Those sales look acurate. I've heard they have yet to break 100,000 with any Xbox title, but I had hoped World Series Baseball would have done it.

Anyone know how the 2K3 games sold?

Literally 75% of my Gamecube games are made by Sega. I hope that the deal is with Nintendo if this rumor is true.

Those sales figures look pitiful for the Xbox. It looks like they're moving about half as many units as the competitors. They are doing better than the other consoles for selling lesser known titles though - if Sega had provided them with a "household name" game like Virtua Fighter or Sonic Adventure 2, then it might be a different story. I can't explain the lackluster performance of Crazy Taxi except that it's just not as good as the Dreamcast versions and that these sales charts may have come out right after the release of Crazy Taxi (which didn't come out that long ago). Perhaps the Crazy Taxi sales will improve. The other title in Xbox's list that people might've heard of before - JSRF - wasn't all that popular on the Dreamcast and is kind of obscure. Sports games are selling much better on Xbox than GCN... the sports games on the PS2 are killing the other consoles because the PS2 has nearly 10 times as many consoles in households as either competitor. I think if you look at it that way, the Sega games - mostly unknowns - are faring quite well on the Xbox. Gunvalkry was a sucky game and yet it did okay. Virtua Fighter, Sonic and Monkey Ball were all guaranteed to sell big. Sega GT might see some decent numbers with the reviews that have been coming out. It's a racing game though, so who knows.

I have always hated the Sony Playstation and the Playstation 2. When VF4 came out, I bought a PS2. 3 out of the 6 games I have are Sega, and I bought Quake III because I loved it on my DC.

I am Sega's bitch as well...

I hope they don't go PS2 only just because I don't want to be forced to play sega games on the most inferior hardware platform of the 3.. (yes I do own a PS2)

Chris

the differences are not that great

I really don't care where they go...I just hope they keep pumping out Super Monkey Ball titles. I love those games!

This is your opinion. My opinion is that the PS2 online plan is better and so far it works perfectly and I didn't have to give microsoft my credit card number. Oh, and it is up and running right now.

Looking at those sales numbers Sega would have to be stupid to sign up to only supply xbox with games. If the games Sega puts out now on xbox don't force people to buy the box then why would they all of a sudden start selling so many by going to xbox only? If they want to go with one system I would say it will be the gamecube. Don't put too much into past rivaries though because in the end it is how much money they can make that would determine this. I just think with Nintendo having the cheaper system, the triforce they helped with, and the fact that Nintendo isn't going to force them to build xbox live into the games would be best for them. Signing on with Sony would be good for sales but at the same time they would almost have to build online into the games and maintain servers to keep up with games like madden.

[sarcasm]Yeah - let's all hope Sega joins up with Sony so they can bury the competition and create a console monopoly and drive up the prices of hardware and software so high that only the uber rich can afford them. Yay! Sega games on the oldest and most difficult to program for hardware of the 3... that would be sweet![/sarcasm]

Well I really don't feel like buying another console, so I hope it is one I already have. Sega and Nintendo...that still feels wierd, hell I remember when Tengen brought Sega games like Shinobi and After Burner to the NES...what a long strange trip it has been.

Sony would make the most sense, they have the most consoles out there, just makes more sense to me than MS.

Not trying to slam the X-box at all, it is a great system with great games, and if I didn't already have a DC, GC, PS2, GBA, and Saturn then I would consider it, but I think one more console would be overkill.

20 bucks on Nintendo if this happens.

I hope they stay multiplatform, at least with there sports titles anyway. I don't give a crap about there other games. Occassionally something like Super Monkey Ball is pretty good, but I've hated most of their other post saturn stuff like the Sonic Adventure Series, Jet Grind Radio/Future, Shenmue, etc.

I'd say if this is true, they'll join with Sony. MS has deep pockets, but I doubt they can pay them enough to make up for the smaller sales they'll have on every title as a result of the X-box's (or gamecube's) vastly smaller installed base.

