Support NeoGAF

[DigitalScrap]

Like others have said, they basically began their own end with the release of the Sega CD/Mega CD.

Of course, I bought the ORIGINAL Sega CD (and yes, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I played Night Trap too), the 32X, the Saturn at launch, and the Dreamcast at launch, so I guess I was part of their problem by encouraging them.

The Saturn was decent, no matter what the youngsters try to say, and the Dreamcast is literally still my favorite console.

In that alternate reality it would not be Microsoft they'd be partnering with. It would be either Commodore, Atari or Panasonic

I'm all for this alternate reality.

 

[CamHostage]

If SEGA never, ever, onceneverever faltered?

How would it be SEGA if it never faltered?

 

[Deleted member 74300]

If SEGA never, ever, onceneverever faltered?

How would it be SEGA if it never faltered?

 

[Masterspeed]

I don't know if it was because I was a tween at the time, but what even happened to SEGA? I had the Dreamcast when it came out and it blew my mind. So many amazing first party games and INTERNET actually internet in my home! It was mind blowing. SEGA really is a company I'd love to see come back to the console race, just for another contender.

 

[Tailzo]

Well, I think Sega would've had to been mor in synch with itself. I mean, did any of you read about the internal disputes within Sega?

So let's say

Master System goes as normal
Game Gear too
Sega Megadrive / Genesis goes as normal

But:
Skip the Mega CD
Skip the 32x

Then with the Saturn, give that console all the good sega cd games, and don't build it solely as a 2d machine. Your arcade empire will soon crumble anyway.

Alternatively, build the Sega Playstation

Then with the Dreamcast;
Don't be so forward thinking, people are not ready for a screen in the middle of their controller like Nintendo will do later, and online gaming like Microsoft wants has to wait a couple more years. But do follow Sony and use a dvd-format. Your own format will be pirated to hell.

Also, let Yu Suzuki make Shenmue, but market it better.

 

[casiopao]

In the other true Universe, i pictured Nintendo and Sega collaborating together into one company to deliver all their top notch software.^_^

 

[VendettaRed07]

Like asking where would the Titanic be if it didn't crash into the Iceberg.

It was fate.

The story of Sega was written in the stars.. they were destined to fall from the heavens and crash into the earth as a lesson to us all.

But if you listen carefully.. some say, just before the sun begins to fade, you can here the faint echos of the radiant blue sky whispering..

" seeeee...gaaaaaaaa"

 

[Tailzo]

In the other true Universe, i pictured Nintendo and Sega collaborating together into one company to deliver all their top notch software.^_^

True, but unlike Nintendo, their best software doesn't sell. (Well not worldwide)

Ristar
Panzer Dragoon series
Nights
Burning Rangers
Phantasy Star series
Jet Set Radio
Seaman
Chu Chu Rocket
Skies of Arkadia
Shenmue
Segagaga
Samba de Amigo
Sega fishing games with gyro fishing pole to use as motion sensing tennis racket in Virtua Tennis?

 

[casiopao]

Like asking where would the Titanic be if it didn't crash into the Iceberg.

It was fate.

The story of Sega was written in the stars.. they were destined to fall from the heavens and crash into the earth as a lesson to us all.

But if you listen carefully.. some say, just before the sun begins to fade, you can here the faint echos of the radiant blue sky whispering..

" seeeee...gaaaaaaaa"

SHIOOOOOO.^_^

 

[smurfx]

i wonder if apple makes a console in this alternate universe. sony at some point was going to betray whoever they ended up aligning with. they were either going to want too much for their tech or sega would have wanted a bigger percentage of sales and they would have broken up. who knows how nintendo would have fared with the n64 though.

 

[Tailzo]

i wonder if apple makes a console in this alternate universe.

You mean a Pippin 2?

 

[Kozak]

i wonder if apple makes a console in this alternate universe.

Apple could put out a console that can play all App store games + games made for the hardware. I reckon it would put Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo in a bit of a pickle.

I thought thats what Nintendo were going to do with the NX tbh. Release a platform that can play all games across their hardware as well as games made for the hardware.

