Slashdot Mirror
Sega To Leave Console Business? (Updated)
Raistlin Majere writes "Thought a few of you might be interested in checking this out, but according to The Gaming Intelligence Agency, Sega creators of the Dreamcast say that they are quitting the console hardware business, for the full story, click here. Just so you all know, no, they are not quitting quite yet, they're still fully supporting the Dreamcast, just, the Dreamcast will be their last console. "Thanks to skynet for a competing account of the story. This story chalks it up to mistranslation, and says that Sega will be staying in the console business, but focusing more on the Internet.
I can't tell you how much time I spent playing Virtua Fighter for the PC. They did a real knockup job on it. Same thing for the Sonic port. I don't know what they've got planned for the Internet, but I can't wait to see it.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Some of the coolest games have been released on the Sega systems too. Fantasy Star, Sonic... this is really depressing news! That just leaves what, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to duke it out.
This space for sale
Playstation is better
However, nature abhors a vaccuum, and I suspect another company to fill the gap. And, knowing history, they, in turn will displace Nintendo, who will, in turn, be replaced by yet another company.
The reason for these kinds of shifts? Console companies stagnate, amazingly rapidly. Their life expectancy is not much longer than that of their products. In computing, if you stand still, you're going backwards.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
http://www.segadreamcast.net/dcnews/111199_segahar dware.html
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
they need to get out of the game business and get into the Linux business :)
http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/12062.html -Stephen
Sega's Atomic Announcement
Posted: 11.11.99
By: Mike Bess
The entire gaming industry was set on fire with one simple
phrase ealier today: Sega will be leaving the hardware market
and focus on networking and game development. This was
first broken by Gamespot, but the juicey tid-bit was quickly
lapped up by eager reporters everywhere. Even we were
sucked in, but just to play it safe gave a quick call to the good
folks at Sega of America. Considering the ramifications of
Sega "retreating" from the market, is pretty big stuff. Atomic,
in its proportions.
We spoke with two seperate sources within Sega of America.
Both confirmed that the earth-shattering news piece was a
simple mis-clarification. In fact, it was a mis-understanding in
the translations of Mr. Okawa's speech at last night's Okawa
Foundation Ceremony. Below are some excerpts from our
conversation:
"The question was something to the effect of 'If the
Dreamcast does not succeed, how will Sega compete in the
future?' Mr. Okawa's response (although it may have been a
little mangled in the translation) was that the 'future of Sega is
the Internet, not hardware.' What he was trying to convey
(and has been preaching for several months now) is that Sega
is going to be focusing its efforts increasingly on the Internet.
That means using the Internet as a delivery system for
software, online gameplay, e-commerce, etc. However, you
still need some form of hardware to receive that information.
Sega will not be delivering content for PSX2, Dolphin or the
PC through the Internet. So, Sega will always need to develop
some form of console."
"Mr. Okawa knows that Sega's strength against Sony and
Nintendo is its ability to pursue new technologies and
advances designed to expand the gameplay experience, such
as the Internet. Sony's PSX2 doesn't even have a built in
Internet solution, nor have either of our competitors outlined
any form of Internet strategy for their new systems, as we
have already done publicly."
Thankfully, the Sega faithful all across this tiny globe breathe
a collective sigh of relief. To even consider Dreamcast as the
company's last piece of hardware is almost unimaginable.
Furthermore, to believe that Mr. Okawa would make such a
damaging statement that "Sega is leaving the hardware
market" during the DC's infancy in North America and
Europe, is equally so. Sega worked hard to spread the word,
clarifying the mis-constrused words of Mr. Okawa.
For those keeping score, the speech Mr. Okawa gave
regarded the future of Dreamcast, Sega, and the establishment
of a new foundation in his honor. He told the press last night
that Sega would be putting greater emphasis on
video-gaming's networking abilities and that the commuinty
of the 21st Century would be a "networked society." Unveiled
at the ceremoney was the Dreamcast zip drive, a beautiful
peripheral to the Dreamcast as well as an Ethernet port which
would fit into the existing modem's slot. Lastly, the Okawa
Foundation's intention is to fund programs for youth and
schools which promotes technology and helps bring that
awareness further into the public consciousness.