Nintendo seems to be the least likely, as they don't have the deep pockets of MS, or the huge installed base of sony. But they do already have a partnership with Sega on the Triforce arcade board and are letting Sega develop F-zero for it and the Gamecube, (and obviously F-zero isn't going to the PS2 or X-box, so that's at least one project Sega's doing that will have to be GCN exclusive), so who knows.

More than likely it's just a rumor, and they will stay third party.

I will elaborate a little on my above comment.

Simply put I believe that Sega and Nintendo have very similar tastes in how they go about game design. This would be my main reason.
There are several other things that I think could lead to the union, but the fact that they both regard game design in the same light, would setup the merger.

Also I look at it like this. Nintendo has struggled with supplying a steady flow of good games to their last 2 consoles. Sega would help this out greatly.

So...

Rare out... Sega in.

I hope it will be the XBOX then they can put out a driver to make it play all my old DC games.

You really think current exclusive Sega Xbox games were their overwhelming draws? GunValkyrie? JSRF? A late, flawed, 7-month-developed WSB? An obvious-to-everybody-but-Sega-unwanted-rehash in Crazy Taxi 3? The just-released Sega GT (which is getting EXCELLENT word-of-mouth, by the way)?

It's nice spin to say 'Sega games don't sell on Xbox', but, come on, everybody on the planet could predict the outcome of VF4 vs Sonic vs GunValkyrie. ToeJam and Earl may have greater sales potential than the Xbox games listed above. If Panzer Dragoon Orta gets great reviews but quickly hits the bargain bin material, then there's a problem.

Here's Sega's total NA game sales on the three systems, as of July 31:

GCN CRAZY TAXI * 108,874
GCN HOME RUN KING 27,008
GCN NBA 2K2 45,098
GCN SOCCER SLAM 32,614
GCN SONIC ADVENTURE 2 439,101
GCN SUPER MONKEY BALL 245,420

PS2 CRAZY TAXI * 330,877
PS2 ECCO THE DOLPHIN * 25,184
PS2 HEAD HUNTER * 90,496
PS2 NBA 2K2 369,955
PS2 NFL 2K2 288,038
PS2 TENNIS 2K2 8,873
PS2 VIRTUA FIGHTER 4 350,391

XBX CRAZY TAXI 3 15,135
XBX GUNVALKYRIE 47,610
XBX JET SET RADIO FUTURE 79,609
XBX NBA 2K2 86,708
XBX NFL 2K2 70,643
XBX WORLD SERIES BASEBALL 89,575

* = Sega games published by Acclaim

Two observations...

- I don't think any other company has such a direct correlation between published review scores and sales as Sega, at the moment... Headhunter seems a little too high, Tennis 2k2 (which is believed to have not caught on much in August) is too low, and CT3 is really low (though easily explainable, since everybody loved it the first time they played it, when it was just called Crazy Taxi), but other than that everything seems to "make sense", if you read all the major reviews.

- World Series Baseball will easily pass 100,000 by the end of baseball season (while Triple Play, PS2's #1 selling ballgame, stood at just 69,143 sold on Xbox).




Cheaper system? By what, $25, after a required memory card purchase? That's not a factor.

Triforce? Sega has arcade boards based on all 3 machines, so that's not a factor, either.

Uh, Sega has been THE most committed online company. What's up with "force" and "have to"? They WANT to. If anything, Nintendo's reluctance to go online would be a deterrence for Sega.

*****

I'm not holding my breath on this rumor coming true anytime soon, in the first place.

Good post mr.snowmizer. Excellent point about Sega's wishes to go online and Nintendo's reluctance. I think this is just a rumor and that Sega will stay a 3rd party and supply games to all 3 consoles, though I do wish they would give the PS2 some more love. They're too smart to go exclusive...

And I would hate to see the Gunvalkyrie and Jet Set Radio franchises die out just because the games didn't sell so well on XBOX. If the PS2 can have weird niche games like Parapa the Rapper and Mr. Mosquito, then it can have games like Jet Set Radio Future.

PS2 MISTER MOSQUITO 24,602
PS2 PARAPPA THE RAPPER 2 25,266

This just illustrates the dilemma of whether it's better to go after a smaller userbase and face less competition.

