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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."
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.
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.
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.
It's hard to been as a edgy talking hedgehog when you have to compete with GTA.
When was the last time you heard someone say, "Sega is way better than Nintendo!" or "Nu-uh, Sega beats the pants off Nintendo!"
I think it was when video game consoles stopped being kids toys
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All your blue hedgehogs are belong to us!
I've read far greater histories of Sega told by far greater men within the company then this guy. Instead of waxing poetically into the failure that is today's Sega maybe he outta be down with the workers ensuring the next Sonic game isn't a critical failure as has become the norm. Hey we may see a lot of Mario, but by and large he is kept to games of acceptable quality. But hey maybe I'm just a little bitter, considering the company had the best hardware they could of ever asked for with the Dreamcast and yet it was a non-starter. Too much 'change' was the problem, to many add ons for core hardware that shouldn't have been neglected with such piss poor hardware releases. And here we have an article about more change from Sega... 9th time is a charm eh?
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I don't really think it was a choice; they made way too many Dreamcasts, wasted loads of money making Shenmue II (and then didn't even release it on the Dreamcast in the US). Plus the Saturn before that was a flop, and Sega were a big arcade games maker and that market also dried up rapidly. It was a major squeeze all around.
Don't get me wrong; I bought a Dreamcast and loved it, but I don't think they had the momentum or money for another release after that.
The sad thing is if they had as much money as Microsoft they could have bounced back easily in the next generation (the current generation), but being such a specialized company means excellent games but volatile profit margins.
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