell and had so many good times with, and is now happily filling out TPS reports and saying he can't go out because he's got to work Sunday too.
Have to respect corporations, especially the size of Sega, that can reinvent themselves to adapt to a changing market. Our Automobile industry would be in better shape if they had this same ability.
I will never forgive SEGA for fucking up Sonic the Hedghog with the Adventure series.
"Really what I tried to do was ride that train and make the most of that point in time...rather than just playing catch-up with everybody else, which is what we've traditionally done."
We were tired of being third to Nintendo and Sony all the time, so we just gave up and now produce rehashed versions of our old games on the new systems to make a living.
Too bad no one but /. was really interested in the dreamcast.
Ave Molech Setting
I can't believe the shite they made out of the Phantasy Star franchise. They took one of the best RPG worlds and turned it into a series of mediocre action games. I want a real sequel or prequel to the original series, from the same creative leadership.
You never know when you might get a visit from your local federal branch for such innovative commentary ...
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/12/20/211923/84
"Doubt your doubts and believe your beliefs." -- Switchfoot, Ode to Chin
You had to be ballsy to use the Italian word for masturbation for a company name!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Shouldn't there be a "D" in front of "Evolution"?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
I still own my Sega Dreamcast that I got in 2002 (I got it when Toys R us was selling it for $50, trying to make room for the ps2).
It is an amazing game console, with some really great games (Sonic Adventure 2, Soul Calibur, Jet set radio, Marvel v.s. Capcom 2, Crazy Taxi, etc.). I literally cried when I heard that Sega would stop making games for it soon after I bought the thing.
Sega's console games division pretty much died with the Dreamcast. Their once flagship Sonic games have been reduced to a cash cow, just like Capcom's Mega Man games. But at least the newer Mega Man games aren't bogged down by ridiculously convoluted plot lines, horrible gameplay and the constant addition of useless characters that distance the series from its roots (i.e. PLAYING AS SONIC). It says volumes when the long anticipated sequel to "NiGHTS" had a muted reception. The best that long time Sega fans can hope for is that they don't screw up their old franchises too badly.
The Sega of today is Sega only in name, similar to that corporate mess they now call Atari. After the deal with Sammy, Sega's chief purpose is to lend whatever cache the name has left to a wide array of games like "Yakuza" and various licensed games (mostly developed by third parties) like "Iron Man" and "The Incredible Hulk". Gone are the days when you could closely identify a game as being distinctly Sega - games like Panzer Dragoon, Space Harrier and the Shinobi series among others.
The good news is that Sega does release a lot of quality of arcade games - if you can find an arcade to play them in. The House of the Dead and Virtua Fighter series are still going strong, Sega has continued porting both series to home consoles. Just ignore the Sammy titles rebranded as Sega ones - like those darn deer hunting games.
The real problem that took Sega out of the hardware industry was a design flaw in the dreamcast system. Someone in their engineering department dropped the ball with the Security of the system. Anyone with any business skillz knows you have to protect your product. Unmodded system playing burned games = extinct console.
I don't think the hedgehog has anything to do with it. The top factors in console wars, from what I can tell are:
1. Fanboyism. I swear some people should have been born dogs, the way they must dedicate their life to some Master.
2. Us-vs-them mentalities. If you can't have both consoles, you already have a criterion by which to divide the world into an "us" camp and a "they" camp. 'Nuff said.
3. Probably actually the root of both above: Cognitive dissonance. People tend to be the most rabid in either defending or attacking something, when that position is the least easy to defend or makes no sense. And again, a lot of people couldn't have both, either because mommy doesn't buy both, or because they can't justify to themselves buying both. But in the willy-waving contest that a status-based culture is, they don't want to admit something like "well, I'm kinda tempted by game X too, but I can't afford console Y too". That kind of admission is, essentially, an admission of failure. Not many people are going to admit _that_. So they rebuild the whole mental model into something that's actually a proclamation of being some kind of elite. E.g., "pfft, game X sucks, console Y sucks, heck everything that company does is pure shit, and only idiots fall for their hype."
It's just a function of the mammal brain to try to keep the model consistent. (See the recent experiment with monkeys.) Where Mother Nature failed though, was foreseeing that humans will base their whole status, self-esteem or "face" on some notions being a priori, unquestionably true. And if one notion is beyond questioning, something _else_ will have to give. If someone's model is based on "I'm t3h 31337" or "my decisions are right, dammit" (e.g., the decision to buy console A instead of console B), and some memory or situation challenges that, they'll rewrite some other piece of history or reality to make the model consistent again.
You can see all 3 at work, or various perversions thereof, in any other such situation. PC vs consoles, PC vs Mac, 3dfx fanboys vs nVidiots (as both sides fondly called each other back then), and a bunch of others. Not saying that _all_ such arguments are bunk, far from it, but I _am_ under the distinct impression that the most rabid fanboys are putting up that unmovable faith show more to keep themselves convinced than for the benefit of the readers.
So, anyway, to get back to Sega, they ceased to be the "enemy", the moment they weren't competition any more. In all 3 aspects, it made no sense to be against Sega any more.
Fanboyism: Sega wasn't one of the choices for a fanboy's Master any more. In fact, it became an orthogonal choice entirely. So there was no need any more to be against it if you chose Sony or Nintendo instead.
Us-vs-Them: Ditto. You could be one of Sony's or Nintendo's faithful, and still play a Sega game. It became a lot harder to draw a neat line where Sega falls in the "them" camp.