Would GunValkyrie have sold more on PS2, or would it have been buried in anonymity in the vast sea of titles crowding PS2 retail shelves? Would Mr. Mosquito actually have sold more on Xbox? We'll never know.

It won't be the sales figures which draw Sega to be bought out by microsoft (if it turns out to be Microsoft) ... Sales figures will have nothing to do with it. It will be money.

It will be a large lump-sum buy-out. Microsoft will acquire sega, and all the sega managment will retire very rich and very happy. In return Microsoft will have exclusive rights to the entire sega catalog. And all the Sega development teams and the sega brand will now be wholly owned subsidiaries of Microsoft.

It will all come down to Sega Execs wanting cash, and Microsoft wanting the titles and names.

You can't really use niche market titles that most people either haven't heard of or aren't interested in, to address the issue of whether a company should put a game out for the system with a smaller user base and face less competition, or the one with the larger user base, and more potential customers.

It's better to use something like a Sonic game that appeals to a bunch of people.

Most people don't know what Mr. Mosquito is, so it's not going to sell much on any platform. Similarly, the Parappa games are niche titles that only appeal to fans of "press the buttons with the music games" that isn't going to sell well (especially with DDR taking most of that market).

A better indicator would probably be something like NFL2K3. Sega could look at how many they sell on each console, and figure out what percentage of that consoles owners bought the game. If one has a much higher percentage than the others, then business wise, that would be the best choice for them to put games out exclusively on, if they choose to do so.

It's still obviously not scientific, but it is at least a better example than odd ball niche market games.

But how well did those games sell in Japan? Mr. Mosquito was a very popular game in Japan, Parapa too. How many copies of GunValkyrie and Jet Set Radio Future were sold for the XBox in Japan?

Yeah they might not have sold much better in the US on the PS2, but in Japan, they would have sold a lot more copies. Probably enough to keep the franchises alive for at least one more game apiece.

I agree.

The whole point was that some are inclined to use the 'Sega doesn't sell on Xbox' argument when, in fact, the exclusive Sega games have been nothing but niche, so no conclusion should be drawn, based on those.

And those same people, I'm assuming, would probably hold to the belief that other niche titles, on other systems, sell far better.

Interesting point.

Regardless, I hope this whole Sega Reallignment thing is just a bunch of crap.

It also doesn't seem to make sense to me time wise. We're in the middle of the current generations console lifespan. People are already predicting that the PS3 will be coming out in 3-4 years. If you want to go exclusive with a console, you should do it at the beginning of that console's lifespan, not in the middle because what happens when the next generation of consoles come out and the balance of power shifts?

The fact that Sega wants to get online makes it that much stronger of a possability of pairing with nintendo IMO.

Nintendo is not completley ignorant. They know that gamers are going to want to get online. Nintendo just doesn't feel that the time is quite right and that they don't want to have to provide the structure. Sega has experiance, experiance Nintendo could benifit from. Are they looking at this generation or the next who knows.

20 bucks on Nintendo if it happens.

Rare out, Sega In.

I think the type of games that Sega makes are going to appeal to the Nintendo gamers more than the Xbox ones. The solid sales of Monkey Ball and Sonic 2 might make them realize this. I honestly think JSRF and Crazi Taxi 3 would have sold better on the Game Cube, but that is a total guess on my part. I just know many people like myself that are gamers from way back and we all grew up on Nintendo and Sega games. I think Game Cube owners would be quicker to buy Sega games.

The odd thing is the sports titles. Those seem to do poorly and there is no way Sega could make them exclusive to the Game Cube. Home Run King was total crap and wouldn't have sold on any console, but Soccer Slam was great. If it had been put on PS2 it probably would have done much better.

Overall the going exclusive thing makes no sense. If they go exclusive with Nintendo the would have to keep the sports multi. If the go exclusive to Xbox they are just not going to sell enough to make it work so it would have to be a total sell out and not a partnership. That leaves the PS2 as the only choice and even that makes no sense.

I just don't see this exclusive thing happening, but if it happens I've got a funny feeling it may be with Nintendo and it will not include the sports titles.