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[Eddie-Griffin]

Tekken was also 60 fps, had CD quality sound, cut scenes, and the gamepad had more buttons which made every game have more moves or doing combo button presses easier.

Was more friendly to button mashers as well, it also had a focus on characters to connected with the player, which Virtua Fighter did not outside may Akira and barely. The same strategy (though less so) that Mortal Kombat did. Most players had no connection the VF's cast.

In fact, the latest translated article over at Mdshock provides the answer to that question! As of February 1996, in Japan they were comparing the 16-bit market to the Atari Shock crash. The hardware had matured to the point where selling it wasn't costing them anything, the (first hand?) software wasn't selling so they weren't making a profit either.

I think the arcade (and the often forgotten theme park) aspect is an important part of the puzzle but one that needs to be looked at in a little more depth. The 13 million yen increase between 1994 and 5 in the amusement center column hides the relatively failure of Sega's Galbo line, for example.

That article doesn't make sense. 16-bit consoles are selling well, but games aren't? Then why are people buying them? They're not that good looking to act as conversation pieces. I think there was more going on.
Oh, and I bet Sega's massive writedown included all those unsold Game Gears, Sega CDs etc.

US industry dropped from $6 billion in 1993, to $2.5 billion in 1995, that kind of works with the time frame of Fats link. older consoles had price cuts, newer consoles were selling slow, not much software buying.

1996 PSX growth and mass discount 3DO (which ended up backfiring despite the hardware/software sale increases) reversed this course, along with the launch of the N64 after delays.

Before then it seemed like gaming just kind of imploded from 1993-Q2 1996. The SNES(DKC/SF) was pretty much the only thing holding the market together with 3DO having some contribution, the Genesis Sega could not figure out a way to sustain, the Jaguar fell apart after launch and nothing got better, any other early 90's competitor was dead, any other non-3DO new competitor was dead ot irrelevant.

People who were buying TG/SNES/GEN software before just stopped buying, people weren't attracted to some of the well or major marketed software titles, Sonic, the mascot and the well known well marketed face of the Genesis wasn't even selling 2 million copies anymore, MK was making bank but due to a growth in cross-platform releases making up for what were larger individual consoles sales. TG died.

SNES had DKC and SF kind of slow the role of even it's software sales declining.

As posted above for the Jaguar stuff but is still relevant for SNES/GEN from retrospection:

McFerran then calls for a consideration of "the state of the market at the start of 1994." 17 The editor claims the 3DO and Jaguar caused "nervous glances ... from Sega and Nintendo" before asserting "16-bit games were beginning to look look terribly outdated." 18 The only observation McFerran offers on the actual state of the market in 1994 is that "something was certainly needed to keep the momentum going." 19 In reality the US game industry, which Sega as a company had become dependent on, had entered "a three-year slump in 1993" with Nintendo reporting twenty-four and thirty-two percent drops in profits the next two years respectively.20 According to Financial World's Kathleen Morrison though, Nintendo actually lost forty percent of its profits from 1992 to 1993 whereas Sega's earnings dropped sixty-four percent the same year.21

Yeah the timelines all line up here.

Thank goodness for 3DO, PSX, and DKC/SF for keeping SNES half-way afloat, so that the trend would be easier to reverse in 2nd half of 1996. Prevented further damage.

 

[Celine]

That article doesn't make sense. 16-bit consoles are selling well, but games aren't? Then why are people buying them? They're not that good looking to act as conversation pieces. I think there was more going on.
Oh, and I bet Sega's massive writedown included all those unsold Game Gears, Sega CDs etc.

It's the framing of the article what causes confusion.
The core issue was unsold inventory (publishers manufactured/ordered too many carts) which was aggravated by the 16 bit generation entering the declining phase.
In 1995 SNES/GEN software still represented the lionshare of the software market in US.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

While it's true that the MD architecture was compromised in several areas, there was genuinely no reason to kill it. It still had decent sales in the US and Europe. Sure, the shine had started to come off after the SNES came on the scene, but it could still hold its own in a few areas,

Missed this, Huh? Are you saying the SNES release took shine off the Gen Drive in NA/EU?

