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Games Entertainment

Sega To Leave Console Business? (Updated) 81

Posted by Hemos from the exit-stage-left dept.
Raistlin Majere writes "Thought a few of you might be interested in checking this out, but according to The Gaming Intelligence Agency, Sega creators of the Dreamcast say that they are quitting the console hardware business, for the full story, click here. Just so you all know, no, they are not quitting quite yet, they're still fully supporting the Dreamcast, just, the Dreamcast will be their last console. "Thanks to skynet for a competing account of the story. This story chalks it up to mistranslation, and says that Sega will be staying in the console business, but focusing more on the Internet.
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Sega To Leave Console Business? (Updated) More

Sega To Leave Console Business? (Updated)

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  • It's a shame, because they make good system, but it's also not a loss, because they do make good software as well.

    I can't tell you how much time I spent playing Virtua Fighter for the PC. They did a real knockup job on it. Same thing for the Sonic port. I don't know what they've got planned for the Internet, but I can't wait to see it.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Some of the coolest games have been released on the Sega systems too. Fantasy Star, Sonic... this is really depressing news! That just leaves what, Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to duke it out.
  • The games console industry has seen more than a few shake-ups in it's time (Atari & Coleco being two of the bigger) but for Sega to quit... They practically defined the modern console.

    However, nature abhors a vaccuum, and I suspect another company to fill the gap. And, knowing history, they, in turn will displace Nintendo, who will, in turn, be replaced by yet another company.

    The reason for these kinds of shifts? Console companies stagnate, amazingly rapidly. Their life expectancy is not much longer than that of their products. In computing, if you stand still, you're going backwards.

  • No they're not! It's a mis-translation (Score:5)

    by Bowdie ( 11884 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @03:07AM (#1539652) Homepage
    http://www.segadreamcast.net/dcnews/111199_segahar dware.html
  • Obtain a clue, trollboy.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Sega's Atomic Announcement
    Posted: 11.11.99
    By: Mike Bess

    The entire gaming industry was set on fire with one simple
    phrase ealier today: Sega will be leaving the hardware market
    and focus on networking and game development. This was
    first broken by Gamespot, but the juicey tid-bit was quickly
    lapped up by eager reporters everywhere. Even we were
    sucked in, but just to play it safe gave a quick call to the good
    folks at Sega of America. Considering the ramifications of
    Sega "retreating" from the market, is pretty big stuff. Atomic,
    in its proportions.

    We spoke with two seperate sources within Sega of America.
    Both confirmed that the earth-shattering news piece was a
    simple mis-clarification. In fact, it was a mis-understanding in
    the translations of Mr. Okawa's speech at last night's Okawa
    Foundation Ceremony. Below are some excerpts from our
    conversation:

    "The question was something to the effect of 'If the
    Dreamcast does not succeed, how will Sega compete in the
    future?' Mr. Okawa's response (although it may have been a
    little mangled in the translation) was that the 'future of Sega is
    the Internet, not hardware.' What he was trying to convey
    (and has been preaching for several months now) is that Sega
    is going to be focusing its efforts increasingly on the Internet.
    That means using the Internet as a delivery system for
    software, online gameplay, e-commerce, etc. However, you
    still need some form of hardware to receive that information.
    Sega will not be delivering content for PSX2, Dolphin or the
    PC through the Internet. So, Sega will always need to develop
    some form of console."

    "Mr. Okawa knows that Sega's strength against Sony and
    Nintendo is its ability to pursue new technologies and
    advances designed to expand the gameplay experience, such
    as the Internet. Sony's PSX2 doesn't even have a built in
    Internet solution, nor have either of our competitors outlined
    any form of Internet strategy for their new systems, as we
    have already done publicly."

    Thankfully, the Sega faithful all across this tiny globe breathe
    a collective sigh of relief. To even consider Dreamcast as the
    company's last piece of hardware is almost unimaginable.
    Furthermore, to believe that Mr. Okawa would make such a
    damaging statement that "Sega is leaving the hardware
    market" during the DC's infancy in North America and
    Europe, is equally so. Sega worked hard to spread the word,
    clarifying the mis-constrused words of Mr. Okawa.

