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Sega seemed to hit its peak around early 1994, then WTF happened?

cireza

Banned
But if I remember correctly, the chip responsible for handling the transparency effect and the chip for rendering polygons were seperate.
This doesn't make sense. A chip responsible for applying transparency on objects necessarily has to be the one generating these objects as well as knowing what is behind them.

So in the case of the Saturn, you had two VDPs to display graphics. The first one deals with sprites and 3D, the second deals with backgrounds and planes.
Each can do transparency, however neither can apply transparency to what is being drawn by the other (Burning Rangers begin the exception because they used an elaborated trick, not going into details here).
This is why transparency is complicated on Saturn. Both VPDs support it though, without a doubt, and a lot of games actually have very convincing transparency effects.
 
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PJX

Member
Considering your tag is GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus, who knew you'd defend Saturn to the bone.

You're going by 1997 comparisons? What happened to 1994, 1995, and 1996? By 1997, Saturn was already on deaths door knocking.

You can back up Saturn all you want, but it was a lousy system. Overpriced, the game library was laughable compared to PS1 (unless someone is a big Sega arcade gamer), and the games were outright better on PS1. The system was also smaller to boot for gamers who dont want giant Saturns in their TV stand.

You're probably the only guy on Earth who thinks Saturn and PS1 are "practically wins".
You're a clown if you believe this bullshit you are spouting.
 

Lysandros

Member
You couldn't do the PS1 transparencies the same on the Saturn. The hardware just couldn't do it. Even with certain hacks that games tried to use to get transparencies, it was just never going to be the same. That's just a hardware limitation.
Not only transparencies though, Saturn wasn't quite at the same level at lighting especially, pure geometry throughput & transform. The machine didn't have anything akin to PlayStation's GTE (Geometry Transform Engine) coprocessor after all. Multiplatform 3D games tended to have less details/geometry alongside worse frame rate on Saturn. Transparency problem was just a facet.
 
hey now: the Dreamcast days were craaaaazy. As a life-long Sega fan, I couldn't have been more happy back then.

The DC was bringing me arcade games upgraded.

In the first year of ownership I played Soul Calibur and Shenmue. I could have died a happy gamer.

And the Saturn days were good too, unless you were focused on some PS-only games. But even then, the first years were fine: you had basically every big release, together with the Saturn-only games (which are a lot, and many are even better than counterparts).

About the 3D capabilities: the Saturn was notoriously harder to code for, but it could do almost everything, or everything in a different way with similar results (including transparencies: see Nights and Team Andromeda's games).

And many games were way higher res than comparable games on PS1, like Virtua Fighter 2 (at 60 fps too).
 
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Lysandros

Member
hey now: the Dreamcast days were craaaaazy. As a life-long Sega fan, I couldn't have been more happy back then.

The DC was bringing me arcade games upgraded.

In the first year of ownership I played Soul Calibur and Shenmue. I could have died a happy gamer.

And the Saturn days were good too, unless you were focused on some PS-only games. But even then, the first years were fine: you had basically every big release, together with the Saturn-only games (which are a lot, and many are even better than counterparts).

About the 3D capabilities: the Saturn was notoriously harder to code for, but it could do almost everything, or everything in a different way with similar results (including transparencies: see Nights and Team Andromeda's games).

And many games were way higher res than comparable games on PS1, like Virtua Fighter 2 (at 60 fps too).
Are you really saying that Saturn was PS1's equal as to 3D capabilities, effects, transparencies, lighting, geometry etc?.. Were you around at the time playing games on both systems? Did you read developer comments stating overwhelmingly otherwise in gaming magazines of the time? As to 3D/60 FPS fighting games, did you see Tobal no 2 running?.. Saturn couldn't possibly output anything close to it. A machine's higher difficulty of programming doesn't automatically makes it his competitor's equal, PS3/X360 example doesn't apply to everything. Now, i liked the Saturn and spend a fair amount of time playing 2D fighting games like King of Fighters on it with friends. That was the best platform for those kind of games because the RAM pack allowed for more sprites/animation frames to be rendered essentially and the pad was really well suited for the occasion.
 
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For many games, I dont think the core visuals were even improved. All they did was add some FMV clips and better sound like voiceovers and better music (NHL 94). The rest of the game seemed the exact same.
From what I read in mags, saw in stores, and watched clips on the net, Sega CD games were great if a gamer loved FMV (which was the craze at the time), and highly valued CD audio. If not, dont bother. The core visuals in gameplay barely looked better and the loading times could be crippling. It has a scaling effect feature, but no better than what SNES could do. So it was an easy pass for me.
Nobody outside a few luminaries and Sega's marketing ever really liked fmv games, this is why they disappeared so fast.

As for the scaling compared to the SNES, the sega cd does a different thing... The SNES does 1 background layer manipulations really well at a solid 60fps, the sega cd can scale sprites, a lot of them, but the framerate suffers if they use too much of it, still that was pretty impressive at the time and the games that take advantage of the system's capabilities (CD audio, extra memory, scaling and better sound chip) made owning the system worthwhile for those who got caught in the initial buzz.

Still, if Sega were a bit more thoughtful and took time to do a brand new enhanced port of Golden Axe for the bundle instead of dumping 3 cart games on a disk and had put less emphasis on fmv that machine could have had a reputation as good as the turbo-grafx cd does now.
 

nush

Gold Member
Still, if Sega were a bit more thoughtful and took time to do a brand new enhanced port of Golden Axe

If they had used the Mega CD as designed a competitor to the PC Engine CDrom it would have been a great add-on. But no, Sega had to sell it in America as if it was a whole new system and then fill the library with FMV games when the base Megadrive could only output 64 colours, the one thing the Mega CD didn't improve on the palette.

Final Fight CD was awesome though, what could have been. :messenger_crying:
 

dcx4610

Member
Simple answer - They ran out of money.

It was a shame because I loved my Genesis as kid and supported them every step of the way with the Sega CD, 32X and Saturn. After the Genesis, I was disappointed every single time and went back to whatever Nintendo had at the time. When the Dreamcast came out, I didn't even bother but ironically, it was when Sega finally nailed it and didn't disappoint. It was a great system and at the time, I remember thinking it was the very first console to actually have a uncompromised 1:1 port from an arcade game (a better actually) in Soulcalibur. I appreciated what they were doing but I wasn't into any of the launch games. Soon after, Sega died and that was that. I did end up getting a Dreamcast afterwards and enjoyed it.

I'll forever have fond memories of Sega in the Genesis days but it always felt like they were playing catch up to Nintendo after the SNES came out. When you release TWO hardware add-ons (CD/32X) and it still doesn't beat the SNES's quality of games, sound and graphics, something is wrong.
 
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Are you really saying that Saturn was PS1's equal as to 3D capabilities, effects, transparencies, lighting, geometry etc?.. Were you around at the time playing games on both systems? Did you read developer comments stating overwhelmingly otherwise in gaming magazines of the time? As to 3D/60 FPS fighting games, did you see Tobal no 2 running?.. Saturn couldn't possibly output anything close to it. A machine's higher difficulty of programming doesn't automatically makes it his competitor's equal, PS3/X360 example doesn't apply to everything. Now, i liked the Saturn and spend a fair amount of time playing 2D fighting games like King of Fighters on it with friends. That was the best platform for those kind of games because the RAM pack allowed for more sprites/animation frames to be rendered essentially and the pad was really well suited for the occasion.
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that in some games it showed it could do similar things. PS1 3D capabilities were definitely superior, and it was designed to be like that.

