Why did Sega license games for the PC Engine?

[Original_Name]

Another long absence for me -- hey there, everybody!

Lately I've been getting really into the PC Engine -- late nights playing through its fantastic catalog of underrated gems: Air Zonk, Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, Gate of Thunder, Splatterhouse, Devil's Crush, Mad Stalker, Spriggan, Bonk's Revenge, the Star Soldier series, and so on...

But of course I've noticed that there are a number of Sega arcade ports present on the console as well. This struck me as extremely odd considering that these ports were released when Sega already had their Mega Drive console on the market in Japan. Why release big-name titles like OutRun, Golden Axe, and After Burner II when you already have a 16-bit console that's just starting out the gate? Stranger still, the PC Engine got the only 16-bit ports of Space Harrier, Power Drift, Fantasy Zone, and Shinobi. WHY!?

Were they trying to tempt the more established PC Engine user-base with the kinds of titles they could play if they bought a Mega Drive or something? The strategy seems completely absurd. I know that Tengen released unlicensed versions of Fantasy Zone, Alien Syndrome, Shinobi, and After Burner II for the Famicom, but from what I can make out, the PC Engine releases were actually licensed by Sega.

Good Lord, no wonder the Mega Drive came up third in Japan -- nearly the entirety of Sega's triple-A arcade catalog up to that point was available on an already-established competing console, and by the time Sega's content became fully exclusive that generation, the juggernaut Super Famicom was already on the market. What a disaster.

I know there are a couple of PC Engine scholars on the board (Breetai jumps to mind) -- does anyone have any knowledge of the state of affairs which lead to Sega making this decision? I haven't been able to find any sort of explanation, and it's driving me crazy trying to make any sense of this ludicrous strategy.

[Erik_Twice]

Exclusive titles are a very modern idea, releasing games for all platforms was the standard from the Atari days, Nintendo didn't simply didn't take part as much into this as every other company.

The idea was to sell games to a wider market because nobody would buy two expensive consoles at the same time. Consider how much money Sega made by licensing OutRun for the computers of the time.

You also have to consider that Space Harrier, OutRun and Fantasy Zone were three years old by the time they were ported and Sonic or Altered Beast, which were system sellers weren't ported.

[Original_Name]

Actually Altered Beast was ported to the PC Engine, and even new titles like Bonanza Bros., Gain Ground and, again, Golden Axe and Power Drift were released at the time... but still, I understand your meaning.

I'm just surprised that Sega was still using those practices at that time in regards to cross-console releases, though. I understand the inclination to release ports to personal computers, since that was a relatively separate market, but I would have thought that the era of total cross-pollination between dedicated home consoles would have ended around the time that Nintendo adopted their infamous licensing practices a few years prior with the Famicom.

By this point in the history of home consoles, Sega was certainly the only hardware-backing company still treating their first-party IP's this way. With the exception of those CD-i titles, Nintendo's third-party releases ended in the days of the ColecoVision, and NEC's second-party Hudson wouldn't release any titles for the Super Famicom until the PC Engine was nearly five years old.

I was aware that there was noticeably less exclusivity than in the modern era (especially in concern of PC ports), but I guess I just hadn't realized how that this mentality had lasted so long -- and it seems like there's pretty good reason that Sega was the last company to do adopt this sort of strategy in the hardware race.

I do also wonder why it's only arcade ports, though. Maybe because they figured the nature of those games was more... "public" than, say, Phantasy Star II or Revenge of Shinobi?

EDIT: I'm incorrect. Apparently Hudson was releasing (mostly inconsequential) games for the Famicom the whole time. I guess these sorts of business practices just shifted later than I had realized!

Thanks for the quick reply, General Norris, sir!

[Erik_Twice]

EDIT: I'm incorrect. Apparently Hudson was releasing (mostly inconsequential) games for the Famicom the whole time. I guess business practices were just more different back then than I had realized!

And not only that, Super Mario Bros was released for the NEC too! It was a different time, specially with Nintendo's illegal monopoly of the 80s and the size of the companies of the time, which were peanuts compared to the likes of Sony and Microsoft.

It's also probable that the reason why Nintendo didn't get into this during the SNES generation was an exclusive deal with Philips for the CDi, since it was on the works for many years.


Sega's model was also pretty different. Most of it revenue for all of it's history, even today, came from arcades and their different divisions fed onto each other. They were very aggresive in marketing, hardware sales and brand and they were more than happy to take a small loss if they could land their feet in another part of the market.

I think this explains the arcade port thing, it makes sense!

[Original_Name]

That's right, I'd completely forgotten about those oddball Hudson Mario games! I read about them on HG101 so long ago that they'd totally slipped through the cracks of my memory. So you've caught me again!

No matter what your feelings on the modern era are, you've gotta miss the character and unpredictability the industry had in those days when the "big-name" game companies were competing to pull in revenues of, like, a few hundred million at maximum...

[marurun]

Think of licensing as free money. If the games are still in the arcades, more exposure at home could also lead to more desire to play them in the arcades. Besides, it's not like Sega did any of the heavy lifting. NEC Avenue did all the programming and porting work (well, except for maybe Golden Axe, which Telenet managed to royally screw up). And NEC Avenue was linked to NEC the hardware giant. Sega probably wanted to maintain good relations with NEC.

[Erik_Twice]

That's right, I'd completely forgotten about those oddball Hudson Mario games! I read about them on HG101 so long ago that they'd totally slipped through the cracks of my memory. So you've caught me again!

God bless HG101, those guys are so underrated.

No matter what your feelings on the modern era are, you've gotta miss the character and unpredictability the industry had in those days when the "big-name" game companies were competing to pull in revenues of, like, a few hundred million at maximum...

You know, I think the difference is scale. At this point I don't think the management of Sony and Microsoft even hears about the games they make. They move in trends, not games and that's...weird.

Not sure where I'm going with this.

[brandman]

Exclusive titles are a very modern idea, releasing games for all platforms was the standard from the Atari days, Nintendo didn't simply didn't take part as much into this as every other company.

This comes to mind in regards of nintendo:



Really though, the whole exclusivity between consoles was birthed during the NES days, and fully developed during the 16 and 32 bit days. I mean nintendo had their whole monopoly thing, where, after a few years it wouldn't have mattered whether they enforced those practices because the NES was pretty much the only console for any worthwhile profits. That's most likely why Sega enforced such aggressive marketing campaigns early in the MD/Genesis days, to show consumers that unlike their competitors, they have these X games, which is the whole idea behind exclusivity anyways. If Sega didn't have such aggressive marketing campaigns, I guarantee you that the video game industry would be completely different.

[jfrost]

Also, the Mega Drive was so far behind in Japan, Sega must've figured: "Well, this is the only way we're gonna make any money in the console market."

[ApolloBoy]

A lot of Japanese computers like the X68000 and FM Towns also received Sega arcade ports, it wasn't really unusual at the time. Even the Famicom received a few Sega ports as well like After Burner, Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone, all published by various companies.