    For those keeping score, the speech Mr. Okawa gave
    regarded the future of Dreamcast, Sega, and the establishment
    of a new foundation in his honor. He told the press last night
    that Sega would be putting greater emphasis on
    video-gaming's networking abilities and that the commuinty
    of the 21st Century would be a "networked society." Unveiled
    at the ceremoney was the Dreamcast zip drive, a beautiful
    peripheral to the Dreamcast as well as an Ethernet port which
    would fit into the existing modem's slot. Lastly, the Okawa
    Foundation's intention is to fund programs for youth and
    schools which promotes technology and helps bring that
    awareness further into the public consciousness.

    Oh and if you were wondering, Mr. Okawa oversees over
    ninety companies, including Sega Enterprises with an annual
    salary of 7.5 billion dollars. He's the President of CSK Corp
    which makes him the big cheese of a series of hi-tech and
    mass-media firms. Sega X will keep you updated on any future
    announcements by Mr. Okawa as well as the unfolding saga
    of the zip drive and ethernet expansions.
  • This is like Sega shooting themselves in the head. Now that people know Sega is not making consoles after the DC, people will shy away from it and purchase N64's and Playstations. Too bad. I played the DC and its not bad. It's a good console compared to the N64 and the graphics are better than the PSX. But thats the way things work, I guess...
    --

  • No, you are wrong, the article (if you had read it) states that it was initially thought to be a mis-translation, but it was later confirmed to be true.

    Anyway, the Dreamcast Zip drive is pretty chunky isn't it! It might include a couple of USB ports as well, but even so. And it only supports 100Mb media, not the 250Mb media! Obviously this means it should be possible to connect other USB devices though, but it would seem hard to install the drivers for it... USB hard drive anyone? (eek)

    The Ethernet looks useful, and if Sega go into the software business you can expect their games to come out on both Dreamcast and PC, and then you can play the same game on both in a networked environment. Maybe Sonic Deathmatch could happen, although I would prefer a simpler game: SHOOT SONIC A LOT :-)

  • Just for those people who never bother reading the links that slashdot links to, the article basically says this is a misunderstanding.

    In his speech, the guy basically said that Sega's emphasis would be on software and internet services.

    The implication here is that Sega won't stop making consoles -- but that the console is not their business, it is merely an enabler for the *real* business, which is content production and delivery.


    --
  • I agree, however it appears (from multiple stories, although I'm still not sure which ones to believe) that Sega is not going to "quit"... I think what we'll probably see is Sega, as mentioned in the speech, attempting to further and further to the side of PC business, and if/when its game consoles begin to phase out they will make the shift then. In terms of business this makes more sense than simply announcing that they are going to stop producing their game consoles.
  • Umm, the original article linked to by /. indicates that the reports of it being a missunderstanding are incorrect....
  • Did you read the aricle? it acknowledges that it has been reported as a mis-translation, and looks at the implication of the phrase "...future of Sega is in the internet...". This inmplies to many people that Sega will be moving towards software development only for other platforms, with the competitive advantage coming from brand strength and network delivery methods.
  • "I think in the future there is the possibility of Sega becoming a software-only company."
    This makes more sense, sort-of. I guess they lose enough money on each console they sell. Since the money is in the software, they probably figure if they crank out another Sonic the Hedgehog or other such hit, they can be doing as well as (say) Id software. Or maybe it is due to the fact that the Sega Saturn was essentially a flop in the US (have you ever seen one?) Or maybe they just believe that PC games are the future and the console isn't necessary.

    I think it's a bit of a silly move, though. I know far too many people who'd rather plug the darn thing into a big screen TV and drink a few beers to a Playstation game than sit around their $2000 PC and play games on a keyboard, mouse or single-joystick (I don't know of more than one or two obscure devices which allow you to connect more than one joystick). Also, if you own the console, you can get royalties for each software title that companies make for your platform. Nintendo has been doing it for years, and I'm sure Sega and Sony do it.

    I guess Sega has been hit-and-miss in the business ever since they got into consoles. The first Sega console (what was it called again? The one with the cards or cartridges) wasn't that big a hit, then the Genesis was a hit, then the Saturn wasn't, now the Dreamcast _should_ be; Christmas season 1999 will decide.

    Well, I won't be too sad to see them go since I haven't owned a console since the 8-bit Nintendo. I will be sad to see the competitive push diminish on the companies (Nintendo is no driver; they have been behind the times for years now). Ahh well..