That doesn't make sense, the Genesis actually became a major seller at the same time frame as the SNES releasing. Sonic was literally 1991. Before that the Sega was using their Master System strategy on the Genesis and it only sold a few million units and was slowing down with Ms.Pacman and Altered beast being the biggest titles on the system iirc. Going after Nintendo and changing the marketing strategy to the those alienated by the NES with more aggression is what caused Sega sales to explode. Along with giving Sonic 1 away.

 

[Nikodemos]

Missed this, Huh? Are you saying the SNES release took shine off the Gen Drive in NA/EU?

I meant by circa '93. Not counting launch titles, Super Mario Kart, DKC, Super Mario All-Stars sold better than anything other than Sonic 2, and the SNES versions of Street Fighter sold better than their MD counterparts. Come 1994 it did feel like the MD had started to noticeably slip backwards, though I maintain that money would have still been better spent on supporting it directly while developing a standalone successor, rather than frittering it away on unwanted (and underperforming) expand-ons.

 

[cireza]

the Saturn was already cutting corners for those 1997 games to reach what they did, and were already putting strain on the hardware.

Putting strain on the hardware ? What does this even mean lol... Any hardware is meant to be used 100% of its capacity from the day of release.

Actually 1997 was demonstrating some very noticeable improvements in the quality of the 3D rendered by the console. It was more stable, cleaner, less pop-in, many games actually had very nice fade-in effects for the backgrounds. Any developer that took the time had very good results in 1997 (and after), and this can be easily witnessed.

I have recently been playing Vandal Hearts, as there is an English translation from fans (professional quality by the way), and the game is super clean, loaded with transparency effects, and smooth gameplay. This is arguably a better version than on PS1. It simply shows that when you take time, Saturn could achieve very good results.

SEGA were rushing their last ports with the console. Sega Touring Car and House of the Dead should have been better. They definitely could have. This is not a problem with the hardware. It is a problem with taking the time and money to do things properly. And when a console's end has already been clearly announced, you cut corners to release something in time and move on with you life. But this doesn't mean that the hardware sucks.

it's still debatable the Saturn couldn't do much better than those top 1997 games.

Every console gets better with time. Why would the Saturn be the exception, especially with the likes of Virtua Fighter 3 and Shenmue being in the works on the hardware ?

I mean if we are being honest, there isn't much of a comparison on the Saturn to Crash 2 as well. Which was a 1997 game.

Just like there isn't much of a comparison to Nights and Burning Rangers. This works both sides, as each console has different strengths. There isn't much of a comparison to Radiant Silvergun (1998) or Panzer Dragoon Zwei (1996).

I think the claim that it was "even" with the PSX is a little bit of a stretch.

I don't see how the PSX was better during 95/96/97. We were basically playing the same games and had exclusives that pushed the Saturn. Just like any other console actually.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

It's the framing of the article what causes confusion.
The core issue was unsold inventory (publishers manufactured/ordered too many carts) which was aggravated by the 16 bit generation entering the declining phase.
In 1995 SNES/GEN software still represented the lionshare of the software market in US.

TBF, if the software market as a whole was declining in America at that time, it wouldn't create a contradiction. SNES/GEN software could have still represented the lionshare of software sales in the U.S market, but the U.S software sales market could've been on the decline all the same.

So both you and Eddie can be right.

I meant by circa '93. Not counting launch titles, Super Mario Kart, DKC, Super Mario All-Stars sold better than anything other than Sonic 2, and the SNES versions of Street Fighter sold better than their MD counterparts. Come 1994 it did feel like the MD had started to noticeably slip backwards, though I maintain that money would have still been better spent on supporting it directly while developing a standalone successor, rather than frittering it away on unwanted (and underperforming) expand-ons.

You have to consider some caveats here. SF2 on SNES was the first home port of the game, so of course it was going to sell the most copies. The Genesis/MegaDrive ports (and PC-Engine port) came later, and a lot of people who already wanted to play the game got a SNES to do so. Even with later releases you can see the same phenomenon play out: SFIV vanilla sold the most copies of all SFIV versions, with each successive update selling less and less, because those versions are targeting a subset of the preceding installment's market.

