8 ms·

Sega’s Plans for World Domination (1993)

73 points by luu 10y ago

dpflan 10y ago
Sega's strategy for battling Nintendo. Let's add some more details about the console wars too: 1. The Untold Story of How Sega Nearly Won the Console Wars - https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/ https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/ 2. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation - https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generation/dp/0062276700 https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generat...
- tapoxi 10y ago
  Console Wars paints a great picture on how philosophical differences between Sega of Japan and Sega of America destroyed the success they had.
  - nicolas_t 10y ago
    Can you expand on that? I'm curious
    - bunderbunder 10y ago
      Here's a couple interviews with Sega of America's CEO at the time where his frustration is very apparent: http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-have-made-the-wrong-decisions-for-20-years/ http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-ha... http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-gives-his-thoughts-on-the-saturns-launch/ http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-gi...
- emodendroket 10y ago
  That was an interesting book, although marred by the ridiculous wooden recreations of conversations.
  - Nors 10y ago
    I agree, and seeing how it's being turned into a documentary (and also a film I believe), it doesn't surprise me. It seems the author's final intent was always the screen. Absolutely worth a read if the subject interests you, questionable dialogue aside. For what's worth, both Tom Kalinske and Al whatshislastname seem to approve and endorse the book and their portrayal.
mikejmoffitt 10y ago
How the mighty have fallen.
rubidium 10y ago
Console wars aside, it's interesting to note that they put a lot of hope into arcades/movies/amusement parks... all of which have not seen nearly the growth rates as home entertainment. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death-of-the-american-arcade-for-amusement-only http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death...
- emodendroket 10y ago
  Well, that was their heritage. Not shocking.
breadmaster 10y ago
For a company to be so visionary and forward thinking on the arcade front, being a pioneering force of 3D polygonal games, it is astonishing that they released the Saturn in the form they did. You had to be a assembly savant to get decent 3D performance out of the Saturn that your average programmer could easily obtain on the Playstation using C. The VDP2 was pretty impressive though...
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  My understanding was that Sega had intended to focus on 2D gaming for the Saturn, but after realising what hardware was in the PlayStation they bumped up the specs to compete by adding in extra processors. The 2D performance of the Saturn appears to have been better than the PlayStation (the RAM expansion probably helped here too), but the 3D capabilities couldn't match up to the PlayStation (I suspect that would've still been the case even if the Saturn was easier to program for).
  - MBCook 10y ago
    I believe it was always designed for 3D but they made the 3D aspect more powerful as they saw what Sony was pushing. I get the feeling it was to be a sort of hybrid 2D/3D system instead of a straight jump into 3D. But the multi-CPU thing was a mess. Sony had a very simple architecture that could still do a very good job. Sony made that mistake with the PS2 but still survived (momentum + sales as a DVD player) and the PS3 which hit them hard (Xbox 360 was much easier, got a big win for it). As of the PS4 they've learned their lesson.
orvado 10y ago
Wow, all this talk about VR in 1993 ... it would be interesting to read the history on that. Either the world wasn't ready for it or the implementation was very lame (something like Nintendo StarFox or worse yet ... BattleZone)
- supernintendo 10y ago
  Sega VR was never released due to many of the same issues that made Nintendo's Virtual Boy a failure. Among these were how expensive the unit was, its poor graphical capabilities and most notably its eyestrain / headache inducing effects after a short period of play time [1]. However, as with all things SEGA at least we got a cheesy keynote presentation out of it [2]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=5&title=Sega%20VR:%20Great%20Idea%20or%20Wishful%20Thinking https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.co...? [2] https://youtu.be/yd98RGxad0U https://youtu.be/yd98RGxad0U
  - Macsenour 10y ago
    To be blunt, it made people sick. I was there, I saw the queazy faces at the end of the demo. I was "hardware boy" in the producer ranks and when that came up, I passed. I'm not sure they would have given it to me, but I made it clear I would not want to work on it.
  - oliv__ 10y ago
    Haha amazing keynote.
- breadmaster 10y ago
  Think more flat plane with software scaled sprite-based rocks moving along the ground approximating motion.
- jfoster 10y ago
  Having tried both the "VR" of 1993 and the VR of today, I would argue it's nearly incorrect for them to have the same name. The goal was the same, but the technology to do decent VR didn't exist back then. There's a certain amount of responsiveness and optical clarity required for a decent VR experience.
wjoe 10y ago
