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[Big One]

It seems like only yesterday when the Dreamcast launched and had quite a bit of a following when it came out. My very first video game console ever was a Sega Genesis, with Sonic 2 being the first real game I every played that I still have very fond memories of till this day. It's still a fantastic game too.

Hardcore Dreamcast and Saturn fans might disagree with me, but I've always felt that out of all the Sega consoles the Genesis had the best games. It had Sonic 1-3, Phantasy Star II-IV, Gunstar Heroes, Streets of Rage 1-3, and many more classics some even still till this day the best in their respective genres.

In parallel, Sony has been in the console business for 20 years, with no signs of stopping or going out of business anytime soon. People always blame Sony's tactics for putting Sega down like it did, which is true but at the same time Sega's management of it's hardware AND software was absolutely horrid. Even in the Genesis era you had stuff like Sega CD and 32x released so shortly between each other yet had barely any support and a ton of garbage games that went along with it.

To only think if Sega's management was as good as Sony's, Microsoft's, or even Nintendo's that they could still be in the hardware market today. I mean, why couldn't have Sega had a strong cult following for it's hardware similar to Nintendo does to this day? I could easily see a place for that in the market.

Sega was always an innovator ever since the 80's in the arcades, but never truly made a breakout hit with a lot of their innovations. Could you imagine if Sega retooled some of their motion controls in the fishing game that used them before Nintendo even thinks of the Wii, capitalizing on that market that finds something like motion controls to be "cool"? How about online features as good as Xbox Live was before Xbox Live was even created? All of these things Sega were capable of doing, but never did it because of bad management all around. Sega had all the potential to pioneer things but it never fell through cause by 2001, the company was long gone as a hardware developer.

In 20 years Sega's console market will sadly probably will be remembered the same was Hudson Soft/NEC's console market was remembered: A relic of the 90's that ended up short and failing. Regardless, I personally will never forget the time where Sega's name was near household status and you couldn't convince your friend that the Super Nintendo was better than the Genesis for nothing.

RIP Sega's console hardware. You will be missed.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Always found it a little funny that Sega released their 1st home system, the SG-1000, on exact same day as Nintendo's Famicom was released in Japan. On July 15, 1983.

 

[Emperor Bohe]

 

[Zanlee]

I miss the Genesis and Dreamcast days so much .. all my friends had a Snes and I had a Genesis. I played a lot of Shining Force, Phantasy Star 4, Sonic 2,3, strider, Aladin and MK with blood the Dreamcast was my favorite SEGA console by far though ... with games like PSO, Grandia 2, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone, E.G.G, Ikaruga, CrazyTaxi, Sonic Adventure and all the 2k sports :O
RIP SEGA

 

[rhodo]

Still have my dreamcast set up. It's a great console, good for fighting games although the controllers suck for it

 

[FTF]

The birth of one lead to the death of the other.

RIP Sega consoles. Still love ya Dreamcast, my favorite console launch and launch lineup ever.

 

[Sipheren]

Just got myself a Dreamcast, been trying to find a good one for a while. Looking forward to the weekend

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

It's a testament to SEGA's fanbase, Segata Sanshiro, and their games in the mid-1990s that the Saturn did well enough for the Dreamcast to happen at all, especially when you look at how quickly the PC-FX sunk NEC's console division. Otherwise, SEGA of Japan has become the classic example of Japanese business mismanagement screwing over the platform(s) on which talented developers pushed technical limits and pursued innovations combined with genre mastery.

 

[oneida]

always the bridesmaid never the bride

but one hell of a lay

 

[Valkrai]

I miss the Genesis and Dreamcast days so much .. all my friends had a Snes and I had a Genesis. I played a lot of Shining Force, Phantasy Star 4, Sonic 2,3, strider, Aladin and MK with blood the Dreamcast was my favorite SEGA console by far though ... with games like PSO, Grandia 2, Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone, E.G.G, Ikaruga, CrazyTaxi, Sonic Adventure and all the 2k sports :O
RIP SEGA

Agreed, I miss the Dreamcast . Jet Set Radio is also a game you should play (either the original version or the HD remaster).

Also if IIRC, wasn't the Genesis version of Mortal Kombat the worst version of it? It had blood but god, it was awful.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

I wonder who will win the total console length contest? Sony would have to go on 12 years after Nintendo stops making hardware.

