Demise Of Sega?s Hardware Division ..

[clarkey01]

I thought the Saturn was cool, I heard it was actually had dual CPU?S and was more powerful then the playstation ? However it was a disaster to programme for?

The dremcast was great but were the sales not there ?

 

[Vortex22]

Sony killed Sega's hardware division. The sales on Dreamcast WERE there before PS2 was released.

 

[TheAudit]

Here is a good page on the Saturn.

 

[clarkey01]

I know the 32X, mega CD sucked, but the saturn/dremcast were on the right track (well for me)

 

[geno]

The Saturn was their Demise, the games were terrible

The 32X was an absolute abortion of a "system", would've been much better with better hardware and good games

and Sega CD went down the tubes quick

Game Gear floundered

They've only had 2 good systems, the Genesis and Dreamcast

Sega Master System was fun in its day too

 

[boyRacer]

I had the Genesis, Sega CD, and 32X... by the time you had everything together and all the power adapters plugged... it looked like Voltron.

 

[TheAudit]

Originally posted by: bR
I had the Genesis, Sega CD, and 32X... by the time you had everything together and all the power adapters plugged... it looked like Voltron.

LOL

 

[purbeast0]

saturn was WAY too overpriced at the time. it was $400 when it was out. i picked up one years later for like $50 but that was too late. also the DC was piratable without even putting a modchip in your system, so i think that might have actually hurt it. you could virtually play copied games by popping them in and turning it on, just like with any other real game.

 

[Falloutboy]

genesis was good, saturn sucked which killed thier rep with game makers, Dreamccast was quite good easy to program for in in my mind had better graphics than ps2 (had decent AA). one problem with Dreamcast was though that they had no copy protection and was very easy to make bootleg copies. Also gamgear was a very good portable for its day I would put it in quality of graphics equal to a Gameboy advanced

 

[Kaervak]

The 32x was the coffin and the Saturn was the nails. The Dreamcast would have lasted longer if it had DVD capibilites. I hope someday Sega makes a return to the hardware market.

 

[ElFenix]

sony's marketing machine for the ps2 depressed sales of the dreamcast, even though the dreamcast had more good games than the ps2 for about 2 years. hype works.

 

[alexeikgb]

Dreamcast was sweet...

 

[MrChad]

There were a number of problems with the Saturn, the main ones being:

1. Price - it was released at around $399 (IIRC) and 6 months early. A bit too much for people to swallow.
2. Failure to anticipate the 3D era of gaming - Saturn was a 2D powerhouse with 3D capabilities tacked on at the end. Once Sega recognized that Sony was a legitimate threat, they scrambled to add 3D capabilities, but the result was a jumbled mess of hardware that was difficult to program for.
3. Lack of 3rd party support - Partly due to weak market penetration and partly due to hardware capabilities
4. Platform confusion - The 32X was released as an "interim 32-bit platform", but Sega seemed confused about which platform to support once the Saturn was released. Many 32X owners (including myself) were miffed that Sega dropped the platform after only 6 months.

The Dreamcast was a fine platform, but once again, Sega jumped the gun too soon. The platform beat PS2 to the market, but many consumers weren't ready to make the next generation leap yet. When that time came, the PS2 hype machine eclipsed the Dreamcast, which had slightly weaker hardware but a far superior library of games.

 

[txxxx]

Marketing killed the Dreamcast. Shame really, as some of the best games that I still play (Soul Calibur, anyone?), are on the Dreamcast.

 

[geno]

Originally posted by: ElFenix
sony's marketing machine for the ps2 depressed sales of the dreamcast, even though the dreamcast had more good games than the ps2 for about 2 years. hype works.

i.e. Sony knows the business better than Sega

 

[TranceNation]

Saturn did not suck. Ever played Guardian Heroes? that was a great game.

 

[HamSupLo]

who actually bought a 32x?

 

[Narse]

Originally posted by: HamSupLo
who actually bought a 32x?

I did, I played Doom on it

 

[Wahsapa]

sonys 'mindshare' and marketing team put a whole reality distortion field over videogamers which basically still exsists today. playstation was good, playstation two was crap, and the more sony consoles get turned out the crappier its gonna get... so sad

hopefully M$ will sell off the xbox to sega :evil:

btw who were the people that bought sega?

 

[isekii]

Sega went wrong with the Genesis.

What a POS. It had nothing compared to the SNES.
Funky Controller, Slow game response, SONIC. What a nightmare.

 

[spamsk8r]

32X and Sega CD were horrible abortions of technology. I like the Voltron idea, but I would go more with a Frankenstein idea, as they were a mishmash of hardware that didn't really add anything to gameplay. Sega's support for them was awful as well, but the Dreamcast was an amazing console (still is, IMO) and it's sad that it had to die such an early death.

RIP.

 

[DAGTA]

Originally posted by: isekii
Sega went wrong with the Genesis.

What a POS. It had nothing compared to the SNES.
Funky Controller, Slow game response, SONIC. What a nightmare.

The Genesis was released almost 3 years before the SNES.

 

[isekii]

Originally posted by: DAGTA

Originally posted by: isekii
Sega went wrong with the Genesis.

What a POS. It had nothing compared to the SNES.
Funky Controller, Slow game response, SONIC. What a nightmare.

The Genesis was released almost 3 years before the SNES.

It doesn't hold a candle to the NES either, so it doesn't matter whether it was released 3 years before or 3 years after.

 

[DAGTA]

Sega's biggest mistake was management. They hired Bernie Stolar after Sony FIRED him. The man made some of the worst decisions ever. About the time Sega of America hired Stolar, the good Sega staff started jumping ship for offers from Sony. So, in a matter of a few years, many of the talented people at Sega ended up working for Sony. It's not a coincidence that it was this same time period that Sega of America went down hard while Sony took off. Sony was struggling at first... then they fired Stolar.

 

[PoPPeR]

a lot of things went wrong, you can't really boil it down to one thing. They were a huge company before, and the fact that they survived and are doing well now speaks volumes for their management. And anyone that says piracy was the main reason the dreamcast died needs to go take intro to econ.