It amazes me how Sega failed so spectacularly and repeatedly. First they tried incremental updates to the Genesis with the CD and 32X and failed to bring anything worthwhile. Then they had the disaster of the Saturn, which was so complex that few developers were able to release any appealing games. Sega themselves didn't even manage to release a flagship Sonic game. The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage was already done. They struggled to put their own franchises to good use on other systems since then, and now mostly seem to survive as a publisher and owner of a few third party developers. In hindsight, perhaps it's more accurate to look at Sega as a company that had one good breakthrough with the Genesis that they could never replicate, rather than a once great company who failed. It was a long series of bad decisions after that, not just a single failure. An interesting excerpt from the article: "Just some of the developments coming to an Electronic Boutique near you: Truly interactive game movies starring hot Hollywood stars; immersive 3-D game environments using cheap VR technology; and motion-sensing technology that places you directly into the game" Maybe they really were just ahead of their time, with the biggest companies still trying and failing in these areas. Or maybe it just shows they're just plain bad ideas.
- orbitur 10y ago
  > The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage was already done The damage was done with third party developers. I think the public was ready for the Dreamcast/PS2 showdown, but the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone cared about. Nintendo had clearly dropped the ball with the "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) game audience by this point, so the real battle was supposed to be between Sega and Sony. I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought everyone's loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega.
  - vlunkr 10y ago
    Part of the job in creating a console is to appeal to 3rd party devs though, you can't put the blame on them. It's likely that since the ps1 had a huge user base it was just a safe bet to develop for the ps2 over the Dreamcast. And I guess you can argue that Nintendo had dropped the ball at this point, but Sega hadn't done anything good since the Genesis, as OP pointed out, that includes Sega CD, 32x, Game Gear and Saturn.
transfire 10y ago
They made one big bugaboo that doomed them for sure. They didn't make the Dreamcast black. You think I'm joking? You should read about consumer testing studies.
- coldpie 10y ago
  But the PlayStation wasn't black either...
  - ssharp 10y ago
    Wasn't the Dreamcast the same gen as the PS2, not PS1?
    - emodendroket 10y ago
      It is kind of a weird in-between.
      - ZenoArrow 10y ago
        Many people see it as the start of the 6th gen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_game_consoles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_ga...
  - astronautjones 10y ago
    ... and the Saturn was (and the 32x...)
  - ZenoArrow 10y ago
    Aside from the Net Yaroze and a couple of other special editions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze http://www.consolecolors.com/sony.html http://www.consolecolors.com/sony.html
- JohnBooty 10y ago
  I agree with you. I loved the look of the Dreamcast: clean, modern, friendly. But much of the gaming public in the USA wants dark, aggressive-looking devices. Another unfortunate strike against Dreamcast? The "supports Windows CE" thing. There were only like two Windows CE games on Dreamcast. But a lot of people thought that the Dreamcast "ran on Windows" -- at a time when everybody was dealing with Windows 98 and Windows ME computers that uh, well, didn't exactly thrill anybody.
agumonkey 10y ago
I barely knew about Sega early history (only that SeGa was US based arcade makers), and it was surprisingly twisted. Also, so many attempts that are nowhere now (Edge16 wasn't a bad idea). Markets are funny. ps: To think that Nintendo Hubris gave birth to the competing Playstation which ate Sega's market.
jgalt212 10y ago
I remember the Dreamcast launch campaign, 9/9/99. very cool. The platform was hurt big time by the lack of EA support. That being said, it did seem like everyone on MTV Cribs had one in their home.
ptrincr 10y ago
Well it's not been mentioned on this page, but without Sega, Alien Isolation would never have been made. Without doubt one of the scariest games I have played, and as a fan of the first Alien film, I feel they beautifully recreated the atmosphere of that masterpiece. Without Sega I don't think the game would ever have been made, it was in development for years and they developed their own engine for it. Unfortunately it only just broke even, I think maybe they went slightly too far on the fear side. It really does take you to the edge whilst playing it and often feels like you're having to will yourself forward rather than having an enjoyable experience. Having said that, I'm glad I finished it and props to Sega for funding it.
rpiguy 10y ago
According to the book "Console Wars," rivalry between Sega Japan and Sega USA was a major factor in the decline of Sega post-Genesis. Sega Japan delayed the release of the SegaCD due to the politics of setting up alliances with other Japanese manufacturers and was also directly responsible for the complex design of the Saturn. Sega USA stole a lot of thunder with the Genesis and Sega Japan wanted to take control back. Sega USA had an alternate design in the works, but Sega Japan insisted on the Saturn. Up until that point, the "friendly rivalry" between Sega USA and its parent Sega Japan had been mostly beneficial. For example, Sonic would have turned out very differently if it were 100% developed in Japan or 100% developed in the USA. The back and forth on Sonic really benefitted the character and the game.