If games were to go to a unified format (what 3DO tried) like Blu-Ray and Sony made a version would that still count?

I find it hard to believe that traditional consoles will exist in the next 15-20 years. I think streaming services, Android consoles and living room PC's will get to a point where they become the way to consume games.

 

[Jomjom]

Sony's tactics downed Sega? I thought Sega's tactics downed Sega?

 

[Beerman462]

Sega pretty much misread the market at every step. The Genesis was their strongest console and while Nintendo extended the SNES through cartridge modifications(super fx) Sega sold expensive add-ons like 32X and Sega CD with very few games. Dreamcast was a day early and a dollar short. To bad because it was great.

 

[kyser73]

I still reckon that if Dreamcast had launched with a DVD player that gen would've played out differently.

 

[zero shift]

It truly is sad what happened to Sega. However at the end of the day Sega has nobody to blame but themselves. They had mismanagement and discord out the wahoo, It is notirous how not only the Japanese and American branches butting heads, but the arcade and home console branches as well. They released far far too many devices at once. Just in five years they released the Game Gear, Sega CD, 32X, 32X CD, Nomad, and Saturn. To be fair these were all reasonably good ideas, but they just weren't executed properly as more time and focus had to be put into them.

However what possibly their biggest problem was is something few people mention. They didn't really bother to build up their franchises. People can roll their eyes all they want when Nintendo releases the usual Mario, Smash, Kart, Zelda, Animal Crossing and what not for their systems like clockwork. However at the end of the day these games are big names in the gaming market and move units. Sega didn't do this at all. A lot of the best Sega game don't have sequels and if they do they are usually limited to one platform. Consider that with the exception of Shining Force and Beyond Oasis, no popular Genesis games by Sega game to the Saturn (the god awful Shinobi game doesn't count).Even their two biggest ones, Sonic and Streets of Rage, didn't. Fast forward to the Dreamcast and with the exception of Sonic and Ecco this still rings true. People don't just buy systems for games it has, but for games that the system will have. This is critical if you are trying to get enough early adopters for a console to be a success. Like it or not it is more likely for the inevitable Animal Crossing Wii U to sell consoles than Splatoon. Just like it would have been more likely for Streets of Rage IV to turn potential buyers heads for the Dreamcast than Jet Set Radio.

I still reckon that if Dreamcast had launched with a DVD player that gen would've played out differently.

I doubt it would have. Sega's games just didn't appeal to mainstream consumers back then. This is still evident today as when their franchises continued on much more successful platforms, they still didn't sell that well. Outside of Sonic, I can't even think of games from the old Sega line that broke a million copies.

EDIT - I believe only Virtua Fighter 4 and Shinobi got close to a million copies sold.

 

[hirokazu]

Sony's tactics downed Sega? I thought Sega's tactics downed Sega?

Yeah, I thought Sega was responsible for their own downfall.

 

[manzo]

always the bridesmaid never the bride

but one hell of a lay

That is actually one hell of an analogy.

 

[ResidentDante]

Sony's tactics downed Sega? I thought Sega's tactics downed Sega?

If you read the book: Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation, towards the end you see that Sony takes Sega's "rad" attitude and very direct and rude approach to marketing and ramps it up even further. Sony basically copied the way Sega had turned around the market with it's aggressive Mega Drive campaign in the US.

 

[scitek]

Yeah, I thought Sega was responsible for their own downfall.

There's a rumor that's been going around since 2000 that Sony threatened not to supply stores with PS2s if they didn't move Dreamcast merchandise to the back, and place Sony's up front. I don't know that it's ever been substantiated.

 

[illmatic22]

Sega screwed Sega. Sony helped make things worse, but SoJ is at fault. They were underappreciative of SoA, and their decision to have total control resulted in failures like 32X and The Saturn.

 

[c0de]

Sony's tactics downed Sega? I thought Sega's tactics downed Sega?

Not really. Well, too, yes. But in Germany, for example, Sega couldn't counter the massive marketing budget Sony spent in popularizing the PS brand. They just didn't have the money. There were of course also other things (higher launch price, less "popular" games and so on).

 

[erawsd]

I still reckon that if Dreamcast had launched with a DVD player that gen would've played out differently.

I dont know about that. Dreamcast launched in 1998, it would have sent the cost of the Dreamcast through the roof. Sega was already losing a ton of money on the hardware. Sony's advantage is that the tech had started to reach maturation By 2000 plus they were one of the companies developing it internally.

