SEGA: Could it be seen as its own worst enemy at times?

[DreamcastRIP]

It's legit, Paul Drury did it.

Good to hear. I've long respected that particular individual's writing and had commented positively about it on the magazine's forum. He even thanked me via PM for having done so too. Credit where credit's due because as piss poor as RG magazine has increasingly become these past couple of years there are still some shining lights amid the general malaise of blandness, laziness, repetition and mediocrity. I might have a read of the interview next time I'm in a branch of WH Smith.

[Rogue Trooper]

It's legit, Paul Drury did it.

And very good it is too!.

Interesting to hear him talk of the MCD not being a 'mistake' but the Saturn (as it panned out) and the Dreamcast were.Would have loved to have heard just why he felt the DC was a 'Mistake'-Going for a modem over DVD drive? lack of advertising or what.

[onthinice]

Not sure on the Mega Drive front of game and console sales, but across the pond Sega sure had me wondering on their decisions.

1. What the heck was the Sega Pico about?

2. Nomad was cool but then Sega slowly quit developing games for the 16-bit system. Too expensive to just play old titles.

3. The CDX. See number 2.

4. 32X. My instructions say it will work with the CDX. Sounded good till Sega dropped all support to focus on the Saturn.

5. Saturn. Not really Sega's fault. Madden would have helped the Saturn sell better in the U.S., if Electronic Arts had not jerked fans around with its release time. Madden '98 was the last in the series for the Genesis, fans wanted it, Sony had it.

[TL]

I think EA went really down hill after the Mega Drive and 3DO, some of their Saturn games were very lacking. Then they got in bed with Sony and dropped Sega like a bad smell. Now they have done the same again and got in bed with Microsoft 

[onthinice]

I agree!

[Rogue Trooper]

I think EA went really down hill after the Mega Drive and 3DO, some of their Saturn games were very lacking. Then they got in bed with Sony and dropped Sega like a bad smell. Now they have done the same again and got in bed with Microsoft 

They peaked for myself during 16 Bit era, but 32 Bit era wise i could'nt fault releases like:

Fade To Black, Space Hulk, Syndicate Wars, Viewpoint, Soviet Strike, Future Cop, Nuclear Strike etc etc.

Think your being a little unfair about them getting into bed with Sony, if you read interview with Saturn coder of Soviet Strike which i posted in Saturn thread months ago, you'll see efforts made to get game running on far more complex hardware and areas that Saturn version outshone the Playstation version, there's also reasons lot of Saturn projects were dropped.

E.A were in same boat as Core, Capcom etc, Saturn projects were being abandoned as it was clear where the bigger user base was.There was no realistic way you were going to divert your resources (money and coders) trying to get a Saturn version running to same degree the Playstation version was, for a smaller market.


It was Sega who went the twin 32 Bit chip route, despite being offered a single chip solution which would have equalled Playstation power and it was sega who refused to share it's coding routines with 3rd parties, if even Capcom felt bitter that they were struggling to get anywhere near same level of performance from Saturn as Sega were, then no wonder Core and E.A jumped ship.

I'm big Saturn fan, hence so much effort poured into the Saturn thread by myself to dispell internet 'wisdom' on it, but when chips are down, Sega made Saturn the nightmare it was to code for, (something Sony then copied with PS2+PS3), so i cannot blame any publisher for jumping to easier to code for platform-Saw it with Oddworld developer-very much a Sony supporter on PS1, took development of PS2 dev.kits thought fuck this! jumped to Xbox, got shafted by Ms, jumped back to Sony this gen.It's just buisness, pure and simple.

[TL]

Not being harsh at all, they totally ignored the DC in favour of the PS2. If that is not getting in bed with Sony then I don't know what is!!!!

[Rogue Trooper]

E.A got, as you put it 'In Bed' with MS way back on the  original Xbox, rather than getting in now and MS were out to ensure the PS2 did'nt have the market share to it's self so again, E.A like many other publishers just made sure it was backing the main contenders, i.e those who had the cash to compete, which is, like it or not, something Sega did'nt have.


Given that MS once looked at buying Sega, lock stock and indeed barrel, rather than developing it's own console, but Bill Gates decided again'st it as Sega did'nt have the muscle to beat Sony, from a buisness point of view, which E.A is, it's clear they were far from the only ones not convinced Sega could make DC work.

