Are they? I thought Japan was banking on mobile?
*shrug* maybe. Last I heard, the majority of Sega's money was from their PC games. That's all I really know.
Are they? I thought Japan was banking on mobile?
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This is one of my favorite gaming magazines and one of my favorite periods of gaming. I love you, Sega.
In response to MS buying Rare, Sega should have formed a strong second-party relationship with Nintendo. Keep the Sega fans support unified and have them flock to Nintendo consoles for that Sega goodness. Have the Sega titles offset time inbetween Nintendo titles. Why didn't this happen? Can it happen now? I feel like I'm writing videogame fan fiction
Sega's connection with Microsoft is really tight. Dreamcast was basically Xbox 0.5, and Xbox had a ton of Sega exclusives on it. Now Sega develops its biggest games for Windows.
Sega was pretty damn good last gen. On PS3 they had published Bayonetta, Vanquish, Alpha Protocol, Condemned and Resonance of Fate. They developed 3 Yakuza games, Binary Domain, Sonic AllStars Racing and Valkyria Chronicles. These were all fantastic.
There was also garbage tier stuff they did like Sonic 06, Sonic Unleashed, Golden Axe, and all the movie licensed games (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, etc.).
Agreed with all of these responses, and I'm also going to add one myself--larger reliance over the Sonic series (a fair amount of the above are responsible for this).
Just compare the amount of releases of console Sonic titles over the sixth and seventh generations alone:
Sixth generation:
Adventure 1
Shuffle
Adventure 2
Heroes
Shadow the Hedgehog
Riders
Seventh generation:
Sonic 2006
Secret Rings
Unleashed (PS3/360 version)
Unleashed (Wii/PS2 version)*
Black Knight
Colors (Wii)
Generations (PS3/360/PC)
Sonic 4: Episode I*
Sonic 4: Episode II*
Riders: Zero Gravity
Free Riders
The above doesn't factor the handheld games (Advance/Rush series), re-releases (such as Adventure DX: Director's Cut), compilation titles (Mega Collection), or general crossovers (All-Stars Racing and the Mario & Sonic Olympic series) released during these generations either. And excluding Sonic Shuffle (developed by Hudson Soft), virtually all of the above games in the list are directly or indirectly (Sonic games with the * means the games are Dimps co-productions) produced by chief developer Sonic Team themselves.
Also worth noting that as the number of Sonic productions rose, the original titles by Sonic Team shrunk as well. Sixth generation Sonic Team produced Phantasy Star Online, Chu-Chu Rockett!!, Billy Hatcher, Samba de Amigo. Seventh-generation Sonic Team? All that came out was the NiGHTS sequel Journey of Dreams. There was the PS3 FPS Fifth Phantom Saga game they showcased in 2005 at E3 and TGS, but that was scrapped, with the existing mechanics being reportedly recycled for Silver's psychokinesis gameplay in Sonic 2006. And while Puyo Puyo titles haven't stopped flowing, they are rarely, if ever, released overseas.
It's undeniable that over the years, Sonic has for quite a while become both the first end of SEGA's profit mill (do anything with "Sonic" in it so that they can earn huge money) and the final end (let's gather money so that we can expand our brand via Sonic major releases or to use Sonic as our face for advertisement). It's a complicated situation.
Mine too. I loved all those old EGM Dreamcast covers. That one, the 9,9,99 launch issue and the January 2000 "should you buy a Dreamcast or wait?" Issue. Still have all those in my collection too![]()
Putting their content on a single platform, regardless who made it, would have been a better idea.
Dreamcast was actually selling quite well at the time, all things considered, but Sega was forced to cut the Dreamcast short because they didn't have the money to keep the Dreamcast going after the mistakes of the past 2 generations costing them so much money. There was still a market for a single console for Sega content.
Instead, they spread it across all of hell's half-acre, fragmented their fanbase horribly and were never able to consolidate their software sales in any meaningful way.
...