 

[Toxi]

Sega's 10 times as clueless as Nintendo. Probably just a third PS4/X1 type console.

...So a relative success?

 

[casiopao]

True, but unlike Nintendo, their best software doesn't sell. (Well not worldwide)

Ristar
Panzer Dragoon series
Nights
Burning Rangers
Phantasy Star series
Jet Set Radio
Seaman
Chu Chu Rocket
Skies of Arkadia
Shenmue
Segagaga
Samba de Amigo
Sega fishing games with gyro fishing pole to use as motion sensing tennis racket in Virtua Tennis?

Well, both Nintendo and Sega can both try to boost up their consoles output. Nintendo software will be majorly design to attract more casual/mainstream gamer while Sega will attract the so called Hardcore gamer.

Hell, if both do collaborate properly, we can see Sega still making sport games by themselves effectively able to break free from EA sport monopoly.^_^

 

[Celine]

It's the year 1995. After a heated meeting with the Sony executives, Sega finally decided against their original decision of dropping Sony support, and a few years later the Sega PlayStation is announced.

This is Sega fanfiction.

As for your hypotetical scenarios think about it, Nintendo sold more than 120 million units of first party games on N64 while Saturn total (first + third party) software sales is just 80 million units (as March 1998).
Sega software output was never as strong, sales wise, as Nintendo's and that was a period when arcade games were going out of fashion on consoles in favour of "meatier" or more cinematic experiences.
Many only think about Sega screwup in the hardware department but software was also a big problem in the long run (and I believe Dreamcast failure was inevitable due to the arcade nature the system had in a time when arcade experience were going out of fashion).

 

[spacemonkeynation]

The seamen would be keeping us as fascinating pets.

 

[Stilton Disco]

So it's a Universe where every fuck up after the Megadrive doesn't happen?

Ok then, up until that point Sega was rebellious Nintendo with an eye on the same same child friendly market, but a better grip on the young teen market. The shift in market share between the 8bit gen 3 consoles and 16bit gen 4 ones presumably would have continued.

With the 32/64bit consoles, the PS1 came in focusing on teens to adults, so I'd actually assume a competently designed and managed Saturn wouldn't have beaten the PS1, but taken both some of it's and the N64's sales, making it the second best selling gen 5 console, and leaving Nintendo in a more shaken position.

Not fucking up the Dreamcast would have meant launching later, with more power, DVD playback, and a second analogue stick, as well as successfully leveraging their relationship with Microsoft, so we'd have not seen the creation of the Xbox 1.

However, I can't imagine the PS2 not still dominating. Sony hasn't suddenly become incompetent in this timeline, and it would still go on to break 100million sales easily. Dreamcast, with Halo, possibly Rare, and well it's IP's leveraged more successfully at 40m+ sales and the GameCube selling as well as the WiiU would be my guess.

But then the Wii would hit and be the must have toy for years while Sony fuck up the PS3 yet again. I see 7th gen being the same as this timeline, but with a Sega system plus MS exclusive games and software in place of the 360. Kinect still becomes a thing, designed by MS, built by Sega, but continuing with the 'not fucking up' theme, not focused on at the expense of the core gaming audience.

So now we're up to current gen, but theSega made XO equivelant isn't a massive fuck up. Instead, we've got two PS4's on the market, seperated by the software focus of the two companies, with Sega getting the kids to young teens as well as the MS games dudebro audience, vs Sony's focus on teens to adults and more arty, narrative and experience driven titles, better third party support and bigger sales overall this gen with PS4 not quite as big a seller. Say 35 million Sega consoles sold to PS4's 40 million at this point. The WiiU meanwhile sells even worse, as 3 decades of Sonic and the like being better handled than their own mascot characters see's fewer sales based on nostalgia.

At least that's my optimistic speculation.

 

[Dunkley]

If Sega was still a first party I imagine it would've been a Microsoft and Sega console anyway.

Agreed, honestly in all scenarios where I can think that SEGA would be still making hardware it would boil down to having fused with Xbox and Microsoft would be a far better standing than they are now.

