Superboy

I'd like to say a small piece about Sega, formerly a company that brought unforgettable gaming experiences into my living room, now a hollow shell of its former self.

My first console system ever was a Genesis. It was a different system than what most people had expected after years of growing up with Nintendo. It had more attitude, and the games appealed to a larger audience that didn't normally play Nintendo games. It's ironic that Sega pioneered the sort of videogame selling strategy that would ultimately be its downfall in later years. Behind the hype there was still quality software, and the experience of the games themselves being radically different than previous generations. For the first time in a videogame, you were no longer someone simply playing a game; you were an actual participant. You weren't a fat plumber or a blue midget; you were the badass you always wanted to be. Even though the games didn't play that much better than their NES brethren, it certainly made interactivity in games a higher priority, on a psychological level. In these respects, Sega wasn't necessarily the first, but they did popularize them.

After a series of mistakes, most of which blew right over my head, I was graced with the console that never could. The Saturn couldn't sell enough units, couldn't get the right controller for years, couldn't get its games out to the popular crowd that it had created, and most distressing of all, couldn't get anyone to acknowledge how great it really was behind the deafening hype of its competition. When games jumped to 32-bit they became less interactive and more cinematic - those great devices were used less and less to play and more and more to watch stunning cinemas and display graphics that were a marvel to look at for the time, but oftentimes hindered gameplay, in many ways pushing games back to a more primitive age.

And their final effort, more of a last breath, a death wheeze from a company that had made too many mistakes and could not hope to recover in time, pushed the boundaries of console systems as far as they could go. While previous generations limited their interactivity, perhaps the Dreamcast had too much of it. And in the end, it was still a very traditional system with a library of games that could have gone anywhere, and been more successful - and they did. It was not for the lack of support or the design of the hardware and software, but rather that the public had lost faith in a company that had left a bad taste in their mouth for too long.

And here we are, nearly 6 years after their initial announcement of moving away from their failures and towards a bright future where their competition could only beg for mercy. After many fatal missteps it seems as if they can only do wrong now. Their first glut of games nothing more than bare-bones translations that played better on their native system. Their second wave was only met with more scrutiny from the public, with the idea of the games themselves being more exciting than the final end product. And after years of disappointments, optimism can't make the games play better, or bring an old console back to life. Changing the course of time might be easier.

So here's to you Sega. You were good to me once.

RichC2

I loved the Sega consoles, shame they couldn't get more support.

I don't know what happend to the company we once knew though, reduced to making 3rd rate replications of their priorly first rate games.

Joe Molotov

Sega
1940-2005

UAIOE

I like "Outrun 2" (and Coast 2 Coast)....thats about it though.

I do admit they have lost their way.

PopcornTreeCt

Is the 2K series not Sega anymore? I absolutely love their sports games. I owned a Dreamcast and quite enjoyed it. It's a shame that for a video game company to be successful they have to mass produce to everyone on the planet. I wish there were more choices than just the 3 consoles.

mr.snowmizer

Sega sold off Visual Concepts and all their sports series.

All the 2k sports series are now part of the house that Grand Theft Auto built.

Tarantino

Still have my Genesis and my Dreamcast.

And I won't be parting with them any time soon.

= J

PixyJunket

Too true, too true.

Even when I was the ripe age to be duped by such marketing, the crap they were pulling during the Genesis era with their commercials screaming at you and how Sonic was "extreme and totally IN YER FACE DEWD!" really pissed me off. It breaks my hear to see such sheisty marketing still flourishing in today's world.

Jason Reynolds

Sad but true.

I still have my Dreamcast, Saturn and Genesis/Sega CD/32X hooked to my main TV along my current gen conoles, and enjoy the older games on the them more than Sega's current offerings.

-Jason

Superboy

Sonic wasn't quite Extreme yet. He was more Rad than anything.

Lastblade

I really like Yakuza.... and I know I would want PS3 when VF5 comes out. So they are not completely dead to me. But honestly, they gotta stop making Sonic games. All the 3D ones suck.

UAIOE

Thats right, forget Sonic.

What the public craves is "Greendog 2"!

Sex Fiend

What the Sega Saga (sorry, couldn't resist) really illustrates, is how generational and transitory the video game market really is. Just as with Atari a generation before them, it is hard to believe there was once a (brief) time when Sega had the most innovative gaming system AND dominant market share. Now both one-time gaming goliaths are but a sad footnote to home video game history.

In the same vein, it is hard to now imagine a time not-so-long ago when Nintendo was the 900 pound gorilla of the video game industry, when they are now just a virtual also-ran.