73 points by luu 10y ago

Sega's strategy for battling Nintendo. Let's add some more details about the console wars too: 1. The Untold Story of How Sega Nearly Won the Console Wars - https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/ https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/ 2. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation - https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generation/dp/0062276700 https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generat...

tapoxi 10y ago
Console Wars paints a great picture on how philosophical differences between Sega of Japan and Sega of America destroyed the success they had.
- nicolas_t 10y ago
  Can you expand on that? I'm curious
  - bunderbunder 10y ago
    Here's a couple interviews with Sega of America's CEO at the time where his frustration is very apparent: http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-have-made-the-wrong-decisions-for-20-years/ http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-ha... http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-gives-his-thoughts-on-the-saturns-launch/ http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-gi...
emodendroket 10y ago
That was an interesting book, although marred by the ridiculous wooden recreations of conversations.
- Nors 10y ago
  I agree, and seeing how it's being turned into a documentary (and also a film I believe), it doesn't surprise me. It seems the author's final intent was always the screen. Absolutely worth a read if the subject interests you, questionable dialogue aside. For what's worth, both Tom Kalinske and Al whatshislastname seem to approve and endorse the book and their portrayal.

mikejmoffitt 10y ago

How the mighty have fallen.

rubidium 10y ago

Console wars aside, it's interesting to note that they put a lot of hope into arcades/movies/amusement parks... all of which have not seen nearly the growth rates as home entertainment. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death-of-the-american-arcade-for-amusement-only http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death...

emodendroket 10y ago
Well, that was their heritage. Not shocking.

breadmaster 10y ago

For a company to be so visionary and forward thinking on the arcade front, being a pioneering force of 3D polygonal games, it is astonishing that they released the Saturn in the form they did. You had to be a assembly savant to get decent 3D performance out of the Saturn that your average programmer could easily obtain on the Playstation using C. The VDP2 was pretty impressive though...

ZenoArrow 10y ago
My understanding was that Sega had intended to focus on 2D gaming for the Saturn, but after realising what hardware was in the PlayStation they bumped up the specs to compete by adding in extra processors. The 2D performance of the Saturn appears to have been better than the PlayStation (the RAM expansion probably helped here too), but the 3D capabilities couldn't match up to the PlayStation (I suspect that would've still been the case even if the Saturn was easier to program for).
- MBCook 10y ago
  I believe it was always designed for 3D but they made the 3D aspect more powerful as they saw what Sony was pushing. I get the feeling it was to be a sort of hybrid 2D/3D system instead of a straight jump into 3D. But the multi-CPU thing was a mess. Sony had a very simple architecture that could still do a very good job. Sony made that mistake with the PS2 but still survived (momentum + sales as a DVD player) and the PS3 which hit them hard (Xbox 360 was much easier, got a big win for it). As of the PS4 they've learned their lesson.

orvado 10y ago

Wow, all this talk about VR in 1993 ... it would be interesting to read the history on that. Either the world wasn't ready for it or the implementation was very lame (something like Nintendo StarFox or worse yet ... BattleZone)

supernintendo 10y ago
Sega VR was never released due to many of the same issues that made Nintendo's Virtual Boy a failure. Among these were how expensive the unit was, its poor graphical capabilities and most notably its eyestrain / headache inducing effects after a short period of play time [1]. However, as with all things SEGA at least we got a cheesy keynote presentation out of it [2]. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.com/feature_page.php?id=5&title=Sega%20VR:%20Great%20Idea%20or%20Wishful%20Thinking https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.co...? [2] https://youtu.be/yd98RGxad0U https://youtu.be/yd98RGxad0U
- Macsenour 10y ago
  To be blunt, it made people sick. I was there, I saw the queazy faces at the end of the demo. I was "hardware boy" in the producer ranks and when that came up, I passed. I'm not sure they would have given it to me, but I made it clear I would not want to work on it.
- oliv__ 10y ago
  Haha amazing keynote.
breadmaster 10y ago
Think more flat plane with software scaled sprite-based rocks moving along the ground approximating motion.
jfoster 10y ago
Having tried both the "VR" of 1993 and the VR of today, I would argue it's nearly incorrect for them to have the same name. The goal was the same, but the technology to do decent VR didn't exist back then. There's a certain amount of responsiveness and optical clarity required for a decent VR experience.