Dismissing Saturn's 3D prowess though is just unfair to the machine. And yes, I was around, and I wasn't that young either xD

Late PS1 games were obvioulsy undoable on Saturn hardware. But still, it produced great results even in 3D.
 
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Lysandros

Member
No, I'm not saying that. I'm saying that in some games it showed it could do similar things. PS1 3D capabilities were definitely superior, and it was designed to be like that.

Dismissing Saturn's 3D prowess though is just unfair to the machine. And yes, I was around, and I wasn't that young either xD

Late PS1 games were obvioulsy undoable on Saturn hardware. But still, it produced great results even in 3D.
A slight misunderstanding then friend, sorry about that. Saturn had certainly unique strengths, as i said i quite liked the machine.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Nah, Saturn was almost all SoJ's mistake. The reactionary changes were all primarily implemented by SoJ with little disregard to developer complaints.

You are right that they were not thinking much ahead or planning long-term in 1992. it's funny how 3Do, some new guy on the block had a better understanding of where things were going than Sega initially. Same with NEC, which thought FMV and clean 2D IQ was the future.
3DO's main problem was its price...otherwise as 32 bit systems go for 1993 it was king of the hill (in terms of what it could do) up until Sega and Sony were ready to join the party
 

cireza

Banned
Late PS1 games were obvioulsy undoable on Saturn hardware.
This is impossible to tell really. We can really only compare what was released during the same time-frame, and where the ambition was pretty much the same on games being compared.

PS1 certainly had very impressive games in 1999 etc... But Dreamcast had been out for an entire year, so there isn't anything to compare on the Saturn anyway. No doubt developers would have pushed more and got more out of the system. Because this has always been the case for complicated systems, and it happened with PS2 and PS3 exactly in the same way, for example.

I still hope that we will get to see Virtua Fighter 3 on Saturn one day.
 
I would estimate their last chance was after playstation was taking the lead. The sould have figured out how to position the Saturn because they kept acting like they were toe to toe with sony.

Sega should have gone hard on localizing more games. And they could have had some greatest hits kind of pricing for all those short ass arcade ports. They should have been plotting and scheming how to do 3d sonic 24hrs a day.

So many things. After a year of Saturn, the 32x was behind them and it was clear that sony and nintendo were elbowing them out. That time window was their last chance to get a bunch of games out and make the Saturn at least go the distance and be notable for a library of unique games and a third-place than at least was supported through the generation.

By the time the Dreamcast came out, their reputation was ruined and I don't think they could have turned it around that late in the game.
A year after the Saturn Sega was in a money pit with losses in every part of the company or at least shrinking revenue. Both of which were bad.

Also, they should have reformatted the Saturn as an arcade system, cut the price, not charged up to $40 for 80's arcade ports (wtf were you thinking Sega?) and just coast on those releases. Don't compete with Sony directly, they could have sold at least 4 or 5 million in the US just based off that, espcially if they ran it two years after the DC launched, which with 5 million in Japan and maybe with this strategy 2 million in Europe, and whatever else in other areas, it would have been a profitable, machine. Maybe not much profit but profitable.

The 32x may have been "smart" enough to work for a couple of months, but as soon as the Saturn showed up, or was even close to show up it did not make any sense....
The market didn't care about that based on how fast the 32X was selling. You're projecting a personal subjective opinion and ignoring the marketplace.
I had a Sega CD within weeks of its launch, here is a list of the launch titles.

U.S. launch: October 15, 1992

  • Black Hole Assault
  • Chuck Rock
  • Cobra Command
  • INXS: Make My Video
  • Marky Mark: Make My Video
  • Night Trap
  • Sega Classics 4-in-1
  • Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
  • Sol-Feace
  • Sewer Shark

Sega CD released with 60% FMV games day 1
Which doesn't refute what I'm saying, the amount of non-FMV games on the Sega CD decreased more and more over time which was my point. Sega saw FMV was more lucrative initially and though it was a better investment long term (t wasn't) yet ignored the fact that their video and graphic output on the Sega CD was pretty much outdated day one and only appealed as a novelty to Genesis owners.

In reality Sega didn't give a compelling reason to own one in either case, that's why even MK and Sonic could barely sell units when both series were selling millions.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
The 32x may have been "smart" enough to work for a couple of months, but as soon as the Saturn showed up, or was even close to show up it did not make any sense.... Don't take this the wrong way, I really like some games on it, but there is no actual benefit to its presence and it caused confusion (what ANOTHER sega 32-bit machine).

Also, these things were less reliable than any piece of electronics I have ever seen.

This is not a myth, I was there.

I had a Sega CD within weeks of its launch, here is a list of the launch titles.

U.S. launch: October 15, 1992

  • Black Hole Assault
  • Chuck Rock
  • Cobra Command
  • INXS: Make My Video
  • Marky Mark: Make My Video
  • Night Trap
  • Sega Classics 4-in-1
  • Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
  • Sol-Feace
  • Sewer Shark

Sega CD released with 60% FMV games day 1 (Sherlock Holmes, Sol Feace and the Classics 4 in 1) then all packages always had some sort of FMV game in them.

Now, as for the mood regarding this system, well the fact that it shipped with 6 extremely boring FMV games + 4 glorified cart games truly did not help its image. People noticed, it was a pretty hard sell after that, it took a while for the Sega CD to outgrow this stench (with Sonic CD, Final Fight CD, the driving in Batman, Silpheed, the Lunar games, and a few other titles that showed off what this system really could do). If anything there must have been a lot less FMV game after the first year or so, because few ever got ported or made for subsequent consoles like the 3D0, PSX and Saturn, even if they had access to much better color palettes.

Again, the vision that the Sega CD was an FMV machine partly killed it, Sega invested millions in a studio to make these high budget games too, such a waste or time and talent, these people at Sega of America killed their business.
Phenomenal launch titles.

Great selection if you were going after a career as a video editor.
 
The Saturn and 32X happened. Bigger issue being the Saturn because Sega barely supported the 32X. Sega soured retailers with the Saturn launch shenanigans and the Saturn was challenging to develop for making food usage of it's power an issue. Devs were also not as interested in the Ultra 64(N64) because it didn't use CDs and was delayed a year leaving them with the PS1 as the sweet spot console. No prior drama to deal with and easier to develop 3D games for than the Saturn.

Imo the Saturn was a great machine, I would have loved to see an alternate universe where Sony doesn't enter gaming to see how things shake out with the Saturn, N64, Atari Jaguar and the 3DO.
3DO would just take PSX's place, and the 3DO/Panasonic/Goldstar/Sanyo combo would just use a similar strategy as the PSX, with the M2 being the equal to the PS2, 2 or 3 years early. Sony basically just took the 3DO company strategy with 5x the funding and 5x the marketing muscle. The third party first approach, the open access to the system, ease of license, ease of production, slow build of first party with early stuff being exclusive third-party partnerships, etc.

Saturn would be in a worse position because they wouldn't have Sony to react to, Sega wouldn't know about the 3DO performance until it launched in Japan from all evidence that's out there, they only knew about Jaguar and then Sony. Sega knew of the 3DO company and the tech and there was supposedly some talk as to whether Sega should buy the tech, or to be one of the console manufactures, but they themselves did not see the 3DO perform until it launched in Japan a year after the US launch and iirc months after the Euro and Korean launch. This means that the jaguar would have been the only thing Sega reacted too.

