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Why couldn't Sega cut it a platform developer?

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MoonlessNight

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This isn't exactly a new discussion considering how long the dreamcast has been dead, but why could Sega's consoles never make it? They were often the superior machines on the market, with games generally agreed to be sheer brilliance (Sega gave us: Sonic, Shining series (Shining and the Darkness, Shining Force, etc.), Phantasy Star (Phantasy Star IV will always be the best 16-bit RPG in my book), Virtua Fighter, Shenmue, among many, many others), yet the systems, and as a consequence the games, never sold that well. I've never been able to decide exactly why that is, other than to think that perhaps people prefer hype over quality and originality.

So what are your thoughts about this? Was Sega unfairly neglected by the market? Or am I completely wrong and just can't see it since I'm a blind Sega fanboy who still favors the dreamcast?
 
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Tiga Ronso

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Well, the reason, I think, that Sega couldn't cut it as a system developer is simply the fact that they couldn't get good exclusive games. Sure they had Sonic and Shining Force, but those were made by Sega anyway. The other companies got exclusive games like Final Fantasy, MegaMan, and thus fans of those series were drawn to those companies. Microsoft almost made the same mistake, but fixed it before it got too bad. As for the failure of the Dreamcast, the thing that killed it was believe it or not, The Saturn. People felt betrayed when Sega all of a sudden killed the system before its true abilities could even be seen. My brother-in-law was one such person. So when Sega released the Dreamcast, people were skeptic about how long Sega would support it. Thus not many people bought it and the system tanked.
 
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sk8ingfaith

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Sega started out too fast, in some ways that was bad. This is because other companeys took sega's console ideas that were already showing signs of weaknesses, and added their ideas to create a better system. In doing this Sega became obsolete and it was only a matter of time before they went out of business.
 
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SUNSTONE

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Non of these opinions are true, the system was actually very successfull. In fact it broke the record for the fastest selling system ever, until PS2 rebroke the record.It was even Time Magazines product of the year.

They also had exclusive games, like Soul Caliber, and Resident Evil: Code Veronica.

The problem was the system was faulty, and broke very easily. Many people had to trade in or fix there broken machines. I burned out 4 of them.
 
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Miles Peterson

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MoonlessNight said:
...what are your thoughts about this? Was Sega unfairly neglected by the market? Or am I completely wrong and just can't see it since I'm a blind Sega fanboy who still favors the dreamcast?
Click to expand...
That makes two of us, and my DC still gets used regularly. Some Dreamcast games, three years later, rival the PS2 for graphics and quality.
 
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SniperPatrol

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Well, mostly the games determine the graphics of the game, but the DC was still a great system. They had the original Power Stone and Power Stone 2, Soul Calibur, and Grandia II. Those were all great games and since I don't have a DC, I don't know of all the other great games that are out there.
 
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CHR15T05

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Think back, think waaaaaay back to the dawn of Consol games.

Aaaah yes ATARI, the one and only Consol developer at the time. They even patented the 9 pin D plug (ok nerd alert).

Move on a few years and just before the birth of the Sony PLay station came what?

The Atari Jaguar. A cartridge based system with optional CD ROM add on. It had 2 32bit processors (one for graphics and one for sound) making is technically better than the play station (which was not yet out anyway)
The only contender was the 3DO ("the what?" screem most of the world)
The 3DO (By phillips I think?) was a CD based 32 bit (?) system which was way inferior to the Atari Jag.

But the Jag hardly got off the shelf.

Reason?

Many put it down to bad marketing and I think it was a combination of this and the fact that Games Developers had to give a big chunk to ATARI just for the privaladge of writing a title for the Jaguar system.

Atari are a classic case of "Market leader becomes market follower".

I think Saga just counted thier losses and said "Well if we cant beat Sony, lets make games for em! It's what we do best anyway." and good on em!
 
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dctalkexp

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I think the Dreamcast was a great system. It had many excellent, exclusive games, such as Sonic, Shenmue, Sega Rally, Soul Calibur, Virtua Fighter, ChuChu Rocket!, Jet Grind Radio, Crazy Taxi, etc, etc.

I think some of the problems for the Dreamcast was 1) Lack of advertising 2) PS2 hype was too strong, which made people wait for that instead of buying the DC. 3) Focus was too much on on-line gaming when ppl weren't ready for it.

There may be other reasons, but to me the above seems to clearly be their problem.

R.I.P. Sega (Consoles)
 
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Tiga Ronso

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Yes, the Dreamcast was the most successful console launch in history. One of the reasons that the system tanked was the fear they began to show. For example: They wouldn't let EA make games for them. Why? I think they were afraid of games like Madden outselling their own games. Thus Sony and Nintendo had an advantage. Also, the system was cheaply made. Finally, they didn't have the right target audience. Believe it or not, but this is the reason why Nintendo does well with videogames. They target kids. There are far more kids than adults in the world period. Kids also don't have to watch their money when it comes to buying games. Sure the parents do, but most will give into a begging or crying child. I have witnessed it millions of times where I work.
 
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