 

[MMaRsu]

If SEGA "never" faulted then they would be on top

 

[Mexen]

Vanquish 3 launch title by now for sure

 

[D.Lo]

With the 32/64bit consoles, the PS1 came in focusing on teens to adults, so I'd actually assume a competently designed and managed Saturn wouldn't have beaten the PS1, but taken both some of it's and the N64's sales, making it the second best selling gen 5 console, and leaving Nintendo in a more shaken position.

A good scalable-design and powerful Saturn (basically, a PS1 in design) would have cut the PS1 off at the knees and PS1 would have been another 3D0. So many of the top PS1 games were originally Saturn games (Resident Evil, Tomb Raider) Sony would have just been 'the Saturn ripoff with Namco's Sega game rippoffs'. A good powerful Saturn would have been just as good a fit for Square too.

Sony played their cards extremely well, but they were lucky as fuck that both Sega (too early, bad expensive unscalable console design) and Nintendo (very late, cartridges when Japanese devs had decided they could not live without CGI cutscenes) tripped up so hard with their consoles at the exact time they a had a semi-decent console ready.

Not fucking up the Dreamcast would have meant launching later, with more power, DVD playback, and a second analogue stick, as well as successfully leveraging their relationship with Microsoft, so we'd have not seen the creation of the Xbox 1.

The Dreamcast was NOT a fuck up. It was Sega's financial woes from before it that killed them, it was a great, powerful console with great software from a company with no money left to push it.

 

[DavidDesu]

It's so difficult to say. They did create some absolute classics. Pioneered 3D in the arcades and made some amazingly odd and niche titles, some smash hits, others forgotten. It felt like they never quite had their finger on the pulse and their hardware sadly faltered badly in between MegaDrive/Genesis and the Dreamcast. Sadly it was too late for the DC but it must have one of the most concentrated libraries of pure greatness.

I never really knew who was in charge of Sega and what their aim was. Arcade oriented but then they'd make stuff like Panzer Dragoon, NiGHTS, Shenmue etc. Very scattershot-like. I don't think they'd have survived to be honest. Besides Yu Suzuki there's no names that really stick out to me, and his greatest game was financially disastrous for Sega at the time...

Tough one to call. PlayStation came along and didn't just revolutionise technically but also they absolutely kick started gaming as we know it today. The multi billion dollar huge culturally recognised entertainment of gaming IS because of PlayStation. They made gaming cool and I don't think anyone in Sega at the time really was ever going to make that happen. If they'd continued their Microsoft partnership maybe it could have been the Sega 360 but unlikely MS would have ever needed to partner with them.

As for Sega now, I'd love to see them make follow up titles to their classic games, and fuck Sonic. Fuck him in the eyes with Tail's two tails.

 

[lazygecko]

Sega's leaderships's reluctance to partner with Sony seems stupid in hindsight, but it wasn't 100% unfounded. Sony is a much, much larger company, and at some point when they firmly have their foot in their industry, they'd probably decide they don't need Sega any more and give them shittier and shittier deals.

Saturn being a 2D focused machine made more sense during its conception as well. Neither the PSX or N64 were out yet, and it was not yet a sure thing that full 3D gaming was going to take over the home console market so soon. It was only after a real hard push from Sony that it became evident that 3D was gonna be a thing at the time.

1995 was such a strong year on the software front for the Genesis as well with so many great impressive games coming out. There just wasn't any actual marketing in place to back them up. Sega pulled out of their commitment to the 16-bit market too early and let Nintendo have free reign even though the support was still there from third, second and even first party developers.

To this day it's still Sega of Japan holding the company back. Their biggest modern success has probably been their PC publishing venture which Japan just seems aloof to, and the Mega Drive & Genesis Classics Collection on Steam which sold very well in a short amount of time was purely a Sega of Europe pet project.

 

[Ansatz]

If SEGA was still in the console business and successful at that, it would've been a PS4 clone essentially.

You can't be a mainstream success with arcade games, mascot platformers and JRPGs as Wii U shows, and as sales of similar titles showed on the last gen HD twins.

Nintendo survived because of the handheld market, blue ocean strategy and the power of their brands. NX is the last hope for traditional, non-indie games of the kind I grew up with.