Which would have Sega with a weaker console overall when the consumer base was getting more and more excited for 3D, and the N64 delay was always going to happen. The Jaguar fumbled out the gate, lied, made bad promises, there were droughts, people waiting for production to pick up for stores to carry games, 3DO $500 with one controller and no game, and $700 gamer pack outsold Jaguar near 2:1, and then at $400-$600 3L1. That's how you fuck up an advantage.

Atari had the price, the ads, the press, the bullshots, the tech demos, the events with the booths months before 3DO did, Sega acted as they did for a reason, but then they delayed the launch and had a test launch in 1993 instead, giving that year to 3DO, then they finally launched proper in 1994, with all the above problems and more despite having months more time to prepare. I mean Atari was estimated to sell 500k in the first few months in 1993, all the analysis and experts all ran for the hills and vanished by the 1994 nationwide launch, that whole console was a disaster. but it could have recovered but like Sega, Atari decided to chase the competitors in special effects, texture mapping, and other technical categories the had the advantage in which resulted in a lot of money losses which mean that Atari could not produce enough Jaguars for demand (yes there was demand) and could not produce enough games to meet demand, which is why Alien Vs. Predators massive success in selling out what it was producing was pointless because there wasn't enough money to mass produce the game or the console meaning that Atari basically SCREWED THEMSELVES from being able to take advantage of a popular game to increase console adoption because they couldn't produce either. They actually LOCKED themselves to failure with their mistakes it was an amazing thing to witness.

It has a scaling effect feature, but no better than what SNES could do. So it was an easy pass for me.

It was a bit better than the SNES because you could tilt with the scaling and there was some though limited verticality. But like 2 games ever really did that.

Biggest issue is that FMV only worked for Genesis owners or console only owners who weren't keeping track of gaming tech up front, that died when other platforms put out better graphics and video, and actually used the space for non-fmv game improvement, where as most non-fmv Sega CD games were like those lazy Amiga developers that moved from Amiga 500 to CD and just added a CD audio OST and a slightly higher color palette and called it a day.

The honest truth is that PSX and Saturn are the most evenly matched consoles in the history of the medium.

That's a bold claim but I think that's a bit of a stretch.

I disagree. As you said, the bare minimum was running model 1 games and these games were inferior (in graphics) to what the PS1 was capable. Sega tried to showhorn 3D capabilities into the Saturn but it never really was enough to compete with the PS1. The playstation was from the ground up designed to be a 3D console and that shows. Sure, by todays standards, games on both consoles look dated, but back then there was definitly a gap between the two systems. Stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Gran Turismo and the like would have never been possible on the Saturn. The Sega machine was amazing for 2D games and I think it even got a 4MB ram expansion which futher enhanced its 2D power, but at that time, people wanted everything BUT 2D games.

To add to this, the programming of the saturn was a absolute horror, if you wanted to squeeze out 3D performance. I found this video a few years ago and I was floored by how hecking hard it has been to get shit running on the saturn:



Compare this programming nightmare with the straightforward 1CPU approach of the playstation and you can understand why devs were not particulary fond of working with the saturn.

I think you may have tagged me incorrectly, because you say you disagree but then don't really show any disagreement unless Im missing something you were addressing.

3DO's main problem was its price...otherwise as 32 bit systems go for 1993 it was king of the hill (in terms of what it could do) up until Sega and Sony were ready to join the party
yeah but they dealt with that relatively quickly though it would help if they could have his $300 a bit earlier. Even then, with Sony and Saturn, they both, mostly Sony were basically running their early dats off shared 3Do games, and some 3DO games actually ran better than the other two, some which were curiosities such as Star Fighter. So 3Do still had press there, they needed to be $50 below PSX when it came out though, or at least with two free games. They did do both later, and it did pick up sales, but then they had to cut again after PSX had it's fairly quick first price cut, and they bleed themselves to death financially, which got them to can the M2.

This is impossible to tell really.

It's certain that Crash 3 and R4Type4 couldn't be done on the Saturn since both used some creative tricks and shortcuts of the PS1 environment to pull off what they did.

It's the same reason you wouldn't be able to see Saturn VC2 on PS1. However, the difference is that unlike VC2, Crash 3 and R4Type4 push a higher graphical fidelity out the PS1 than VC2 does on SAT.
 
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Are you really saying that Saturn was PS1's equal as to 3D capabilities, effects, transparencies, lighting, geometry etc?.. Were you around at the time playing games on both systems? Did you read developer comments stating overwhelmingly otherwise in gaming magazines of the time? As to 3D/60 FPS fighting games, did you see Tobal no 2 running?.. Saturn couldn't possibly output anything close to it. A machine's higher difficulty of programming doesn't automatically makes it his competitor's equal, PS3/X360 example doesn't apply to everything. Now, i liked the Saturn and spend a fair amount of time playing 2D fighting games like King of Fighters on it with friends. That was the best platform for those kind of games because the RAM pack allowed for more sprites/animation frames to be rendered essentially and the pad was really well suited for the occasion.
Two things.
1. Tobal No.2 isn't really a good example of anything, have you seen the backgrounds and character models? It's running smooth for a reason.
2. PS3/360 were not even. Broader games and open-world games would always be at the highest graphical fidelity on the 360 while Linear/scripted games and narrow titles would always look better on the PS3. Since most games weren't hall ways, that made the 360's multiplat adventure lopsided in its favor for years.

Both have exceptions but those exceptions are due to how the games are coded and not the hardware.

Nobody outside a few luminaries and Sega's marketing ever really liked fmv games, this is why they disappeared so fast.
FMV games were around from 1983 to 1998, what do you mean "fast? Even the 90's pick up wave was 1990-1998. Capcom helped fund/publish Fox Hunt for a reason.

FMV wasn't a fad, just people want to imagine they were, because they only played some bad shooter games like Mad Dog, or Sewer shark, or Johnny mnemonic.

It was a perfect trifecta. I think people are underplaying the downfall/crash of the Arcade industry.
Sega was in the hole before Arcades were a factor, arcades really hit against the right before Model 3 came out and then started declining after, Sega expedited their fall though when that model 3 gamble didn't pay off, Where as Namco and Midway played it smarter.
 
FMV games were around from 1983 to 1998, what do you mean "fast? Even the 90's pick up wave was 1990-1998. Capcom helped fund/publish Fox Hunt for a reason.

FMV wasn't a fad, just people want to imagine they were, because they only played some bad shooter games like Mad Dog, or Sewer shark, or Johnny mnemonic.
I'm not sure what you imply here, the only one I can think of as being memorable is that one with the knight and dragons... Even then, nobody thought that was a classic (other than for the quality of its visuals).

2D games did not stop when 3D came around
3D FPS did not stop when third person came along

Even less interactive game types like point and click adventures did not go for video.

Capcom may have been fooled into making one, it does not mean that the genre made sense.
 

Daniel Thomas MacInnes

GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Sega's problems were numerous in the early and mid-90's. However, I still maintain the singular thing that brought everything down was the decision to launch the Saturn in 1994 head-on versus the Playstation. The problem ultimately was Sony the corporation was too well-resourced and too well-branded, and Sega could only compete effectively if they had some edge that was readily apparent.

