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[Geometric-Crusher]

Sega did the unthinkable in the 90s; it managed to dethrone Nintendo for a time. Nintendo wasn't the company we see today; it was a juggernaut.

Background

Sega launched the Master System in America in 1986, but Nintendo included Mario in the package and cut the price to $99. This move proved to be brilliant: mascot and price cut.

So, Sega and NEC started a new generation in 1989, and Sega, with enormous effort, managed to sell 500,000 units in one year (below the target of 1 million). In 1990, with the help of EA's Madden NFL, it surpassed NEC for the first time. What would happen in the following six months was an aggressive price cut to $149 and the use of a popular mascot. With a $50 price difference, consumer preference became obvious, and the Sega Genesis broke through the bubble. It was a reality that Nintendo simply couldn't erase. In the following months, Nintendo counterattacked with some of its best games: Mario Kart, Zelda, and Street Fighter 2, but Sega made Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, and introduced the Sega CD.

Sega was ahead in sales, number of games, and technology (thanks to the Sega CD) .

But why could this strategy never work against another company? Because none of them would give Sega two years of peace to make its games. The success of the Sega Genesis through trial and error was evident; if the SNES had arrived in 1990, it would have crumbled like a house of cards.

This explains phenomena like the Dreamcast and Saturn, where launching first didn't work. The only strategy to challenge a company like Sony is the one Microsoft used: create a powerful console (the original Xbox), end the generation early, and quickly launch another by being the first (but this roughly requires two gigantic budgets that only a company like Microsoft has).

And what do you think? How could a "David" face a Goliath without being destroyed ? Don't be fooled, the success of the Sega Genesis wouldn't have been possible without Nintendo's leniency .

 

[RoboFu]

Sony is destroying itself again and Nintendo is going to obliterate them even worse than the switch 1 did if they keep it up.

 

[LakeOf9]

I'm going to argue Nintendo is a bigger juggernaut now than they've ever been before. The console market has just scaled up alongside them to where it doesn't begin and end with them.

Anyway, I agree with your broader point. No one is as ruthless or aggressive in the console market as Sony is. And that's why they dominate every other company that tries to go head to head with them.

 

[HRK69]

Imagine spending your limited time on Earth writing deep dive essays about 90s corporate console drama

 

[German Shocks]

Nintendo wasn't the company we see today; it was a Juggernaut.

Nintendo has re-established itself as an industry Juggernaut.
Back then before the Sega Genesis, it had a damn-near monopoly with the NES. At least here in North America

 

[Ceallach]

I think time has shown Nintendo's strategy was the best one. They did their own thing and even whose of us who as edgy teens denounced them as kiddie bullshit were proven wrong. They got kids young and hooked them on their IP for life.

 

[diffusionx]

Sony is destroying itself again and Nintendo is going to obliterate them even worse than the switch 1 did if they keep it up.

Sony is trying to unfuck itself. Can they, considering some of the people in charge fucked it up, well we will see.

Nintendo got fat and lazy from NES total success, it's very hard to do that in today's business environment, anywhere. As OP shows the market became notably more efficient a decade later.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

The strategy in numbers:

Sega programmed around 30 games, including licensed Mickey Mouse and Capcom games, even before Sonic arrived in 1991. (Try to imagine them programming 30 games at $50 million each today). However, the biggest hits before Sonic were Madden NFL and Joe Montana.

Tom Kalinske increased the marketing budget from $10 million to $60 million.
They included Sonic in the package, which in practice reduced the price of the Genesis to $100, and they were also developing an add-on, the Sega CD.

It's impossible to know exactly how much Sega spent on the Mega Drive/Genesis project, but certainly trying to replicate it in modern times would cost billions, and there would be no guarantee of success because, as I said, the competition wouldn't give Sega two years of peace.

 

[RoboFu]

I want console add ons to come back
Instead we get " pro " consoles which are boring.

 

[IAmRei]

i got it that You love SEGA much, same with me back the. I even more to SEGA Dreamcast than PS2, and keep lament why SEGA fall.

but the time is changed.
as with I bought PSX over N64, and PS2 over Gamecube.
But I left PS3 to PC and Handheld such as NDS and PSP.

I might be love some console, but someday if the console is not updated to the games anymore, I will move on.
I will still consider them as legendary tho.

And I'm still wishing someday SEGA will return, but i keep my wish low

 

[PauloRoberto]

Sony is destroying itself again and Nintendo is going to obliterate them even worse than the switch 1 did if they keep it up.

WIth all due respect, obliterate when the 'losing' side is having the time of its life sounds, to put it gently... silly. Sony output may be below your expectations (its it WAAAY below mine), but numbers dont lie...

 

[FoxMcChief]

I lost interest halfway through the thread title.

 

[RoboFu]

WIth all due respect, obliterate when the 'losing' side is having the time of its life sounds, to put it gently... silly. Sony output may be below your expectations (its it WAAAY below mine), but numbers dont lie...