Cognitive Dissonance: well, there was no more need to justify why not buy a Sega console and play, say, PSO. You could just get PSO on the GameCube or XBox or whatever. There was no more need to plug a leaky mental model with a "Sega sucks" bandaid. And thus no need to defend that fragile bandaid at all cost, lest the whole edifice come crashing down around your ears.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I always liked Sega... seems like they always had quality products and good systems. Now if I could only find the power cord to my old Saturn I'd fire it up and play a few!
Are you kidding? Companies reinvent themselves all the time, sometimes not even for good reason. Especially when a new boss comes around, he just _has_ to piss on everything to mark his territory. Whole processes get turned on their head just because the new guy has to show vision and initiative.
To it, Caldera went from an obscure Linux distribution, to a major proponent of Linux standardization, to buying the SCO name and reinventing itself as an expensive Unix vendor, then to the litigation clown we all love to hate. Volkswagen went through a phase of trying to reinvent itself as a luxury executive automobile maker. (Yeah, 'cause executives so wanted to drive a car made by someone called "People's Car" and associated with the el-cheapo old Beetle.) Sun went from "Linux ftl, proprietary lock in FTW", to "Ok, ok, we love open source. No, seriously." With an embarassing schizophrenic phase in between, where they'd say one in the morning and the other in the same day's evening. With an even more crazy stint of trying to just convince everyone to fight against MS, instead of telling them why they should buy a Sun server. Coke had the New Coke episode, which although it worked spectacularly in their favour in the end (something they hadn't foreseen, much less planned), but involved one of the most absurd changes to their main product out of nowhere. Etc, etc, etc.
Now some of those stunts paid off, some were outright retarded, and some just settled into something everyone forgot about.
And for each executive who earned his big bucks through some visionary change, there were a lot which just got lucky against all odds and in spite of doing something clueless (see New Coke again), and a lot which just siphoned tens of millions per year in salary and stock options while sending the company circling the drain. But I digress.
Anyway, I'd praise those who actually did a good change, not change generally. Change is easy. Cut one of your legs and put on a peg leg. That's change. And people do that kind of idiotic change all the time, either privately or at the helm of some company or division. Figuring out something that works well, now that is harder and more worthy of praise.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I always liked Sega for their games. I remember during the Genesis/SNES-war how I hated the guts of Nintendo, simply because it was a competitor to what I had.
Nowadays though the game has changed. Now it's Nintendo/Sega against Playstation and Xbox. Whereas Nintendo and Sega go for innovative ideas and fun gameplay, the two others go for graphics and photo-realism. I've no doubt in my mind who should win when it comes to consoles, PS and Xbox can take all their "uuuh shiny"-games and shove'em.
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
http://flickr.com/photos/gilgongo/752902874/
3 bars, any position, paid 12 pence. Magic.
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
People still argue about SMS vs NES, MegaDrive/Genesis vs SNES. BTW the Genesis is better.
Twinstiq, game news
I want to see Sega talk about their REAL roots. This is about the coolest Sega game I've ever seen:
http://www.vimeo.com/610038
I love my Wii but I'd sell it for a Dreamcast 2 in the blink of an eye. Dreamcast had just too many great games for a console that lived so little time. Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Ikaruga, Rez, Soul Calibur, Bomberman Online, Mr Driller, Powerstone, Virtua Tennis, Re-Volt, Chu Chu Rocket.. fuck, I think It's still the best console. Beats my Wii for sure, in terms of games.
That's not much of a parallel unless Joe and Jane Consumer somehow gain the ability to easily and inexpensively manufacture their own duplicate game cards using technology readily available on any PC. Which they don't, so your analogy fails.
SIERRA TANGO FOXTROT UNIFORM
I am surprised that nobody had mentioned the greatest man of all times : SEGATA SANSHIRO!
The problem was lack of advertising. Sega completely fails when it comes to advertising.
I remember well the Dreamcast. I saw a SINGLE commercial for it - before release. The only other commercial I ever saw was for a Sonic game - AFTER THEY HAD CEASED PRODUCTION OF HARDWARE.
Meanwhile, you couldn't (and still can't!) swing a dead cat without hitting five Playstation commercials per commercial break.
...after all, they do say that to get "this good" takes AGES
Seriosuly... I haven't been into video games much since the Nintendo64, but when I do feel like playing some games, it's almost ALWAYS my Sega CD I take out and hook up to play. I also have an Atari 7800, NES, Master System, and SNES to choose from here.
I will agree that the 32X was completely dumb. I have one, and a few carts for it... but none of the games are amazing, and the improvement over Genesis graphics doesn't seem like it's that much.
But I love some of those Sega CD games still.
Sonic CD is great, and I love all the extra characters in the CD version of Eternal Champions. Even the FMV games were fun in their own way, like Night Trap and Double Switch. And then there's Panic! which is such a unique game, it's pretty singular. I'll even do the Sherlock Holmes game once in awhile.
I don't know. Back when it came out I don't think the Sega CD had such a bad reputation... a CD add-on seemed like the obvious thing to do at the time... we know the Playstation began its life as a SNES add-on... and there were already the CD games for TurboGrafx-16.
But when the 32X came out, that's when people sort of realized it was going too far and had entered into the realm of the ridiculous (if I hook up the Genesis+CD+32X, that is three HUGE power supplies I need to plug in somewhere, and there's that little video cable in back running from the Genesis to the 32X, and the metal plates you have to screw on and attach so it will hook onto the CD unit, etc... it's quite an operation).