View Full Version : Old Skool: SEGA Could They Make Another Console
AngelfireUk83
11-23-06, 12:03 PM
I was going through answers.com and finding info on todays consoles PS3, 360 & Wii and decided to look at the old skool stuff. I read up about Atari Jaguar & Lynx, Sega Dreamcast, Master System, Mega Drive (Genesis) & Game Gear, Super Nintendo and how the Game Boy all started. I even went far back to the Amiga 1200 & C64 which I owned in my life when I was 8.
Just thought I would like to see SEGA come back into making consoles I reckon they would come up with something. The Dreamcast was a good console and I still have a Mega Drive and loads of games.
rainless
11-23-06, 12:15 PM
The Dreamcast and particularly the Saturn were business disasters that no console manufacturer could recover from. You can recover from ONE bad console... maybe even two... but not two in a row. Sega alienated game developers, distributers, and publishers alike with their conduct during the Saturn era. Those relationships never fully healed and were chiefly responsible for the failure of the Dreamcast (alongside TRUSTING MICROSOFT.)
Sega isn't the same company it was, and they are out of the hardware biz for good.
The Dreamcast and particularly the Saturn were business disasters that no console manufacturer could recover from. You can recover from ONE bad console... maybe even two... but not two in a row. Sega alienated game developers, distributers, and publishers alike with their conduct during the Saturn era. Those relationships never fully healed and were chiefly responsible for the failure of the Dreamcast (alongside TRUSTING MICROSOFT.)
Sega isn't the same company it was, and they are out of the hardware biz for good.
/ makes me sad just reading that :(
Another unfortunate downfall for the Dreamcast was it's complete lack of copyright protection. Want a game? Why would the average consumer pay $40 for it when they can rent it for $5 and just copy it? No modchip or ActionReplay device needed.
Just one of many things that aided in the console's downfall, and Sega's withdrawal form the console arms race.
Sega Saturn, IMO, was one of the best consoles I've ever played on till this date. Solar Eclipse and Bug Too RIP
synthetic_fenix
11-23-06, 03:28 PM
Sega Saturn was a good console but was a huge flop due to its release not too long after the 32X addition to the Sega Genesis. The Saturn made it look like it was backwards compatible to the Sega Genesis, Sega 32x Cartridge and CD, and the Sega CDs but was infact not compatible with any of them. If Sega would have built in some sort of backwards compatibility to these games then the Saturn would have done a whole lot better.
rainless
11-23-06, 03:29 PM
Sega Saturn, IMO, was one of the best consoles I've ever played on till this date. Solar Eclipse and Bug Too RIP
The Saturn was indeed one of the best consoles ever constructed...
...too bad that knowledge went straight to Sega's head.
I still have my X-Men vs. Street Fighter Saturn disc. IMO the first PERFECT arcade port of all time with the 4mb ram card. Virtua Fighter 2 was great... Darkstalkers was great... and if they could've gotten their heads out of their asses they would've STOMPED the Playstation revolution before it even started.
Instead game publishers just made do with inferior hardware just so they didn't have to put up with Sega's crap.
Lesson learned...
AngelfireUk83
11-23-06, 07:42 PM
I used to like Virtual On and X-Men Vs. Street Fighter what a game that was, Probably 1 of the perfect arcade cross-over to console games out. Was bang-on with the arcade makes me wanna go buy a Saturn now just for that game alone.
I loved Saturn. The last console that I bought and don't regret it one bit. I was more of an RPG and strategy/adventure sort of person. So Dragon Force was my absolute favorite game from that console and one of my favorite games in general. I also loved Legend of Oasis and Shining the Holy Ark.
I still have my Saturn console, it still works, and I still play it. But one of the things that I think I read somewhere years ago, at the time Saturn was dying, was that it was somewhat difficult to program for? And/or the architecture wasn't as good or neat as the others?
Oh well, whatever. At least Sega didn't go completely under, as they were/are doing just fine in the games area.
JP.MIGRAINE
11-23-06, 08:21 PM
i liked dreamcast , i didnt know it was that easy to copy games for it though.
Niku-Sama
11-24-06, 01:01 AM
as for the question asked about if they could make another console i would say not untill they start making games that accually sell decently to make them the money to research a new system
JonEapples
11-24-06, 01:38 AM
The Dreamcast totally blew everything away when it first launched, way ahead of it's time IMO. I was a SEGA fanboy during the "16-bit era" and wouldn't mind seeing them taking another stab with a console. Very risky, but I think it would be awesome and worth a shot if they brought something new out say in about 2 years. Think about it, we are just starting with the next generation of consoles from the current "big 3", they are already behind when compared to what gameing power you can put in a PC today. The big 3 will be stuck and hardware limited with these consoles for 4-5 years, well somebody like SEGA can make a move with new console with the latest cutting edge power (we all know how fast the chip market improves uponitself, look at nVidia/Ati) and make some noise. Maybe wishful thinking and I'm picking up a 360 soon anyway, but it would be cool to see.
Sega just can't compete. Sorry.
You got stomped once by N64, and then stomped again by the PS2. Whoops.
To get ahead in the console market you really need to be different, or appeal to a niche market. Xbox is good for online gamers, PS for the average gamer, and Nintendo caters to kids, or kids at heart. Can you think of where Sega fits in?
7
rainless
11-24-06, 03:29 AM
I loved Saturn. The last console that I bought and don't regret it one bit. I was more of an RPG and strategy/adventure sort of person. So Dragon Force was my absolute favorite game from that console and one of my favorite games in general. I also loved Legend of Oasis and Shining the Holy Ark.