Also and this is something that has to be reiterated, Sega's marketing strategy did not necessarily lend itself well to advertising their individual games. In fact, their strategy with the Sega Scream & Pirate TV ads reminds me of Microsoft's marketing strategy focused squarely on GamePass of today. Sega of America spent more time selling the image of the brand and less so the actual games, and by 1995 the latter option would've became impossible due to the sheer amount of games they were publishing (150+ across console, handheld, PC, edutainment, and arcade!). Microsoft IMO is doing much of the same thing today, selling the image of the GamePass/Xbox brand and doing very little for individual games like Psychonauts 2, As Dusk Falls, etc. outside of the obligatory June Showcase trailers and sizzle reels.

That type of advertising strategy obviously works, but it shouldn't be the ONLY means or predominant form of marketing & advertising your brand IMO, because ultimately it's about the games. I think it's part of the reason there's still some perception problems with people about the Genesis/MegaDrive library who think Sega's stuff only extends to Sonic and the Sports games, because were there any big marketing pushes for games like Comix Zone, Ristar, Pulseman, Alien Soldier, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Rocket Knight, etc. outside of a few magazine ads and maybe a single TV ad (which might've probably been tied back into the Sega Scream/Pirate TV stuff tho that is an optimal way of doing both IMO)?

 

[Fatnick]

Worth remembering that Street Fighter was the only huge, multiformst fighter in town in 1993...and you definitely wanted to get the Sega version of the other. I think you're right by the end of 1994, but I suspect if Nintendo really making the Inroads they wanted to in 1993 they wouldn't have attempted to throw the entire industry under the bus at the Senate hearings into violence.

Worth remembering that by 1996 MDs/SNES were cheap enough for a family to theoretically buy two, and by then pre-owned was taking off I. A reasonably large way.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

I meant by circa '93. Not counting launch titles, Super Mario Kart, DKC, Super Mario All-Stars sold better than anything other than Sonic 2, and the SNES versions of Street Fighter sold better than their MD counterparts.

SNES also had SF exclusives, you're acting like Genesis had equal ports of SF.

But as for the post, this was true from the start, Sonic was given away for free, and MK had an early edge on Genesis hardware, and outside a few more exceptions software generally did not reach the peaks of SNES software, however it was made up for the spread of medium selling hits spread out across large software titles. Games that would normally be lucky to sell 400k on the SNES were selling 600-700k on the MD in place of having a larger amount of games selling 2+ million. The MD was kind of a brother to the Amiga in that way, or the CV.

Issue is that all kind of collapsed by late 1993.

Putting strain on the hardware ? What does this even mean lol.

Still a term used today. https://www.trustedreviews.com/explainer/what-is-dlss-4110546

Actually 1997 was demonstrating some very noticeable improvements in the quality of the 3D rendered by the console.

yes, and this also applied to the PSX, it didn't really "stop" to wait for the Saturn.

Just like there isn't much of a comparison to Nights and Burning Rangers. This works both sides, as each console has different strengths. There isn't much of a comparison to Radiant Silvergun (1998) or Panzer Dragoon Zwei (1996)..

Crash 2 is technical wise objectively a more complex and system pushing title than any of those, Burning Rangers also visually, looks like garbage, which only inflated the issue of screenshots in mags looing under whelming. The jags in that could cut up a 5 mile field of corn.

Rayman is better on the Jag that the PSX, that doesn't means that something like Tekken 2 doesn't clearly show a much more taxing piece of software because the PSX was weak in a couple small areas. The Jaguars small advantage in those areas wouldn't be able to equal Tekken 2 in complexity.

I don't see how the PSX was better during 95/96/97. We were basically playing the same games and had exclusives that pushed the Saturn. Just like any other console actually.

This is because you're dodging the technical developmental side of it, and are instead trying to be selective with screenshot or segments of games to act as if they were even when they generally were not post late 1996.