Oh and if you were wondering, Mr. Okawa oversees over
ninety companies, including Sega Enterprises with an annual
salary of 7.5 billion dollars. He's the President of CSK Corp
which makes him the big cheese of a series of hi-tech and
mass-media firms. Sega X will keep you updated on any future
announcements by Mr. Okawa as well as the unfolding saga
of the zip drive and ethernet expansions.
yes, www.dotcomforwardslash.com is my real URL.
It turns out the earlier reports were wrong ! It all down to BAD translation !!! Thy're concentrating on Internet services BUT not solely - they're also looking for a more reliable Japanese transltor !!!
This is like Sega shooting themselves in the head. Now that people know Sega is not making consoles after the DC, people will shy away from it and purchase N64's and Playstations. Too bad. I played the DC and its not bad. It's a good console compared to the N64 and the graphics are better than the PSX. But thats the way things work, I guess...
--
Don't lead me into temptation... I can find it myself.
No, you are wrong, the article (if you had read it) states that it was initially thought to be a mis-translation, but it was later confirmed to be true.
Anyway, the Dreamcast Zip drive is pretty chunky isn't it! It might include a couple of USB ports as well, but even so. And it only supports 100Mb media, not the 250Mb media! Obviously this means it should be possible to connect other USB devices though, but it would seem hard to install the drivers for it... USB hard drive anyone? (eek)
The Ethernet looks useful, and if Sega go into the software business you can expect their games to come out on both Dreamcast and PC, and then you can play the same game on both in a networked environment. Maybe Sonic Deathmatch could happen, although I would prefer a simpler game: SHOOT SONIC A LOT :-)
Just for those people who never bother reading the links that slashdot links to, the article basically says this is a misunderstanding.
In his speech, the guy basically said that Sega's emphasis would be on software and internet services.
The implication here is that Sega won't stop making consoles -- but that the console is not their business, it is merely an enabler for the *real* business, which is content production and delivery.
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This makes more sense, sort-of. I guess they lose enough money on each console they sell. Since the money is in the software, they probably figure if they crank out another Sonic the Hedgehog or other such hit, they can be doing as well as (say) Id software. Or maybe it is due to the fact that the Sega Saturn was essentially a flop in the US (have you ever seen one?) Or maybe they just believe that PC games are the future and the console isn't necessary.
I think it's a bit of a silly move, though. I know far too many people who'd rather plug the darn thing into a big screen TV and drink a few beers to a Playstation game than sit around their $2000 PC and play games on a keyboard, mouse or single-joystick (I don't know of more than one or two obscure devices which allow you to connect more than one joystick). Also, if you own the console, you can get royalties for each software title that companies make for your platform. Nintendo has been doing it for years, and I'm sure Sega and Sony do it.
I guess Sega has been hit-and-miss in the business ever since they got into consoles. The first Sega console (what was it called again? The one with the cards or cartridges) wasn't that big a hit, then the Genesis was a hit, then the Saturn wasn't, now the Dreamcast _should_ be; Christmas season 1999 will decide.
Well, I won't be too sad to see them go since I haven't owned a console since the 8-bit Nintendo. I will be sad to see the competitive push diminish on the companies (Nintendo is no driver; they have been behind the times for years now). Ahh well..
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
And on a related account various rumors have started that Sega is to be teaming with Transmeta to provide a sophisticated new 3D graphics chip technology to Sega's arcade machines.
But then of course that is a rumor...
started by me.
;)
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
I don't know about that... isn't the idea behind console systems that it is supposed to stand still for a few years at a time? Console systems provide a platform that's ahead of its time when it comes out but lasts for a few years The reason there are gaming systems like the Dreamcast is (1) they are cheaper than computers (at least for that kind of raw graphical power), (2) the end user never has to worry about configuration, hardware conflicts, etc. since there is only one possible configuration (or with N64, two depending on whether or not you have the memory card), and (3) they're designed specifically for gaming.