wjoe 10y ago

It amazes me how Sega failed so spectacularly and repeatedly. First they tried incremental updates to the Genesis with the CD and 32X and failed to bring anything worthwhile. Then they had the disaster of the Saturn, which was so complex that few developers were able to release any appealing games. Sega themselves didn't even manage to release a flagship Sonic game. The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage was already done. They struggled to put their own franchises to good use on other systems since then, and now mostly seem to survive as a publisher and owner of a few third party developers. In hindsight, perhaps it's more accurate to look at Sega as a company that had one good breakthrough with the Genesis that they could never replicate, rather than a once great company who failed. It was a long series of bad decisions after that, not just a single failure. An interesting excerpt from the article: "Just some of the developments coming to an Electronic Boutique near you: Truly interactive game movies starring hot Hollywood stars; immersive 3-D game environments using cheap VR technology; and motion-sensing technology that places you directly into the game" Maybe they really were just ahead of their time, with the biggest companies still trying and failing in these areas. Or maybe it just shows they're just plain bad ideas.

orbitur 10y ago
> The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage was already done The damage was done with third party developers. I think the public was ready for the Dreamcast/PS2 showdown, but the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone cared about. Nintendo had clearly dropped the ball with the "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) game audience by this point, so the real battle was supposed to be between Sega and Sony. I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought everyone's loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega.
- vlunkr 10y ago
  Part of the job in creating a console is to appeal to 3rd party devs though, you can't put the blame on them. It's likely that since the ps1 had a huge user base it was just a safe bet to develop for the ps2 over the Dreamcast. And I guess you can argue that Nintendo had dropped the ball at this point, but Sega hadn't done anything good since the Genesis, as OP pointed out, that includes Sega CD, 32x, Game Gear and Saturn.

transfire 10y ago

They made one big bugaboo that doomed them for sure. They didn't make the Dreamcast black. You think I'm joking? You should read about consumer testing studies.

coldpie 10y ago
But the PlayStation wasn't black either...
- ssharp 10y ago
  Wasn't the Dreamcast the same gen as the PS2, not PS1?
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    It is kind of a weird in-between.
    - ZenoArrow 10y ago
      Many people see it as the start of the 6th gen. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_game_consoles https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_ga...
- astronautjones 10y ago
  ... and the Saturn was (and the 32x...)
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  Aside from the Net Yaroze and a couple of other special editions. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze http://www.consolecolors.com/sony.html http://www.consolecolors.com/sony.html
JohnBooty 10y ago
I agree with you. I loved the look of the Dreamcast: clean, modern, friendly. But much of the gaming public in the USA wants dark, aggressive-looking devices. Another unfortunate strike against Dreamcast? The "supports Windows CE" thing. There were only like two Windows CE games on Dreamcast. But a lot of people thought that the Dreamcast "ran on Windows" -- at a time when everybody was dealing with Windows 98 and Windows ME computers that uh, well, didn't exactly thrill anybody.

agumonkey 10y ago

I barely knew about Sega early history (only that SeGa was US based arcade makers), and it was surprisingly twisted. Also, so many attempts that are nowhere now (Edge16 wasn't a bad idea). Markets are funny. ps: To think that Nintendo Hubris gave birth to the competing Playstation which ate Sega's market.

jgalt212 10y ago

I remember the Dreamcast launch campaign, 9/9/99. very cool. The platform was hurt big time by the lack of EA support. That being said, it did seem like everyone on MTV Cribs had one in their home.

ptrincr 10y ago

Well it's not been mentioned on this page, but without Sega, Alien Isolation would never have been made. Without doubt one of the scariest games I have played, and as a fan of the first Alien film, I feel they beautifully recreated the atmosphere of that masterpiece. Without Sega I don't think the game would ever have been made, it was in development for years and they developed their own engine for it. Unfortunately it only just broke even, I think maybe they went slightly too far on the fear side. It really does take you to the edge whilst playing it and often feels like you're having to will yourself forward rather than having an enjoyable experience. Having said that, I'm glad I finished it and props to Sega for funding it.

rpiguy 10y ago

According to the book "Console Wars," rivalry between Sega Japan and Sega USA was a major factor in the decline of Sega post-Genesis. Sega Japan delayed the release of the SegaCD due to the politics of setting up alliances with other Japanese manufacturers and was also directly responsible for the complex design of the Saturn. Sega USA stole a lot of thunder with the Genesis and Sega Japan wanted to take control back. Sega USA had an alternate design in the works, but Sega Japan insisted on the Saturn. Up until that point, the "friendly rivalry" between Sega USA and its parent Sega Japan had been mostly beneficial. For example, Sonic would have turned out very differently if it were 100% developed in Japan or 100% developed in the USA. The back and forth on Sonic really benefitted the character and the game.