You mis-remember that generation. EVERY platform had a ton of Sega exclusives. It was kind of their thing. And a stupid thing to do, at that.
Dreamcast was actually selling quite well at the time, all things considered
Sonic is the closest thing Sega has to a mass-market property (unless you count Football Manager).
No it wasn't. By the end, they literally could not even give them away. And i mean this in the most literal sense - Sega had a deal in place to literally give away dreamcasts with Sega.net and couldn't get rid of them.
They sold 9 million of them. In a year and a half in the west and 2 and a half years in Japan.
You're misrepresenting the clear facts of the time.
With the vast, vast majority of the system sales coming in the first 6 months. When the Dreamcast launched, it was the fastest selling consumer electronics hardware ever.
6 months later, the demand had dried up. They literally couldn't give them away by the end. The sales you are citing had ground to a halt.
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/01/23/sega.dreamcast/
Coming from the guy who thinks the dreamcast was selling well when they pulled the plug? Rich
Third fiscal year in the image below (ending March 2001) was the period when Sega slash back DC price further (to $150-$125) in an attempt to grow the install base to a level that the whole project would have been profitable on software and accessories.They sold 9 million of them. In a year and a half in the west and 2 and a half years in Japan. Now look at the GameCube, Xbox and especially the Wii U. Tell me again how poorly it was doing when up against the PS2, exactly.
The article you provided doesn't state sales "ground to a halt" or "dried up", merely that sales were "flat", meaning there wasn't growth but a consistent plateau.
If you're going to be snide and condescending about me making comments about facts being misrepresented, perhaps you shouldn't continue to misrepresent them.
It received another setback when giant U.S. retailer K-mart shunned the Dreamcast in August because of poor sales
Third fiscal year in the image below (ending March 2001) was the period when Sega slash back DC price further in an attempt to grow the install base to a level that the whole project would have been profitable on software and accessories.
Result? They shipped less DC than the previous year!
DC was from the beginning aggressively priced, it sold very well in US for the first three months but then sales faltered and began selling less than PS1 and N64 there.
Who think DC was doing well but was killed by Sega weak financial do not understand that Sega financials were damaged by the Dreamcast itself which wasn't doing as good as Sega expected to break even.
Actually, the exact wording of the article is that sales were "poor."
This was also the very first result I got when I searched for "Dreamcast 2001 sales." Looking at the other results, they say similar things. It's a well known history for the dreamcast.
But surely since I've been misrepresenting facts, you should be able to provide some proof of your claims that it was selling well by the end of it's life. And no, citing LTD isn't proof of that, those are more like this:
Please, show me these awesome sales figures for the Dreamcast in its waning months.
You are dreaming.That chart shows it consistently sold a respectable amount, with a drop-off in 2000, not exactly the total cratering it has been made out to be in this thread. Again, I never said that there was huge growth, but if left to sell in the market, it still could have coasted long enough and come close enough to any other console that wasn't the PS2 at the time for it to still have been as relevant as any of the others. It achieved 75% of Wii U's 4 years of sales in less than half the time, and almost ALL of Saturn's 5 years of sales. It was on track to exceed both of them, which I understand isn't the highest bar, but Dreamcast wasn't yet totally cratering in the market when the plug was pulled. This has been firmly established multiple times by multiple people: sales were less than ideal, but not the Xbox-in-Japan-level of sales that console warriors led people to believe at the time.
You are dreaming.
DC had problems selling good enough with it's price slashed to $150/$125 and no competition from PS2 until a few months in late 2000 while Sega was losing heaps of money due to it and you think DC could have "coasted long enough"?
Do you know why Nintendo didn't slash heavily the price of the WiiU?
Because Nintendo isn't crazy as was good ol' Sega.
From a single retailer. Whereas the article mentions sales were "flat" overall.
I remember it sold poorly when compared to the PS2. But, for those who remember the entire generation, nothing did well other than PS2. But Sega was the only one who didn't make it out the other end.
Actually, more like the chart above, where sales in 2000 only dropped by 600,000 over 1999. Not quite the nosedive you've been peddling.