Granted, no company can rest on its laurels for long. All console companies are constantly in development of the next best system, but that system will be released a few years after the last.
But older systems are still great... witness Final Fantasy VIII for Playstation, a game released a few months ago for a three or four year old platform. Graphically, the game is groundbreaking, and in terms of gameplay and plot, the game is amazing. A three year old computer is a Pentium 150 or so, which can barely run today's groundbreaking games... at least not w/o expensive upgrades such as a fast 3d card.
Though I do not doubt that someday the venerable Nintendo will be replaced, that does not mean that their current system is no longer a viable platform... but this round may be the last for them since they have historically been too late to market with their system... but that's an entirely different topic...
What really gets me with consoles is that the next generation of a console is always incompatible with the previous generation. If I buy a Dreamcast it would be great if it ran my Megadrive and Saturn games, but of course it wont, so I would be forced to throw out my old games or keep a load of consoles. Thanks goodness games are now appearing for Linux.
If you're talking about the Sonic 1/2/3/knuckles pack for the PC, here's an interesting titbit:
Sega paid the author of the free (gratis not libre, sadly) Genesis emulator KGen to use his work.
The package is actually KGen (hacked a little, I guess), the Genesis ROMS, and a front-end.
Now isn't that a refreshing attitude to emulation, from Sega. Nice to see after all that nastiness from Nintendo.
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Uh, you forget that the Genesis was a system that was out of place... it was 16 bit in an 8 bit world. After that was the saturn. Many don't know its strengths, except for those in japan. If you wanted games like Marvel vs Capcom or an RPG with a good storyline, you would turn to Saturn. Playstation's controllers make it disadvantageous to play 2d fighters. Then there was DC. It was the first fully 128 bit system in the world. It was also a stranger in a strange land. Sega has always innovated the market. The only problem is, they will bring something out, and then other companies will bring something out a year later with a year's extra tech involved. Sega innovates... Nintendo and Sony imitate. Remember, if you want a real computer, buy PowerPC... if you want a real operating system, use Linux.
Let's see...
M$ makes the hardware
M$ makes the OS
M$ makes the games
Nope. No software either.
USB baby. Add a 4-port hub and 4 USB joys and it's gametime.
But what do such statements really mean? For Sega to concentrate on content is one thing, but what has the internet got to do with it? Two things: delivery of software, and networked gameplay.
Delivery is nothing to shout about. Packaged CD's will always be an effective distribution method for large amounts of data, and by the time the net is fast enough to make CD's seem small we'll all have those cool fluorescent multilayer disks with even more orders of magnitude of capacity. Sneakernet rules.
So that leaves networked gameplay. Will the bandwidth requirements always be reasonable? Maybe, if the net stays free. But you-know-who is buying their way into control of residential broadband access. It's already controlled by a very few cable and phone companies, and they're straining at the bit to start selling you their broadband content bundled with net access. What's to stop them from screwing up traffic on Dreamcast ports (oh, purely accidentally) and trying to sell you their games that for some reason have much better network performance? The game console manufacturers and developers have an enormous market, and there's no way that the big network powers are going to just let them keep it for themselves.
Call me paranoid, but I see all these mergers and cross-investments as steps toward turning the net into a big vending machine that will be controlled with the electro-economic equivalent of the muscle that the mobs use to use to control jukeboxes.
We're gonna need another revolution.
Missed the "...or keep a load of consoles." bit. Sorry. But the M.A.M.E. tip still stands...
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
I didn't buy the Dreamcast, with the awesome graphics and all. I waited. I had too many bitter and pretty fresh memories with my purchases of prior Sega failures. Sure, the genesis was pretty cool, but buying the peripherals-Sega CD and 32X anyone? Dropped after not much software support. Once again quite fortunately, the Saturn came out and where did that go? Nowhere. I'm glad I didn't buy into that.