You think constant lowering sales of their first party games and two failed mega expensive games is " having the time of their lives"?

 

[tr1p1ex]

Nintendo got fat and lazy from NES total success, it's very hard to do that in today's business environment, anywhere. As OP shows the market became notably more efficient a decade later.

Nah. They released the GB in 1989. Hardly would call that fat and lazy. IF anything probably that hurt their console business and distracted them.

 

[PauloRoberto]

You think constant lowering sales of their first party games and two failed mega expensive games is " having the time of their lives"?

If you ignore the numbers shown by both companies, i cannot do anything else... that's a fact, Sony is having the time of its life (given the blunders, it's a little bit scaring tho..., fi you should say the Sony shold not deserve, that's another story).

 

[RoboFu]

If you ignore the numbers shown by both companies, i cannot do anything else... that's a fact, Sony is having the time of its life (given the blunders, it's a little bit scaring tho..., fi you should say the Sony shold not deserve, that's another story).

What " numbers " are you looking at? It's not the lowering games sales.. it's not the losing a billion on concord and marathon. You buy into pr too much. " our revenue ( if we leave out our failures ) .. blah blah.. " yotie sold more in the same time frame " .. up until it didn't sell anything and didn't come close to the original.

Sony was making some bad choices during the ps3 but at least that had super awesome games .. not crap like saros

What I want is a complete 180 from Sony. Every game should be on the level of gt7 and astrobot.

 

[diffusionx]

Nah. They released the GB in 1989. Hardly would call that fat and lazy. IF anything probably that hurt their console business and distracted them.

this is a good point but the GB was a new product and not designed to compete against PCE or Genesis. I think they believed their library and user base for NES was good enough against those, and they were sort of right.

 

[Hero_Select]

NES had virtually no competition and Nintendo was happy enough to sell the NES for as long as possible and then - despite having a two year head-start the SNES outsold the Genesis by the end of their lifetimes.

Would Sony have done things differently? Maybe? The video game market was a lot different back then.

 

[Pallas]

Nintendo has re-established itself as an industry Juggernaut.
Back then before the Sega Genesis, it had a damn-near monopoly with the NES. At least here in North America

That crash in 1983 certainly didn't hurt that near-monopoly.

 

[PauloRoberto]

What " numbers " are you looking at? It's not the lowering games sales.. it's not the losing a billion on concord and marathon. You buy into pr too much. " our revenue ( if we leave out our failures ) .. blah blah.. " yotie sold more in the same time frame " .. up until it didn't sell anything and didn't come close to the original.

Sony was making some bad choices during the ps3 but at least that had super awesome games .. not crap like saros

What I want is a complete 180 from Sony. Every game should be on the level of gt7 and astrobot.

So you are ignoring the numbers that contradic your faith and doubing down numbers that confirm it... ok, keep living in your imaginary world...

 

[Ozzie666]

You mean the strategy of creative accounting? Reporting consoles sold that were actually returned from retailers and sitting on warehouse shelves? There was a lot of smoke and mirros by Sega of America, they paid it forward until it came crashing back on them starting in 1994. Packaging Sonic was of course brilliant, but beyond that. The truth is the the race was not as close as you would believe and the sales figures to some degree were a myth.

Sega's TACTIC with the Genesis, didnt work against Nintendo, one company was healthy and won the generation, the other didn't succeed and was limping into the next generation. I'm not sure how you can argue Segas succeeded against Nintendo EVER, by releasing first.

I wonder, releasing the Saturn at a $399 price tag, dropping it early as a surpsie, alienating kb toys, having almost zero games ready to go, shitty development libaries, shitty tools, shiity lauch titles and coming off the the CD/32X.

"Sega was ahead in sales, number of games, and technology (thanks to the Sega CD)" You mean CD gaming that NEC was already doing? and the NES was still a powehouse in 89/90.

It's like you've totally forgotten the power of consumer trust and the impacts on the Dreamcast and not to mention the bootstrap allowing for easy piracy or the amazing PS2 line-up of games early on.

 

[deriks]

Since it was a very different time with different companies, it's expected that doesn't work

and people still are wanting a war or something on gaming, but it's been a while that Nintendo is the most profitable of all

 

[Ozzie666]

The strategy in numbers:

Sega programmed around 30 games, including licensed Mickey Mouse and Capcom games, even before Sonic arrived in 1991. (Try to imagine them programming 30 games at $50 million each today). However, the biggest hits before Sonic were Madden NFL and Joe Montana.

Tom Kalinske increased the marketing budget from $10 million to $60 million.
They included Sonic in the package, which in practice reduced the price of the Genesis to $100, and they were also developing an add-on, the Sega CD.

