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I think people forget how experimental Sega were at the time. On the hardware side there was the Dreamcast memory card (the VMU) that was in itself a simple con
by nanna 6y ago
I think people forget how experimental Sega were at the time. On the hardware side there was the Dreamcast memory card (the VMU) that was in itself a simple console, there were the maraccas for Samba De Amigo, the microphone for the truly bizarre talking fish Seaman, the modem for the pioneering multiplayer dungeon adventure Phantasy Star Online. All of this was of the future - it hardly worked (Seaman was definitely not educated in British accents and Samba De Amigo's maraccas were bloody temperamental) but it always felt like a glimpse into a world of gaming to come - just like the Sega Saturn 3d controller heralded all analogue controllers to come. Of course Sega shared this culture of experimentation with Nintendo, though in my mind they took even greater risks. Sony was always a conservative player, mimicked, for the large part, by Microsoft. It is to gaming's severe detriment that Sega had to give up on consoles. I would have loved to see what they would be putting out today.
Edit: I forgot the fishing rod for Sea Bass!!
- city41 6y agoThe Nintendo 64 was released before the Saturn 3d controller.
- Dirlewanger 6y agoSure, but the Saturn's short, stubby analog stick was better designed than the N64 one.
- city41 6y agoGoing by that criteria then I'd give the nod to Sony. Their dual analog sticks was really the game changer and has gone on to be the standard.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y agoAnd being pedantic the Atari 5200 had an analog controller long before them. Not that it was any good, mind you, since it was bizarrely non-self-centering.
- Grazester 6y agoThis is corrected. I believe the Nintendo 64 was released a month before NiGHTS Into Dreams and the Saturn analog controller debuted
- ekianjo 6y ago> how experimental Sega were at the time. another way of looking at it is that they were all over the place and wasting engineering resources to deliver marginal initiatives for obsolete hardware (sega CD, mega 32X, etc...), instead of focusing on their core console business. By the time they came up with the Dreamcast they were so much in debt they had no runway to survive as a hardware manufacturer despite very encouraging sales in the first year.
- iforgotpassword 6y agoThis mostly. Although our view on this might be biased, the were reportedly severe tensions between Sega of Japan and the West (mostly America). As the story goes, the Japanese HQ wanted to assert dominance over the imperitent westerners, since after all the American video game market crashed while Japan succeed. When SGI first contacted Sega of America with their 3D hardware they were thrilled and tossed it to HQ, which shot it down since the Saturn was supposed to bring the arcade experience into the living room and didn't need 3D. SGI then showed their stuff to Nintendo... Then when Sega saw that Sony and Nintendo did 3D, they panicked and bolted on some 3D capabilities last minute resulting in an architecture that makes the PS3 look easy to code for. Then at E3 1995, they suddenly announced an earlier release date for the console than what was communicated to all the developers pissing those off, with a release price of 399. This lead to Sony's legendary press conference for the PS1 directly after Sega's: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI https://youtube.com/watch?v=ExaAYIKsDBI
- ekianjo 6y agoYes, both entities did not really collaborate between each other's and there were in effect 2 R&D organizations, one in the US and one in Japan with almost no communication in between.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago> which shot it down since the Saturn was supposed to bring the arcade experience into the living room and didn't need 3D. This doesn’t add up when their most popular arcade experiences were Virtual Racing, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop and Daytona