What Sega could have done was try to 'get around' the problem of Sony the corporation by committing to launching the Saturn later with clearly superior technology. Imagine if the Sega Saturn launched in Christmas 1996 for $300 with graphics that were a bit better than the N64, the ability to play either CD or cartridge-based games, and with about a dozen high-quality launch games (because Sega would have had more time to develop the launch lineup).

Instantly Sega has an edge, the gaming press is positive towards Sega, and Sega the company believes in the system.

Gamers like to imagine scenarios where Sega could launch a more powerful console in 1995-96, particularly something superior to N64, but the simple truth is that unless they had a hardware partner willing to bear heavy costs, such a move would simply be impossible. Ultimately, you need a box that you can sell for $200 without bankrupting the company. That’s what killed Sega.

At the end of the day, Saturn cost $300 to build and its complex architecture and off-shelf components meant that price would never come down. Once Nintendo 64 launched at $200 and Sony followed in kind (they could afford to take large losses on PSX), Sega was dead.

This is why Sega America was so desperate to make a partnership with Matsushita and the 3DO M2 console. They essentially were looking to get out of the hardware business and handle software, but still have an exclusive branded system with their name on it. The deal fell through because 1) Matsushita wanted to license M2 to multiple companies (Sega wanted exclusivity) and 2) they just weren’t that interested in videogames. They saw no need to invade the living room, whereas Sony and Microsoft had grand long-term plans where games were really the Trojan horse.

By 1995, it should have been obvious that the future of videogames would be a Sony-Microsoft world, and the only way Sega or Nintendo could survive was through blockbuster software hits. Nintendo had those hits*. Sega did not.


(* P.S. Can we be honest and admit that Pokémon saved Nintendo’s bacon? If it weren’t for that monstrously successful franchise, Big N would have never survived the GameCube era.)
 
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Fatnick

Member
I'd say, if you want to distill it down to one single moment...

Sega were doomed the second both they and Namco partnered with companies from the simulator industry to bring fancy, texture-mapped visuals to their arcade games 😁

(Either that or, ironically, them releasing the original Virtua Fighter)
 
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If they had used the Mega CD as designed a competitor to the PC Engine CDrom it would have been a great add-on. But no, Sega had to sell it in America as if it was a whole new system and then fill the library with FMV games when the base Megadrive could only output 64 colours, the one thing the Mega CD didn't improve on the palette.

Final Fight CD was awesome though, what could have been. :messenger_crying:

What could have been is now reality.

 
And this is the reason why the "this console can't do this game argument" is utterly pointless.
Not really, consumers have expectations and so do professionals, and if one devices can't meet certain minimum expectations and the other can, that creates a problem.

You are looking at it as "both can do things the others can't do" instead of "one of the two that can do what the other can't do actually alligns with expectations and produces objective improvements the other does not meet with what it can do better"/
 

Chronicle

Member
Not sure really. My guess is Sony but I gave question for y'all:

Are Dreamcast owners just butthurt or was it really that good? I'm leaning on butthurt.
 
Gamers like to imagine scenarios where Sega could launch a more powerful console in 1995-96, particularly something superior to N64, but the simple truth is that unless they had a hardware partner willing to bear heavy costs, such a move would simply be impossible. Ultimately, you need a box that you can sell for $200 without bankrupting the company. That’s what killed Sega.

At the end of the day, Saturn cost $300 to build and its complex architecture and off-shelf components meant that price would never come down. Once Nintendo 64 launched at $200 and Sony followed in kind (they could afford to take large losses on PSX), Sega was dead.

This is why Sega America was so desperate to make a partnership with Matsushita and the 3DO M2 console. They essentially were looking to get out of the hardware business and handle software, but still have an exclusive branded system with their name on it. The deal fell through because 1) Matsushita wanted to license M2 to multiple companies (Sega wanted exclusivity) and 2) they just weren’t that interested in videogames. They saw no need to invade the living room, whereas Sony and Microsoft had grand long-term plans where games were really the Trojan horse.

By 1995, it should have been obvious that the future of videogames would be a Sony-Microsoft world, and the only way Sega or Nintendo could survive was through blockbuster software hits. Nintendo had those hits*. Sega did not.


(* P.S. Can we be honest and admit that Pokémon saved Nintendo’s bacon? If it weren’t for that monstrously successful franchise, Big N would have never survived the GameCube era.)

$300 as Sony showed, but Sega hesitated then, and when they finally did it and met that price they screwed themselves over.

Also the 3DO wanted to license to multiple companies, not Panasonic though they went with it, however Sega still could have went to other companies to manufacture a console in a partnership. After all 3DO wasn't the first to come up with that Idea in gaming, only how they did it was unique, Hudson/NEC is an older example, as the TG16/PC engine was basically Hudsons console and NEC was the hardware maker despite the fact Hudson helped on the hardware and was also partially a hardware company. By doing so Hudson saved on costs, NECs mistakes would almost all be on them, and Hudson made money on each Hucard sold AND produced.

Sega had already put a hole in their profitable success in the Genesis before the Saturn was released in Japan and the company heading a bad direction, such a move if succeeded with any company, assuming the console was somewhat capable, would have benefitted Sega immensely from the problems that would pile up and crush them later.

It was basically essential to stay in the business after 1993 to partner with someone. Hell, Atari didn't even produce the Jaguar IBM did, half their chipset was outsourced, and their Dev kits were made by a third party development studio for the 3D capabilities of the console. 3DO had 3 manufacturing companies make their consoles, PCFX was a failure but still continued the TG16 strategy, the Apple Pippin was partnered with Bandai, Nintendo although different from the others, did outsource it's graphics capabilities for the N64.

Really of any relevant/semi-relevant company of the time, Sony and Commodore were the only ones really going deep with in-house stuff, and the latter had no money to do it, which still makes me scratch my head why they did it till this day. But Sony did have the money, and while certain things were outsourced, much of the N64 was from Nintendo's design, who had accumulated a good deal of wealth in the last 9 years then.

So most people were partnering to get machines out that didn't have deep pockets or a war chest. Sega in Arcades with their expensive Model systems, especially the pointless model 3 gamble, did this to an extent, so the fact they refused to do it with their failed experiments or their consoles/portables is quite interesting.

if Xbox showed anything when it first came in, it was no one without at least $1 billion to lose was getting in if they wanted to be competitive themselves directly. Bare minimum $500 million. Of course that was after 1995 so not sure where you got that from.

Even less interactive game types like point and click adventures did not go for video.
yes they did, many of them, this is more about your ignorance if anything about the amount of FMV games released. There were a lot of them for years, they were not short-lived or a fad, that's just what some people want to believe.

I'd say, if you want to distill it down to one single moment...

Sega were doomed the second both they and Namco partnered with companies from the simulator industry to bring fancy, texture-mapped visuals to their arcade games 😁

(Either that or, ironically, them releasing the original Virtua Fighter)

What's funny about this is midway was cleaning up with still great looking games with texture mapping that was beyond 99% of the arcade industry outside Sega and Namco, even Atari games did. They all did it at a decent price and attracting as much or more coin goers than the other two. I think that Model 1 would have been fine fo Sega if they supported it longer than they did before putting out the Model 2.

Model 1-3 all came out rather close together, and they were all increasing in suspense, and were becoming a financial issue for Sega, Model 3 was quite a gamble for "long-term" Arcade viability that didn't happen. Those games were 100% impressive....for not even a full year before some of those elements were being met by other arcade games and PC? And then surpassed a year after that?
 

nush

Gold Member
yes they did, many of them, this is more about your ignorance if anything about the amount of FMV games released. There were a lot of them for years, they were not short-lived or a fad, that's just what some people want to believe.