 

[marcbret87]

I wonder if I would even like a more market savy Sega anywhere near as much. In that alternative history they probably don't focus on the arcade style games I love and they don't make such a wide variety of IPs. We would have better Sonic games and modernised sequels to Mega Drive classics at the expense of the likes of Panzer Dragoon, Jet Set Radio, Nights etc which don't pass the greenlight phase because they look too weird for mainstream audiences.

This. A big part of the appeal of Sega is how they were making those amazingly bonkers games that most executives at other companies would have stopped dead on its tracks. And most likely we would have lost Shenmue.

 

[Synth]

If we assume Sega "never faltered", then I guess logically that puts them on top of the industry today, because since then every other competitor has fucked up in some major way to arrive where we're currently at.

 

[Aostia]

it would be a better landscape for my tastes, but...I can't see how they could still be in the business and being more succesfull than Nintendo when...they had to leave the market because of their mismanagement of the market itself.
they are always in my mind the reason why we shouldn't continuosly ask Nintendo to put out a monster of a console in terms of hw raw power, because they would probably end up like SEGA, quicker than they actually are (in the home business).
let's look also at the main differences between not only the success of the Wii, but especially at the one Nintendo was able to have (even in THIS generation) on the protable side of things

 

[Nikodemos]

Best case scenario, I'd see them today at around 30-something million to Sony's 40-something. Though they'd have paired up with another company by now (maybe Panasonic?)

 

[Celine]

A good scalable-design and powerful Saturn (basically, a PS1 in design) would have cut the PS1 off at the knees and PS1 would have been another 3D0. So many of the top PS1 games were originally Saturn games (Resident Evil, Tomb Raider) Sony would have just been 'the Saturn ripoff with Namco's Sega game rippoffs'. A good powerful Saturn would have been just as good a fit for Square too.

Sony played their cards extremely well, but they were lucky as fuck that both Sega (too early, bad expensive unscalable console design) and Nintendo (very late, cartridges when Japanese devs had decided they could not live without CGI cutscenes) tripped up so hard with their consoles at the exact time they a had a semi-decent console ready.

The Dreamcast was NOT a fuck up. It was Sega's financial woes from before it that killed them, it was a great, powerful console with great software from a company with no money left to push it.

Totally disagree with this post.
Sega nor Nintendo could get the same third party support as Sony.
PS1 business model has nothing to do with 3DO.
Not to talk that in Europe/Other console ceiling went from about 8 million to 40 million units only because Sony had already in place the distribution channels to sell the console.

Dreamcast was responsible for a big chunk of Sega losses, it was priced in US very affordably from the beginning and the price was quickly cut down in the following months but aside from the launch period the sales were disappointing.

DC LTD in 1999 (three months): 1.48 M
DC LTD in 2000 (three months): 1.28 M (with a few price cuts)

Dreamcast software lineup was part of the problem.

 

[Synth]

Totally disagree with this post.

A) Sega nor Nintendo could get the same third party support as Sony.
B) PS1 business model has nothing to do with 3DO.
C) Not to talk that in Europe/Other console ceiling went from about 8 million to 40 million units only because Sony had already in place the distribution channels to sell the console.

D) Dreamcast was responsible for a big chunk of Sega losses, it was priced in US very affordably from the beginning and the price was quickly cut down in the following months but aside from the launch period the sales were disappointing.

DC LTD in 1999 (three months): 1.48 M
DC LTD in 2000 (three months): 1.28 M (with a few price cuts)

Dreamcast software lineup was part of the problem.

Labelled your points for easier responses.

A) But they did have that third-party support. Basically every notable Playstation release comes from a company that supported Nintendo, Sega or both the prior generation.

B) The business model wasn't at all the same, but its place in the market very well could have been (and many were expecting it to be, when confronted with Sega/Nintendo's hold on the market at the time). The PS1's technical prowess in comparison to the Saturn (and to an extent the N64) set it apart from the others that had attempt to enter (or re-enter) the console space. A 3D-focused Saturn would have eliminated the majority of that advantage.

