11–20 of 119 posts
I’m been doing some Nintendo 64 development lately, and sometimes all ask the CEO at my workplace for advice or insights as he worked on Nintendo 64 games when he was younger. It’s not uncommon for him to finish the conversation with noting that he worked on Sega Saturn before the Nintendo 64, and the former was difficult to work with due to its particular architecture.
It's hard to say what the biggest mistake was exactly. The Sega CD and 32x were bad ideas, compared to just creating a new console. The Sega Saturn would have been a great 2D console, but they delayed it to add a really strange (quads versus triangles) underperforming 3D capability to their design. I think the Saturn should have been released earlier in 2D only form, so they could move on to making a 3D capable conso…
I was one of the few who got the original Sega CD, the early version one that mounted underneath the genesis. It had cool games like Darkwizard. The real issue was the cost of add on peripherals were too high to get any kind of market penetration. Back then parents bought videogames for kids for their christmas or their birthdays. They'd rent their favorite games from blockbuster/convenience store and then get their parents to buy their favorites.
The reality was consoles and games were expensive and most kids rented games back when sega and nintendo were the kings of gaming before PC gaming had taken off in 1990's.
So the financial barrier to console ownership and the high price tag for parents was the real issue. Sega had a lot of good idea's but not conceived in the right way or at the right time. They acted as if the gaming populations parents were rich.
That was the real issue with many console companies that allowed Sony to get a foothold into console gaming.
Playstation was as popular as it was because of piracy and backups thereby increasing its market, it was "microsoft" method of console dominance - we don't care if you pirate as long as you use our console.
Even if sony didn't intend that, Sony PS1 and PS2 became huge because of ability to pirate games on the platform.
Piracy paradoxically drove sony to success. Everyone forgets places like china, india and third world countries at the time that couldn't really afford games because the the ridiculous prices.
I feel like the whole 32x mess was an important part of this mistake. "Hey let's release a weird upgrade pod for our successful last-gen console almost completely simultaneously with our next-gen console, I am sure developers will be happy to split their efforts across two machines! Especially if both of them have really weird architecture that's hard to program on."
The reality is far, far more complicated. Kalinske himself was against the Saturn going back to 1993, due to the predicted high cost of the console. This in turn led to the development of the 32X add-on for the Genesis as a low-cost entry into the 32-bit generation in NA, but the 32X failed spectacularly.
Most relevant, however, is that Sega failed to adequately compete against Sony in terms of garnering third-party support, both in Japan and NA. This is discussed at length in the excellent book Revolutionaries at Sony by Reiji Asakura (English translation available). The Saturn was difficult to develop for and Sega did not have good development tools early on.
Also worth reading is the recent account from former Sega president Hideki Sato, who was the head designer of the Saturn. He discusses many of the shortcomings of the console and Sega's strategy for it:
https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?33506-Hideki-Sa...
In comparison, today's gaming industry is fragmented beyond all recognition. The audience has grown and matured, but every major player is a unique gumbo of F2P, overplayed IP, indie risks, and speculative technology. Also, they're all subservient to some larger corporate strategy.
Once again, my cynicism may just stem from my age, but it seems like there hasn't been much excitement for the past 5 years or so.
I’m been doing some Nintendo 64 development lately, and sometimes all ask the CEO at my workplace for advice or insights as he worked on Nintendo 64 games when he was younger. It’s not uncommon for him to finish the conversation with noting that he worked on Sega Saturn before the Nintendo 64, and the former was difficult to work with due to its particular architecture.
I feel like the whole 32x mess was an important part of this mistake. "Hey let's release a weird upgrade pod for our successful last-gen console almost completely simultaneously with our next-gen console, I am sure developers will be happy to split their efforts across two machines! Especially if both of them have really weird architecture that's hard to program on."
My company was deeply involved with Sega Saturn development at that time. One of the problems was a serious rift between Sega of America and Sega Japan. SOA was committed to the idea that the Sega Genesis had a few more years of life in it, and that the American audience was not as interested in new technology for its own sake. They were, rightly in my opinion, concerned that a change in platform would benefit the co…
In reality, the exact opposite happened. Ken Kutaragi (creator of the PlayStation) and Norio Ohga (then-president of Sony) were outraged that the Sony executives in America were not following their instructions, and they fired the vast majority of them. This is discussed at length in the book Revolutions at Sony by Reiji Asakura. The American side wanted to make all kinds of changes - they hated the name PlayStation, they hated the grey color (they wanted it to be black), and they hated that Kutaragi would not let them include a pack-in title for free with each console. The Japanese side quickly responded, fired most of them, and took direct control.
I feel like the whole 32x mess was an important part of this mistake. "Hey let's release a weird upgrade pod for our successful last-gen console almost completely simultaneously with our next-gen console, I am sure developers will be happy to split their efforts across two machines! Especially if both of them have really weird architecture that's hard to program on."
Hindsight is always 20/20, but I wonder why Sega made decisions like using quads instead of triangles, and dual CPU's.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but I wonder why Sega made decisions like using quads instead of triangles, and dual CPU's.
For the Saturn, this resulted in the console packed with little goodies that were created by different departments. Things like off to the side audio chips that did barely anything. Dual CPUs. Strange 3D tech that used quads instead of triangles.
A few years later, we did work with Sony, and they seemed for some reason to work more like an American company, in the sense that they say they need more able to make rational decisions and move quickly when they needed to.
No one who has worked for a Japanese company would ever use the word agile to describe them. Sony may be the exception, at least at that time.