 

[Jotamide]

I shall pay my tributes by buying Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax this summer. Probably Sega's last localization for last gen consoles.

 

[The Sarcastic Dude]

Damn shame the Dreamcast went out the way it did. Man, what would the game industry be like if the DC succeeded?

 

[Man God]

Sega doomed Sega. Sony had the better console and sold it for less. Sega also passed up deals to partner with Sony on Playstation and with the company with the basic chipset for the N64.

 

[aygomyownroad]

always the bridesmaid never the bride

but one hell of a lay

Megadrive was the Bride in its day.

It was a great party, sad they made so many bad decisions. Especially the Saturn release and the quick turn around of crap add ons like 32X!

 

[LoveCake]

I remember picking up Gunstar Heroes in my local Toy's R Us & as soon as i started playing it i was O.O this is something else, another fave was Jungle Strike i loved the night time Stealth mission where the screen was completely black until you fired a weapon.

The Sega systems had some great games over the years i still have my Dreamcast & MegaDrive 2, i have a Satun as well.

I'm not sure what went wrong with Sega really, i think the MEGA CD & 32X caused issues with the userbase & maybe Sega would have been better to have just put those resources into the next console.

 

[ResidentDante]

I dont know about that. Dreamcast launched in 1998, it would have sent the cost of the Dreamcast through the roof. Sega was already losing a ton of money on the hardware. Sony's advantage is that the tech had started to reach maturation By 2000 plus they were one of the companies developing it internally.

This. It would have been so expensive to do it. Sega should have pushed the Genesis/Mega Drive one extra year without doing the 32X crap, then launched the Saturn as a more powerful console than the PS1. It would have put them in a easier spot for the Dreamcast and maybe launched it in 99/2000 with a DVD drive etc.

 

[Shpeshal Nick]

Please stop breaking my heart. Growing up a Sega fanboy, this shit still hurts. Fuck Sega were the best. By a fucking mile. They took risks, they went out of left field, they got wacky.

None of the big 3 today even dare go near the insanity Sega would sometimes try.

 

[A Black Falcon]

I dont know about that. Dreamcast launched in 1998, it would have sent the cost of the Dreamcast through the roof. Sega was already losing a ton of money on the hardware. Sony's advantage is that the tech had started to reach maturation By 2000 plus they were one of the companies developing it internally.

Sure, costs would have been higher, but they could have charged more ($300 instead of $200 in the US for sure, I would think), and it could have done more good for their sales than bad to their costs. Sega probably couldn't afford a DVD drive, they were running out of money, but if they could have, I think it'd have been a big plus for system sales. Early PS2 sales were really helped by the DVD drive after all.

This. It would have been so expensive to do it.

Expensive but worth the cost if Sega wasn't nearly out of money.

Sega should have pushed the Genesis/Mega Drive one extra year without doing the 32X crap, then launched the Saturn as a more powerful console than the PS1. It would have put them in a easier spot for the Dreamcast and maybe launched it in 99/2000 with a DVD drive etc.

The rest of this I entirely agree with. Can the 32X and you greatly improve Sega's situation, even with the Saturn as it is. Yeah, the Saturn was expensive, but the price came down eventually and Sega's idea that they need a "transition system" was critically flawed, the Genesis (and Sega CD) could have done just fine. A better Saturn would help things even more of course. Follow that up by not hiring Bernie Stolar and not abandoning the Saturn in mid '97 but instead pushing it until '99 even though sales were low and you might sell at least twice as many Saturns in the West, instead of watching sales drop to near-zero in early '97 right as PS1 and N64 sales started taking off. Also consider releasing another handheld -- not following up the GG was a mistake, I think, it let Nintendo dominate the handheld market. Bandai and SNK weren't able to do as well as Sega had against Nintendo, and after Pokemon the handheld market was larger than it had been in the mid '90s. If that mostly went well maybe Sega couldn't be quite as broke and wouldn't have had to rush out the Dreamcast probably too early and without a DVD drive.

They'd probably have still had to leave hardware eventually, though. Sega had too many problems, and took too many risky moves, to get everything right... and even if they HAD, their small size relative to the other first parties would REALLY have been a problem by the mid '00s. How could Sega have afforded to compete with the PS3 (and 360 if MS was in)?