Or the fact that many devs just threw out similar ports with marginal advantages, but that could apply to N64/.PSX shared games too, and in some cases, Dreamcast ports, so that doesn't really help your position.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Also and this is something that has to be reiterated, Sega's marketing strategy did not necessarily lend itself well to advertising their individual games. I

The one pre-Sonic strategy they kept was the hub marketing of "Sega ecosystem for the name Sega and Segas games" and it was usually third parties themselves, or them partnered with Sega pushing individual games. Sure there were ads in newspapers and mags at times but it was more "Sega" instead of "Outrunners but it now.".

Of course this backfired on both FP and TP ends later on, as it worked for a time as I mentioned above, you got well sold games across numerous titles instead of a hand full of 2+ million sellers, some games like Sonic, Mk and a few others excluded.

But by 1994 to extent the life of the console and software you had to focus on standing out and they didn't. They also oddly used this Strategy for the Saturns first year, Which is one of the reasons why the west, US especially, didn't give a shit about Daytona, VF, Panzer, etc on the Saturn as major releases or even semi-killer apps, but as just something you may pick up IF you decided to buy a Saturn, and considering there wasn't a large install base to work with since the console just launched, you ended up with these games selling in low numbers spread out across. Instead of something like "Hey remember Daytona on the arcades? Here it is on the Saturn, this ad is in your face, you gotta buy a Saturn and this game, system seller, 2 million units, wow, and look at the other games you could also buy, but look at this game here: DAYTONAAA wow!"

That was not their marketing strategy. Sony was literally doing the opposite "So here is this orange Bandicoot and WOW LOOK AT THOSE GRAPHICS THROW MARIO IN THE TRASH OMG I AM HAVING A HEART ATTACK WOW!"

I'm slightly over simplifying but my point should still be clear. A games costs and hardware development costs increased, that old strategy from the cheaper days of gaming couldn't possibly work in the mid-90s and beyond until AFTER there's a well sized install base. If the Saturn was some cheaper device that was $150 bucks and games were like $30 bucks, and they could make profit out of 2 million or 3 million sales that may possibly work, but that's not where gaming was at the time, that era's early and late competitors like more than half had to partner with other companies just to have a console reach their machines reach the shelves because he core companies behind the consoles couldn't do it themselves.

It's why that Sega M2 deal would have actually benefitted Sega, and likely resulted in them staying in longer, instead of the problems that occurred with the Saturn leading to them gambling on the Dreamcast and losing. I mean, Sega was competing like they had Nintendos cash reserves when they didn't, against Sony and Panasonic, and even Nintendo outsourced their graphics for the N64.

 

[Nikodemos]

It's why that Sega M2 deal would have actually benefitted Sega, and likely resulted in them staying in longer, instead of the problems that occurred with the Saturn leading to them gambling on the Dreamcast and losing. I mean, Sega was competing like they had Nintendos cash reserves when they didn't, against Sony and Panasonic, and even Nintendo outsourced their graphics for the N64.

Speaking of the M2, I don't understand why Sega didn't try snapping up the blueprints directly from 3DO. It would've completely bypassed the exclusivity issues which eventually sank the deal with Matsushita (who, like 3DO, wanted to open-license the hardware).

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

The one pre-Sonic strategy they kept was the hub marketing of "Sega ecosystem for the name Sega and Segas games" and it was usually third parties themselves, or them partnered with Sega pushing individual games. Sure there were ads in newspapers and mags at times but it was more "Sega" instead of "Outrunners but it now.".

Of course this backfired on both FP and TP ends later on, as it worked for a time as I mentioned above, you got well sold games across numerous titles instead of a hand full of 2+ million sellers, some games like Sonic, Mk and a few others excluded.

But by 1994 to extent the life of the console and software you had to focus on standing out and they didn't. They also oddly used this Strategy for the Saturns first year, Which is one of the reasons why the west, US especially, didn't give a shit about Daytona, VF, Panzer, etc on the Saturn as major releases or even semi-killer apps, but as just something you may pick up IF you decided to buy a Saturn, and considering there wasn't a large install base to work with since the console just launched, you ended up with these games selling in low numbers spread out across. Instead of something like "Hey remember Daytona on the arcades? Here it is on the Saturn, this ad is in your face, you gotta buy a Saturn and this game, system seller, 2 million units, wow, and look at the other games you could also buy, but look at this game here: DAYTONAAA wow!"

