
Sega’s Plans for World Domination (1993) - luu
https://www.wired.com/1993/06/sega/
======
wjoe
It amazes me how Sega failed so spectacularly and repeatedly. First they tried
incremental updates to the Genesis with the CD and 32X and failed to bring
anything worthwhile. Then they had the disaster of the Saturn, which was so
complex that few developers were able to release any appealing games. Sega
themselves didn't even manage to release a flagship Sonic game.

The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a
decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage
was already done. They struggled to put their own franchises to good use on
other systems since then, and now mostly seem to survive as a publisher and
owner of a few third party developers.

In hindsight, perhaps it's more accurate to look at Sega as a company that had
one good breakthrough with the Genesis that they could never replicate, rather
than a once great company who failed. It was a long series of bad decisions
after that, not just a single failure.

An interesting excerpt from the article:

"Just some of the developments coming to an Electronic Boutique near you:
Truly interactive game movies starring hot Hollywood stars; immersive 3-D game
environments using cheap VR technology; and motion-sensing technology that
places you directly into the game"

Maybe they really were just ahead of their time, with the biggest companies
still trying and failing in these areas. Or maybe it just shows they're just
plain bad ideas.

~~~
orbitur
> The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a
> decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage
> was already done

The damage was done with third party developers. I think the public was ready
for the Dreamcast/PS2 showdown, but the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone
cared about. Nintendo had clearly dropped the ball with the "hardcore" (for
lack of a better term) game audience by this point, so the real battle was
supposed to be between Sega and Sony.

I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought everyone's
loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone cared about"

I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library,
especially considering the short time it was actively supported. Admittedly
3rd party support was thin on the ground, but the games that did make it to
that system were some of the best of that generation IMO.

> "I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought
> everyone's loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega."

My understanding was that 3rd party devs had been burned three times in a row
by Sega on products that were poorly supported by Sega (MegaCD, 32X, Saturn).
There was also the piracy problem on the Dreamcast, and the fact that the PS2
was a DVD player as well as a games console. If the Dreamcast had used a DVD
drive instead of the GD-ROM option they went with I could see it easily adding
another 2 years onto the Dreamcast's life.

The silver lining is that the piracy issues also helped the Dreamcast be one
of the best supported homebrew gaming platforms.

~~~
amyjess
> I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library,
> especially considering the short time it was actively supported. Admittedly
> 3rd party support was thin on the ground, but the games that did make it to
> that system were some of the best of that generation IMO.

The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, true, but it almost entirely
consisted of niche games that the general public didn't care about. The Sonic
Adventure games were the only ones with mainstream appeal.

The market then was different from the market now. Nowadays, Steam is full of
awesome quirky niche indie games that are successful, and if a console
launched now with that kind of library, it would probably be successful, but
back then if you didn't have AAA games with name recognition, you were dead in
the water. You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you
were interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you were
> interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before."

You didn't have to take a huge gamble, you just had to play one to see quality
that was on offer.

As for games with mainstream appeal, aside from the Sonic Adventure games
there were a number of decent sports titles for the system (Virtua Tennis 2
probably being my personal favourite, but the 2K Sports franchises seemed to
make amends for the lack of EA support). I'd also say games like Soul Calibur,
Crazy Taxi, Metropolis Street Racer and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 had broad
appeal.

Think about when the PS2 was released, what was the big draw at the time?
Tekken Tag Tournament is the only thing that sticks out as a memorable PS2
exclusive in the initial period when it was competing with the Dreamcast. I
personally don't think the PS2 had the superior game library at the time the
Dreamcast was discontinued.

------
rubidium
Console wars aside, it's interesting to note that they put a lot of hope into
arcades/movies/amusement parks... all of which have not seen nearly the growth
rates as home entertainment.

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-
death...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death-of-the-
american-arcade-for-amusement-only)

~~~
emodendroket
Well, that was their heritage. Not shocking.

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dpflan
Sega's strategy for battling Nintendo. Let's add some more details about the
console wars too:

1\. The Untold Story of How Sega Nearly Won the Console Wars -
[https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-
sega/](https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/)

2\. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation -
[https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-
Generat...](https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-
Generation/dp/0062276700)

~~~
tapoxi
Console Wars paints a great picture on how philosophical differences between
Sega of Japan and Sega of America destroyed the success they had.

~~~
nicolas_t
Can you expand on that? I'm curious

~~~
bunderbunder
Here's a couple interviews with Sega of America's CEO at the time where his
frustration is very apparent:

[http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-
ha...](http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-have-made-
the-wrong-decisions-for-20-years/)

[http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-
gi...](http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-gives-his-
thoughts-on-the-saturns-launch/)