There have been a lot if you count all formats right from the start of gaming, but it's an indicator of gamings Hollywood envy and a technical short cut to "reality". They were never successful but developers kept on trying. It's still even then a minority genre.

It peaked and I don't see anyone else interested in trying.

 
There have been a lot if you count all formats right from the start of gaming, but it's an indicator of gamings Hollywood envy and a technical short cut to "reality". They were never successful but developers kept on trying. It's still even then a minority genre.

It peaked and I don't see anyone else interested in trying.

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Again, this is more about ignorance than really saying anything. FMV games sold truck loads, many of them made profits, several of them got sequels. FMV games helped computers push for CD drive sales.

Your bottom example is strange, because no ones saying that they are viable NOW or in modern gaming, but they were viable up until late 90's. There were many of them on consoles, and a lot of them on PC specifically out of the computers.

7th guest sold over 2 million copies. Phantasmagoria sold over 1, Corpse Killer sold over 2, D sold around a million, Under a killing moon did around 500k, SW rebel assault 1.5 million, Wing Commander 3 700k-800k, SWAT 1 sold over a million, Iron helix 500k, Blade Runner over a million just off the top of my head and etc. etc.
 
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yes they did, many of them, this is more about your ignorance if anything about the amount of FMV games released. There were a lot of them for years, they were not short-lived or a fad, that's just what some people want to believe.
Enlighten me, because neither me nor any of my gaming friends, or anyone who I ever came across ever brought these FMV based games up as something they miss from yester years of gaming.

I mean, maybe you are part of some enlightened group of gamers who are the connoisseurs of FMV games and we all missed the boat somehow?
7th guest sold over 2 million copies. Phantasmagoria sold over 1, Corpse Killer sold over 2, D sold around a million, Under a killing moon did around 500k, SW rebel assault 1.5 million, Wing Commander 3 700k-800k, SWAT 1 sold over a million, Iron helix 500k, Blade Runner over a million just off the top of my head and etc. etc.
If these are FMV games, Mortal Kombat and FF VII are "FMV" games too...

Wing Commander is the most egregious game to include in this list, this is a space simulator with an elaborate scenario, but like the others the game is not FMV. FMV is used for cut scenes, that has never been a problem (unless you can't skip the cut scenes).
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Maybe Rebel Assault could be considered FMV based as the video is always playing during gameplay and it's an intricate part of it (the interaction is a bit limited too).

This is not about saying these games never sold, but games where video was the core of the gameplay was a short lived fad.
 

nush

Gold Member
7th guest sold over 2 million copies. Phantasmagoria sold over 1, Corpse Killer sold over 2, D sold around a million, Under a killing moon did around 500k, SW rebel assault 1.5 million, Wing Commander 3 700k-800k, SWAT 1 sold over a million, Iron helix 500k, Blade Runner over a million just off the top of my head and etc. etc.

I notice they are just the oldest games that have been ported to multiple systems and people brought them to show off their new PC-CD Rom drives capabilities. alabtrosMyster alabtrosMyster has already called you out for fluffing up the list with a game that used FMV sequences. You clearly don't know what you are talking about with FMV games and just verbosely make stuff up and pass it off as fact.

They were a hot fad for devices with CD Drives and were easy to post to everything just to fill up the disc space. They are a mere unloved footnote in gaming but I'd still expect Dragons lair to be ported again to future systems past the Switch and PS4.
 

cireza

Banned
Not really, consumers have expectations and so do professionals, and if one devices can't meet certain minimum expectations and the other can, that creates a problem.

You are looking at it as "both can do things the others can't do" instead of "one of the two that can do what the other can't do actually alligns with expectations and produces objective improvements the other does not meet with what it can do better"/
Except that this situation dis not exist. Not to the extent your are implying. Both consoles were very capable and could run the same games during the same period. So nothing has been demonstrated about this in the end.
 

Fatnick

Member
At the end of the day, Saturn cost $300 to build and its complex architecture and off-shelf components meant that price would never come down. Once Nintendo 64 launched at $200 and Sony followed in kind (they could afford to take large losses on PSX), Sega was dead.
To be fair the cost of building the Saturn most certainly did come down over the console's life (eg by 1997 Hitachi were able to shrink both SH-2s into a single package), but you're write - it was the price war that did it for Sega. Even if a 1997 was 66% cheaper to produce than the original model, they'd still take a loss on the $99 price tag required by the market beyond 1998.
What's funny about this is midway was cleaning up with still great looking games with texture mapping that was beyond 99% of the arcade industry outside Sega and Namco, even Atari games did. They all did it at a decent price and attracting as much or more coin goers than the other two. I think that Model 1 would have been fine fo Sega if they supported it longer than they did before putting out the Model 2.

Model 1-3 all came out rather close together, and they were all increasing in suspense, and were becoming a financial issue for Sega, Model 3 was quite a gamble for "long-term" Arcade viability that didn't happen. Those games were 100% impressive....for not even a full year before some of those elements were being met by other arcade games and PC? And then surpassed a year after that?

I think Midway's time table is a good example of where Namco and Sega would have been without outside help. Had No one seen Ridge Racer/Daytona and the PlayStation and Saturn launched in mid 1994 as System 32-comparable machines with a load of cool games with huge rotated sprites and some solid (if unspectacular ports) of those Model 1 games, we'd have all been happy i think. If Crusin' USA, Daytona and Ridge Racer had turned up and shown us the future a few months later, I don't think we'd have felt hard done by as that's how the industry had worked up until this point.

I'm not sure it works so well when you look from an arcade perspective, mind you. Having worked so hard to displace Namco as lords of the 3d space, it would have been weird to just rest on their laurels and risk Namco coming out with something game changing (just imaging if Daytona had appeared in 1993 as a slightly overclocked/improved Model 1 game with flat polys etc and Ridge Racer was the same!) not to mention that Sega's Model 2/3 games were the basis for a number of their mid size theme park attractions too (I know we treat Sega World/Joypolis as a sort of amusing side show these days, but in the mid 90s it was definitely a much larger part of the equation)

Wing Commander is the most egregious game to include in this list, this is a space simulator with an elaborate scenario, but like the others the game is not FMV. FMV is used for cut scenes, that has never been a problem (unless you can't skip the cut scenes).

As i think the C&VG review demonstrates, I think people at the time thought it as a fancy movie with a space sim attached rather than visa-versa. That's definitely how i took it when i bought it for a fiver a couple of years after it came out :messenger_beaming:

gLao4l7.jpg
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pramod

Banned
Yeah when I think about it and looking back, it really was all about the disastrous launch of the Saturn in the USA.

1. The high price
2. Releasing a bunch of poor looking 3D games, making it look like a much weaker console than the Playstation.
3. Horrible marketing.
4. Pissing off retailers with the "surprise" launch.

I mean, it was arguably the worst launch of any major console in history, perhaps tied by only the XBone launch.

The hardware design was also inherently flawed and wasn't great in 3D. Which always puzzled me since Sega were masters of 3D in the arcades, but somehow that expertise failed to translate over to the home side. Maybe this was another sign that Sega was a dysfunctional company.
But I think Sega could have tried to "hide" the Saturn's deficiencies by not focusing so much on 3D games on the Saturn, at least in the beginning.
But in the end, every aspect of how Sega of America handled the Saturn...was a disaster. There was no recovering from that.