That was not their marketing strategy. Sony was literally doing the opposite "So here is this orange Bandicoot and WOW LOOK AT THOSE GRAPHICS THROW MARIO IN THE TRASH OMG I AM HAVING A HEART ATTACK WOW!"

I'm slightly over simplifying but my point should still be clear. A games costs and hardware development costs increased, that old strategy from the cheaper days of gaming couldn't possibly work in the mid-90s and beyond until AFTER there's a well sized install base. If the Saturn was some cheaper device that was $150 bucks and games were like $30 bucks, and they could make profit out of 2 million or 3 million sales that may possibly work, but that's not where gaming was at the time, that era's early and late competitors like more than half had to partner with other companies just to have a console reach their machines reach the shelves because he core companies behind the consoles couldn't do it themselves.

It's why that Sega M2 deal would have actually benefitted Sega, and likely resulted in them staying in longer, instead of the problems that occurred with the Saturn leading to them gambling on the Dreamcast and losing. I mean, Sega was competing like they had Nintendos cash reserves when they didn't, against Sony and Panasonic, and even Nintendo outsourced their graphics for the N64.

Yeah, and since we're able to reflect on this stuff in-depth nowadays it makes for interesting parallels to today's market, hence why I mentioned Sega's marketing strategy then kind of lives on with stuff like Xbox and GamePass and why I think their advertising (along the traditional paths) is a bit weak. A lot of the same factors, in fact. Of course, Microsoft today benefit from social media, and you have word-of-mouth that can make up a portion of that more individual software-focused marketing of traditional formats, but it can't be the only means of selling your brand.

I think there are more similarities between Sega of the mid-'90s period and Xbox division today than some realize or want to acknowledge. Like how it was virtually impossible for Sega to afford a stable amount of dedicated marketing campaigns for the majority of their releases around the second half of Genesis/MegaDrive era and early parts of Saturn era due to the amount of games they were releasing (especially in years like 1995), Microsoft might run into a lot of the same issues as releases from the XGS, Zenimax/Bethesda and now ABK groups ramp up, if more AAA games start getting pushed out from them collectively, if some releases aren't significantly downscaled or even cancelled. MS has the money privilege for sure, but they don't have infinite money and they need to fund their other divisions and teams, too, not just Xbox and not just gaming.

Especially considering the amount of money they've spent on gaming acquisitions the past couple of years, and now rumors (probably not credible but still) they could be looking into buying Netflix in the future, at some point the gaming side has to start producing revenue and sizable profit to justify all the spending, and probably one of the least frictional areas to scale back costs is in marketing & advertising. So we could see marketing focused on individual game identity take an even further backseat outside of the very few mega games like COD, and they just get squeezed more and more into GamePass adverts.

I'm sure people at Microsoft and Xbox can see these parallels as well and they probably have taken them into account, as FWIW they have made adjustments like moving away from a generation-based branding so that helps mitigate some of the unfamiliarity that could come from new branding of successive consoles (it's probably a big reason why Sony have stuck with PlayStation for each console generation as well; I'm sure they both have seen the struggles Nintendo and Sega had when going with wildly departing brandings of consoles one gen to the next, marketing-wise).

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Speaking of the M2, I don't understand why Sega didn't try snapping up the blueprints directly from 3DO. It would've completely bypassed the exclusivity issues which eventually sank the deal with Matsushita (who, like 3DO, wanted to open-license the hardware).

Sega didn't one to be a manufacture, they wanted to have their name on the hardware and to have cover from other companies on work and expenses. Effectively, they wanted to be what 3DO company was on their machines, but with Segas name on it.

 

[Nikodemos]

Sega didn't one to be a manufacture, they wanted to have their name on the hardware and to have cover from other companies on work and expenses. Effectively, they wanted to be what 3DO company was on their machines, but with Segas name on it.

But wouldn't it have been easier if they went with the M2 to Matsushita and convinced them to manufacture the console, rather than the other way round?