Sega should sink by the wayside, and stop wasting a childs or parents hard-earned money.
I will enjoy my next generation nintendo Dolphin and Sony Playstation2 games. I will not buy into another Sega failure.
Or maybe, I will wait another 6 months and pick up a Dreamcast in the clearance bin for 29.99 if there are enough games that I can get for 5 bucks each.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
The fact that Sega bowed out of the hardware console business means that they accept that the Dreamcast is going to die once the next Playstation, and then Nintendo appear. The public is likely to notice that (do you want to buy stuff from a company that's exiting the market?) and hold off on Dreamcast waiting for Playstation.
R.I.P. Dreamcast.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
This little tidbit of info has been going around for years. Basically ever since the launch of the Saturn (if not before). Sega's greatest strength has always been it's video games (mostly its arcade adaptations to the home), and selling hardware is a money losing proposition (until royalties from software start rolling in).
There was talk back in the Saturn days that the Dreamcast (then code name Black Belt/Katana) would be dropped in favor or Sega just making games for any system available. The reasoning was that since their games are so popluar, selling them on multiple systems would bring Sega a lot of cash. Of course they took the gamble with Dreamcast and it seems (in the US anyway) to have paid off.
The talk recently has turned to how much has it actually paid off. Many people have speculated that this will be Sega's last hardware attempt in the console industry unless DC takes off phenominally. Sega is very much in the red right now, and has a lot of debt to pay off. Financially, down the road, ditching the money losing hardware section of the company in favor of software only may be the way for them to go to get back in the black.
Wow! Looks like you don't know the console history very well! The SNES came out 3 years after the Sega Genesis! So Nintendo was the one who was behind. After that the Saturn came, which HAD a CD drive and could play CD's and had 3d, comparable to the Playstation. Unfortunately the playstation was a bit faster and cheaper. While Nintendo was still behind and didn't release a new console for the next two years (Ultra). Now the Dreamcast is here and it sure kicks ass! Okay, the specs of the Playstation are better if you look at pure CPU power... But the Dreamcast has a great set of features, including webbrowsing, storing on zipdisks and so on... It even can set up a modem or network connection and make a cable connection to the NeoGeo pocket so you can play two DIFFERENT games against eachother (King of fighters99 vs King of Fighters RD2) cross platform! One minor point is the presence of Windows CE which still isn't used for anything yet (thank god!) but Sega thought they could port Direct X games to the Dreamcast with that. Nobody is interested yet... Just do your research well before you blabber something! Sega: we'll miss you for sure!
- Artificial Intelligence usually beats real stupidity -
"Sega will be leaving the hardware market and focus on networking and game development" Sega is notorius for making plenty of seperate gaming consoles with plenty of add-on hardware. Whoever misunderstood this phrase is speaking enlish as a third language at most.(or at least not familiar with Sega's history.)
They really should get out of the console business, stick to maybe arcades and games only. It'll save them, just like it saved 3D0.
Sega could theoretically have sucked more, but I'm not quite sure how. Always the first to market with the next generation, always stomped into the ground in a year or two...
I just want to reiterate, this story is strictly the result of a mis interpretation of a statement made in Japanese. Check out http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/12062.html
Sega takes a loss every time they sell a DreamCast, as does Sony and Nintendo for their hardware. The console hardware is sold below cost, but the hardware manufacturers makes t back every time you buy a game. Sega not only makes money off of sales of their own software (like Sonic Adventure or House of the Dead), but they also make money from the licensing fees paid by thrid party publishers. This makes it pretty damn profitable to be the producer of a hardware platform, so I would doubt that Sega would want to leave this market anytime soon.
Having compatibility is nice, but I would hate to see a rerun of the infamous PC. The current "IBM compatible" PC of today has been nothing but one patch after another. 540MB -> 2GB harddrives, IDE -> EIDE, cascading interrupts, real mode and virtual mode, Plug and Play, and VFAT32?!? (ok, VFAT is a software issue) I'm willing to bet that IMacs and the PSX2 are much better hardware then any Intel 800Mhz system because they're built from the ground up, using current technology.