Granted, none of those three formerly dominant companies, even with all of their one time mass-market clout, ever had the resources of the new generation of big time players (Sony, Microsoft). Still, it would not surprise me if in say, ten to fifteen years we are looking back and chuckling about Sony and Microsoft bumbling away their respective former dominance of the gaming market, when some as yet unknown new megamedia conglomerate has completely supplanted both of them.

Superboy

I wonder how they can continue to make the Virtua fighter series so spectacular when the Sonic games suck. The latest reviews of Sonic the Hedgehog for the Xbox 360 weren't kind.

Tarantino

Just played a few Sega games last night...brought back the memories.

Streets of Rage...Golden Axe...Road Rash...Bonanza Brothers...

Classics.

= J

Josh H

I just never really got the appeal. I loved the Dreamcast, but a lot of that was third party games (soul calibur, resident evil VC etc.). But most of the big Sega games I just haven't been able to get into despite repeated tries over the years.

Sega has some great games, but a lot of their series just were in genre's I don't like (streets of rage) or paled in comparison to other series in the same genre (i.e. Sonic games sucks balls compared to Mario games IMO).

UAIOE

Well for me, Sonic was a different experience inside a genre i was familiar with (platformer).

Looking back, i can say that i enjoy the Sonic games more simply because there was a sense of change and growing in that series (most evident in Sonic 3+Knuckles) compared to the jump from "Mario 3" to "Mario World".

Now i love Mario 3, and "World" is a well made game, but there didn't feel like there was much innovation in that game aside from the inclusion of Yoshi.

Plus i found the idea of saving the nature from mechanization to be a far more noble and realistic purpose than saving a princess.


p.s. "Yoshi's Island" does not count because that is a Yoshi game, NOT a Mario title.

Alan Smithee

10 years ago I got the Saturn with the Netlink system, which let you use the internet on your TV. The concept was great, but the support for it was just awful. I was on a mailing list of other people who had bought it and people from the company would send out info- there were a lot of things it couldn't do but they said upgrade software would be coming out all the time always adding new capabilities. The whole time it was out, only ONE software upgrade disc came out and it only did about half the things most people had hoped it would. I finally gave up and got a real computer. I loved being able to surf the internet on my couch though, rather than at my computer desk. With all the video sites that are out there now, I'd love to be able to watch all of those on my TV, but the Saturn never even got close to being able to do that. About the neatest thing it could do was play WAV sounds.

thomkai

Ah, but even before that, anyone remember the Sega Channel? How I wanted that as a kid. And a Saturn. Sorta glad my parents never caved, since I was able to just pick a Saturn up for $40 on ebay... as opposed to it's original $400 price tag. 90% off retail FTW!

taffer

You are glad your parents never bought you a Saturn just so you could get one for $40 12 years later on ebay??

Maybe it would be a good idea to wait 12 years to buy a PS3 for $50 on ebay... 92% off retail FTW!!

thomkai

Well, considering the Saturn was alive for all of 3 years and then laid to rest before the dreamcast became the final nail in the coffin, yes I'm glad my parents didn't spend $400 on a console that quickly became dated. I wasn't glad at the time of course, but in hindsight it would have really been a waste of money.

And actually, I plan on doing something like that with the PS3; it's far too expensive and there just isn't anything I can't live without... yet.

lordzeppelin

I've been playing the Saturn and Dreamcast a lot lately. The DC games still hold up today...Soul Calibur is fucking incredible, always will be. And I've fallen back in love with Vampire Savior on the Saturn (4mb ram baby! Arcade fuckin PERFECT)

But I disagree with the OP - the level of 'interactivity' with the Dreamcast was not what killed it - it was the PS2. That's what killed it. Nothing else. The DC had a solid software library, although the PS2, within a year, had blown past it with "big games".

DeanoBKN

Sadly, my parents did spend that much to buy me a Saturn on Christmas. I apologize to my mom at least once a week to this day.

Groucho

Quoted for posterity.

In Sex Fiend's defense, this was posted in November 2006...his second quote was more prophetic:For Sony, it took less than six months.

starseed1981

I was actually the only kid on the block growing up who had the Sega Master System instead of Nes. So when everybody had Adventure Island I had Wonder Boy, everybody had Mario Bros. & I had Alex Kid. Ahh, good times.

I also have many fond memories of DC combined with games of beer pong from college.

But yeah, I just played the new Sonic game on PS3 and it is utter shit.