People keep saying that the Sega CD and 32X is what doomed Sega, but the Sega CD actually sold well enough, I mean compared to what the Turbografx CD sold...the Sega CD should be considered a resounding success.
And even the 32X wasn't the huge failure people say it is. Sure, it's a stopgap add on with barely any decent games, but I don't think Sega lost money on the 32X, in fact I think it sold much more than people expected. It was marketed to help the Genesis compete with the more advanced SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, not with the Playstation.
 
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pramod

Banned
I disagree. As you said, the bare minimum was running model 1 games and these games were inferior (in graphics) to what the PS1 was capable. Sega tried to showhorn 3D capabilities into the Saturn but it never really was enough to compete with the PS1. The playstation was from the ground up designed to be a 3D console and that shows. Sure, by todays standards, games on both consoles look dated, but back then there was definitly a gap between the two systems. Stuff like Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Gran Turismo and the like would have never been possible on the Saturn. The Sega machine was amazing for 2D games and I think it even got a 4MB ram expansion which futher enhanced its 2D power, but at that time, people wanted everything BUT 2D games.

To add to this, the programming of the saturn was a absolute horror, if you wanted to squeeze out 3D performance. I found this video a few years ago and I was floored by how hecking hard it has been to get shit running on the saturn:



Compare this programming nightmare with the straightforward 1CPU approach of the playstation and you can understand why devs were not particulary fond of working with the saturn.


I'm going to admit here that I was a former Saturn developer (yes I'm incredibly old). By the time 1997 or so rolled around, there were pretty good C libraries available for Saturn devs to use for 3D, and it even made using the VDP2 to integrate "fake" 3D backgrounds into your games really easy to do.
To be honest, at that time (around 1997), it was actually easier to develop 3D games for the Saturn than the Playstation, the standard 3D libraries for PS devs were a lot more low level and required more work.
Of course it was a bit too late, since the Saturn was pretty much dead already.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
3DO would just take PSX's place, and the 3DO/Panasonic/Goldstar/Sanyo combo would just use a similar strategy as the PSX, with the M2 being the equal to the PS2, 2 or 3 years early. Sony basically just took the 3DO company strategy with 5x the funding and 5x the marketing muscle. The third party first approach, the open access to the system, ease of license, ease of production, slow build of first party with early stuff being exclusive third-party partnerships, etc.

Saturn would be in a worse position because they wouldn't have Sony to react to, Sega wouldn't know about the 3DO performance until it launched in Japan from all evidence that's out there, they only knew about Jaguar and then Sony. Sega knew of the 3DO company and the tech and there was supposedly some talk as to whether Sega should buy the tech, or to be one of the console manufactures, but they themselves did not see the 3DO perform until it launched in Japan a year after the US launch and iirc months after the Euro and Korean launch. This means that the jaguar would have been the only thing Sega reacted too.

Which would have Sega with a weaker console overall when the consumer base was getting more and more excited for 3D, and the N64 delay was always going to happen. The Jaguar fumbled out the gate, lied, made bad promises, there were droughts, people waiting for production to pick up for stores to carry games, 3DO $500 with one controller and no game, and $700 gamer pack outsold Jaguar near 2:1, and then at $400-$600 3L1. That's how you fuck up an advantage.

Atari had the price, the ads, the press, the bullshots, the tech demos, the events with the booths months before 3DO did, Sega acted as they did for a reason, but then they delayed the launch and had a test launch in 1993 instead, giving that year to 3DO, then they finally launched proper in 1994, with all the above problems and more despite having months more time to prepare. I mean Atari was estimated to sell 500k in the first few months in 1993, all the analysis and experts all ran for the hills and vanished by the 1994 nationwide launch, that whole console was a disaster. but it could have recovered but like Sega, Atari decided to chase the competitors in special effects, texture mapping, and other technical categories the had the advantage in which resulted in a lot of money losses which mean that Atari could not produce enough Jaguars for demand (yes there was demand) and could not produce enough games to meet demand, which is why Alien Vs. Predators massive success in selling out what it was producing was pointless because there wasn't enough money to mass produce the game or the console meaning that Atari basically SCREWED THEMSELVES from being able to take advantage of a popular game to increase console adoption because they couldn't produce either. They actually LOCKED themselves to failure with their mistakes it was an amazing thing to witness.



It was a bit better than the SNES because you could tilt with the scaling and there was some though limited verticality. But like 2 games ever really did that.

Biggest issue is that FMV only worked for Genesis owners or console only owners who weren't keeping track of gaming tech up front, that died when other platforms put out better graphics and video, and actually used the space for non-fmv game improvement, where as most non-fmv Sega CD games were like those lazy Amiga developers that moved from Amiga 500 to CD and just added a CD audio OST and a slightly higher color palette and called it a day.



That's a bold claim but I think that's a bit of a stretch.


I think you may have tagged me incorrectly, because you say you disagree but then don't really show any disagreement unless Im missing something you were addressing.


yeah but they dealt with that relatively quickly though it would help if they could have his $300 a bit earlier. Even then, with Sony and Saturn, they both, mostly Sony were basically running their early dats off shared 3Do games, and some 3DO games actually ran better than the other two, some which were curiosities such as Star Fighter. So 3Do still had press there, they needed to be $50 below PSX when it came out though, or at least with two free games. They did do both later, and it did pick up sales, but then they had to cut again after PSX had it's fairly quick first price cut, and they bleed themselves to death financially, which got them to can the M2.



It's certain that Crash 3 and R4Type4 couldn't be done on the Saturn since both used some creative tricks and shortcuts of the PS1 environment to pull off what they did.

It's the same reason you wouldn't be able to see Saturn VC2 on PS1. However, the difference is that unlike VC2, Crash 3 and R4Type4 push a higher graphical fidelity out the PS1 than VC2 does on SAT.

3DO would just take PSX's place, and the 3DO/Panasonic/Goldstar/Sanyo combo would just use a similar strategy as the PSX, with the M2 being the equal to the PS2, 2 or 3 years early. Sony basically just took the 3DO company strategy with 5x the funding and 5x the marketing muscle. The third party first approach, the open access to the system, ease of license, ease of production, slow build of first party with early stuff being exclusive third-party partnerships, etc.

Saturn would be in a worse position because they wouldn't have Sony to react to, Sega wouldn't know about the 3DO performance until it launched in Japan from all evidence that's out there, they only knew about Jaguar and then Sony. Sega knew of the 3DO company and the tech and there was supposedly some talk as to whether Sega should buy the tech, or to be one of the console manufactures, but they themselves did not see the 3DO perform until it launched in Japan a year after the US launch and iirc months after the Euro and Korean launch. This means that the jaguar would have been the only thing Sega reacted too.

Which would have Sega with a weaker console overall when the consumer base was getting more and more excited for 3D, and the N64 delay was always going to happen. The Jaguar fumbled out the gate, lied, made bad promises, there were droughts, people waiting for production to pick up for stores to carry games, 3DO $500 with one controller and no game, and $700 gamer pack outsold Jaguar near 2:1, and then at $400-$600 3L1. That's how you fuck up an advantage.