I can't believe, you're here, taking part in an international, quasi-realtime discussion with thousands of people, yet you're extolling the virtues of Sneakernet.
If you can't envisage the kind of cool stuff possible with broadband to a console, you're just not thinking hard enough.
Think of the Ultima-Online-alike games/communities that could be set up, with the huge bandwidth provided by broadband.
Imagine if every time you played Sonic Adventure, the levels were changed - perhaps to suit the time of year, perhaps varying with today's climate in Tokyo, perhaps with references to current affairs. Imagine dropping your virtual pet at a virtual daycare centre, where you can interact with other virtual petowners.
Cheap broadband connectivity is the revolution you're talking about, and it's the home entertainment companies that are going to get it done. Just pray it's the gaming companies (who undertand interactivity) that spearhead it, rather than the TV/movie comapnies, or you'll find that it gets no more exciting than video-on-demand and flawed email implementations (Sky Digital email sucks pole).
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I'm working for a small Playstation developer and have worked on PCs in the past. In general, I would say that consoles are easier to develop for.
You know what the hardware is and can get right down to registers without worrying about hardware abstraction. The OS is also much smaller and doesn't require lots of annoying setup and configuration.
The problem is you need to work with the console maker, these are really big companies with all the politics that requires. Sony, for example, can limit what appears in a game (Soldier of Fortune, for example, would probably not make it).
Legal and marketing departments can also interfere. It's not like they watch your every move, but they can affect the development.
In the PC world, you just buy an IDE and go (Assuming you have equipment, money and talent), consoles are different.
Right now, the Dreamcast has the largest storage media (1GB CDROM variant), although multiple-CD PSX titles are the largest I know of.
The fools over at the "Gaming Lack of Intelligence." Those are some of the biggest retards on the Net. Just a bunch of fan-boys and rumor-mongers. And the guys at Gamespot are so full of themselves, they can't bother to care about accuracy. Besides, if Sega was going to leave the hardware industry, don't you think they'd post some sort of press release on their site to respond to the volume of inquiries? Seriously people, think before acting.
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"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of." -Where Your Eyes Don't Go, by They Might Be Giants
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
This really sounds like game consoles are going to evolve into home terminals (or "display servesr", if you want to use the X paradigm :) for Internet-enabled applications (probably mostly games for the early applications).
If Sun gets their vision of NCs in the corporate workplace, I can see a gradual convergence between work & home of networked client/server applications.
Does this indicate that access to the entertainment dollar is becoming saturated when they complain about the competition and limited profit margins for hardware? When you think about it, not only does every software release have to contend with other titles released at the same time, but (given emulators) competes with all the previous gaming hits as well (how many people still relax with Zorks or old Amiga shoot-them-ups?). Apart from the minimal replication and distribution costs of software, people forget about its persistance properties in lasting unaltered for a long time. I suspect that the economics (ie more profits) of shifting to an internet model where they can charge per time unit (a la mobile phone) or per use (a la arcade parlor) might be the attractive part rather than any technology advantage per se. When you think about it, paying $100 for unlimited use of a game like Quake or its variant is a good deal if it will be used to kill thousands of hours for the rest of your life (assuming you're not one of those extreme adrenaline junkies physically bonded to your joystick). Compare with paying $10 a pop for a 2 hour movie or $50 for a decent sports game it seems a good tradeoff.
:-)
Given the increasing development costs, risk of market boredom, and sophistication of computer games (ie special effects) I would predict either a shake-out of the gaming industry or else a move towards Hollywood linkups (a la Phatom Menance) where the game is part of a combined movie + merchandising tie-in. Here Sony has the edge compared with Sega or Nitendo but other big players like Disney could easily muscle in. Perhaps it'll be Quake the Movie next?
LL
Well you could always get a Sonic skin for Doom or Quake and then play against someone wearing it for a deathmatch mode?
