Shenmue 3, or a New Sega Console?

[Hiryosuke]

I'm still considering snaggin a saturn myself...off topic but...MY SON IS HOME!!! He was born jan friday the 13th weighing 8 lbs and 8 oz 22 inches long!!! Lol big boy that one

[stu]

I'm still considering snaggin a saturn myself...off topic but...MY SON IS HOME!!! He was born jan friday the 13th weighing 8 lbs and 8 oz 22 inches long!!! Lol big boy that one

Hey thats great Hiryosuke, congratulations!

[Hiryosuke]

Thanks stu wish the dreamcast ad jus come out...then we coulda been gamin online in celebration lol

[stu]

Unfortunately for Sega, once they committed to the Saturn's unconventional design, they had no choice but to stand behind it. Despite financial losses on the 3-game giveaway, they could have used the expanded userbase as a basis for new titles, such as Shenmue and a real Sonic based off the 3D portion of Sonic Jam or completed the STI version of Sonic XTreme. They would have still lost money but in the long term, would have been a wiser decision than abandoning another platform.

And you're right about 32X and SegaCD. Despite claims that it's water under the bridge, many ardent Sega supporters vowed never to invest in Sega after the Saturn and have maintained that vow to this day. That's why Dreamcast sales, after the euphoria of 9/9/99, slowed down to a crawl in 2000. Sega threw many fans under the bus with the 3 prior failed systems and expected them to return when Dreamcast was available. Worst management in gaming since Atari.

Sega also missed (more like threw away) the opportunity to continue milking the (still lucrative) Genesis market when they sold the distribution rights to Majesco, thereby putting themsevlves in the unenviable position of having to depend only on the ailing Saturn.

The difference between Sega and MS is that MS never screwed over their fans with junk such as 32X and SegaCD. I remember going to small import shops in 1998, and the owners were hesitant to even open a Dreamcast for display. Safer for them to keep pushing the PS1 which was still selling like proverbial hotcakes.

I definitely agree with your point about the way they dumped the Genesis/MegaDrive, that decision along with choosing to launch both the Saturn and the 32X within a year of each other were 2 of Sega's biggest screwups during that console generation (2 of many screwups imo).

The decision to abandon the Genesis was shown to be a mistake when the Genesis/MD version of Sonic 3D sold very respectably when it came out in 1996. Sega could used the profits from the the sales of Genesis games like that to help offset the losses they were being hit with on the Saturn, they could of also dropped the price of the Genesis down so that it could been sold as a budget console. Majesco used that very strategy and found it very successful.

[stu]

Thanks stu wish the dreamcast ad jus come out...then we coulda been gamin online in celebration lol

[stu]

Going back to a point that was made earlier in this thread regarding the redesign of the Saturn and when Sega's management found out about the Playstation's specs. From having read the SegaBase articles it would seem that Sega of Japan's management found out about the Playstation during December 1993 when SCEI was formed and the specs of the Playstation were revealed. Therefore I am inclined to say that the Edge/Next Gen account was indeed accurate.


http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index. ... aturn&bl=y

Quote: "November of 1993 also saw Sony make its formal entry into the 32-bit console sweepstakes. It announced the formation of a new company division, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), responsible for the corporation's computer-related ventures. The first project on the drawing boards of SCE was their new 32-bit videogame console, which was revealed to be already under development. Referenced variously as "PSX" or "PS-X" in many trade reports of the day, this was the system that would eventually be renamed the Sony PlayStation?. The name was a thumbing of the nose at Nintendo for all the trouble that they had caused Sony, and now it would be the latter's turn to suffer. Sony had the money, they had the marketing muscle, but most importantly, they knew had the machine and the software to go with it. The official system specs were released in December of 1993, and just about everybody's jaw dropped once they realized what Ken Kuratagi and his team had wrought. PlayStation was a jack-of-all-trades, with top-of the line integrated RISC architeture that bettered anything that was or would be available on the market at that time. Its 2D graphics outstripped those of the SNES, its 3D graphics were as good as or better than anything that Sega's arcade offerings or high-end PCs had to offer, its speed easily outpaced the aging Genesis, its ability to do both complex 2D and 3D processing appeared to be unmatched, and its double-speed CD-ROM drive meant faster loading times than its aging and quirky competition from Sega and NEC. Best of all, the development libraries that Sony already had on hand for potential third-party supporters made the new console dreadfully easy to program - and that gave the Sony PlayStation greater appeal within the videogame industry than Trip Hawkins and his 3DO team ever dreamed. Sony was hoping to win away developer support from Sega and Nintendo, the latter in particular, and they succeeded. As 1994 began to unfold, one third-party vendor after another began to express public support for the new kid on the videogame block and what he had to offer them.