    --

  • Yes it did, but the original report neglected to mention that, upon calling Sega, it was found that they weren't actually leaving the console industry, but that they were just refocusing their primary objective -- that being software and content delivery using the Internet.

    You can't always believe what Slashdot links to.

    -----------

    "You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

  • Sure.

    But the IGN article contains compelling supporting evidence for the "misunderstanding" theory, whereas the original article just says "this is true" and provides no backup.

    I might just about be convinced that Sega would ditch its hardware business (although it seems very unlikely given the tremendous success of the Dreamcast so far), but I can't possibly believe that a company like Sega would actually *tell* the public about such an intention, when they have a two month old (in the West) console to market.
    --

  • stagnation of consoles? (Score:3)

    by tabish ( 105580 ) on Friday November 12, 1999 @03:32AM (#1539669)
    I don't know about that... isn't the idea behind console systems that it is supposed to stand still for a few years at a time? Console systems provide a platform that's ahead of its time when it comes out but lasts for a few years The reason there are gaming systems like the Dreamcast is (1) they are cheaper than computers (at least for that kind of raw graphical power), (2) the end user never has to worry about configuration, hardware conflicts, etc. since there is only one possible configuration (or with N64, two depending on whether or not you have the memory card), and (3) they're designed specifically for gaming.

    Granted, no company can rest on its laurels for long. All console companies are constantly in development of the next best system, but that system will be released a few years after the last.

    But older systems are still great... witness Final Fantasy VIII for Playstation, a game released a few months ago for a three or four year old platform. Graphically, the game is groundbreaking, and in terms of gameplay and plot, the game is amazing. A three year old computer is a Pentium 150 or so, which can barely run today's groundbreaking games... at least not w/o expensive upgrades such as a fast 3d card.

    Though I do not doubt that someday the venerable Nintendo will be replaced, that does not mean that their current system is no longer a viable platform... but this round may be the last for them since they have historically been too late to market with their system... but that's an entirely different topic...
  • Actually most of the playstation's strength is the fact that it can play CDs and use all the space on such a high capacity medium. Essentially most of the stuff playstation does is pre-rendered which really is quite crappy compared to what a good high end video card could do in PC. Sega's systems were good but they really didn't catch on compared to the SNES.
  • What really gets me with consoles is that the next generation of a console is always incompatible with the previous generation. If I buy a Dreamcast it would be great if it ran my Megadrive and Saturn games, but of course it wont, so I would be forced to throw out my old games or keep a load of consoles. Thanks goodness games are now appearing for Linux.
  • If you're talking about the Sonic 1/2/3/knuckles pack for the PC, here's an interesting titbit:

    Sega paid the author of the free (gratis not libre, sadly) Genesis emulator KGen to use his work.

    The package is actually KGen (hacked a little, I guess), the Genesis ROMS, and a front-end.

    Now isn't that a refreshing attitude to emulation, from Sega. Nice to see after all that nastiness from Nintendo.
    --
  • Uh, you forget that the Genesis was a system that was out of place... it was 16 bit in an 8 bit world. After that was the saturn. Many don't know its strengths, except for those in japan. If you wanted games like Marvel vs Capcom or an RPG with a good storyline, you would turn to Saturn. Playstation's controllers make it disadvantageous to play 2d fighters. Then there was DC. It was the first fully 128 bit system in the world. It was also a stranger in a strange land. Sega has always innovated the market. The only problem is, they will bring something out, and then other companies will bring something out a year later with a year's extra tech involved. Sega innovates... Nintendo and Sony imitate. Remember, if you want a real computer, buy PowerPC... if you want a real operating system, use Linux.
  • .. but keeping a load of consoles is *cool*.

    I have ten :)
    --
  • M$ makes the hardware - No they don't, Sega, Hitachi, NEC and Yamaha make the hardware.

    M$ makes the OS - M$ makes ONE of the OSs, and AFAIK, only Sega Rally2 uses it.

    M$ makes the games - I dont own any M$ games for my dreamcast, mainly becuase there arn't any (yet).
  • USB baby. Add a 4-port hub and 4 USB joys and it's gametime.
  • I am getting more and more desensitized to companies trumpeting that the future is the Internet. I mean, DUH!