I still have my Saturn console, it still works, and I still play it. But one of the things that I think I read somewhere years ago, at the time Saturn was dying, was that it was somewhat difficult to program for? And/or the architecture wasn't as good or neat as the others?
Oh well, whatever. At least Sega didn't go completely under, as they were/are doing just fine in the games area.
Well the watch battery that came with your Saturn is probably dead now... so the internal memory could be screwed. I'll have to check out some of those games you mentioned...
But forget about it... X-Men vs. Street Fighter was ABSOLUTELY perfect. And the last great Capcom fighter in my opinion. The floor dropped out on you, you broke threw walls... the double team powers... It was simply amazing. And it inspired one of the greatest 3D-Fighters of all time: Tekken Tag Tournament. I played all the Tekken games before, but didn't really care for the "Tag" format in a Tekken game until I moved to Japan and saw how it was REALLY meant to be played.
I'm pretty sure even THAT would've run okay on the Saturn.
Then of course the Dreamcast was just icing on the cake.
It was difficult to program for the Saturn... but publishers accomplished great things (a lesson to developers belly-aching about the PS3) when they took the time to figure it out. It had basically the first dual core processor in history (actually it was just the first multi-processor... but still.)
Sigh... just makes me sad thinking about the lost potential.
Well the watch battery that came with your Saturn is probably dead now... so the internal memory could be screwed. I'll have to check out some of those games you mentioned...
But forget about it... X-Men vs. Street Fighter was ABSOLUTELY perfect. And the last great Capcom fighter in my opinion. The floor dropped out on you, you broke threw walls... the double team powers... It was simply amazing. And it inspired one of the greatest 3D-Fighters of all time: Tekken Tag Tournament. I played all the Tekken games before, but didn't really care for the "Tag" format in a Tekken game until I moved to Japan and saw how it was REALLY meant to be played.
I'm pretty sure even THAT would've run okay on the Saturn.
Then of course the Dreamcast was just icing on the cake.
It was difficult to program for the Saturn... but publishers accomplished great things (a lesson to developers belly-aching about the PS3) when they took the time to figure it out. It had basically the first dual core processor in history (actually it was just the first multi-processor... but still.)
Sigh... just makes me sad thinking about the lost potential.
I replaced the battery at one point. It was pretty easy, but it was also quite a few years ago, so that one too is probably dead. CR2032 I think? That's used in a lot of things.
Shining Force 3 was another good one, although Shining Force 2 for Genesis is still tops in my book. 3 was cool since it was 3D and there were some other nice things...but I dunno. It also doesn't help that it was a 3 part game, where parts 2 and 3 never got translated to English, and thus never came to the US. It was 3 discs because it was the same story told from 3 different perspectives, with 3 different parties - 1 disc for each perspective. Anyways...
I remember reading up on the Saturn specs a looong time ago, before I knew even an ounce of anything about computers. If I remember right, it was a pair of processors running at 27MHz. Or something. I distinctly remember a 7 in the number...but I think it was 27MHz (of course I could easily look this up on wikipedia or google or something, but it kind feels neat trying to pull it from memory).
Ah well. R.I.P. Sega hardware for the home :(
freakdiablo
11-24-06, 05:35 AM
I liked the dreamcast, especially the vmu. just dont like that i payed $20 for one of those rumble packs and now i can get a used one for 95 cents.
AngelfireUk83
11-24-06, 06:29 AM
Skies Of Arcadia showed what games can be made for DreamCast that was Overworks/Sega's first attempt at a RPG with fantasy style story. Pirate ships but they floated in the air that game was awsome magic and characters where spot on. Then the converted it to GameCube and added a few extra bits to it if they didn't convert it they could of had a no.2 on a future console of there own.
UnseenMenace
11-24-06, 07:04 AM
speaking of old school I could never work out why the NeoGeo never sold in vast quantitys as it was a great deal better than anything else around at the time
AngelfireUk83
11-24-06, 08:01 AM
The NeoGeo you can get them in stores called GameStation infact I was in town today and they had 2 in.
Uqdroma
11-24-06, 09:52 AM
Sega isn't the same company it was, and they are out of the hardware biz for good.
Not to mention the rights for Sega are now owned by Nintendo.
IKIKUINTHENUTZ
11-25-06, 02:14 AM
I love my Panzer Dragoon Saga game for Saturn, too bad the dang Saturn internal ram is messed up and now i can't save files :(
rainless
11-25-06, 04:10 AM
I love my Panzer Dragoon Saga game for Saturn, too bad the dang Saturn internal ram is messed up and now i can't save files :(
You just need to replace the battery.
i liked dreamcast , i didnt know it was that easy to copy games for it though.
Same here. I still think the dreamcast was the best, and one of the most innovative systems ever made. They pioneered online for consoles. Invented VMUs. Designed a controller we all still use (the 360's is a derivative, and the GC controller was pretty close).
I wish sega was still in the business, it would make this whole "console war" so much more interesting.
AngelfireUk83
11-25-06, 06:44 AM
The Dreamcast and Phantasy Star Online Ep 1 & 2 is still going in Japan I was finding out info on the new Phantasy Star Universe (boring I think). And they had a message up on the boards saying the Japan servers where down cause of the DNS server. I can't believe it's still going but why wouldn't it, it's free to surf on there servers.
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