TEXAN*s SEGA enthusiast thread - past and future hardware choices

[TEXAN*]

It's Official, After 13 Long Years, The Mystery Has Finally Come To An End.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4128/the_rise_and_fall_of_the_dreamcast.php?page=1

To this very day the question on everybody's mind was, just what was the GPU that was used in the SEGA BlackBelt console, the American led design which competed and ultimately lost against the Japanese Katana Design.

To this day people thought it was either a Banshee or a Voodoo 2. Well after 13 long years the mystery is officially over.

It was a Voodoo 3!

Yamamoto, based in the U.S. and initially kept secret from Sato's team, chose the IBM/Motorola PowerPC 603e, but was later asked to use the Japanese-made Hitachi SH4, and entered into a contract with the American graphics card maker, 3Dfx, to use a custom version of its Voodoo 3 card as the graphics processor.

In 1996, 3Dfx began building wide acclaim for its powerful graphics chips, one of which ran in arcade machines, including Atari's San Francisco Rush and Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey. In 1997, 3Dfx went public, announcing its IPO. In the process it revealed the details of its contract with Sega, required by U.S. law. The announcement, however, had undesired effects. It publicly revealed Sega's blueprint for a new, unannounced console, and angered executives at Sega Japan.

Numerous reports indicate Yamamoto's Blackbelt chipset using the 3Dfx chips was the more powerful of the two. Sega executives, however, still fuming at 3Dfx, severed their contract with the chip maker. (Soon thereafter, 3Dfx sued Sega and both companies settled out of court.)

In the end, Sega of Japan selected Sato's design, codenamed it "Katana," and announced it publicly on September 7, 1997. To this day, it's unclear whether Sega would have chosen the Blackbelt 3Dfx solution, had 3Dfx not revealed Sega's plans publicly.

"They said they looked at 3Dfx, but decided against it," said Gordon. "They went with some other 3D chip that we had never heard of, and they went with a weird 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.'"

"I felt the US version, the 3Dfx version, should have been used. Japan wanted the Japanese version, and Japan won," said Stolar. "I lost that argument."

At the time, EA had invested stock in 3Dfx. Did EA's investment in 3Dfx influence its decision? Gordon says it didn't. "If Sega had picked the direct competitor to 3Dfx at the time, it would have been fine. But they picked someone we had never heard of. It was somebody's friend of somebody's friend at a Japanese country club. It was a head-scratcher, like, 'What are they doing?' That was mostly it."

According to Gordon, Sega had flip-flopped over whether to include a modem, but it also picked the wrong chipset. "I remember our CTO (chief technology officer) talking about the processor and going, 'Oh my God, I don't know anybody who has even heard of this chip. It's non-standard and there are no libraries for it.' It was kind of a slap in the face.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I felt the US version, the 3Dfx version, should have been used. Japan wanted the Japanese version, and Japan won," said Stolar. "I lost that argument."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bernie Stolar himself wanted the Voodoo 3 based BlackBelt. SEGA messed up by using the underpowered PVR2 based Katana.

 

[TEXAN*]

I was right!

SEGA did make the wrong choice!

Top executives reveal insider information in a new Dreamcast 10th anniversary special article conducted by Gamasutra -

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1332338#post1332338

 

[ShaidarHaran]

Wasn't PVR2 a TBDR design? Wouldn't that make any polygon rendering comparison to an IMR GPU meaningless?

 

[amk]

Virtua Soccer didn't come out in Europe? Or you mean one with licensed teams?

Virtua Striker 2 came out and got uninspiring reviews. There was also UEFA Dream Soccer from Silicon Dreams and presumably funded by SOE which may have been Europe only. It got (IIRC) slightly better reviews. The loading times were particularly horrific. I once lost as Brasil to a friend playing as Falkirk FC. Clearly the game's fault. I remember selling my copy to a store in 2001 or 2002 for 50p.

Visual Concepts produced excellent sports games, but only for North American sports.

 

[Sonic]

I was right!

SEGA did make the wrong choice!

Top executives reveal insider information in a new Dreamcast 10th anniversary special article conducted by Gamasutra -

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1332338#post1332338

You are wrong yet again.