It has been said that when Hayao Nakayama finally realized just what Ken Kuratagi and his fellows had created, he called his entire R&D department up to Sega "flag country" and proceeded to give them the ass-chewing of their lives. One Sega staff member at the time would later recall that Nakayama "was the maddest I have ever seen him." Nakayama had obtained a copy of the design specs for Sony's new PlayStation and had compared them to Sega's own Saturn. That was why he took the time to bawl out his own R&D staff. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had blown it as far as Sega's chances of seizing the 32-bit market for its own, just as it had done with the 16-bit market a mere five years before. Sega was now in trouble. Big trouble. What was the problem? Raw 3D processing power. That was the problem with Saturn."

[CruSega]

I'm still considering snaggin a saturn myself...off topic but...MY SON IS HOME!!! He was born jan friday the 13th weighing 8 lbs and 8 oz 22 inches long!!! Lol big boy that one

Congrats

[CruSega]

Going back to a point that was made earlier in this thread regarding the redesign of the Saturn and when Sega's management found out about the Playstation's specs. From having read the SegaBase articles it would seem that Sega of Japan's management found out about the Playstation during December 1993 when SCEI was formed and the specs of the Playstation were revealed. Therefore I am inclined to say that the Edge/Next Gen account was indeed accurate.


http://www.eidolons-inn.net/tiki-index. ... aturn&bl=y

Quote: "November of 1993 also saw Sony make its formal entry into the 32-bit console sweepstakes. It announced the formation of a new company division, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), responsible for the corporation's computer-related ventures. The first project on the drawing boards of SCE was their new 32-bit videogame console, which was revealed to be already under development. Referenced variously as "PSX" or "PS-X" in many trade reports of the day, this was the system that would eventually be renamed the Sony PlayStation?. The name was a thumbing of the nose at Nintendo for all the trouble that they had caused Sony, and now it would be the latter's turn to suffer. Sony had the money, they had the marketing muscle, but most importantly, they knew had the machine and the software to go with it. The official system specs were released in December of 1993, and just about everybody's jaw dropped once they realized what Ken Kuratagi and his team had wrought. PlayStation was a jack-of-all-trades, with top-of the line integrated RISC architeture that bettered anything that was or would be available on the market at that time. Its 2D graphics outstripped those of the SNES, its 3D graphics were as good as or better than anything that Sega's arcade offerings or high-end PCs had to offer, its speed easily outpaced the aging Genesis, its ability to do both complex 2D and 3D processing appeared to be unmatched, and its double-speed CD-ROM drive meant faster loading times than its aging and quirky competition from Sega and NEC. Best of all, the development libraries that Sony already had on hand for potential third-party supporters made the new console dreadfully easy to program - and that gave the Sony PlayStation greater appeal within the videogame industry than Trip Hawkins and his 3DO team ever dreamed. Sony was hoping to win away developer support from Sega and Nintendo, the latter in particular, and they succeeded. As 1994 began to unfold, one third-party vendor after another began to express public support for the new kid on the videogame block and what he had to offer them.


It has been said that when Hayao Nakayama finally realized just what Ken Kuratagi and his fellows had created, he called his entire R&D department up to Sega "flag country" and proceeded to give them the ass-chewing of their lives. One Sega staff member at the time would later recall that Nakayama "was the maddest I have ever seen him." Nakayama had obtained a copy of the design specs for Sony's new PlayStation and had compared them to Sega's own Saturn. That was why he took the time to bawl out his own R&D staff. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had blown it as far as Sega's chances of seizing the 32-bit market for its own, just as it had done with the 16-bit market a mere five years before. Sega was now in trouble. Big trouble. What was the problem? Raw 3D processing power. That was the problem with Saturn."

This has long been a theory of mine--Sega didn't want to upset the ecosystem between their consumer market and arcade dominance; that is why the original Saturn was designed to be only a slight upgrade to the 3DO. Sony, who had nothing to lose, designed a system that would redefine gaming and provide, truly provide for the first time, the arcade experience in the living room.

The PS1 not only stemmed Sega's ambitions for the 32 bit market but would usher in a decline in the arcades that would end another key revenue stream for Sega. Up to that point, home versions were always watered down ports of the arcade original. Nakayama has nobody to blame but himself and the rest of Sega management for missing the forest for the trees.

[SEGA-TUDE]

Sonys whole goal was to knock nintendo out the console wars purely out of revenge for not locking a deal with them for hardware. Nintendo went with another company called phillips or phlillip or something. Thats how playstation got started.

[MrSega]

@CruSega. The date December 1993 points to early 1994 as being the time the PSX's specs were first revealed to SEGA & Nintendo. It doesn't clarify the Next Gen Mag myth, but it does show that Nakayama became disspondant over the Model 1&2 chipsets expressing his fustration over they're inferior quality to PSX's 3D Engine.

The only thing this shows is that around 1994, shortly after finalizing Aurora & its design change to "Saturn", SEGA learned of a new surprise competitor who had a better design, this no doubt annoyed them & drove them to improve Model 2's 3D Engine with the "CRX" and
drove them back into the arms of Lockheed
Martin to help them regain the top spot in Arcade technology which lead to the creation of "Model 3"!