Besides, are you not forgetting just how quick Sega 'got into bed' with Sony? or does that not suit the E.A are bad case here?

Why stop at E.A? as a day 1 DC owner i saw pityful support from Konami, token at best, real meat went to Sony, Jez San started out as big DC fan, then soon turned on it in favour of PS2, Eidos canned games i was waiting for, Valve took DC HL2 code and turned it into PS2 Half Life, Sega itself drew plans for Shinobi, Toe Jam+Earl 3 for DC, yet they turned up on PS2+Xbox.DC never had a Panzer dragon game, Xbox was deemed worthy. I could dedicate entire thread to publishers who jumped ship from 1 platform to the next come a new generation of hardware.

[Rogue Trooper]

Also, looking at it purely from a buisness point of view, which we should be doing here unless any of us worked for Sega/Sony or indeed E.A, you can easily see why the 2 fell out so badly....

E.A had lost money on developing Saturn titles, which due to taking longer to develop than Playstation versions, 'thanks' to Sega's choices on hardware components etc are faced with Sega coming to them saying they've a new powerful console in development, but at present they were not sure just what form the GPU would take, it might be 3DFX based (something E.A's coders had exp.of working with), but then again it might be something from Videologic and GPU aside, it might have a modem as standard...but then again...it might not.Not exactly reassuring words.

Then, if story is to be belived, when it came to the 'small' matter of royalty rates, Sega wanted to pay E.A less than they had in the past as they'd just recently  bought a company by name of Visual Concepts who were busy beavering away on their own NFL Dreamcast game and Sega were saying were bit strapped for cash, so we're looking to pay you less E.A than we used to, as having bought Visual Concepts, seen MCD, 32X and Saturn bomb and oh did we mention the lawsuit from 3DFX?.....E.A basically say we are'nt reducing our rates, you need us to succed with Dreamcast in the market, Sega turn around and say:No, we don't, we're Sega!.

So, no arrogance there from sega what so ever...try and screw a publisher down on royalty rates whilst you've bought a company of your own to develop titles which will compete with said publishers own sports range.....

I loved the DC hardware and it's games, but sega's handling of it utterly stank!.

[Rogue Trooper]

Quick search threw up interview with now Ex-E.A employee Bing Gordon, who at the time Sega approached E.A regarding the Dreamcast, was E.A's Chief Creative officer, basically E.A loved the idea of DC having a modem, told Sega: 'A modem is a really good idea, if you do a modem, we'll build a whole product line for it', but Sega could'nt decide wether to include it or not, they were 'flip-flopping allover the place' as Bing puts it.

In terms of going for the Videologic card for GPU:

'They went with some other 3D chip that we'd never heard of and they went with a wierd processor.We looked at this and asked ourselves why did they make these choices? it's gotta be some kind of political thing because these are dumb choices'

Bing also mentions the reaction from E.A's Chief Technology Officer when he saw Dreamcast final specs: 'Oh my god, i don't know anybody who has even heard of this chip, it's non-standard and there are no libaries for it'.


So again, i'm left wondering just how much Sega's choices impacted on realationship it once had with publishers, come time of the DC, they (Sega) had a mountain to climb to convince retailers to put faith in Sega after getting burned by Saturn, looks like many publishers were as wary.


E.A say at end of the day, it was'nt the odd choice of chipsets, the will it/won't it have a modem? aspects of the DC that were the issue, but fact was when it came to negotiations, Sega were'nt acting like a competent hardware company.

This is'nt a defend E.A post, far from it, just pointing out there's far more to it than E.A 'Jumping straight into bed' with Sony...


Sega meanwhile gave their side of the story as thus:


In 1999 on 'neutral turf' there was a meeting between Sega and E.A.E.A said we'll support Dreamcast, but we want exclusive rights to be the only sports brand on Dreamcast!.Bernie stolar then say's i'll only agree to you being the only 3rd party sports brand, i've bought Visual Concepts for $10 Million, we'll have your sports titles and V.Concepts sports titles only.E.A refused to budge, later Sega of Japan panicked, approached E.A saying, we're willing to give you what you want in terms of royalties, but it was by then too late'


Bernie Stolar still believes Sega made right choice, that he fails to see what E.A could have brought to the table as Visual Concepts games were far superior to what E.A was putting out at the time.



