The Sega love

[Reprise]

Or Sambe De Amiga? Space Channel 5? (actually is the latter multiplayer? I've never played it... )

[flamepanther]

Don't forget ChuChu Rocket and Crazy Taxi!

[mas]

For me i dont know why or which system i'm playing but I always fall back on sega. Sega to me always had the balls to try new things first. It started with the 3d glasses and the sega card and the built in games on the master system. Then the genesis at the time was the system that went right after nintendo saying (genesis does what nintendon't). The great commercials and ad's from sega the true arcade ports, great sports games with actual sports figures at the time.
Now nintendo had the a+ game classics franchises like donkey kong, marios, metroids, punch out, and rpg's cults of final fantasy and squaresoft rpg's for the snes and nes systems every 6 to 8 months to a year at a time. Sega was dishing out b to a- games at the time i think every 4 or 5 month's like kid chamelion, road rash series, vectorman, streets of rage series, sonic series, sonic and knuckles I mean who would ever thought of getting a cartridge placing 2 exsisting carts of sonic 2 and 3 on top of sonic and knucles to add more replay and sales in sonic 2 and 3, beyond oasis, gunstar heroes, phantasy star series, splatterhouse, all the arcade gems, shinobi, and so on and so on. I always thought if they had just stuck with the genesis and these great games and just pushed the hardware of the genesis then who know's maybe we would be playing our dreamcast 2 by now.
Hell even the dramcast which I still play everyday to this day and the saturn was innovative at the time and those systems dished out great games and gave new ideas for the video game industry. If it wasn't for the dreamcast then there may have not been online play. It would of happened but sega did it first. I have a nes/snes and a gamecube and I love nintendo but I always find myself going back to sega.

[YoshiEgg25]

It started with the 3d glasses

Rad Racer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rad_Racer

Also the Famicom 3D System, which does not have a Wikipedia page.

[D.D.D.]

Nintendo cashed in on the 'casual craze' big time, pity Sega didn't think of that in 1999.

Anyone wanna play Sonic Shuffle?

No. No Mario Party either thanks. Not that it sucks its just not what I want to play. Monopoly is where its at.

[YoshiEgg25]

Nintendo cashed in on the 'casual craze' big time, pity Sega didn't think of that in 1999.

Anyone wanna play Sonic Shuffle?

No. No Mario Party either thanks. Not that it sucks its just not what I want to play. Monopoly is where its at.

Pictionary for the NES!

[Pingfa]

What Breetai and and VincentX said. Plus:

The Master System was mostly a failure in large part because Nintendo had developers sign a contract (later found illegal) that prohibited developers from developing for any other console.
In Europe, Master System was more successful than NES.

Also worth noting is that there came to be a lot of resentment in Sega of Japan towards Sega of America and Europe, as the Genesis was so much more successful over there than in Japan. I recall reading a quote from the president of SOJ at the time, in which he belittled employees at SOJ for lagging so much behind SOA and SOE, saying something like "Why can't you do it like the Americans and Europeans did it?"
He did that a lot.
Early on the Genesis had the edge over SNES, but they were mostly neck and neck until Sega released the Saturn.
As for Sega CD and 32x, both had initial success so neither were complete failures. Sega CD failed largely because FMV games weren't able to maintain appeal (although people were easily pleased with them at first). 32x failed because Saturn was rushed to release and cut its life short.


The main reason Sega Saturn was such a failure in the West initally is because SOJ left all their allies over there clueless about the rushed release of the Saturn, so they were angry that they couldn't take advantage of the momentum.
The other reason was that the new president of SOA alienated a lot of third party companies due to his strict policies, and was pretty strict about what he would allow overseas.

