SEGA Kicked While Down

[Mulboyne]

[floatr][/floatr]BusinessWeek: Sega -- Played Out
...Sega's global homepage is a dull and disappointing portal that subsequently leads to an enigmatic pastiche of culturally biased activity... To understand Sega's web proposition, one should first seek to understand Sega...A business with American roots that made it big in Japan, the company lost its shirt on the appallingly marketed Dreamcast games console...Now, Sega specializes in making games for the consoles with which it once competed, and its subsequent web proposition is an apologetic attempt at covering its tracks. Every one of the Sega sites lacks passion and energy, and they all have the feel of a third-rate games developer...If Sega is intent on marketing itself as a global concern going forward, it will need to sort out its disjointed web offering and start playing to its technological strengths...more...

[plaid_knight]

Sega also marketed against themselves, as the near-simultaneous release of the Saturn and Dreamcast easily springs to mind. The lack of compatibility between the Dreamcast and the Saturn also grate on the consciousness, as the lack of marketing of good Japanese games for both deceased systems over here in the States.

[Caustic Saint]

Sega also marketed against themselves, as the near-simultaneous release of the Saturn and Dreamcast easily springs to mind.

Do what?

Sega_SaturnSaturn release dates:
November 22, 1994 in Japan, May 1995 in North America and July 8, 1995 in Europe

Dreamcast release dates:
November 27, 1998 in Japan, September 9, 1999 in North America and October 14, 1999 in Europe

How is that "near-simultaneous?"

Going by your definition, the Xbox and Xbox 360 had a near-simultaneous release.

[Kuang_Grade]

The guy who wrote the original BW piece looks like he was just ripping off from Wikipedia in regards to the ultimate causes for Sega's problems with the Dreamcast rather than actually knowing anything about it.. In my opinion, lack backward compatibility was not an issue for the Dreamcast since retail support for the Saturn had already all but collapsed in the US..only a handful of Saturn games came out in 1999, and almost all the 3Rd party publishers had already abandoned it...And the fact that Dreamcast launched at $200 (compared to the PS2's $300) also blunts this point...you could buy a new Saturn at the Dreamcast launch for, I believe $99 or less…boom, there’s your backward compatibility at the same price as a PS2. Also, the market, at that time, had never experienced next generation unit being backward compatible with a previous one (ignoring the Atari 2600/5200/7800 variants)....using that rational, we should have never gotten past the NES generation.

The fact that EA didn't back the Dreamcast (ensuring their hard core Madden fans would buy another system, although Sega's own sports games were pretty impressive), Sega's own financial problems (manly due from the Saturn's poor performance in the US), and MS coming in down the road saying 'We're going to spend gazillions to enter this market' that lead to the downfall of the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast had a very successful launch, and if there was only going to be 3 players(Sony, Sega, Nintendo) in the market, they might have made it...But with MS offering cash to everyone (developers, retailers, ect), it was pretty clear after about 18 months that they wouldn't be able to climb to a large enough base to ensure success and that pulling the plug was the right decision...But I found that very sad.....I still love my Dreamcast unit and, only this week have I decided to part with my Saturn unit.

But if one judges winners from losers by how much $ they lose, MS certainly lost more on the last generation that Sega did.