 

[SuperCow]

Why are you using words such as "messed up", and "underpowered" when referring to the decision of going with a PowerVR-based design over a Voodoo3?
Surely you're not blaming the death of the Dreamcast on the graphics chip are you? What makes you think a Voodoo3 design would have fared otherwise?

 

[Sonic]

The 3dfx system was hilarious. Few probably know it didn't actually start out as a new system but something else entirely.

 

[Simon F]

You are wrong yet again.

"Texan == Wrong". It's a well-known tautology.

 

[Rodéric]

16 bit colors would have been SO much better, really !

(Sega of America wanted the US 3D chip, Sega of Japan wanted the UK/JP one... how amazing !)

 

[Nesh]

I was right!

SEGA did make the wrong choice!

Top executives reveal insider information in a new Dreamcast 10th anniversary special article conducted by Gamasutra -

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?p=1332338#post1332338

I think you are misinterpreting information and you see only what you would like to see

 

[Nesh]

The 3dfx system was hilarious. Few probably know it didn't actually start out as a new system but something else entirely.

Out of curiosity what did it start out to be?

 

[I.S.T.]

Given this IS Sega we're talking about here... I'm going to guess as either an Arcade board or a Saturn upgrade.

 

[DJ12]

To this very day the question on everybody's mind was

I bet I could count on one finger the amount of people that had this on their mind and I will use that finger to point at the person now.

** Points at TEXAN* **

 

[brain_stew]

Honestly, the performance of the PowerVR2 was the least of SEGA's concerns. For a console launched in 1998, that thing packed a mighty punch, especially considering the size and price of the thing.

 

[V3]

It was suppose to use PowerPC too if I remember correctly. I think it was doom to fail either way.

There was also another contender that was to use R3D100, the Model 3 little brother but that got scraped earlier.

Sega should have just try to shrink Model 3 into a few chips and add a DVD drive and release it around PS2 for the same price. Their insistent of protecting their Arcade business really hurt them.

'Oh my God, I don't know anybody who has even heard of this chip. It's non-standard and there are no libraries for it.' It was kind of a slap in the face.

Then they saw PS2 that must have been a kick to the groin.

 

[Nesh]

Well if you read the whole article nobody blames the hardware. The portions were they talk about the hardware decisiosn allude to the miscommunication within SEGA, and the bad attitude from SEGA Japan. The same attitude that killed the Saturn.

They blame all kinds of reasons for the demise more than the HW performance

 

[Sonic]

Yeah there was some working on bringing Real3D tech to a home machine but I doubt that would have gone far. The tech was just too expensive at the time, but who knows if they decided to shrink the chips down to a modern manufacturing process at the time it might have been viable.

The 3dfx system started back in 1995/6 (forget which year lol) as a Saturn upgrade. Remember all those rumors in Next Generation, EGM, Gameplayer/Ultra GP? There was some truth to it, but by early 97 that was scrapped in favor of a new console. SoJ basically told SoA that they weren't going the upgrade route again.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I've merged the "Big Historic Reveal" thread with this thread due to similarities in content and discussion. Many of TEXAN*'s posts would fit in best here as a single point of discussion for past SEGA activity without stretching the same core discussion over several threads. I trust TEXAN* will append new SEGA points relating to hardware choices here without requiring the mods to merge threads.

 

[TheWretched]

Well, Konamis Viper Hardware did use a 3DFx in ~2000... so it could be something like that, using a Motorola PPC.

 

[TEXAN*]

Here are some Viper based games -

Jurassic Park 3 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJhKOHzKno&feature=related

Thrill Drive 2 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz2IyCTJ7qY

GTI Club 2 -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2KRm2bA1Uk

Here are the specs of the Konami Viper -

CPU: Motorola PowerPC 603ev 200Mhz-250Mhz
GPU: 3Dfx Voodoo 3 2000/3000/3500

It's pretty much a SEGA BlackBelt.

When watching the above videos immediately you shall notice the Geometry, Lighting, General Special Effects are way beyond DC quality.

This proves that if SEGA had chosen the Blackbelt instead of Katana the DC would have competed favorably with the PS2 and enjoyed a long illustrious life.