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Sega's failure
or
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Why Sega finally decided to stay out of the hardware business
Sega has been around for quite a while. When Atari was hot, people already knew
Space Fury, Congo Bongo or the smash hit Zaxxon. When Atari's video games were
fading away and Atari's computers were hot, everyone knew Space Harrier,
Afterburner or Shinobi. And when Atari died, everyone knew Sonic, the hedgehog,
Monaco GP and Virtua Racer.
Now all of a sudden, Sega decides to pull out of the hardware business and
produce games for the former arch enemies such as Sony, Nintendo and Micro$oft.
Surprised ? Not really, over the past 10 years Sega had to recover from one
failed project over the other.
This little article is just to show that this final step by Sega is in no way
surprising, but their only last chance to survive.
1987 - Not really a flop, not really a hit - the Master System
----
Introduced in 1986 in Japan as Mark III, in 1987 in America and Europe as
Master System, Sega's first real console concept, available worldwide now,
established itself and re-introduced the video game market after its total
breakdown in 1984.
But Sega only lead the world charts shortly with this one. Good games like Alex
Kidd or Shinobi pushed the sales for a short time, but Sega never managed to
establish one great mascot like Nintendo did with Mario. Technically spoken the
Master System could keep up with the Nintendo Entertainment system, but Sega's
approach was different.
The Sega arcade machines were always technically stunning and did not look too
good on the Master System's 8-bit hardware, while Nintendo focussed on games
with intelligent and terrific gameplay that never relied on technical gadgets
too much. The Master System succeeded in establishing Sega in the video game
market worldwide, but it always was second place.
1988 - The only real winner by Sega - The MegaDrive
----
Finally, in 1988 in Japan and in 1989 in Europe and America (where it was
called Genesis), Sega managed to introduce a system that was capable of beating
both the NEC PC Engine and the Nintendo NES technically and this time, Sega
managed to produce visually stunning games on it that looked as good as they
played. And this time, third party developers were attracted by the simple to
program, yet very powerful hardware of this 16-bit system as well.
The MegaDrive also introduced Sonic, the Hedgehog, the only real and successful
mascot that Sega lacked for the whole 8-bit era. The MegaDrive/Genesis was the
only real successful Video Game System Sega had until then - and it will stay
Sega's only real hit.
1992 - Mass storage media at last - The MegaCD
----
In 1992 and 1993, the MegaCD (SegaCD in America) as presented to the world,
giving the MegaDrive a 600 MB power-up for real full motion video, music and
more gameplay you ever wanted.
To keep up with the technical developments of this time, the MegaCD was even
given additional customchips along with an 68000 CPU. But the MegaCD had 2
major disadvantages : The customchips increased the price, yet the games
suffered from the low data transfer rate of the drive so that the full
potential of this system was hardly visible. Yet Sega clinged to it for quite a
while, even though it was not very well supported by third party developers.
Trying to redesign both the MegaDrive and the MegaCD to decrease costs lead to
the MegaDrive 2 and the MegaCD 2. Still, this system flopped in comparison to
the sales of the MegaDrive in general.
1992 - Portable Problems - The Game Gear
----
Also in 1992, Sega finally presented their answer to Nintendo's extremely
successful Game Boy, the Game Gear. Resembling the Lynx in size, design and
weight rather than the Game Boy, the Game Gear could never compete in any
aspect with the Lynx hardware-wise. The Game Gear was very similar to the
Master System with the only exception being the revamped graphics chip, capable
of displaying 4096 colours and more sprites. Yet, the Game Gear was too heavy,
consumed far too much power so batteries lasted below one hour usually and a
rather washed up display, Sega soon had to see that the games produced for the
Game Gear also looked behind times - they were usually just improved Master
System Versions.
Sega decided to give the Game Gear a TV adapter so you could watch TV using
your Game Gear - but please, no shows that are longer than 40 minutes,
otherwise batteries are bound to fail. Then, as a last step, they introduced
the Master System Adapter that finally let you play Master System games on your
Game Gear - but instead of boasting Game Gear sales, it slaughtered game
development on the Game Gear.
1993 - Piggy Back Powerup - The Sega 32X
----
The early nineties were quite shaky for the whole video game industry. Atari
announced the return with a bang - The Atari Jaguar, a 64-bit system powerful
enough to slaughter anything on the market currently, produced by IBM for
minimum retail price and maximum quality. Sony and Panasonic announced the 3DO,
the first fully CD-based video game system - And Sega's most succesful console
ever, the MegaDrive, was slowly, but surely, falling behind times. Sega decided
to approach this problem in 2 steps.