    But what do such statements really mean? For Sega to concentrate on content is one thing, but what has the internet got to do with it? Two things: delivery of software, and networked gameplay.

    Delivery is nothing to shout about. Packaged CD's will always be an effective distribution method for large amounts of data, and by the time the net is fast enough to make CD's seem small we'll all have those cool fluorescent multilayer disks [slashdot.org] with even more orders of magnitude of capacity. Sneakernet rules.

    So that leaves networked gameplay. Will the bandwidth requirements always be reasonable? Maybe, if the net stays free. But you-know-who is buying their way into control of residential broadband access. It's already controlled by a very few cable and phone companies, and they're straining at the bit to start selling you their broadband content bundled with net access. What's to stop them from screwing up traffic on Dreamcast ports (oh, purely accidentally) and trying to sell you their games that for some reason have much better network performance? The game console manufacturers and developers have an enormous market, and there's no way that the big network powers are going to just let them keep it for themselves.

    Call me paranoid, but I see all these mergers and cross-investments as steps toward turning the net into a big vending machine that will be controlled with the electro-economic equivalent of the muscle that the mobs use to use to control jukeboxes.

    We're gonna need another revolution.

  • Why not play them on your old console instead? Or use M.A.M.E...
  • Wow, your comparison is like that of compairing a '67 Mustang to a '99 Viper. Both of them are good cars, just in thier own way. One is older, more classic, a name that every one knew after it first got out, and more then a few could afford, but eventually passed on. The other is one that people all know, and truely love, has more "flash" and is faster, that everyone wants and hopes to get ( and by sales, the PSX peeps have )
    but in terms, can't compare to the old.

    Think of them as Horses of a different color, breed, etc.

    We'll miss ya sega
  • Missed the "...or keep a load of consoles." bit. Sorry. But the M.A.M.E. tip still stands...
  • Why put out something that people will not use anyway? I mean if you have a computer why not buy games from people like ID or others who actually can make quality games of the sort that people rave out about for 10+ years (still remember doom). As far as internet access if you are an idiot AOL will do nicely and cheaply compared to anything that sega could do for that market sector anyway.
  • One really good question is the reason that perhaps there are less games out for most consoles (in sheer volume) compared to PCs and the playstation is because it's harder to produce the games in the first place? How does one go about actually writing one of these. What is the format (game system) that can hold the most data. What I am really concerned about is long games that have interssting plots and not 100% thrilling graphics (although they really can't hurt).

    What exactly is this mem e virus? word play?
  • I didn't buy the Dreamcast, with the awesome graphics and all. I waited. I had too many bitter and pretty fresh memories with my purchases of prior Sega failures. Sure, the genesis was pretty cool, but buying the peripherals-Sega CD and 32X anyone? Dropped after not much software support. Once again quite fortunately, the Saturn came out and where did that go? Nowhere. I'm glad I didn't buy into that.
    Sega should sink by the wayside, and stop wasting a childs or parents hard-earned money.
    I will enjoy my next generation nintendo Dolphin and Sony Playstation2 games. I will not buy into another Sega failure.
    Or maybe, I will wait another 6 months and pick up a Dreamcast in the clearance bin for 29.99 if there are enough games that I can get for 5 bucks each.
  • Ah ha! The mythical X-box, I presumed you were talking Dreamcast. Apologies.
  • The fact that Sega bowed out of the hardware console business means that they accept that the Dreamcast is going to die once the next Playstation, and then Nintendo appear. The public is likely to notice that (do you want to buy stuff from a company that's exiting the market?) and hold off on Dreamcast waiting for Playstation.

    R.I.P. Dreamcast.

    Kaa
  • This little tidbit of info has been going around for years. Basically ever since the launch of the Saturn (if not before). Sega's greatest strength has always been it's video games (mostly its arcade adaptations to the home), and selling hardware is a money losing proposition (until royalties from software start rolling in).

    There was talk back in the Saturn days that the Dreamcast (then code name Black Belt/Katana) would be dropped in favor or Sega just making games for any system available. The reasoning was that since their games are so popluar, selling them on multiple systems would bring Sega a lot of cash. Of course they took the gamble with Dreamcast and it seems (in the US anyway) to have paid off.

