Opinions on Urban Dictionary's Definition for "Sega"

[Original_Name]

I think this guy likes to forget the hilarious failures of the Sega CD, the 32x, and the Saturn in the US. The Sega CD's problem was that add-ons are a tough sell, though they didn't have the years of data to show that yet. Then the 32x came out and completely undermined Sega's credibility, especially when the Saturn was announced shortly thereafter. And then the Saturn in the US was criminally mismanaged. Sega was the victim of trying to be number one instead of being content with number two.

The guy says that being a "victim of their own failures" is "half-true." Only a complete imbecile would suggest that Sega was infallible. Sega got screwed alot. Nintendo's contracting system in the NES vs. SMS days (later deemed illegal), the US Congress and media lashing out against them during the early-to-mid 90's and Nintendo's Howard Lincoln playing dirty to rub salt in their wounds http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9024059, EA buying out the rights to the NFL license when the 2K series was starting to make a real dent in their dynasty.

Plus, to be accurate, most of Sega's failings were in the hands of Sega of America, which was tantamount to being its own company. FMV focus on the Sega CD in the US, everything about the 32X, and Saturn's horrendous marketing and localization policies all lie pretty square on their shoulders. Sega of Japan's only real sins were putting out the vastly underpowered SG-1000 concurrently with the Famicom, making that ludicrously convoluted Saturn hardware (which they eventually did figure out how to program for, to their credit), and letting Okawa convince them to drop out of the first-party race before giving the Dreamcast the send-off it rightfully deserved.

Yeah, his entry totally undermines their own mistakes, but everyone else focuses on that exclusively. It would be redundant, and there's more to the story.

[MrPopo]

Again, Sega could have done well if they weren't always trying to outdo everyone. That's what ended up killing them. They spent so much money on trying to outdo their competition with new technology, or earlier release dates, that they had no choice but to come in first or fail. They didn't come in first.

[Original_Name]

Again, Sega could have done well if they weren't always trying to outdo everyone. That's what ended up killing them. They spent so much money on trying to outdo their competition with new technology, or earlier release dates, that they had no choice but to come in first or fail. They didn't come in first.

But look at the other side of that coin -- where would Nintendo be right now if they hadn't come in first with the Wii? Sega was an unbelievably small company to have been taking on the operations that they were -- Sony and Microsoft can take a hit for a few generations without floundering -- Sega spent their entire history in the exact same situation Nintendo was by the end of the Gamecube's lifespan.

In the west, we consider Sega to have been unbelievably successful with the Genesis, but that was not the case in its native country. The Sega CD may have seemed like an obnoxious jump into the future in the west where Sega was already on top of the market, but in Japan it was the dead-last Mega Drive's very practical means of competing with the more popular PC-Engine's CD attachment. The Game Gear may have seemed too ambitious for the time, but compared to the Atari Lynx and the TurboExpress, it was a much more practical alternative with around twice the battery life. The Sega 32X was just Sega of America getting cold feet about the Sega Saturn. While the Saturn may have seemed too early, muddled in with all of the Genesis add-ons, it was actually right on time for the console cycle that generation -- the Mega Drive came out in 1988; the Saturn came out in 1994. The Dreamcast was simultaneously a reset button on the deplorable Saturn management in the west and designed with the realization that it could well be their swan-song console, and they wanted to go out with a bang.

Yes, the marketing was obnoxious, but how else does one market a video game doo-hickey than to call it the second coming? Really, once you take out the 32X (which I have to stress was totally Sega of America's thing -- it was a total non-presence in the Japanese market) and the ludicrous US Saturn release (again, SoA's doing), their timing was really quite practical considering they were floundering in the hardware industry for 15 straight years. It wasn't that they pushed their boundaries way too much -- it was that they took a very ambitious approach of trying to survive. Had corporate dogma not taken such a massive presence in the industry, we might have seen them approach their craft at a more relaxed pace.