;)
Have a Mario, Sonic, Crash, etc. skins and then see which console mascot in Doom or Quake can shoot out the others!?
First off, Doom sucked.
Second of all, the key factor in a game's longevity is remembering how much fun it was to play then, not how much to play now. I guarantee if you pick up Super Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt, or Donkey Kong that you'll enjoy playing it for about 15 minutes. (Which, to be fair, is longer than I'd ever play Mortal Kombat Gold.)
Third, niether console nor PC has cornered the market on game longevity. Sure, I fondly remember the early FF series, and Mario Kart and the like. But I remember equally fondly the days I passed playing Civ, MOO, and Star Control 2. --------------------------------------------- "Maybe one day soon it'll all come out, how you dream about each other sometimes. With the memory of how you once gave up, but you made it through the troubled times." Troubled Times, by Fountains of Wayne
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
Sega's going to focus on the internet, huh?
;)
Uh oh... they're going to be sorry for that one. They're entering Microsoft's domain now! With the possible release of a console by M$... this could only lead to one thing.. Microsoft trying to crush Sega! Since M$ thinks that they own the internet, Sega will obviously become a threat...
Well, at least maybe this will keep M$ off of Sony's back for a while
Dr. Eldarion
It looks like the company is due for some kind of change, anyway.
It seems to me that Sega, as a whole, has been in decline for a long time. I haven't actually played DC, but ever since the regular Sega Genesis, they have been plagued by a constant stream of misfortune. Think of it, after the Genesis came things like the 32X and Sega CD. Both failed miserably sad to say. Then what? The Saturn, and what became of it. Sure Sega has had some classics, but the fact of the matter is that their systems just aren't cutting it and they should probably abandon ship while they still can.
"Just one man, just one mind. I can only do so much." -Cyron
they have a very strange conception of journalism... I was replying to one of them just before reading this article.This journalist saied that Q3 won't be out before december and that customers won t have seen or known anything of the game before it's released since ID isn t going to make a press release... I asked him if 2 demos , a frequently updated plan on the internet and irc chats with users about modifs wasn't enough to be called "something"??? He replied that I shouldn't have read "litterally" (does that make sense in english ?) and should have better understood what he "meant to say"... They should patent this new way of journalism "we write what we want, you understand what you want, we don't care". Sega isn't a compagny that can afford such "mis-understanding" since its future is directly linked to the dreamcast...Could they still be a software only compagny, if the dreamcast was a flop ? Where is atari ???
A half-assed article of this low truthfulness could only have come from those guys at the "Gaming Lack of Intelligence Agency." Fan-boys and shotgun-style rumor mongers who hope that one day they get something right, and they can boast to all their readers how they got it first. In the meantime, they don't care for all the misinformation and lack of intelligence they propagate.
The guys over at GameSpot are so enamored of themselves, they can hardly take any time to actually write game news anymore. They're the MTV of game review industry. Similar to MTV's current schedule of asanine progamming sprinkled with some music videos every once in a while, GameSpot spends more time talking about what their reviewers think would be cool than actually reviewing stuff. Get your news from real sources, people, try checking the Sega site maybe. After all, if they were going to can their hardware department, who would they want to tell the public about it? Their own PR department, or someone else's? You do the math.
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"Just can't stand this bobbin' and pretendin', list'nin' to some bullethead and the madness that he's sayin'."
Your Racist Friend, by They Might Be Giants
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
I read on another site that Sega's chairman said that he saw the future after e-commerce would be e-services and that games would be one of the causes of this trend, and that he wanted to be at forefront of it. I think they may just expand their heat.net and make it sort of like an online console and offer a lot of online only games made by sega and 3rd party companies, but who knows. Just look at the popularity of online only games like EQ, Asheron's Call, UO etc. It might not be such a bad idea.
Isnt it just too early for them to make a decison like this? the DC has only been out a month or so in the IS. Wheree jp sales really that bad?
I just finished Phantasy Star IV for the first time on a Mega Drive emulator. It was very good I didn't have any problems at all. Damn good game to.