I didn't categorize sales as "awesome". That's on you.
Nintendo was in the black and DC shipped those units with virtually no next gen competition until late 2000 (while the rest of the pack launched in late 2001).GameCube, from the same era, says hi. How quickly did it fall to $99?
Again, meeting the same sales as the other also-rans of that generation, considering its sales by the end of those first 2 years, isn't some wild stretch of the imagination when we saw 2 other hardware makers coast for 5 years with similar flat/diminishing YOY console sales.
Nintendo was in the black and DC shipped those units with virtually no next gen competition until late 2000 (while the rest of the pack launched in late 2001).
Can you see the differences?
DC vs GC US YTD:
DC:
1^ year: 1.48M (first 3 months)
2^ year: 1.28M (yes, DC sales in the first full year were less than the launch months, DC was already declining in US).
3^ + 4^ year: 1.02M (DC was basically dead and selling for far less than $100 the remaining stocks)
GC:
1^ year: 1.20M (first 3 months)
2^ year: 2.26M
3^: 3.27M
4^ year: 2.29M
5^ year: 1.56M
I'm aware of that, but surely there's a difference between using some IPs as a major brand while still supporting other IPs from their vault, and doubling down on it over the years like Sega has done? While it's not the best comparison (as the company is, without saying, in a far better position than Sega is or even ever has), Nintendo doesn't use just Mario as the only face of the company, even if his series is undeniably their biggest IP. They have and utilize Zelda, Pokemon, Miis, and Kirby among others.
And GC was launched at the break even which meant Nintendo didn't incurred in losses while selling a console.Not to mention that, when the GCN was an albatross around Nintendo's neck, they had the GBA doing gangbusters at the same time.
GameCentral Reader's Feature said:The best way to demonstrate this is by looking at the closest analogue to this situation by summoning the ghost of Christmas past: Sega. Back when it was in the hardware business Sega had a roster of games such as Sonic, the Virtua series, and their racing games which could be relied upon to produce decent sales. However, they were also able to produce a regular supply of niche titles including Ecco The Dolphin, Gunstar Heroes, Comix Zone, Seaman, and so on.
These niche titles would have produced little (if any) profit but Sega were able to make these games due to their position as a hardware manufacturer. The main purpose of these games would have been to expand the library of games available on their consoles and thus encourage more people to buy the consoles, as well as make their consoles look more enticing to third party publishers to bring their games to them.
Another example of this is Shenmue. Although the gigantic cost of the games was one of the contributing factors to Segas downfall, they would never have even been made in the first place if Sega was not in the business of making hardware.
This also applies to the current console makers. Would Microsoft pump fortunes into making and marketing Kinect and Halo, or paying for Gears Of War and certain downloadable content exclusivity, if they didnt make the Xbox line? Sony similarly spends huge sums on Gran Turismo and Uncharted for modest sales relative to their cost, and The Last Guardian would have been cancelled long ago if all that mattered were its profit margin.
So lets imagine a scenario around 2006 where Nintendo exited all hardware production after the GameCube and Game Boy Advance to go third party. Firstly, all franchises which dont have decent sales would be scrapped, meaning no Advance Wars, Sin And Punishment, Kid Icarus, or Fire Emblem (until Awakening the series had never been a big seller worldwide). Also, the biggest-selling single format game of the year so far, Luigis Mansion 2, would likely not exist given the lukewarm sales and reception of the first entry.
Secondly, thered be no need to produce niche/experimental games to grow a console library, meaning no Xenoblade, Ouendan, Rhythm Heaven, or Pullblox. Plus, hardware showcases such as Wii Sports and Nintendogs would not exist.
Finally, thered be no partnerships with publishers/developers to produce exclusive games, meaning no Professor Layton, The Last Story, Lego City Undercover, The Wonderful 101, and Bayonetta 2 which Sega cancelled and was unsuccessfully pitched to various publishers before being picked up by Nintendo.
