Mk has more than just story a decent gameplay, I also have no idea why you think bb is comparable as an oerall package.
I also never said VF ad bad reviews, you said everyone hated the Mk games before nine, I just pointed out tats nonsense.
The rest of your post is fanboy subjectism. I hate to use the tem but that's what it is.
Yakuza is an action adventure game look at the AA games in Japan and u.s. That sell more and tell m what yakuza has overall then those others?
This goes back again to the bd and VF comparisons.
BD compared to lost planet, gears, uncharted etc, is lacking in many areas and seems less appealing.
Same with VF compared to MK, SF, recent KOF, Tekken etc.
You already agreed with outrun. That's just an example of what I'm saying with 3 genres.
Sonic does well because outside Nintendo consoles, it's by itself basically, and on Nintendo consoles, there's a good audience there for that type of game. Same with pc and the recently brought creative assembly.
You sometimes goon boards and see things like "I like this game, but I can see why x and y?" But a lot of Sega fans don't think this way, infact, I think Sega fans share a small amount of blame for some of Sega's bad choices.
But anyway, combine the above with bad marketing, not showing very well what makes x game stand apart from others, a mixed brand image, etc. It's not good.
A BD with more content, making difference clear, and even moderate marketing could have got it to sell better.
You keep talking about BD, but I can't relate to that. I haven't played it, and am not referring to it directly. If BD was the only thing you mentioned and not their library in general, I probably wouldn't have even responded to you in the first place. To make things easier, let's just assume I agree with you in regards to that game.
Everything we're discussing here is subjectivism, regardless on which side of the argument we're standing on. Dismissing my view as "fanboy" oriented seems silly given what we're actually talking about. Your point basically revolves around games appealing to people or not, but are then dismissing those that the games
do appeal to as "fanboy subjectism", like that wouldn't be the case if I instead preferred a similar game that sold more.
There are indeed plenty of times where I like a game, but can understand why others may not... what we seem to disagree on is what the "why" that is. I don't believe that something like F-Zero GX fails to sell whilst Mario Kart sells multiple millions as a result of F-Zero comparing poorly in regards to content (which in this case it factually doesn't by pretty much any metric), but simply because the game is designed differently and targets a different type of player at the fundamental level. Mario Kart is designed to be extremely accessible to all players, whilst F-Zero is designed to be far more challenging. These sorts of design decisions (plus the obvious advantages of being branded with the Mario IP) make huge differences in regards to what players will gravitate to each.. they will
both appeal to a segment of players, but the pool of players for one type is far larger than the other (and likely contains a decent subset of the latter as well). This results in the game being less popular, but doesn't mean that the latter game "pales in comparison" to the former, in any way other than popularity. As mentioned before, it would be like taking the current pop hits and saying that classical music of today pales compared to the latest Rihanna or Justin Bieber track because they don't contain the same sort of drops or catchy chorus hooks that cause those to sell so much.
There
are things that I do agree Sega can do with some of their games that would help to increase their appeal. Virtua Fighter telling its story in game is one of those, and reverting to a presentation more in line with what Virtua Fighter 4 had is another. I have actually said this numerous times in the past. However, I have had similar qualms with other fighters that
don't suffer in sales... such as Street Fighter shipping with no meaningful story (which is now looking to change), a single outfit per character with only palette swaps for variation, extremely barebones training mode, and nothing to do in single player beyond beating and handful of characters and then a boss in arcade mode. In these regards the game doesn't compare well to Virtua Fighter at all.. and I imagine that if the popularity of both series were reversed these would then be the sort of criteria you would be pulling up to explain why Street Fighter pales in comparison to Virtua Fighter.
The Virtua Fighter stuff above isn't even the larger issue though tbh... because if you assigned the game a larger budget, and added the things I suggest, then nothing in regards to what I like about Virtua Fighter would be negatively affected. However, it's also quite likely that these things would also not do
that much to increase the game's popularity, much like how similar changes and additions didn't really benefit F-Zero. What would more likely have to change would be more fundamental aspects of the game's design, such as adding comeback mechanics like Street Fighter's Ultras, or Mortal Kombat's X-Ray attacks, or Tekken's Rage system. Or maybe simplifying the transition between being on the defensive and offensive by introducing something like Dead or Alive's Hold system. Changes like this could probably go a long way towards making the series more popular than it is today, by making it more accessible/flashy (
something like this would probably immediately become the most successful Virtua Fighter game ever)... but they would also negatively impact my enjoyment of it. The resulting game wouldn't be better, it'd just be different and appeal more to the majority audience at the expense of the current minority audience. So sure, maybe fans such as myself are holding Sega back... but honestly, I'd prefer that. The only reason I care at all about Sega games selling better, is so that I'm more likely to see more of them going forwards. If the choice is between sporadic releases that become many of my favourite games of all time, or a regular stream of Unboundeds and Assault Horizons, in an attempt to sell as much as EA and Activision, then I'll take the former. If I want to play stuff that resembles the more successful publishers of today, then I would (and obviously sometimes do) just play those instead. And it's not just Sega that I have this view for btw... historically I would have said the same about many companies, such as Capcom, Konami, and to a lesser extent Nintendo... but over the years each of them have been producing less games that interest me, in favor of safer market bets. So I don't really care if Capcom sells far more copies of say Operation Racoon City, or Resident Evil 6 than they would have with a classic Resident Evil... that's no good to me. I don't play the sales numbers.