C) The ceiling was hardly 40 million when you consider the sales on the NES alone. Much of the PS1's sales growth came as a combined result of the hardware being able to deliver more mainstream Hollywood-esque experiences that carried gaming out from being considered "toys", and by aggregating the software support of the SNES vs Genesis era. Nintendo was going to cede the majority of that support regardless, simply by being late o the game, and then showing up with carts. The PlayStation simply ensured that it wasn't Sega that benefitted most from that.

D) The Dreamcast as we know it wouldn't have existed without the Saturn being what it was, or Sony being what they were, so it's largely irrelevant to a timeline where Sega "never faltered".

 

[Valonquar]

Sega is great at developing amazing products and then leaving them to die. Then, after waiting several years, they dig up & fuck the corpse before burying it again. Then they forget where the grave is entirely.

 

[D.Lo]

Labelled your points for easier responses.

A) But they did have that third-party support. Basically every notable Playstation release comes from a company that supported Nintendo, Sega or both the prior generation.

B) The business model wasn't at all the same, but its place in the market very well could have been (and many were expecting it to be, when confronted with Sega/Nintendo's hold on the market at the time). The PS1's technical prowess in comparison to the Saturn (and to an extent the N64) set it apart from the others that had attempt to enter (or re-enter) the console space. A 3D-focused Saturn would have eliminated the majority of that advantage.

C) The ceiling was hardly 40 million when you consider the sales on the NES alone. Much of the PS1's sales growth came as a combined result of the hardware being able to deliver more mainstream Hollywood-esque experiences that carried gaming out from being consider "toys", and by aggregating the software support of the SNES vs Genesis era. Nintendo was going to cede the majority of that support regardless, simply by being late o the game, and then showing up with carts. The PlayStation simply ensured that it wasn't Sega that benefitted most from that.

D) The Dreamcast as we know it wouldn't have existed without the Saturn being what it was, or Sony being what they were, so it's largely irrelevant to a timeline where Sega "never faltered".

Beat me to it, agree completely.

Like I said, Sony played the cards they were dealt really well. They played really hard too, the PS1 was basically (technically illegally in some countries) 'dumped' well below cost to start with to gain a foothold. And they did have big institutional advantages over pure game companies like existing in-house fabrication and existing worldwide distribution network from their TVs/VCRs.

But Sega and Nintendo let them in the door big-time by both failing super hard at the same time. Sony basically just continued the path Sega had already laid in the US and Europe, they even had their own Sonic ripoff mascot in ads chastising Nintendo in exactly the same way Sega did, and Namco's ripoffs of Sega's arcade games. The PS1 was to the N64 what the Genesis was to the SNES, it was what the Saturn should have been.

It's also worth remembering the PS1 is the most backloaded in sales consoles of all time. It picked up big time in 1998 (its fourth year and the year the Dreamcast came out) and sold I think around 40% of it's final total after the PS2 was out!

Dreamcast wasn't a blunder in and of itself was my point, it was finally a good powerful console at a good price at the right time with plenty of good software. But it was too little too late, the damage had been done by then.

 

[InfiniteCombo]

If Sega was still a first party I imagine it would've been a Microsoft and Sega console anyway.

That first post excellence.

Dreamcast was "powered by Windows." OG Xbox was the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast (and in some ways, even physically resembled the Dreamcast).

That's if we ignore some details of the OP's premise. In 1995 Sega was already on their way to doom.

 

[Synth]

That first post excellence.

Dreamcast was "powered by Windows." OG Xbox was the spiritual successor to the Dreamcast (and in some ways, even physically resembled the Dreamcast).

That's if we ignore some details of the OP's premise. In 1995 Sega was already on their way to doom.

I guess that depends on the period of time we're measuring. If we're to say they never faltered up to the point where MS wanted in on the console market (which I'm not entirely sure would have happened at the same point in time without Sony's PS2), then sure it seems pretty likely. On the other hand if we're saying they never faltered up until today, then I'd argue that joining up with Microsoft would have been Sega faltering at that moment... they'd have been absorbed by MS over time, and probably Nokia'd later.

