[Hellbinder]

Drat SEGA and their decision yo kill the DC and jump ship.

They had 10 million units world wide which is about the same as Xbox and Game cude. People liked the system they had decent games and great RPG's like Skies of archadia.

Whats wrong with a Business model that allows for 5-7 million units. Give it a decent CPU and GPU make it cost 199$ and focus on Content. If you get some decent software sell through on your dedicated fan base you will be just fine.

There is nothing quite like SEGA content on a SEGA console.

*sigh* just feeling a little nostalgic.

[Powderkeg]

Drat Sega for wanting to stay in business. How dare they?

[Shifty Geezer]

Why? What would Sega bring to a console that isn't already covered in the upcoming generation? AFAIK they never made amazing innovative hardware that did amazing innovative things (save the 3D specs for Master System I had).

[Hardknock]

Originally Posted by Hellbinder

Drat SEGA and their decision yo kill the DC and jump ship.

They had 10 million units world wide which is about the same as Xbox and Game cude. People liked the system they had decent games and great RPG's like Skies of archadia.

Whats wrong with a Business model that allows for 5-7 million units. Give it a decent CPU and GPU make it cost 199$ and focus on Content. If you get some decent software sell through on your dedicated fan base you will be just fine.

There is nothing quite like SEGA content on a SEGA console.

*sigh* just feeling a little nostalgic.

I feel your pain dude. DC was my first Sega console and I loved every minute of it. I've never been so enthralled and amazed by any of my other current gen consoles. It wasn't so much that they had a choice to stay in the game with DC. 3rd parties all abandoned it for PS2, and Sega had zero money left to market the console. Maybe we'll see another console from them one day, but honestly I would be just as happy if they could put the same focus on their current games as they did as a 1st party.

[PARANOiA]

Originally Posted by Hellbinder

Whats wrong with a Business model that allows for 5-7 million units. Give it a decent CPU and GPU make it cost 199$ and focus on Content. If you get some decent software sell through on your dedicated fan base you will be just fine.

Nintendo will be putting that theory to the test in 2006, so we'll have to wait and see how it settles.

[Readykilowatt]

Originally Posted by Hellbinder

Drat SEGA and their decision yo kill the DC and jump ship.

They had 10 million units world wide which is about the same as Xbox and Game cude. People liked the system they had decent games and great RPG's like Skies of archadia.

Whats wrong with a Business model that allows for 5-7 million units. Give it a decent CPU and GPU make it cost 199$ and focus on Content. If you get some decent software sell through on your dedicated fan base you will be just fine.

There is nothing quite like SEGA content on a SEGA console.

*sigh* just feeling a little nostalgic.

Well, Minagawa said it perfectly...

"Our consoles have never lost money," he pointed out, "unlike the Dreamcast and Genesis which never recorded a profit. People regularly predict our failure in this business, but we're still here meanwhile Bandai, Matsushita, NEC, and Sega have all gone."

The Dreamcast died early because it never made any money for Sega. They just couldn't figure out how to make money in this industry, so they gave up and went the third-party route instead (which IMO was also a failure). BTW, isn't it something that NEC and Matsushita (who both dwarf Nintendo in size) dropped out of the console industry and ended up making components for the Nintendo Gamecube? It all comes down to the fact that the bottom line is the bottom line.

[Hellbinder]

Well thats just flat out innacurate.

Genesis was the Big daddy in the 16bit era it sold close to 25 million units world wide.

Genesis made tons of money for SEGA.

Where they went wrong was the 32x, the Sega CD and the Saturn.

[london-boy]

Originally Posted by Hellbinder

Well thats just flat out innacurate.

Genesis was the Big daddy in the 16bit era it sold close to 25 million units world wide.

Genesis made tons of money for SEGA.

Where they went wrong was the 32x, the Sega CD and the Saturn.

oh Genesis sold much more than 25M units

[nihilistcanada]

I am not going to be happy untill ColecoVision comes back.


Sltiher kicked ass.

[Sonic]

Genesis is/was the most profitable console for SEGA. The Saturn was also a profit in Japan.

The comment about SEGA not innovating is rather hilarious since throughout the years SEGA has been and seen as one of the most innovating gaming companies out there. While they may not have had that role lately due to the ocmpany just getting back on its feet does not mean it wasn't the most innovative gaming company in the 90's.

SEGA helped pioneer 3D gaming through the likes of Virtua Fighter and Virtua Racing. It also helped advance the RPG genre through the likes of Shining Force.

End of my rant.



A new console from SEGA is not going to happen any time soon. Put it behind you.

[TEXAN]

SEGA SAMMY shall return to the console realm at the beginning off the next next generation sometime between 2010-2012.

MD/GEN sold over 35M units worldwide, 22M of which were sold in the united states alone.

[Sonic]

Texan, it's not currently on the roadmap.

[KOF]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Why? What would Sega bring to a console that isn't already covered in the upcoming generation? AFAIK they never made amazing innovative hardware that did amazing innovative things (save the 3D specs for Master System I had).

...which originally appeared on Vectrex, so cross that out. but seriously, not even one innovative hardware? What about all the pioneering that went towards the force feedback hardwares in arcade? If you mean gimmicks, Sega has made plenty of worthless gimmicks that didn't sell at all. (well, it was a blessing to me. Samba de Amigo, Nomad : Mega Drive in a portable,Twin Sticks, etc)

Sega was the first console company to engage in "lose money in the hardware, recoup it through software sales" back in Mega Drive days. Too bad they were also the first victim through their own policy. I wish Dreamcast marketting management wasn't so daring. They could've been conservative just like Nintendo. I hope they can gather enough money through pachinko business to re-enter the console market. but that'd take at least two decades, I think.

