Sega Does What Nintendon't

[Hairless Mammoth]

This is a mistake many people keep making. The Dreamcast didn't kill Sega. The Saturn did. It lost nearly all of their market share in one generation and alienated all of the retailers it didn't let carry its console for the surprise release they tried to pull off. The Dreamcast actually regained a bit but the PS2's lineup was just too good. I know the dreamcast had some good ones but the PS2's launch lineup was massive by comparison.

I wish people would start realizing that the Saturn killed Sega, not the Dreamcast.

The Saturn did come out right when Sega of Japan and Sega of America were both making some of their poorest decisions ever. But, the system also had some help from the the Sega/Mega 32x. The stores were burned by the surprise Saturn launch, and the consumers were burned by seeing another add-on for the aging Genesis. Both were displeased by the 32x being unsupported so soon, despite costing so much at launch. I believe some game makers were also angry about releasing the Saturn 6 months early.

The Saturn did well in Japan. If the Saturn had a decent North American launch and Sega's leadership got along better during those years, the Dreamcast might have outlived the Xbox or Gamecube.

Regardless of what series everyone wants Sega to bring back, I think we can all agree on one thing.

That Sega needs to stop making Sonic games FFS.

They need to at least learn to properly test out anything with Sonic in it and delay or even scrap what doesn't work, no matter the cost to do so. (Though, some people say Sonic Boom was rushed on purpose to get out of the 3 Wii U game contract with Nintendo.)

 

[Skops]

I would shell out BUCKETS of money for a Issac Washington or a Jack (Madworld) Amiibo

 

[RealRT]

>Sega couldn't scrape enough characters for a semi-decent kart racer

And yet made two really great ones. Without even using a host of classic characters that fans wanted them to use like Axel Stone, Blaze Fielding, Sketch Turner or Vectorman.

I say this as someone who's played video games for the last 20+ years and with zero irony or insincerity... I haven't the foggiest clue as to who any of those people are.

Guess you never played Streets of Rage, Comix Zone or, well, Vectorman. Which is a shame. I'll even take a lucky guess and say that good portion of those 20 years was spent on Nintendo consoles.

 

[RealRT]

That's the thing, they belong to that one era. With the exception of Sonic, Sega's characters never achieved the staying power of Mario, Link, DK, Samus or Kirby. And even Sonic is usually associated with that dated 90s "too cool for school" attitude everybody mocks him for. No other characters are as timeless as Mario or Link, if only because they never grew an actual personality.

It's not the matter of the characters not having staying power - the fact that actual Sega gamers remember them after so many years proves otherwise - it's the problem os Sega never sticking to their guns and actually doing something of worth will all those classic characters and franchises the fans beg them to give a proper comeback, which is a problem that dates all the way back to Saturn, when Sega basically went "Hey, remember the Genesis, all those awesome games and stuff? Now forget it!". It's the company that tanked a mildly successful fighting game franchise (Eternal Champions. And yes, it was fairly popular back in the day) so it wouldn't distract people from their other fighting game franchise (Virtua Fighter) which nobody gives a fuck about.

 

[Rellik San]

Clearly they need to make a new Ristar game with a Ristar Amiibo... I would buy that... that would be super cute.

The big issue with Sega is, they have all these fantastic IP's, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Puyo Pop, Afterburner, Virtua Cop/Fighter, Fighting Vipers, Ristar, Shining Force, Land Stalker, Alex Kidd, Space Harrier that if they actually put some time into developing good games of, I mean hell imagine a Platinum developed Streets of Rage game? It would be awesome.

Instead they are content to let their IP languish in the ether for all of time, hell what about some of their more esoteric stuff? Mr. Bones, Bug, Enemy Zero, Panzer Dragoon. All games that deserve a new lease on life. Sega has a massive library it could call upon and yet does nothing with it, that's it's biggest weakness and they need to change that.

 

[Lightknight]

This is a mistake many people keep making. The Dreamcast didn't kill Sega. The Saturn did. It lost nearly all of their market share in one generation and alienated all of the retailers it didn't let carry its console for the surprise release they tried to pull off. The Dreamcast actually regained a bit but the PS2's lineup was just too good. I know the dreamcast had some good ones but the PS2's launch lineup was massive by comparison.

I wish people would start realizing that the Saturn killed Sega, not the Dreamcast.

The Saturn did come out right when Sega of Japan and Sega of America were both making some of their poorest decisions ever. But, the system also had some help from the the Sega/Mega 32x. The stores were burned by the surprise Saturn launch, and the consumers were burned by seeing another add-on for the aging Genesis. Both were displeased by the 32x being unsupported so soon, despite costing so much at launch. I believe some game makers were also angry about releasing the Saturn 6 months early.

The Saturn did well in Japan. If the Saturn had a decent North American launch and Sega's leadership got along better during those years, the Dreamcast might have outlived the Xbox or Gamecube.

Well, I say that the Saturn is what killed Sega but the Dreamcast wasn't without it's own flaws. Sony was benefitting from synergistic departments. Since they developed the DVD standard for other departments they had vertical integration in place by being able to produce their own chips and hardware whereas Sega had to buy everything externally and was already losing money on every console sold. That's a significant cost disadvantage for Sega. Their manufacturing plants also produced a significant GD-ROM glitch in their hardware that you may more may not be familiar with but one that had a pretty high failure rate. Hilariously enough, it was partly implemented to help avoid piracy while simultaneously being pitched as having more disk space even though Sony's DVD format was clearly superior. Let's also not forget that the PS2 successfully doubled as a relatively inexpensive DVD player at the time and became a media center for a lot of people too. This was also the second console in a row where Sega was losing huge amounts on every console sold which Sega just couldn't absorb like Sony could. Combined with the nonexistent software sales and you've got a major problem that resolved itself in the only way it could.

I would say that the PS2 killed beat the Dreamcast in nearly every way. It had a better format, better internet connectivity, was more powerful hardware and managed to cut its prices far earlier than the dreamcast had hoped which forced them to cut prices when they clearly couldn't.

Had Sega done better with the Saturn then I still think the Dreamcast would have lost them market share to the ps2, but not nearly as much.

 

[The Great JT]

Hey, I would kill for a Vyse Amiibo.

I now want a Cupil Amiibo. Dammit, I didn't know I wanted this, but now I do.

Everyone wants Skies of Arcadia merch.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

Anyone else old enough to remember Chakan on the Genesis? Man that was a great game.

Actually Chakkan was a TERRIBLE game with a really great atmosphere. Seriously look at the playthroughs on youtube and look at the muddy controls, bizarre hitboxes, and generally lame gameplay.

But it had such awesome worldbuilding that it totally captured your imagination.

 

[Something Amyss]

Everyone wants Skies of Arcadia merch.

Amiibos certainly wouldn't be out of the blue, either, since Legends is the reason I know the game. Weird to think it was originally a Sega game.

 

[EyeReaper]

I don't see the problem. I would so buy an Amiibo of Vector the Crocodile.

in fact, I want all of Team Chaotix. Yes, even Charmy. Especially Charmy.

 

[Grande McCokle]

That first panel background situation though.