 

[dragonyeuw]

'Somebody' would have gotten squeezed out eventually, but its fun to speculate the what ifs I guess. Suppose nintendo didn't bail on Sony in the 90s( or however it went) and playstation was nothing more than a SNES CD/ cart hybrid, would Sony have ever entered the market on their own? If Sega had not screwed themselves with all the mid 90s attachments and half-baked products between the Genesis and dreamcast( except the Saturn) and survived, would MS have entered the market? Like the Merovingian quipped 'cause and effect, I drank too much wine. Now I must take a piss.'

 

[Wiktor]

Dreamcast was like a nuclear bomb. It ended quickly, but dear God...before it did what a blast it was. So many incredible games.

 

[CrazedProfessional]

A great era ended by the Sega CD and 32X

 

[Shanlei91]

And now they focus on mobile gaming. What a trip.

 

[AkIRA_22]

A great era ended by the Sega CD and 32X

Nah man, the Saturn killed Sega, that and the marketing juggernaut that was the PS1.

 

[ash_ag]

Always found it a little funny that Sega released their 1st home system, the SG-1000, on exact same day as Nintendo's Famicom was released in Japan. On July 15, 1983.

Not a coincidence, but nothing sort of legendary. Video games history has a lot of fateful events like this that gave birth to year-long rivalries. For example, SFC/SNES's audio CPU was made by Sony -- and by none other than Ken Kutaragi. Years later, technology originally developed for SNES evolved into PlayStation, after the Nintendo / Sony fiasco. Not to mention Xbox starting out on Dreamcast's legacy.

 

[RAIDEN1]

The other points to add are that as I've mentioned before, had the 32x not happened in 1994, but the Saturn DID, with a backward compatibility cartridge slot for the existing Genesis owners to transition into 32 bit. Then Sega might have been onto something, even if it would have been expensive to implement they could have diverted some of their arcade revenue to making that a possibility...

The other what if scenario is had Sega merged with Bandai....what then?

And with regards to the DVD drive,, Sega were well aware of it, hell they even had a DVD add-on drive prototyped for the Dreamcast! Who knows if that DID come out would it have turned out to be more successful than the Mega CD?

But as other's have said Sega have no-one to blame but themselves...having said that they must be counting themselves very fortunate indeed to still be around post 2001....

 

[Captain Smoker]

I wonder who will win the total console length contest? Sony would have to go on 12 years after Nintendo stops making hardware.

If games were to go to a unified format (what 3DO tried) like Blu-Ray and Sony made a version would that still count?

I find it hard to believe that traditional consoles will exist in the next 15-20 years. I think streaming services, Android consoles and living room PC's will get to a point where they become the way to consume games.

Nintendo is longer in the business than the NES, they published their first console (the Color TV Game 6) in 1977, so it's more like 18 years.
Yamauchi was the first to get the Magnavox Odyssey licence back then, so it's basically the first japanese console (I suppose).

*Even longer if you wan't to count Arcade Light Gun Shooters, the Laser Clay Shooting System was released in 1973.

 

[thunder_snail]

I was a Sega fanboy when they still made consoles. My parents got me the MASTERsystem with one of those hacked cartridges that had multiples games in them. And then came the Genesis with Sonic which peaked with being able to COMBINE SONIC 3 WITH S&K (Still so fucking cool!). Sure SNES had its great fucking games but back than, I'd never admit it. When my friends had PS1 and N64, I begged my parents to get me Saturn. If NeoGAF existed back then, I'd've been banned for being a fucking fanboy. But it was great. Sega made the best arcade games but they just couldn't bring that experience to home consoles because of tech restrictions. I think this is the main reason SEGA died. RIP SEGA I will always love you...

Dreamcast was like a nuclear bomb. It ended quickly, but dear God...before it did what a blast it was. So many incredible games.

The wait for next Shenmue will out last any nuclear fallout. Please come back Yu!

 

[BocoDragon]

This does genuinely blow my mind.

I know Sony has now been in games since "forever"... but Sega seemed somehow more primal and important as a game developer... One of the founding fathers of gaming.

That they have been rendered as a mere footnote in gaming history is humbling.

 

[Captain Smoker]

This does genuinely blow my mind.

I know Sony has now been in games since "forever"... but Sega seemed somehow more primal and important as a game developer... One of the founding fathers of gaming.