    The talk recently has turned to how much has it actually paid off. Many people have speculated that this will be Sega's last hardware attempt in the console industry unless DC takes off phenominally. Sega is very much in the red right now, and has a lot of debt to pay off. Financially, down the road, ditching the money losing hardware section of the company in favor of software only may be the way for them to go to get back in the black.
  • Wow! Looks like you don't know the console history very well! The SNES came out 3 years after the Sega Genesis! So Nintendo was the one who was behind. After that the Saturn came, which HAD a CD drive and could play CD's and had 3d, comparable to the Playstation. Unfortunately the playstation was a bit faster and cheaper. While Nintendo was still behind and didn't release a new console for the next two years (Ultra). Now the Dreamcast is here and it sure kicks ass! Okay, the specs of the Playstation are better if you look at pure CPU power... But the Dreamcast has a great set of features, including webbrowsing, storing on zipdisks and so on... It even can set up a modem or network connection and make a cable connection to the NeoGeo pocket so you can play two DIFFERENT games against eachother (King of fighters99 vs King of Fighters RD2) cross platform! One minor point is the presence of Windows CE which still isn't used for anything yet (thank god!) but Sega thought they could port Direct X games to the Dreamcast with that. Nobody is interested yet... Just do your research well before you blabber something! Sega: we'll miss you for sure!
  • "Sega will be leaving the hardware market and focus on networking and game development" Sega is notorius for making plenty of seperate gaming consoles with plenty of add-on hardware. Whoever misunderstood this phrase is speaking enlish as a third language at most.(or at least not familiar with Sega's history.)
  • The PSX2 is going to be backwards compatible and Sega announced that the Dreamcast will be as well by a interface card...

    Then again, use MAME! You'll play cross platform all the time!

    Oh, and I already spotted a Dreamcast emulator called Nightmare!

    Whoa!
  • They really should get out of the console business, stick to maybe arcades and games only. It'll save them, just like it saved 3D0.
  • I just want to reiterate, this story is strictly the result of a mis interpretation of a statement made in Japanese. Check out http://dreamcast.ign.com/news/12062.html

    Sega takes a loss every time they sell a DreamCast, as does Sony and Nintendo for their hardware. The console hardware is sold below cost, but the hardware manufacturers makes t back every time you buy a game. Sega not only makes money off of sales of their own software (like Sonic Adventure or House of the Dead), but they also make money from the licensing fees paid by thrid party publishers. This makes it pretty damn profitable to be the producer of a hardware platform, so I would doubt that Sega would want to leave this market anytime soon.
  • Why, yes. That would make excellent sense, to follow up the most successful console launch ever.

    (I acknowledge that PS2 may well eclipse it)
    --
  • I'd suggest that rather than being a mistranslation based on language barriers, it's a misunderstanding caused by unintended inferences.
    We've all said things that come out wrong, or that people are just too plain stupid to interpret correctly.

    Here's a good analogy: IBM has repeatedly announced that its main business interest is solutions and services. The Sega story is kind of like Lou Gerstner saying "IBM will be concentrating on solutions and services", and some reporter rushing off and saying "IBM to stop writing software!".

    BTW, the Dreamcast is *superb*. I already feel I've got my money's worth, and I only have two games so far (Power Stone and Sonic Adventure).
    --
  • Sega innovates... Nintendo and Sony imitate.

    You are absolutely correct. As I've been telling my friends, "Nintendo talks the talk, and Sega walks the walk." Case and point: Game expandability.

    Nintendo trumpeted on for months how the N64 Disk Drive would let them make dynamic enhancements to Zelda. Of course, the 64DD will never see the light of day. Sega, on the other hand, is already doing dynamic enhancements on the Dreamcast (in the form of downloadable events and additions to Sonic Adventure).

    Dreamcast has some really neat stuff in it, and once again Sega has "raised the bar and changed the rules of the game" as MS would put it.

    Put briefly, Sega always puts their ass on the line so people can enjoy the newest and most innovative gaming technology.

    --

  • I think that sega should focus more on software and their games than on hardware. I used to own a Genesis and a Supernintedo. For the first year or so, I barely used the SNES. Why? Because the games for Genesis were a lot better. However, as time progressed Sega came out with console add-ons, while Nintendo worked on the games. The result was that by the end of the year, the nintendo games looked crisper and had better sound. If Sega markets the Dreamcast and really developes the games for it, then it will succeed. If not, well there's always Sony and Nintendo.
  • I can't believe, you're here, taking part in an international, quasi-realtime discussion with thousands of people, yet you're extolling the virtues of Sneakernet.