Now the Dreamcast... I have a quote saved by former SOA Vice President of Communications Charles Bellfield:
"We had the content right. We had the marketing right. The product was designed right. The philosophy of networked capabilities was right. The team was right. The partners we had were right. But we didn't have the budget to be able to build the confidence of the brand in the eyes of our competitors that we were going to be around. That, to me, is the Achilles Heel of the Dreamcast. The first Xbox console was a far bigger failure than the Dreamcast. But Microsoft has much more money than Sega did. And the Xbox was an ugly motherfucker."

[Flake]

"The first Xbox console was a far bigger failure than the Dreamcast. But Microsoft has much more money than Sega did. And the Xbox was an ugly motherfucker."

True that. The Xbox was the kind of baby mothers used to take to the well.

[swiftzx]

"The first Xbox console was a far bigger failure than the Dreamcast. But Microsoft has much more money than Sega did. And the Xbox was an ugly motherfucker."

True that. The Xbox was the kind of baby mothers used to take to the well.

It was that unwanted spartan baby

[Original_Name]

Sega had more guts than a business of their size should have logically had, and their failures as a commercial business stemmed predominantly from that both inside and out. Don't get me wrong, their heart and talent were equally formidable, but really -- no one had guts like Sega.

We're talking about a company that clawed to survive in Nintendo's monopoly (of questionable legality) for half a decade before climbing from below 5% to a 65% market share in a matter of a couple of years.

A company that pushed the industry to market more mature content, as opposed to keeping the medium in a stagnant state as a glorified toy for young children.

A company who played by the books instead of pussy-tactics like forcing unreasonable restrictions on third-party developers, making bullshit accusations about their competitors at Senate hearings and belittling the maturity of video gamers in order to appeal to reactionary soccer-moms, outright lying about their console's specs prior to launch in order to take the thunder away from their competition, and buying out NFL and ESPN licenses for their football games because the competitor was doing it better and cheaper.

A company that got by on sheer talent, heart, and guts instead of falling back on bottomless pockets.

A company whose American branch basically said to their Japanese branch, "Whoa guys, all of these Saturn games are a little too hardcore..." but the Japanese branch didn't give a fuck and kept marketing crazy-hardcore games with the even crazier-hardcore Segata Sanshiro.

A company with a team dubbed Sonic Team whom, in holding their creative values above monetary values said, "No, we don't want to make more Sonic games. We don't want to do the same thing over and over," until finally their sales were so low that they were forced to make more Sonic games, or else the company would die.

A company which was hemorrhaging millions of dollars, and instead of packing it up and cutting their losses like any sane business said, "No. Let's use this one last chance in order to prove to the world that we don't suck. That we are the most original, innovative console developers of all time."

A company which, for at least a period of a couple of years, actually probably was the greatest video game developer ever in all of the ways that matter. The kind of company that would bank all of their resources on bringing online gameplay, motion controls, sophisticated voice-recognition, and downloadable content to the industry before the industry was even kind of ready for those things and broke new ground in games left and right, all while maintaining the classic spirit of video games which is so sorely missed in today's industry.

A company which wasn't afraid to make any sort of game touching on any sort of subject matter. Everything from the wackiness of ToeJam & Earl, Samba de Amigo, and Crazy Taxi to the somber, serious tones of Phantasy Star II, Panzer Dragoon Saga, and Shenmue were fair game. If you want me to go on about how shockingly deep the philosophical foundations of Rez, Shenmue, and indeed Seaman are, I'd love to inform you.

Y'know what? Let's make this simple...

A company which produced these games/franchises: Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Alex Kidd, OutRun, Shinobi, Monster World, Phantasy Star, Streets of Rage, Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, ToeJam & Earl, Shining Force, Vectorman, Comix Zone, Ristar, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Panzer Dragoon, NiGHTS, Dragon Force, Virtual On, The House of the Dead, Burning Rangers, 2K Sports, Chu Chu Rocket, Crazy Taxi, Samba de Amigo, Space Channel 5, Jet Set Radio, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Seaman, Phantasy Star Online, Rez, and Segagaga.

And am I leaving anything out? Yup.