Atari had the price, the ads, the press, the bullshots, the tech demos, the events with the booths months before 3DO did, Sega acted as they did for a reason, but then they delayed the launch and had a test launch in 1993 instead, giving that year to 3DO, then they finally launched proper in 1994, with all the above problems and more despite having months more time to prepare. I mean Atari was estimated to sell 500k in the first few months in 1993, all the analysis and experts all ran for the hills and vanished by the 1994 nationwide launch, that whole console was a disaster. but it could have recovered but like Sega, Atari decided to chase the competitors in special effects, texture mapping, and other technical categories the had the advantage in which resulted in a lot of money losses which mean that Atari could not produce enough Jaguars for demand (yes there was demand) and could not produce enough games to meet demand, which is why Alien Vs. Predators massive success in selling out what it was producing was pointless because there wasn't enough money to mass produce the game or the console meaning that Atari basically SCREWED THEMSELVES from being able to take advantage of a popular game to increase console adoption because they couldn't produce either. They actually LOCKED themselves to failure with their mistakes it was an amazing thing to witness.



It was a bit better than the SNES because you could tilt with the scaling and there was some though limited verticality. But like 2 games ever really did that.

Biggest issue is that FMV only worked for Genesis owners or console only owners who weren't keeping track of gaming tech up front, that died when other platforms put out better graphics and video, and actually used the space for non-fmv game improvement, where as most non-fmv Sega CD games were like those lazy Amiga developers that moved from Amiga 500 to CD and just added a CD audio OST and a slightly higher color palette and called it a day.



That's a bold claim but I think that's a bit of a stretch.


I think you may have tagged me incorrectly, because you say you disagree but then don't really show any disagreement unless Im missing something you were addressing.


yeah but they dealt with that relatively quickly though it would help if they could have his $300 a bit earlier. Even then, with Sony and Saturn, they both, mostly Sony were basically running their early dats off shared 3Do games, and some 3DO games actually ran better than the other two, some which were curiosities such as Star Fighter. So 3Do still had press there, they needed to be $50 below PSX when it came out though, or at least with two free games. They did do both later, and it did pick up sales, but then they had to cut again after PSX had it's fairly quick first price cut, and they bleed themselves to death financially, which got them to can the M2.



It's certain that Crash 3 and R4Type4 couldn't be done on the Saturn since both used some creative tricks and shortcuts of the PS1 environment to pull off what they did.

It's the same reason you wouldn't be able to see Saturn VC2 on PS1. However, the difference is that unlike VC2, Crash 3 and R4Type4 push a higher graphical fidelity out the PS1 than VC2 does on SAT.
I was under the impression is was Panasonic/Matsushita (the guys who brought the M2 tech) that pulled the plug on the M2 because they didn't feel confident in taking the fight to Sony...i.e they got cold feet..?
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Yeah when I think about it and looking back, it really was all about the disastrous launch of the Saturn in the USA.

1. The high price
2. Releasing a bunch of poor looking 3D games, making it look like a much weaker console than the Playstation.
3. Horrible marketing.
4. Pissing off retailers with the "surprise" launch.

I mean, it was arguably the worst launch of any major console in history, perhaps tied by only the XBone launch.

The hardware design was also inherently flawed and wasn't great in 3D. Which always puzzled me since Sega were masters of 3D in the arcades, but somehow that expertise failed to translate over to the home side. Maybe this was another sign that Sega was a dysfunctional company.
But I think Sega could have tried to "hide" the Saturn's deficiencies by not focusing so much on 3D games on the Saturn, at least in the beginning.
But in the end, every aspect of how Sega of America handled the Saturn...was a disaster. There was no recovering from that.

People keep saying that the Sega CD and 32X is what doomed Sega, but the Sega CD actually sold well enough, I mean compared to what the Turbografx CD sold...the Sega CD should be considered a resounding success.
And even the 32X wasn't the huge failure people say it is. Sure, it's a stopgap add on with barely any decent games, but I don't think Sega lost money on the 32X, in fact I think it sold much more than people expected. It was marketed to help the Genesis compete with the more advanced SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, not with the Playstation.
By the looks of it, Sega had no idea what they were doing. A classic case of a R&D heavy company with no focus. Considering how much gaming tech Sega churned out from home consoles and add-ons to state of the art arcade games, they had the tech skills and gadgetry. COmpared to Sony (PS1) and Nintendo (SNES and handhelds), Sega was all over the place in home electronics even making that Pico fisher price kind of toy. They basically shotgunned anything gaming related hoping that would suffocate Sony and Nintendo by sheer quantity of product.....

"We'll get that gamer in some way.... Genesis, Sega CD, GG, Saturn, 32X, Nomad, CDX. One of these things has got to work. Lets even make Pico so we can groom kids young into Sega!"

It didn't even make sense. If the machine wasnt focused on 3D gaming and the trend at the time was still 2D gaming (16-bit era )with 3D as emerging visuals, then A. It should had been better at 3D from the start. B. Why focus all the early batch of games and marketing on 3D games?

Sega's focus was on 3D games right from the start with VF, Daytona, Virtua Racing, Panzer Dragoon etc... They just screwed up with gimped tech.

It's be like decades ago when AC in cars was still an option. If a car company isn't wholeheartedly supportive of AC being standard in cars yet, thats fine. Make your cars have it as an option. But when the TV and magazine promos start coming out, why focus on AC when it has a shitty AC system in the car to begin with?

If their home business was laser focused like their arcade divisions, it should had turned out better.
 
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If these are FMV games, Mortal Kombat and FF VII are "FMV" games too...
This ill-thought out statements are incredibly dumb. If You think Corpse Killer resembles Mortal Kombat you're a nut. The fact you had to dig to try and dimiss Wing Commander is one thing, but pretty much all the other games on the list are more FMV than wing commander, from Swat to Phantasmagoria.

I notice they are just the oldest games that have been ported to multiple systems and people brought them to show off their new PC-CD Rom drives capabilities. alabtrosMyster alabtrosMyster has already called you out for fluffing up the list with a game that used FMV sequences. You clearly don't know what you are talking about with FMV games and just verbosely make stuff up and pass it off as fact.

They were a hot fad for devices with CD Drives and were easy to post to everything just to fill up the disc space. They are a mere unloved footnote in gaming but I'd still expect Dragons lair to be ported again to future systems past the Switch and PS4.

It's funny how even reviews for WIng Commander call it an FMV game, but even if you remove it (and I can easily replace it) pretty much all the other games are clearly FMV.

You're clearly mentally handicapped there's no other explanation here. Half the games were not even games to show off CD, those are the games I didn't include that were more popular outside the 7th guest, which is the only case you would have for that excuse in my list, except more people brought Myst around the same time anyway.

SWAT for example, was not a game that people were buying to show off CD-Rom, neither was Under a Killing Moon, or Rebel Assault the later of which sold to fans of starwars who wanted an interactive experience beyond traditional game graphics and that's how it was marketed. There were a crazy ton of point and click PC adventure FMVs.

You literally have no idea what you're talking about, and are now trying to make up lies to cope with the fact you're ignorant on the subject. Some of those were big on consoles even which also throws you're dumb claim out the window.

A near 14 year run isn't a fad, sorry, no matter how much it saddens you FMV sold more and more until the late 90's, before the CD drive, and after the CD drive, trying to pretend that these games (7th guest aside) sold to show off cd-rom shows your ignorance of the time period, and the prices of these games and cd-rom drives as well. That's what Myst and 7th guest was as well as some others, why would a game released in the later 90's be used as a show off as a CD drive when at that point CD drives were common on consoles as well as music players and was standard in the entertainment industry? (which a game such as Corpse Killer was mostly popular on consoles, not PC). Not to mention how many of these games got sequels, some spanning 4-5 years.