    If you can't envisage the kind of cool stuff possible with broadband to a console, you're just not thinking hard enough.

    Think of the Ultima-Online-alike games/communities that could be set up, with the huge bandwidth provided by broadband.
    Imagine if every time you played Sonic Adventure, the levels were changed - perhaps to suit the time of year, perhaps varying with today's climate in Tokyo, perhaps with references to current affairs. Imagine dropping your virtual pet at a virtual daycare centre, where you can interact with other virtual petowners.

    Cheap broadband connectivity is the revolution you're talking about, and it's the home entertainment companies that are going to get it done. Just pray it's the gaming companies (who undertand interactivity) that spearhead it, rather than the TV/movie comapnies, or you'll find that it gets no more exciting than video-on-demand and flawed email implementations (Sky Digital email sucks pole).
    --
  • So DOOM came out in 1989, did it?
    Before the SNES came out, people were happily fragging undead marines?

    No.

    The kind of games people rave about 10+ years later are things like Super Mario Bros (1986). Console games. Games that anyone can play, with minimal pissing about - because the more people actually manage to get the game running the more people there are to continue raving about it 10, 20, 30 years later.

    As late as 1996, maybe later still, you had to write a new config.sys and autoexec.bat file for almost every DOS game you owned; and you needed a pretty good working knowledge of XMS and EMS memory (whatever the hell they were), and how to configure them.
    To be fair, DOOM was pretty well behaved in that respect.


    --
  • i do recall hearing the same thing back when the sega cd came out and then after the saturn too at that time they had said they were gonna drop consoles for comp games instead
  • The fools over at the "Gaming Lack of Intelligence." Those are some of the biggest retards on the Net. Just a bunch of fan-boys and rumor-mongers. And the guys at Gamespot are so full of themselves, they can't bother to care about accuracy. Besides, if Sega was going to leave the hardware industry, don't you think they'd post some sort of press release on their site to respond to the volume of inquiries? Seriously people, think before acting.
    -------------------------------------
    "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of." -Where Your Eyes Don't Go, by They Might Be Giants
  • This really sounds like game consoles are going to evolve into home terminals (or "display servesr", if you want to use the X paradigm :) for Internet-enabled applications (probably mostly games for the early applications).

    If Sun gets their vision of NCs in the corporate workplace, I can see a gradual convergence between work & home of networked client/server applications.
  • Does this indicate that access to the entertainment dollar is becoming saturated when they complain about the competition and limited profit margins for hardware? When you think about it, not only does every software release have to contend with other titles released at the same time, but (given emulators) competes with all the previous gaming hits as well (how many people still relax with Zorks or old Amiga shoot-them-ups?). Apart from the minimal replication and distribution costs of software, people forget about its persistance properties in lasting unaltered for a long time. I suspect that the economics (ie more profits) of shifting to an internet model where they can charge per time unit (a la mobile phone) or per use (a la arcade parlor) might be the attractive part rather than any technology advantage per se. When you think about it, paying $100 for unlimited use of a game like Quake or its variant is a good deal if it will be used to kill thousands of hours for the rest of your life (assuming you're not one of those extreme adrenaline junkies physically bonded to your joystick). Compare with paying $10 a pop for a 2 hour movie or $50 for a decent sports game it seems a good tradeoff.

    Given the increasing development costs, risk of market boredom, and sophistication of computer games (ie special effects) I would predict either a shake-out of the gaming industry or else a move towards Hollywood linkups (a la Phatom Menance) where the game is part of a combined movie + merchandising tie-in. Here Sony has the edge compared with Sega or Nitendo but other big players like Disney could easily muscle in. Perhaps it'll be Quake the Movie next? :-)

    LL
  • Well you could always get a Sonic skin for Doom or Quake and then play against someone wearing it for a deathmatch mode?