------
breadmaster
For a company to be so visionary and forward thinking on the arcade front,
being a pioneering force of 3D polygonal games, it is astonishing that they
released the Saturn in the form they did. You had to be a assembly savant to
get decent 3D performance out of the Saturn that your average programmer could
easily obtain on the Playstation using C. The VDP2 was pretty impressive
though...

~~~
ZenoArrow
My understanding was that Sega had intended to focus on 2D gaming for the
Saturn, but after realising what hardware was in the PlayStation they bumped
up the specs to compete by adding in extra processors.

The 2D performance of the Saturn appears to have been better than the
PlayStation (the RAM expansion probably helped here too), but the 3D
capabilities couldn't match up to the PlayStation (I suspect that would've
still been the case even if the Saturn was easier to program for).

~~~
MBCook
I believe it was always designed for 3D but they made the 3D aspect more
powerful as they saw what Sony was pushing. I get the feeling it was to be a
sort of hybrid 2D/3D system instead of a straight jump into 3D.

But the multi-CPU thing was a mess. Sony had a very simple architecture that
could still do a very good job. Sony made that mistake with the PS2 but still
survived (momentum + sales as a DVD player) and the PS3 which hit them hard
(Xbox 360 was much easier, got a big win for it). As of the PS4 they've
learned their lesson.

------
orvado
Wow, all this talk about VR in 1993 ... it would be interesting to read the
history on that. Either the world wasn't ready for it or the implementation
was very lame (something like Nintendo StarFox or worse yet ... BattleZone)

~~~
supernintendo
Sega VR was never released due to many of the same issues that made Nintendo's
Virtual Boy a failure. Among these were how expensive the unit was, its poor
graphical capabilities and most notably its eyestrain / headache inducing
effects after a short period of play time [1]. However, as with all things
SEGA at least we got a cheesy keynote presentation out of it [2].

[1]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.co...](https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=5&title=Sega%20VR:%20Great%20Idea%20or%20Wishful%20Thinking)?

[2] [https://youtu.be/yd98RGxad0U](https://youtu.be/yd98RGxad0U)

~~~
Macsenour
To be blunt, it made people sick. I was there, I saw the queazy faces at the
end of the demo. I was "hardware boy" in the producer ranks and when that came
up, I passed. I'm not sure they would have given it to me, but I made it clear
I would not want to work on it.

------
rpiguy
According to the book "Console Wars," rivalry between Sega Japan and Sega USA
was a major factor in the decline of Sega post-Genesis.

Sega Japan delayed the release of the SegaCD due to the politics of setting up
alliances with other Japanese manufacturers and was also directly responsible
for the complex design of the Saturn.

Sega USA stole a lot of thunder with the Genesis and Sega Japan wanted to take
control back. Sega USA had an alternate design in the works, but Sega Japan
insisted on the Saturn.

Up until that point, the "friendly rivalry" between Sega USA and its parent
Sega Japan had been mostly beneficial. For example, Sonic would have turned
out very differently if it were 100% developed in Japan or 100% developed in
the USA. The back and forth on Sonic really benefitted the character and the
game.

------
ptrincr
Well it's not been mentioned on this page, but without Sega, Alien Isolation
would never have been made. Without doubt one of the scariest games I have
played, and as a fan of the first Alien film, I feel they beautifully
recreated the atmosphere of that masterpiece.

Without Sega I don't think the game would ever have been made, it was in
development for years and they developed their own engine for it.
Unfortunately it only just broke even, I think maybe they went slightly too
far on the fear side. It really does take you to the edge whilst playing it
and often feels like you're having to will yourself forward rather than having
an enjoyable experience.

Having said that, I'm glad I finished it and props to Sega for funding it.

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jgalt212
I remember the Dreamcast launch campaign, 9/9/99\. very cool.

The platform was hurt big time by the lack of EA support. That being said, it
did seem like everyone on MTV Cribs had one in their home.

------
agumonkey
I barely knew about Sega early history (only that SeGa was US based arcade
makers), and it was surprisingly twisted.

Also, so many attempts that are nowhere now (Edge16 wasn't a bad idea).
Markets are funny.

ps: To think that Nintendo Hubris gave birth to the competing Playstation
which ate Sega's market.

------
transfire
They made one big bugaboo that doomed them for sure. They didn't make the
Dreamcast black.

You think I'm joking? You should read about consumer testing studies.

~~~
coldpie
But the PlayStation wasn't black either...

~~~
ssharp
Wasn't the Dreamcast the same gen as the PS2, not PS1?

~~~
emodendroket
It is kind of a weird in-between.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Many people see it as the start of the 6th gen.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_ga...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_game_consoles)

------
mikejmoffitt
How the mighty have fallen.