Somewhere there in lies the truth, but once the media got hold of fact E.A were'nt supporting Dreamcast (and ran with the story), the harm was done.

Lengthy few posts, but i just don't do these 'blanket statements' these days.Far more to any story that A went to B, C got upset and B lived happily ever after for that generation, then fucked themselves in the ass the next.....

Personally feel if we're to have intelligent debate on here we need to look a little deeper into what went on.I'd love to see a few publishers like Codemasters, Gearbox, edios etc be open as to why they pulled plug on so many DC projects that were nearly finished, with Rockstar to see if it was true GTA3 started out on DC, but was lot more cartoony in approach.


People seem quick to judge companies/publishers, something like say Free Radical and Haze, folks forget it was originally a PC/PS3+360 title and personally after loving the last 2 Timesplitters games on Xbox, i don't blame Sony for signing it up as an exclusive based on past work.think we can do far better than simplistic outlook's on here....

[DreamcastRIP]

EA's stance on Dreamcast's chipset always bemused me, tbh. Pissing and moaning because Sega's choice of a 'non-standard' chipset meant that if EA were to make games for the console then they'd have to plough some proper resources into it rather than having the low cost easy option of being able to use existing libraries. Only to then jump aboard the PS2 ship where it was an absolute pig to make games for Sony's console... as just about every early PS2 games dev' under the sun attested to.

Stollar was right about the supreme quality of the Dreamcast sports games by Visual Concepts. The NBA 2K series, for instance, was utterly sublime and so far superior to anything else on other consoles it wasn't even a contest. The series of course eventually came to PS2, Xbox, GameCube and still exists today - I have NBA 2K13 on PC - and it's still a cut above anything EA have done.

Sure, Sega's decision to not bow down to EA's bully boy anti-competitive demands cost them in the long-term because having no FIFA and Madden titles on Dreamcast obviously served to make the console a less attractive proposition to the mainstream.

I'd be interested to know why Konami never brought the ISS Pro Evoution Soccer/Pro Evo series to Dreamcast though. With Dreamcast never really having a AAA quality football (soccer!) game and EA being out of the picture surely Dreamcast owners would have flocked to PES.

[Rogue Trooper]

Looking at it, E.A just used both the will it/won't it have a Modem? as 1 'red flag' and the decision not to use 3DFX as another (E.A had invested in stocks of 3DFX i seem to recal), but it really came down to E.A+Sega butting heads over royalty payments.Sega wanted to pay E.A a lower rate than they had in 5 years previous which was always going to be difficult to pull off alone, let alone then dropping the bombshell that they'd be competing again'st Sega's own (and far superior) sports range.

A lot of publishers at the time of getting PS2 development kits, were shocked at just how difficult the hardware was just to get doing basic routines, aghast at lack of Ram and no on-board A.A etc, but since they'd put all their eggs in 1 basket and knew Sony had the money and marketing to really push PS2, plus the massive installed user base from PS1, they had to stick it out for the long run, but then you had likes of Oddworld developer basically refusing to work on PS2 and taking his PS2 project to MS with the Xbox.

E.A have always seemed to say they felt Sega got too over confident with how the Genesis had fared in North America, that there was a vibe within Sega that they deserved to be succesful, rather than they'd got lucky and when they walked away from the table saying we don't need you, we are sega, it just was'nt believable, there was no feeling among E.A board that they were left hurting with out Sega.

Konami were a curious one, there was Dreamcast support  (off top of my head:Deadly Skies, few Dance games, Nightmare Creatures 2?) and they had at least 1 major I.P planned for it (Castlevania, but game was put on  'hold'), but was very surprised not to see ISS appear.I'd guess teams were more focused on PS2 with that getting lions share.


Going back to Sega's handling though, Charlies Bellfield admits that whilst P.R wise Sega had claimed it was going to spend $100 Million in marketing the DC from day 1, he thinks actual figure was around 1/2 of that, but his best quote on DC failure:




'The 1st Xbox console was a far bigger failure than the Dreamcast.But MS has much more money than Sega did and the Xbox was an ugly motherfucker'.




:-)