That's not to say that they were entirely without grace, however. The thing that makes their hardware presence commendable is that the mainline all had a real sense of direction and purpose. The Genesis/Mega Drive took on a distinctly more mature tone than Nintendo's offerings, the Saturn was a refined console that put quality before quantity while still keeping true to Sega's arcade roots, and the Dreamcast was a culmination of everything that had made video games great in the past (the arcade-accuracy of the Neo-Geo; the solid, well-rounded offerings of the Super Nintendo; the sophisticated artistic leanings prevalent in the PlayStation's best third-party titles; the unbelievable strangeness which pervaded Sega's arcade legacy; the ease of creative entry enjoyed by Amiga computers) combined with glimpses into what the future of gaming might -- and turned out to -- hold (online service, motion-controls, voice-recognition, VMU). I can't say that for any of Sony and Microsoft's consoles -- they're simply outlets -- because they can afford to be and because, I truly believe, they're not creative enough to be anything else. They don't have to drive to be first like Sega did, and like Nintendo had to a few years back in order to survive.

The place where they were really, truly obnoxious about pushing the boundaries at any and all costs was in the arcade and in software -- which is completely what made them endearing. They were the most forward-thinking hardware company in their time, but not in an obnoxious way -- they pushed the industry forward, and the industry tended to lag behind so they could wait and prey on Sega's ideas. Had Sega possessed the funds required to be patient, they might not have been so easy of a target.

[Anthony817]

If Sega had the funds they would still be here now. I just hate thinking about all the "What if's", because I get depressed thinking how sad I was to hear the Dreamcast was being discontinued and the company whored off.

[MrPopo]

Again, Sega could have done well if they weren't always trying to outdo everyone. That's what ended up killing them. They spent so much money on trying to outdo their competition with new technology, or earlier release dates, that they had no choice but to come in first or fail. They didn't come in first.

But look at the other side of that coin -- where would Nintendo be right now if they hadn't come in first with the Wii? Sega was an unbelievably small company to have been taking on the operations that they were -- Sony and Microsoft can take a hit for a few generations without floundering -- Sega spent their entire history in the exact same situation Nintendo was by the end of the Gamecube's lifespan.

Nintendo spent two generations not doing too well, the N64 and the Gamecube. But since their consoles were always marketed for higher than the production cost they never were in the black. Combined with several cash cow franchises and a complete ownership of the hand held market and Nintendo did just fine as a company. And maybe that last point is what makes the difference. But again, that empire was built with a pea-soup brick that happened to have 6x the battery life of their nearest rival.

I'm always amazed to see just how crazy the Sega fans get with how "innovative" the company was, but when you get down to it both Sega and Nintendo were pumping out equal numbers of awesome games, but Nintendo managed themselves well while Sega made a long series of bad business decisions, spread over several business units, and came up short.

[Original_Name]

Nintendo spent two generations not doing too well, the N64 and the Gamecube. But since their consoles were always marketed for higher than the production cost they never were in the black. Combined with several cash cow franchises and a complete ownership of the hand held market and Nintendo did just fine as a company. And maybe that last point is what makes the difference. But again, that empire was built with a pea-soup brick that happened to have 6x the battery life of their nearest rival.

I'm always amazed to see just how crazy the Sega fans get with how "innovative" the company was, but when you get down to it both Sega and Nintendo were pumping out equal numbers of awesome games, but Nintendo managed themselves well while Sega made a long series of bad business decisions, spread over several business units, and came up short.

I wouldn't say that they pumped out equal numbers of awesome games -- Sega was definitely the more ambitious when it came to offering a variety of experiences on their consoles. Nintendo had the better third-party support for a couple generations, no doubt, but if you look at the first-party output, Sega seemed to double Nintendo in quantity nearly every generation. Plus, you said it yourself -- Nintendo relies on cash-cow franchises. Sega had Sonic (which they actively undermined during the Saturn days in favor of newer IP's) and Sakura Taisen (only in Japan), but beyond that, they did a very admirable thing in trying to generate excitement over the creative potential of video games rather than redundantly marketing familiar faces. Sure, Nintendo managed to find financial stability, but Sega was definitely the more creative of the two -- they came from every conceivable direction with their IP's each generation. Speaking personally, I don't care if that's not profitable -- creativity is more precious than making the easy dollar.

Nintendo has also had enormous media bias for decades now. Literally, it's the common consensus even amongst experts that The Legend of Zelda was the first action-RPG game when that's demonstrably false. They also, as I previously stated, resorted to very questionable tactics in order to keep the upper-hand over Sega, whereas Sega's track-record was entirely clean when it came to committing scandals. They do deserve ample credit for resuscitating the console business and creating a console which fully embraced 3D (although I should stress that 3D video games were Sega's baby above anyone else, born in the arcades), but recounts of their history are just slathered in unbelievable hyperbole.