It's impossible to know exactly how much Sega spent on the Mega Drive/Genesis project, but certainly trying to replicate it in modern times would cost billions, and there would be no guarantee of success because, as I said, the competition wouldn't give Sega two years of peace.

"competition wouldn't give Sega two years of peace." this has nothing to do with what your failing to say.

You can't compare 1980's or early 90's game development to today. Teams of 1-8 people, 3 month deadlines for Master system, fruggle cartridge limits and costs that forced developers to work within those rules. Unlike today with unlimited storage, ballooned sizes and budgets and teams of 100's if not 1000's of people working on a single title. External contractors.

You love Sega, I get it man, But it's time to accept the fact that outside of Arcades, they were run by monkeys. They failed more then they succeeded in the home market.

 

[Parazels]

The market is already dominated by two juggernauts (Sony and Nintendo), and for many reasons, other companies have no chance to dethrone them.

And customers have little choice either
(you can't take seriously the weirdos
running Doom on appliances like a fridge or a pc!).

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

All Sega would have to do today is make gooner games and make fun of Reddit and re-types and it'll blow up and go for Sony's throat.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

You mean the strategy of creative accounting? Reporting consoles sold that were actually returned from retailers and sitting on warehouse shelves? There was a lot of smoke and mirros by Sega of America, they paid it forward until it came crashing back on them starting in 1994. Packaging Sonic was of course brilliant, but beyond that. The truth is the the race was not as close as you would believe and the sales figures to some degree were a myth.

Sega's TACTIC with the Genesis, didnt work against Nintendo, one company was healthy and won the generation, the other didn't succeed and was limping into the next generation. I'm not sure how you can argue Segas succeeded against Nintendo EVER, by releasing first.

I wonder, releasing the Saturn at a $399 price tag, dropping it early as a surpsie, alienating kb toys, having almost zero games ready to go, shitty development libaries, shitty tools, shiity lauch titles and coming off the the CD/32X.

"Sega was ahead in sales, number of games, and technology (thanks to the Sega CD)" You mean CD gaming that NEC was already doing? and the NES was still a powehouse in 89/90.

It's like you've totally forgotten the power of consumer trust and the impacts on the Dreamcast and not to mention the bootstrap allowing for easy piracy or the amazing PS2 line-up of games early on.

focus here is on the timeline and specifically refers to how Sega managed to rival Nintendo. Don't get me wrong, in other times Sega or any other company would have succumbed in 1991 and early 92 when Nintendo arrived with Super Mario, F-Zero, the SNES was a very powerful console, and Nintendo was very aggressive, releasing some of its best games in the first 12 months. However, Sega didn't disappear ; Sonic 1 was there, then Sonic 2 and the Sega CD. It's not easy to compete with 1988 technology against 1990 technology, but Sega did it.

It was a good strategy despite some accounting fraud; however, this strategy only worked against Nintendo due to Nintendo's policy of using cheap technology after two years. When Sony came along, it took advantage of this flaw, as Nintendo gave the PS1 almost two years of peace to build critical mass.

 

[Durin]

Sega never stood much of a chance against Sony, because Sony were usually good at getting third-party dev support (along with funding games) for their box.

The worst console gen was the PS3 for them, and it was the gen where devs had problems even getting access to the dev kits to even make anything for it early on. Had a college teacher that worked on Lair, they had post-it notes on the few dev kits to pick the order of who gets to sit down to test their work...along with being pushed to support the sixaxis. Never seen Sony screw up that aspect again.

Sega with the Dreamcast started out strong, but was heavily bolstered by Sega's own great arcade ports (Virtua-On, Daytona USA, Sega Rally, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, etc.) , and only some Japanese third-party support. All of the others bet wisely on DVDs, where even Nintendo's mini-discs stored more than Dreamcast ones (along with more compression available).

 

[Effigenius]

)

But why could this strategy never work against another company? Because none of them would give Sega two years of peace to make its games. The success of the Sega Genesis through trial and error was evident; if the SNES had arrived in 1990, it would have crumbled like a house of cards.

This explains phenomena like the Dreamcast and Saturn, where launching first didn't work. The only strategy to challenge a company like Sony is the one Microsoft used: create a powerful console (the original Xbox), end the generation early, and quickly launch another by being the first (but this roughly requires two gigantic budgets that only a company like Microsoft has).

And what do you think? How could a "David" face a Goliath without being destroyed ? Don't be fooled, the success of the Sega Genesis wouldn't have been possible without Nintendo's leniency .

You left out how damn expensive the ps3 was at launch, so MS was able to take advantage of that as well as the 1 year head start. They were also way more ready for the new technology (online play) than Sony was.

 

[DeVeAn]

All I know is the group of people making games at SEGA from the Genesis to the Dreamcast created some of my all time favorite games.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Another point to consider is that during that period parents bought consoles for their children. I wonder how that competition would have played out in a scenario where each adult chooses which product to buy.