    Have a Mario, Sonic, Crash, etc. skins and then see which console mascot in Doom or Quake can shoot out the others!? ;)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • First off, Doom sucked.
    Second of all, the key factor in a game's longevity is remembering how much fun it was to play then, not how much to play now. I guarantee if you pick up Super Mario Bros. or Duck Hunt, or Donkey Kong that you'll enjoy playing it for about 15 minutes. (Which, to be fair, is longer than I'd ever play Mortal Kombat Gold.)
    Third, niether console nor PC has cornered the market on game longevity. Sure, I fondly remember the early FF series, and Mario Kart and the like. But I remember equally fondly the days I passed playing Civ, MOO, and Star Control 2. --------------------------------------------- "Maybe one day soon it'll all come out, how you dream about each other sometimes. With the memory of how you once gave up, but you made it through the troubled times." Troubled Times, by Fountains of Wayne
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Who copied the "rumble pack" idea? Who copied the idea of a _standard_ controller with analog stick buit in? Sega's "game expandibility" has led to the 32X and Sega CD, and boy, were'nt those just quality products that were definitly worth the money. Yea, thought so. And considering Sega is the first console to come with internet access, that is innovation, but you can't really compare that to the N64 or PSX. And FYI, the 64DD is coming out in Japan. I however, believe it shouldn't come out, as it's never going to really succeed, but Nintendo needs whatever it can for the sorry state it is in for the N64 in Japan. And this wasn't really meant as flamebait, I own a DC and love it (can't wait for Sega Rally 2) but I disagree that Nintendo never innovates.
  • According to this BBC article [bbc.co.uk], Sega Japan was raided because of allegations of price fixing. They say Sega is pressuring resellers to not mark down the price of Dreamcast.

    It looks like the company is due for some kind of change, anyway.

  • It seems to me that Sega, as a whole, has been in decline for a long time. I haven't actually played DC, but ever since the regular Sega Genesis, they have been plagued by a constant stream of misfortune. Think of it, after the Genesis came things like the 32X and Sega CD. Both failed miserably sad to say. Then what? The Saturn, and what became of it. Sure Sega has had some classics, but the fact of the matter is that their systems just aren't cutting it and they should probably abandon ship while they still can.
  • they have a very strange conception of journalism... I was replying to one of them just before reading this article.This journalist saied that Q3 won't be out before december and that customers won t have seen or known anything of the game before it's released since ID isn t going to make a press release... I asked him if 2 demos , a frequently updated plan on the internet and irc chats with users about modifs wasn't enough to be called "something"??? He replied that I shouldn't have read "litterally" (does that make sense in english ?) and should have better understood what he "meant to say"... They should patent this new way of journalism "we write what we want, you understand what you want, we don't care". Sega isn't a compagny that can afford such "mis-understanding" since its future is directly linked to the dreamcast...Could they still be a software only compagny, if the dreamcast was a flop ? Where is atari ???
  • A half-assed article of this low truthfulness could only have come from those guys at the "Gaming Lack of Intelligence Agency." Fan-boys and shotgun-style rumor mongers who hope that one day they get something right, and they can boast to all their readers how they got it first. In the meantime, they don't care for all the misinformation and lack of intelligence they propagate.
    The guys over at GameSpot are so enamored of themselves, they can hardly take any time to actually write game news anymore. They're the MTV of game review industry. Similar to MTV's current schedule of asanine progamming sprinkled with some music videos every once in a while, GameSpot spends more time talking about what their reviewers think would be cool than actually reviewing stuff. Get your news from real sources, people, try checking the Sega site maybe. After all, if they were going to can their hardware department, who would they want to tell the public about it? Their own PR department, or someone else's? You do the math.

    ------------------------------------------

    "Just can't stand this bobbin' and pretendin', list'nin' to some bullethead and the madness that he's sayin'."
    Your Racist Friend, by They Might Be Giants
  • There are quite a few Sega arcade games that "rumbled" long before Nintendo's rumble pak came out. Seems like Nintendo just took a good Sega idea and applied it to their console market.

    Saturn wasn't really that bad, assuming you actually owned the system and didn't buy into the general populace's hype of how much it sucked.

    --

  • Speaking of buying into Sega failure... I bought my Sega Saturn for $200 in the summer of '96...I sold it for $40 in the fall of '97. Sega hardware, post Genesis, doesn't seem to have that long of a shelf life.
  • I'm willing to bet that IMacs and the PSX2 are much better hardware then any Intel 800Mhz system because they're built from the ground up, using current technology

    Ehm... Sorry, but the iMacs use IDE and PCI devices... That's an IBM based technology...

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