 

[zackmorris]

Might have made it harder for Microsoft to get into the console game if the Dreamcast and PS2 were both massive hits.

 

[PdotMichael]

A good scalable-design and powerful Saturn (basically, a PS1 in design) would have cut the PS1 off at the knees and PS1 would have been another 3D0. So many of the top PS1 games were originally Saturn games (Resident Evil, Tomb Raider) Sony would have just been 'the Saturn ripoff with Namco's Sega game rippoffs'. A good powerful Saturn would have been just as good a fit for Square too.

Sony played their cards extremely well, but they were lucky as fuck that both Sega (too early, bad expensive unscalable console design) and Nintendo (very late, cartridges when Japanese devs had decided they could not live without CGI cutscenes) tripped up so hard with their consoles at the exact time they a had a semi-decent console ready.

The Dreamcast was NOT a fuck up. It was Sega's financial woes from before it that killed them, it was a great, powerful console with great software from a company with no money left to push it.

Sony was so much ahead of Sega and Nintendo in the console manufactor - devs relationship game. Sega and espencially Nintendo were competing against each other who treats the third parties worse.

 

[Theanine3D]

They would've made the NX over a decade before Nintendo.

The VMU was the start of something wonderful, and with future consoles, it would have been refined and improved. It was a neat idea that deserved to be explored further.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

Oh man..1st party Sega, when they weren't setting themselves on fire like a three-headed ogre jealously conspiring against itself, was just too good to last. Too bad we're now in a murky present where gaming-first outfits no longer run what's left of the dedicated gaming industry. Even the tech-media giants who have overtaken the rule of Ninty & Sega seem to be on the path to a much less interesting future for the medium. Oh well, maybe Ninty can give Sega a shot at reclaiming their past glory next year and we'll see a distinct split in how modern gaming can still be more inline with past generations rather than what PS4 and X1 offer now.

 

[Jonneh3003]

But:
Skip the Mega CD
Skip the 32x

I don't like the idea of this universe

 

[MatthewTrujillo]

If Sega never faltered where would they be today? Easy answer probably faltering as they always have in the real past...... Just in slow motion, it ends the same just a much longer and painful ending.

 

[sixteen-bit]

Outrun 3 and VF6

 

[Deleted member 74300]

They would've made the NX over a decade before Nintendo.

If they had played their cards right they could have possibly done the Wiimote before Nintendo as well.

https://youtu.be/DwvCl4mgG7g?t=53

Who knows what could have happened if they had also created a Wii sports like app combined with an actual non fishing motion control in 1999. It would have been mindblowing and perhaps maybe too ahead of it's time.

 

[AmFreak]

B) The business model wasn't at all the same, but its place in the market very well could have been (and many were expecting it to be, when confronted with Sega/Nintendo's hold on the market at the time). The PS1's technical prowess in comparison to the Saturn (and to an extent the N64) set it apart from the others that had attempt to enter (or re-enter) the console space. A 3D-focused Saturn would have eliminated the majority of that advantage.

No the business model prevented the 3DO to become the PS1.
Sony lost money with the $299 price, there was no incentive to do that with the 3DO model.
The less powerful 3DO retailed 1.5 yrs earlier for absurdly $699.
3DO was also a tiny company compared to Sony.
This is the biggest reason why Sony succeeded - they were the first big company entering the market willing to invest big amounts of money.
Look at the competition before Sony, they weren't comparable at all:
3DO? - tiny
Atari (90s)? - tiny
Commodore (90s) - tiny
Sega compared to Sony - tiny

It's not coincidence that the biggest company "won".

 

[Nikodemos]

OBTW, worth mentioning that the Sega CD was a 1991 product. It only came to the West in late 1992, but it was released a full year earlier.

Though, in all fairness, it should've remained a Japan exclusive, with the other branches continuing to concentrate on carts.

 

[lazygecko]

3DO also had a terrible, terrible business model where they envisioned their hardware as a standardized format akin to VHS, and would license it out to other companies who would manufacture their own hardware variants. Of course, 3DO would offload the actual production costs to them, and no one would willingly take a deal like that.