[Joe DeFuria]

Originally Posted by nihilistcanada

I am not going to be happy untill ColecoVision comes back.


Sltiher kicked ass.

I never did get that one...trackball was suppossed to be good too.

[g35er]

The big problem with Sega is that since the Saturn and possibly even since the Genesis, they have always released hardware that was graphically inferior or percieved to be graphically inferior to the top player. Here's what I don't understand. They have a good arcade hardware division. So why did they spend all that money to develop specialized consoles? Why didn't they just use a Model 2 or 3 and scale it down into a $300 console?

Even now, they could package Lindbergh in a box. The VF5 demo look as good as anything on the PS3 or 360. If they sell the hardware for break-even or a slight profit, not a loss, and they get a couple of exclusives, they could make a small profit out of just a few million consoles sold.

[Lazy8s]

When Dreamcast significantly outpaced even the highest performance hypothetical PC with dual video cards, Sega's vision for determining the best technologies and balancing their interaction within a system showed that a console -- moreover, a low priced console -- can lead the advancement of game processing.

[vazel]

Originally Posted by Sonic

Genesis is/was the most profitable console for SEGA. The Saturn was also a profit in Japan.

The comment about SEGA not innovating is rather hilarious since throughout the years SEGA has been and seen as one of the most innovating gaming companies out there. While they may not have had that role lately due to the ocmpany just getting back on its feet does not mean it wasn't the most innovative gaming company in the 90's.

to add to this the dreamcast also was making sega money. they didn't lose money on the hardware, they made profit on every unit sold when it was selling for $199. the dreamcast wasn't doing as well as hoped in japan but it was a hit in the west. you can't really point to it not doing well in japan as it's downfall as that hasn't stopped nintendo(i believe nintendo makes about 60% of their money in the west). the real reasons for the downfall of sega consoles is pre-dreamcast era accumulated debt and internal corporate politics finally caved in to the people that wanted to become software only since the sega saturn days. they believed once they became software only and developed for any consoles they wanted they would make more money than they were already making and also payoff all that debt faster.

as for innovation. the dreamcast brought the potential of online gaming with every console out of the box.

Originally Posted by Lazy8s

When Dreamcast significantly outpaced even the highest performance hypothetical PC with dual video cards, Sega's vision for determining the best technologies and balancing their interaction within a system showed that a console -- moreover, a low priced console -- can lead the advancement of game processing.

yea, i still remember how awed i was with the graphics. and it was the first time where arcade ports to a console rather than being dumbed down to run on inferior console hardware actually received graphical improvements on the dreamcast.

[nihilistcanada]

Originally Posted by Joe DeFuria

I never did get that one...trackball was suppossed to be good too.

It was, we had the sports controllerr that looked like a HOTAS uniit to play baseball with as well.

[Simon F]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

Why? What would Sega bring to a console that isn't already covered in the upcoming generation? AFAIK they never made amazing innovative hardware that did amazing innovative things

That shows how little you know.

[PC-Engine]

None of SEGA's consoles were popular in Japan because SEGA was founded by an American. The Japanese are very patriotic, prideful, and somewhat prejudiced. That's why they flocked to Nintendo and SONY consoles.

[london-boy]

Originally Posted by PC-Engine

The Japanese are very patriotic, prideful, and somewhat prejudiced..

Coming from an American, that's rather ironic.

[Rodéric]

Dreamcast FOREVER !
(My favorite console, SNES comes in a close second.)

Maybe new gen consoles will bring in some WOW! factor like the Dreamcast did this gen...
(The Revolution does appeal to me, but it's not the same kind of WOW! factor)

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by Simon F

That shows how little you know.

Yep. Don't know much about Sega history. So people can explain, and most importantly what can they bring into the console space that isn't already covered? Where is there to go? Sonic mentions games which are software, and Sega can innovate software on any hardware. Then there's force feedback in the arcades or online gaming...which were evolutions of ideas. If Sega didn't have these ideas someone else would have.

I'm not entering into an argument over how innovative Sega are, because I don't have an opinion and it's a subjective concept anyway. Everytime one person points out an innovation, someone else points out the predecessor from which it's derived. My point is if Sega were to introduce a fourth console what would be it's unique selling point? What can they add new that isn't already covered? We've got perfect onine gaming, super power, multifunctionality, unique controllers, optical interaction... What could their hardware do or be to attract the customers away from the existing solutions? Why is a Sega console preferable over a MS, Sony or Nintendo console?

[london-boy]

Originally Posted by Shifty Geezer

I'm not entering into an argument over how innovative Sega are

Well there would be very little to discuss about how innovative SEGA are. Cause these days, they just aren't. Unless very pretty VF5 is considered "innovative" which i don't. As good as the game is, it's just an update of the 10 year old game they always had.

What can be discussed is how innovative they used to be.

Everytime one person points out an innovation, someone else points out the predecessor from which it's derived.

Didn't you know, Nintendo filed patents for Everything(TM) 563 years ago.

My point is if Sega were to introduce a fourth console what would be it's unique selling point?

To be honest, very little, with X360 being the media hub MS wants us to believe and PS3 being the other media hub Sony wants us to believe, and Nintendo doing their own wacky thing.

[TEXAN]

You have to admire SEGA SAMMY's hardware making abilities, just look at what they have managed with LINDBERGH. Off the shelf components, minimum R&D budget, short dev time and it kills both XBox360 and PS3 in graphics. Billions of dollars spent in R&D, billions of dollars in fabs and contracts, billion of dollars and years of development with companies to produce highly custom hardware from the ground up.

None of that was enough to compete with the almighty Double S.