That they have been rendered as a mere footnote in gaming history is humbling.

Yeah, it's unfortunate.

14 years have passed since the Dreamcast was discontinued. :/

 

[120v]

i still can't believe the amazingly stupid mistakes sega made in the mid-90s

 

[RAIDEN1]

Sega hardware: 1982 - 2001: RIP

Sega Software - Alive (barely)

 

[protomouse]

I wonder who will win the total console length contest? Sony would have to go on 12 years after Nintendo stops making hardware.

Sony's first console launched December 3, 1994
Nintendo's first console launched June 1, 1977

So that's 17 years and 6 months*

*It also depends on how you define "being in the console business", as Nintendo started out as a distributor of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1974.

 

[Hotsuma]

Please stop breaking my heart. Growing up a Sega fanboy, this shit still hurts. Fuck Sega were the best. By a fucking mile. They took risks, they went out of left field, they got wacky.

None of the big 3 today even dare go near the insanity Sega would sometimes try.

Amen.

 

[D.Lo]

That is a depressing stat.

Sega were a genuine games company who created consoles just to have a place to put their games.

There's plenty of good games on Sony consoles of course, but they're ultimately generic boxes made by an already global multimedia conglomerate largely created by the company as strategic move to try and get into the PC business and then later dominate the all-in-one home entertainment space (a dream which didn't really eventuate, but at immense expense they got a slice of console market anyway).

Oh well, not like I've finished all their games already or anything. Lots f things still new to me. I'm going to play some Mark III now.

Sony's first console launched December 3, 1994
Nintendo's first console launched June 1, 1977

So that's 17 years and 6 months*

*It also depends on how you define "being in the console business", as Nintendo started out as a distributor of the Magnavox Odyssey in 1974.

Was about to post this.

A corollary is this: Sony may spin off the Playstation business given the company's massive financial woes. That would technically be the end of 'Sony' in the console business too.

This does genuinely blow my mind.

I know Sony has now been in games since "forever"... but Sega seemed somehow more primal and important as a game developer... One of the founding fathers of gaming.

That they have been rendered as a mere footnote in gaming history is humbling.

My feelings as well. It's like an indictment on the corporatisation and commoditisation of the industry.

Not a coincidence, but nothing sort of legendary. Video games history has a lot of fateful events like this that gave birth to year-long rivalries. For example, SFC/SNES's audio CPU was made by Sony -- and by none other than Ken Kutaragi. Years later, technology originally developed for SNES evolved into PlayStation, after the Nintendo / Sony fiasco. Not to mention Xbox starting out on Dreamcast's legacy.

That's nowhere near as interesting as the Fami and SG1000 launching on the same day. It's a normal corporate story, basically just two big companies working with smaller companies as a way of getting into an industry, and later using their much bigger resources to go all-in themselves and eventually attempt to crush the existing smaller companies.

 

[Percy]

It's always curious to me how some people seem to attribute the majority of the blame for Sega crashing out of the hardware business to Sony, when they probably wouldn't even make the top 3 reasons why the Dreamcast failed.

Presumably it's easier to have a 'bad guy' to blame than to hold Sega accountable for their own mistakes or something, I dunno.

Though in fairness that's speaking as someone who never had any special attachment to Sega (And believes that Sega has done their best work since going software only.).

I still reckon that if Dreamcast had launched with a DVD player that gen would've played out differently.

Haha... you can't be serious. The Dreamcast was doomed before it ever released thanks to Sega's fuck ups with their prior two consoles and horrendous mismanagement across the board.

I've long been of the opinion that even had Sony never existed, nothing would have played out any differently for Sega.

 

[industrian]

This does genuinely blow my mind.

I know Sony has now been in games since "forever"... but Sega seemed somehow more primal and important as a game developer... One of the founding fathers of gaming.

That they have been rendered as a mere footnote in gaming history is humbling.

It could be worse.

 

[Diablohead]

Still have my dreamcast set up. It's a great console, good for fighting games although the controllers suck for it

My DC stays hooked up in the main room as my younger brother and nephew both love playing it, something charming about most of the DC games which was lost.

 

[Zalman]

I'm a fan of the Genesis/Mega Drive. I miss the days when the consoles actually felt different from each other. The Saturn and Dreamcast have never been my thing though, but I really respected Sega as a console maker back then. They were great.