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[Dead Man Typing]

I was just reading the Sega entry on Wikipedia. Very interesting. Apparently the company was founded in Hawaii by Westerners, and later merged with another company that was founded in Tokyo by an American... and here I thought it was the paradigm of a Japanese game maker.

The name is a shortening of "Service Games," because the company originally made coin-operated machines for US military bases.

Those origins explain almost every decision they've ever made.

 

[memecomplex]

Outside of the first few months (where I didn't have a VGA cable) I ONLY used the VGA cable on a monitor. In fact, I actually found that I preferred using an SDTV with s-video but didn't have a choice. You see, the VGA adapter WAS sharp, but it also revealed all of the visuals flaws in games that were otherwise hidden when viewed on an SDTV. So, I had mixed feelings about the VGA adapter. That said, Rez did look really sweet on a VGA monitor due to its visual style (things like dithering were not obvious with the game). However, the quality of the colors wasn't all that different from the PS2 when using component on that system. The image quality was obviously better, but again, I'm a framerate whore and I never found the interlaced appearance of PS2 games to be all that unattractive at the time anyways.

You wouldn't know it, but back then, I was actually a hardcore Sega fan. I really hated the PS2 for a while after its release. It wasn't until I saw some of the more advanced PS2 software that I started to accept it and become impressed by it. I remember holding up shots of Shenmue against the MGS2 trailer in 2000, but I couldn't deny it, when I played the MGS2 demo at 60 fps with those visuals, I knew the DC just couldn't stand up. I don't think I've ever been as impressed with a game as that. It literally felt like something from the future (and it still holds up beautifully to this day).


DC was the machine that brought 60 fps into the home and PS2 took it even further. It's a shame that things started to change over time, though, and this generation is so devoid of high framerate titles.

Hey Dark, I think I know how you feel... for me though I was never hardcore about any game company in particular - I've always watched with fascination how PR and marketing try and spin videogamers into one camp or the other, but I've never taken any sides until the twilight of the DC's years...

The first year the PS2 came out, I was really pretty disappointed with it. I mean I travelled all the way to Tokyo on the week the PS2 was released and lucked out on getting a couple of machines for me and my best pal. I could see right out the gate that the PS3 was pushing more polys than the DC, unfortunately at the cost of image quality and no progressive scan. Games that do allow you to turn on progressive scan like Tekken IV (?) look better than any 3D fighter in the DC stable... but it pissed me off how infrequent those are and how difficult it was for me to get a progressive output from my PS2. It's not part of the system like the DC is.

It was around then that I became more of a hardcore SEGA/DC fan. But it wasn't just a case of rooting for the underdog, popping a game into the DC on the VGA was really something special for me - some games looked naff, but most look jaw-droppingly awesome. Plus there was just so much good stuff late in the DC's cycle, and some fantastic discounted software.

It remains to this day my favorite games machine. It just had a lot of character and is part of one of the most interesting times in videogame history. And as far as console designs go, it's one of the coolest!

 

[FiOSGuy]

Hey does anyone know where I might be able to find the most up to date release lists for Japan and/or Euro releases .... I am way behind.