I mean wow a real idiot we got here. Just admit you have no idea what you're talking about and you're trying to project your anecdote outward. The industry itself in interviews, articles, newspaper was talking about FMV, PC specifically FMV was most successful in the early 90's. you're ignorance is not reality. Several of them have had ports to, pretending Dragons Lair is the only one also shows your ignorance.

I mean do you even have a functioning brain? Critical Thinking and mindset to do research both seem to be absent wt. you.
 
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Except that this situation dis not exist. Not to the extent your are implying. Both consoles were very capable and could run the same games during the same period. So nothing has been demonstrated about this in the end.
R4Type4 and Crash 3 were pretty notably past what the peak of the Saturn could do in real-time. Many shared games also post 1996 were also starting to form an increasing gap as well.

At the very least it wasn't as even as you're implying.

I think Midway's time table is a good example of where Namco and Sega would have been without outside help. Had No one seen Ridge Racer/Daytona and the PlayStation and Saturn launched in mid 1994 as System 32-comparable machines with a load of cool games with huge rotated sprites and some solid (if unspectacular ports) of those Model 1 games, we'd have all been happy i think. If Crusin' USA, Daytona and Ridge Racer had turned up and shown us the future a few months later, I don't think we'd have felt hard done by as that's how the industry had worked up until this point.

I'm not sure it works so well when you look from an arcade perspective, mind you. Having worked so hard to displace Namco as lords of the 3d space, it would have been weird to just rest on their laurels and risk Namco coming out with something game changing (just imaging if Daytona had appeared in 1993 as a slightly overclocked/improved Model 1 game with flat polys etc and Ridge Racer was the same!) not to mention that Sega's Model 2/3 games were the basis for a number of their mid size theme park attractions too (I know we treat Sega World/Joypolis as a sort of amusing side show these days, but in the mid 90s it was definitely a much larger part of the equation)
The race in the 3D space hurt Namco and Sega and arguably helped the arcades decline because they were becoming to expensive across even the Btier models not just the top tier, some of which with problems or bad support, rotation constantly changing, and gamers were not coming in the drives expected, this also led to operators jumping out and telling them both the piss off. When you saw at many malls, fairs, parks, etc that had arcade machines what were the popular machines that were out and many people were paying hard coin for, it wasn't usually these Namco and Sega games, for every Jurassic park there was a Crusin, Sanfrancisco Rush, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Wrestlemania, Blitz, and even Namco and Sega stuff like Outrun, and Pacman.

In addition to the factors above, Namco and Sega also were disorganized with their arcade hardware and how they were promoting and selling them, or working with distributors.

It wasn't just their then current output that was the problem, but popular games from previous hardware was also rotated around. They were still doing this going into 2000.

Yeah when I think about it and looking back, it really was all about the disastrous launch of the Saturn in the USA.

1. The high price
2. Releasing a bunch of poor looking 3D games, making it look like a much weaker console than the Playstation.
3. Horrible marketing.
4. Pissing off retailers with the "surprise" launch.

I mean, it was arguably the worst launch of any major console in history, perhaps tied by only the XBone launch.

The hardware design was also inherently flawed and wasn't great in 3D. Which always puzzled me since Sega were masters of 3D in the arcades, but somehow that expertise failed to translate over to the home side. Maybe this was another sign that Sega was a dysfunctional company.
But I think Sega could have tried to "hide" the Saturn's deficiencies by not focusing so much on 3D games on the Saturn, at least in the beginning.
But in the end, every aspect of how Sega of America handled the Saturn...was a disaster. There was no recovering from that.

People keep saying that the Sega CD and 32X is what doomed Sega, but the Sega CD actually sold well enough, I mean compared to what the Turbografx CD sold...the Sega CD should be considered a resounding success.
And even the 32X wasn't the huge failure people say it is. Sure, it's a stopgap add on with barely any decent games, but I don't think Sega lost money on the 32X, in fact I think it sold much more than people expected. It was marketed to help the Genesis compete with the more advanced SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, not with the Playstation.
The Xbox One launch was fantastic. Long-term issues wouldn't show until months later. Almost all the pre-launch controversy was already over when the console launched. Same as PS4, sold 1 million in 24 hrs, both of which were records then.

As for 3D Arcades, you are talking about the system that was much more expensive and complex than a home console with help from a US military contractor. So it makes sense why the Saturn wouldn't have been a translation of that into console from unless you wanted the console to be more bulky and cost $900.

You are right though about Sega not hiding their weaknesses, instead they became more apparently because they kept reacting and chasing, Atari did the same with the Jaguar, both the Jaguar and the Saturn excelled at 2D games, and for 3D games they could have made some nice looking titles around the limitations instead of creating some of the messed that ended up coming out trying to catch the competition, and without the time to do it.

But I disagree with blaming SoA though, it was mostly Sega of Japan that screwed up the Saturn. They are also the reason why there weren't carry over games from the genesis in the launch year, or at least not much of them if any.

As for the Sega CD well.

The PC Engine CD in Japan sold 2.92 million based on threads on here, which may be missing a few months, and while it flopped in the US, it may be possible enough Turbo duos, and TG16 CD add-ons helped make the total reach 3 million.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/retro-sales-age-thread.981407/page-3
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/retro-sales-age-thread.981407/page-2

Sega sold an estimated give or take 2.24 million Segas Cds in comparison, and while the bulk of PC Engine CD sales were in 3 years, Sega's number was over 5 years, and two years were the peak of the Genesis and mindshare in NA and the West that NEC never had, with popular series MK and Sonic at the fore front along with novelty titles for Genesis owners with interactive video, where as NEC was a domestic darling with a fledging system that the CD extended the life off that flopped everywhere BUT Japan.

That puts the Sega CD performance in worse light, and how they bumbled marketing and handling it with consumers.
 
I was under the impression is was Panasonic/Matsushita (the guys who brought the M2 tech) that pulled the plug on the M2 because they didn't feel confident in taking the fight to Sony...i.e they got cold feet..?
The first hit was 3DO dropping out, which meant that they would be responsible for everything, and that already gave them cold feet. Sony's relations with third parties definitely put Panasonic in unique position because it pushed a time table on Panasonic to release the system which has already been delayed twice already. Without 3DO, Panasonic would have to manually get support for the console, competing with Sony, and keep in mind 3DO sold it's hardware division to Samsung in 1997, you already had your Bandicoots, Tomb Raiders, Parappas, and other hit games out, Playstation was picking up heavily in multiple countries, so at best Panasonic would have to get support, get marketing, talk with retail, and be responsible for the entire console and have it ready within no later than the end of the year by holiday season that they ended up pulling out in.

Panasonic decided it wasn't viable. Especially given the losses they already had with the 3DO, the fact Sony had already spend a great deals of money and where blasting off in sales, Panasonic didn't think the M2, which itself could be costly to maintain, wasn't worth it.

Keep in mind that 3DO companys uh... 3DO, was likely the canary in the mine for how expensive running a console was going to be. If Panasonic pulled out at a time when they were still pretty prominent, as mentioned elsewhere, several companies in the 90's didn't actually launch consoles by themselves. Look at how long Sega could maintain the Dreamcast by itself, and they needed help even getting it started. That would have been a year after the M2, if Panasonic launched it.
 
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