OBTW, worth mentioning that the Sega CD was a 1991 product. It only came to the West in late 1992, but it was released a full year earlier.

Though, in all fairness, it should've remained a Japan exclusive, with the other branches continuing to concentrate on carts.

It was mainly a response to the PC Engine, which makes sense since NEC was significantly ahead of Sega in the Japanese market. Lots of JRPGs were released on the system which was increasingly the driving force of the Japanese software market at the time.

 

[Jonneh3003]

OBTW, worth mentioning that the Sega CD was a 1991 product. It only came to the West in late 1992, but it was released a full year earlier.

Though, in all fairness, it should've remained a Japan exclusive, with the other branches continuing to concentrate on carts.

But then we wouldn't have Sonic CD, Snatcher, the two Lunar games, Shining Force CD, Road Avenger and tons more. It may have been a poor product for business but I wouldn't want a world without those amazing Sega CD games.

 

[Balb]

Basically you're asking if things would be better if Sega was actually a well-run company? I don't know, maybe? Sega was never very good at building their brands outside of Sonic (even then, they nearly screwed it up in the Saturn era) and maybe Virtua Fighter in Japan. They constantly strived to make new and interesting games, but unfortunately that's not always the best way to run your business in this industry.

 

[Deleted member 74300]

But then we wouldn't have Sonic CD, Snatcher, the two Lunar games, Shining Force CD, Road Avenger and tons more. It may have been a poor product for business but I wouldn't want a world without those amazing Sega CD games.

They would have still been made eventually in some form or another.

Sonic CD? Computer
Snatcher? Computer / Saturn
Lunar? Saturn and maybe computer
Shining Force CD? Technically it's a remake of the Game Gear games, but let's just say they could have done this version for the computer / Saturn as well.

You get the idea.

 

[PendekarRajawali]

Still making bad Sonic games.

This.

 

[Celine]

Labelled your points for easier responses.

A) But they did have that third-party support. Basically every notable Playstation release comes from a company that supported Nintendo, Sega or both the prior generation.

B) The business model wasn't at all the same, but its place in the market very well could have been (and many were expecting it to be, when confronted with Sega/Nintendo's hold on the market at the time). The PS1's technical prowess in comparison to the Saturn (and to an extent the N64) set it apart from the others that had attempt to enter (or re-enter) the console space. A 3D-focused Saturn would have eliminated the majority of that advantage.

C) The ceiling was hardly 40 million when you consider the sales on the NES alone. Much of the PS1's sales growth came as a combined result of the hardware being able to deliver more mainstream Hollywood-esque experiences that carried gaming out from being considered "toys", and by aggregating the software support of the SNES vs Genesis era. Nintendo was going to cede the majority of that support regardless, simply by being late o the game, and then showing up with carts. The PlayStation simply ensured that it wasn't Sega that benefitted most from that.

D) The Dreamcast as we know it wouldn't have existed without the Saturn being what it was, or Sony being what they were, so it's largely irrelevant to a timeline where Sega "never faltered".

A) Of course Sega and Nintendo had third party support (even N64).
My point is that Sony was better equipped to attract more third-party support than Sega and Nintendo could which is what happened.
Part of the reason was that both Nintendo and Sega were the biggest gaming publishers in the world.

B) What about the advantage to use the electronic division of Sony to reduce the cost of the hardware?
The use the distribution channels already in place to sell in the fractured european markets or smaller countries?

C) Let's compare NES and PS1 shipment data:

NES
Japan: 19.3M
America: 34M
Other: 8.6M

PS1
Japan: 21.6M
America: 40.8M
Other: 40.1M

Notice anything?

D) Dreamcast failure wasn't due only to Sega financial weakness that's what I stated.
Dreamcast may have been different but Sega software output would have been the same kind and I don't think Dreamcast library was a strong library sales wise.

It's also worth remembering the PS1 is the most backloaded in sales consoles of all time. It picked up big time in 1998 (its fourth year and the year the Dreamcast came out) and sold I think around 40% of it's final total after the PS2 was out!

When PS2 came out in Japan PS1 had shipped about 73 million units (PS1 shipped about about 29% of the final total after PS2 first came out).