First, release a "power-up" for the MegaDrive to keep it up to date, second,
announce the Saturn, a full answer to both 3DO and Jaguar. But the 32X failed
badly. Reasons for this are numerous. For the customer, the 32X was only
attractive if you already had a MegaDrive, otherwise, the entry price for a
MegaDrive PLUS a 32X was quite high. For the developer, the combination
MegaDrive and 32X - even worse, MegaDrive, 32X and MegaCD - was quite a bunch
of hardware to handle, a SuperH RISC CPU in the 32X, 2 68000 plus Z80, and all
that connected over a bus-system that needed to shuffle quite a lot of data per
second. Even Sega didn't really know what games to produce for the 32X. Top
titles such as Virtua Racing Deluxe and Virtua Fighter were the exepctions,
expensive, but not very hot games like the Star Wars license games or Sega's
remixes of 80s games such as Space Harrier and Afterburner did not attract many
customers. Additionally, there was basically no 3rd party development at all
for the 32X.
1993 - Portable Problems continued - The CDX
----
The MegaCD might have flopped, but the CD did succeed in ruling this planet as
a storage device. Sega decided to re-cycle the MegaCD once again and packed it
all together in a very slim case that resembled the size and design of a
portable CD player but also included a fully fledged Mega Drive. Yet again, it
did not work out. First, the system was small, but a bit fragile and very
expensive. MegaCD games were rare and most titles not very hot and for just
playing MegaDrive cartridge games, this was the most expensive solution you
could get. The CDX was also known as MegaCD portable, but it did not sell well.
1994 - Portable Problems final - The Nomad
----
So Nintendo took the whole portable market by storm and neither Game Gear by
Sega nor the Atari Lynx could do anything against that. But Sega tried again,
with a portable MegaDrive. Pardon me, with a portable Genesis. The Nomad has an
internal LC Display, but can also be hooked up to a TV set, it has an internal
joypad, but can also connect 2 external joypad - hence it's a full Genesis
that can also be used as a fully functional portable - and a highly compatible
one, too, that plays really any Genesis game.
Funny enough, the Nomad could not establish itself either. Even though the
power consumption was bearable this time, even though it offered to be used as
a full Genesis, even though it was compatible to any Genesis game, it did not
make it. Fragility, lack of international support and advertisement, high price
and loss of interest by the public lead to the Nomad being a dead project, too.
1995 - Sony's entrance, Sega's leave - The Saturn
----
Sony just announced to enter the video game market with a project called the
"Playstation", and 3DO threatened to release a successor to the 3DO, the Jaguar
was (kind of) still there, too and the 32X was a failure - time to really do
something for Sega. So the Saturn was finished and most probably finished in a
hurry.
Though technically comparable to the Playstation the Saturn suffered from badly
organised hardware, lack of good developer kits, lack of support from Sega. The
first series of games for the Saturn could easily compete with the first series
of Playstation games but while all involved companies contracted to continuosly
support the Playstation, the Saturn never saw the sequels of Tomb Raider or
Command & Conquer.
Then again, Sega's own games on the Saturn did not really compete with the
massive development of games that Sony pushed for the Playstation. As a reason,
in 1997, Sega cancelled the Saturn. It was the first time, a video game company
the size of Sega cancelled the support for its own console without either being
sold, dying or being bankrupt.
1999 - Sega's final chapter - The Dreamcast
----
In 1999, the Dreamcast, the next-next generation video game, was introduced and
according to inside sources, Sega did it all right this time. Well, almost. The
hardware is powerful enough to even compete with the younger PS2 and GameCube
on a decent level. This time, Sega even put great emphasis on the developer
support by producing decent developer kits and supplying reliable developer
support. As an additional goody, Sega even gave the Dreamcast a modem, making
the Dreamcast either a WWW-settop box for your TV set or your terminal station
for online gaming.
But Sega failed again and most probably due to their advertisement campaign.
The Dreamcast was either advertised as "6-billion player console" without even
mentioning the superior hardware of the Dreamcast or not at all. The Dreamcast
sported a huge amount of top-notch games such as Metropolis Street Racer, Jet
Set Radio, Ecco the Dolphin, Quake III, Sonic Adventure or Crazy Taxi, just the
public was never told - at least not by Sega.
And thus ends the day of Sega's hardware development. You will have to agree
that, after this list of failed projects, withdrawing from the hardware
business is Sega's only sensible solution. Well, Sega will live on in Sega
games - You will just have to buy different hardware to play Sega games now.
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The Paranoid of Paranoia from the Lunatic Asylum
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