Anyway, the point I was originally making is that Sega's downfall is just as much to blame on the industry as it is on themselves. Everyone knows that Sega had management issues (i.e. Sega of America was a fucking joke), but the equally important aspect that they were pushed out by questionable extenuating circumstances is overlooked far too often.

[Original_Name]

Yeah been wondering when our paths would cross again haha.

Anyway, how you been? I been keeping the trolls away from Theisozone and moderating the Dreamcast and other stuff there diligently.

If Sega had the funds they would still be here now. I just hate thinking about all the "What if's", because I get depressed thinking how sad I was to hear the Dreamcast was being discontinued and the company whored off.

I've been great -- I haven't had a whole lot of time for video game stuff lately, but what little time I do have has been going into Skies of Arcadia, Ikaruga, Snatcher, and Metroid. I've also been reading a ton of Dune and going through a backlog of Alan Moore's work in my recreational time. Spending about an hour a day studying Japanese. Outside of that, it's all college work with the occasional popping in of high-school friends here and there. I really only find myself back at Racketboy out of habit, I can't believe I fool myself into thinking I have the time to screw around on here, but I love these guys!

Ah, I really should invest in a download pass for TIZ. It's, like, a one-time payment, right?

And yeah, I also tend to get caught up in what-if's way too much. Always thinking "if-only" -- "If only there'd been one more year of Dreamcast, so that at least Rez, Ikaruga, and Panzer Dragoon Orta could've gotten the push that they deserved. So maybe we might've seen a swan-song with NiGHTS 2 on the DREAMcast." So on and so forth.

[Erik_Twice]

As time goes by, the more I think that Nintendo is kind of a lesser Disney, a company that while no short of good things has managed to overshadow other creators and designs that were equal, better or more innovative than it despite overwhelming evidence.

Literally, it's the common consensus even amongst experts that The Legend of Zelda was the first action-RPG game when that's demonstrably false.

It's not just "demonstrably false", it's false even by their own accounts! Many "best of" lists praise how highly innovative Zelda was, forgetting they also included Adventure and Ultima in the same list.

We should to a thread about this.

Anyway, the point I was originally making is that Sega's downfall is just as much to blame on the industry as it is on themselves. Everyone knows that Sega had management issues (i.e. Sega of America was a fucking joke), but the equally important aspect that they were pushed out by questionable extenuating circumstances is overlooked far too often.

I very much agree.

[MrPopo]

I wouldn't say that they pumped out equal numbers of awesome games -- Sega was definitely the more ambitious when it came to offering a variety of experiences on their consoles. Nintendo had the better third-party support for a couple generations, no doubt, but if you look at the first-party output, Sega seemed to double Nintendo in quantity nearly every generation.

I don't have time now, but when I get home tonight I'm going to go through a list of first party games to see if we can substantiate your claim.

Plus, you said it yourself -- Nintendo relies on cash-cow franchises. Sega had Sonic (which they actively undermined during the Saturn days in favor of newer IP's) and Sakura Taisen (only in Japan), but beyond that, they did a very admirable thing in trying to generate excitement over the creative potential of video games rather than redundantly marketing familiar faces. Sure, Nintendo managed to find financial stability, but Sega was definitely the more creative of the two -- they came from every conceivable direction with their IP's each generation. Speaking personally, I don't care if that's not profitable -- creativity is more precious than making the easy dollar.

But creativity is not just about what new story we can generate. The evolution of game mechanics is just as important. If you created a new 2D platformer starring Andy the Armadillo who could run fast and curl up into a ball while doing loop-de-loops then you aren't being creative at all. And claiming that Nintendo doesn't evolve the mechanics of their core franchises is patently false.

Anyway, the point I was originally making is that Sega's downfall is just as much to blame on the industry as it is on themselves. Everyone knows that Sega had management issues (i.e. Sega of America was a fucking joke), but the equally important aspect that they were pushed out by questionable extenuating circumstances is overlooked far too often.