Bringing us to the modern day, that would mean a third party Nintendo would only be producing games for a select handful of franchises namely Mario, Pokémon, and Zelda whose quality would suffer due to requiring extra resources to make the games for multiple formats as well as reduced development times to meet budgets and deadlines.
I think you can guess which current games company this scenario most resembles. After Sega went third party we initially got sequels for Panzer Dragoon, Jet Set Radio, and Space Channel 5 but as they sold poorly those franchises have been sidelined. These days Sega is most widely known for the Aliens: Colonial Marines mess and 15 years of mediocre to middling Sonic games.
In US DC competed with PS2 just a few months then it was quickly discontinued (a bit longer in Japan but there the gulf was even wider)I remember it sold poorly when compared to the PS2. But, for those who remember the entire generation, nothing did well other than PS2. But Sega was the only one who didn't make it out the other end.
They make Total War and own Atlus now.
They also make a lot of digital stuff that doesn't get a lot of play. They're definitely a smaller operation than they were in the PS2 era, as it just didn't make as much sense to keep all their studios open once they didn't have a console to support.
It probably would had paid off (better than expected) if Sega had treated the releases of their games better. Platinum Space, Vanquish, and Anarchy Reigns were essentially sent out to be buried. Bayonetta was probably the lone exception, and even then Nintendo had to swoop in to save the sequel when Sega canned it (though in fairness, that event happened around the time Sega posted a significant financial loss during the early 2010s).
This is also a pretty good point.
GameCube became the to-go place for Sonic games, at least until Heroes made the series multiplatform. Other games like Billy Hatcher, the first two Super Monkey Ball games, the Skies of Arcadia port, and Phantasy Star Online: Epi. III could only be found here as well.
Xbox became an ill-fated exclusivity choice for many of Sega's remaining Dreamcast projects or their sequels. Gunvalkyrie, Jet Set Radio Future, Crazy Taxi III: High Roller, Shemnue II (Shemnue III notwithstanding...for the time being), and Panzer Dragoon Orta, among others, all started/continued and ended their franchises here.
PS2 had Space Channel 5: Part 2, the 2002 Shinobi game and its stealth sequel Nightshade, and the Virtua Fighter 4 console release.
And while a few of these games did get multiplatform ports, most of them remained console exclusives. These games couldn't all be found on one specific platform or were available on all three of them, they were instead scattered all over the place. It's a bit of a mess.
The thing is, those secondary Nintendo franchises you mentioned are much, much more popular than any of SEGA's non-Sonic series, and they always have been.
That's really the truth about SEGA and their legacy franchises: It's just basically Sonic and a bunch of other smaller niche game series. In Nintendo's case, Zelda, Pokemon, Donkey Kong, etc can all stand equal footing with Mario, but there's a massive gulf in popular and recognition when it comes to Sonic and the rest of SEGA's legacy brands. It's sad, but its true.
Unfortunately titles like Vanquish and Bayonetta only speak to a very specific market. The only people I knew with consoles who played those games were people that were familiar with Platinum & liked that gamin style. They weren't, imo, the kind of mass market game that Sega could ride out a bit.
They could port Orta, JSRF and Gunvalkyrie on PC easily (OG Xbox was a standard x86 PC) and I think Vanquish should be an easy port too (from 360).
Oh, and VF5 too.
Easy ports, easy money.
So fuck you Sega, I love you so much yet I hate you so much. Damn me.
Isn't Sega a PC publisher ? They make console games too ?
What does Sega do anymore? Do they just make Sonic games?
What happened to the ambition seen in Sega's Dreamcast titles and their early third-party efforts?
"We did our best to build a relationship of mutual trust with older fans of Sega, but looking back, there've been some titles that have partially betrayed that [trust] in the past 10 years... Sega in the '90s was known for its brand, but after that, we've lost trust, and we were left with nothing but reputation. For this reason, we'd like to win back the customers' trust, and become a 'brand,' once again"
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Will I ever see this franchise again? One can only hope.