The only real extenuating circumstance was the Nintendo licensing agreements of the NES era. It killed the SMS in the US but they came back strong with the Genesis. You brought up EA buying up sports franchises so 2k couldn't get them. Nintendo lost the RPG market almost entirely between the SNES and N64 era when Square moved, and that was when RPGs started to get really lucarative. Yet one company did better than the other.

[Original_Name]

I figured "double" was a bit much -- it's closer to 150%, but that would have been difficult to state eloquently.

http://www.ranker.com/list/sega-games-list/reference
http://www.ranker.com/list/nintendo-gam ... /reference

I should hope that none of us here would be so dense as to believe that Nintendo does not advance the game mechanics of their established franchises with each new iteration -- that's the name of Nintendo's game. New worlds open new possibilities that Nintendo forsakes themselves of with their relative obsession with building brand-recognition around a small stable of characters, though. Although Panzer Dragoon was in many ways a spiritual sequel to Space Harrier, the change in universe on top of the progression of gameplay mechanics allowed Sega to express things which they simply couldn't in the world of Space Harrier. Instead of trying to shoe-horn Sonic into the world of dreams, Sonic Team gracefully created a new IP which more intuitively fit the theme. Skies of Arcadia had largely the same development team as Panzer Dragoon Saga -- they're separate franchises because the optimism of Skies of Arcadia is simply ridiculous in Panzer's universe. Many Nintendo fans have hated changes to the Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, Donkey Kong, and Kirby franchises because the concepts they're founded upon don't really lend themselves to the changes which Nintendo pursued with the characters and the worlds they exist in.

Further extenuating circumstances include: Sega being the primary target of the US Congress and media during the early-mid 90's; the actual Sega having one of the most incompetent overseas representatives of any video game company ever; the fact that they were essentially a little jukebox manufacturer being pitted against electronic oligarchs, meaning that competing in terms of market presence and purchasing exclusivity to third-party titles became completely impractical (yes, like Nintendo -- I'll get to that later*); the relative bias they suffered (Nintendo could put out the Virtual Boy and obnoxiously release near-identical upgrades of handheld harware at a constant rate without anyone seeming to care; Sega puts out the 32X and suddenly nobody had a good word to say about them until it was far too late); they put out the superior game console to Sony's PlayStation 2 but the Dreamcast was ignored in Japan because it didn't play DVDs (maybe the most telling shift in the gaming industry); Sega of America shared a bunch of information and exclusive rights with Microsoft in the time leading up to their President pulling the plug on Dreamcast before schedule and suddenly jumping ship onto the Xbox brand; the EA nonsense (regarding your analogy -- the Nintendo 64 got absolutely creamed by the PlayStation. They were sustained almost entirely by four or five console games and a media craze over an unspectacular handheld franchise about character-grinding. Also, the analogy isn't entirely solid because no one took away Nintendo's ability to make RPG's altogether. NFL football games are a genre in and of themselves); and that they were sold to a company with yakuza-ties by their holdings company behind closed doors.

Without the Pokemon boom and the Wii (which has largely been deemed a disappointment amongst gamers), Nintendo would not be developing home consoles anymore. Simple as. Nintendo, good as they are, are still with us because of luck as much as anything else (poetically, "Nintendo" in Japanese roughly translates to a colloquial phrase for "luck" -- as even more of an aside, Sega's Dreamcast logo quite fittingly resembles the pagan Sacred Spiral http://www.ancientsymbolsonline.com/sacred_symbols.html). Just as Sega's demise is as much from their own faults as it is extenuating circumstances, Nintendo's success is as much about their own strengths as it is about pure luck. The media and consumers always seemed to throw them a bone where Sega never had such a luxury.

*Anyway, Sega vs. Nintendo isn't really the point for me here. Both companies faced needless hardships simply for the entirely forgivable fact they are not uber-corporations controlling vertical integration of the global electronics market. I'm grateful that Nintendo survived, but it's not like Sega didn't deserve to just because Nintendo had better management. I personally prefer Sega and think that the company is tragically misunderstood and suffers from unbelievable bias, but they were both equally worthy presences in the industry, unlike the clowns we have running the show these days. Yes, good for Nintendo for having a disposition that kept them from getting fucked as hard as Sega, but neither company deserved this shit in the first place.

I hope that I'm not coming across as hostile in any way, because I'm really enjoying this discussion!