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Yeah, and since we're able to reflect on this stuff in-depth nowadays it makes for interesting parallels to today's market, hence why I mentioned Sega's marketing strategy then kind of lives on with stuff like Xbox and GamePass and why I think their advertising (along the traditional paths) is a bit weak. A lot of the same factors, in fact. Of course, Microsoft today benefit from social media, and you have word-of-mouth that can make up a portion of that more individual software-focused marketing of traditional formats, but it can't be the only means of selling your brand.
.

Not really, MS advertises games a ton, just not as many as they used to, which also has it's own issues if you go to far. Gamepass seems to be a supplemental strategy(whcih you vaguely point out). Which is not the approach Sega took, in fact they made multiple errors at the same time, going with a "brand ecosystem" approach entirely, while also overdoing it on arcade conversions.

I think there are more similarities between Sega of the mid-'90s period and Xbox division today than some realize or want to acknowledge. Like how it was virtually impossible for Sega to afford a stable amount of dedicated marketing campaigns for the majority of their releases around the second half of Genesis/MegaDrive era and early parts of Saturn era due to the amount of games they were releasing (especially in years like 1995), Microsoft might run into a lot of the same issues as releases from the XGS, Zenimax/Bethesda and now ABK groups ramp up, if more AAA games start getting pushed out from them collectively, if some releases aren't significantly downscaled or even cancelled. MS has the money privilege for sure, but they don't have infinite money and they need to fund their other divisions and teams, too, not just Xbox and not just gaming.

I don't agree with this, they can just release games spaced out per quarter and rotate studios per year, that's what they did with the 360, before Kinect conversions in late 2010, which caused some studios to be cut later, 360 had more FP studios than Nintendo and Sony, people forget this because of the studio wreck post-2012 Kinect did up to the launch of the Xbox One. Which then dropped Kinect as a mandatory option in less than a year. This wouldn't be much different, they have what a +10 studio advantage from their peak and sometimes still had release gaps, if anything it just would mean a steady consistent flow of software. Also some of those will be A and AA games too, and they don't have to spend Halo money on everything, just as they did with the 360, with Crackdown 1 and 2, Fable, half the Jrpgs, N9, Nuts and bolts, etc, and several of those sold pretty well to great.

Heck, Sea of Thieves wasn't marketed too high at first, it's marketing and mindshare reach increased over time.

Sega's situation was different, and was a result of several missteps, and self-inflicted circumstances that are only really comparable to Commodore, and for the late period (Dreamcast) Atari post 1993, in how baffling their strategies were despite having clear examples internally and externally on what works and what would be a better benefit long-term.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

But wouldn't it have been easier if they went with the M2 to Matsushita and convinced them to manufacture the console, rather than the other way round?

They would manufacture the console, that's what I meant when I said Sega wanted to be 3DO, except instead of 3DO in Segas name. They wanted them to make the M2 in Sega's name.

The Issue was Sega wanted the 3DO strategy but in a closed garb where they had more control on the hardware, third-parties would have to go through hurdles because Sega doesn't learn lessons, and the hardware would not allow others to manufacture it and Panasonic would be locked in. Which means any games Panasonic makes, produces, or funds, would release on the Sega M2, and of course Sega would have very little responsibility for costs on software or hardware not their own, which also included marketing, which pissed them off.

3DO in comparison was mostly Open, as it was their idea to make the 3DO console a "standard" in the first place, but unlike other companies that had that strategy, it wasn't a closed garden, third parties had ease of access (which Sony would also do), accessories were free to be made by whatever party, 3DO shared responsibilities for marketing and software along with the manufactures, which they allowed multiple of, with the only costs off-loaded being the costs for producing and distributing the hardware itself, which fairly fell on the device makers. None of them were locked in software wise, and 3DO's name was on everything including the hardware, but the hardware makers also had their brand on the hardware as well.

Sega effectively wanted to do the opposite of what 3DO did with the original 3DO before the 3DO M2, outside of their name all over the place, and the M2 would be the Sega M2, not the Panasonic Sega M2, Panasonics name would be nowhere on the device, or at best some small branding that's not prominent.

So Sega wanted something closer to the PC Engine than the 3DO. Which was commonly associated with NEC despite really being Hudsons console. Difference is there was a somewhat equal partnership, and Hudson was known to be apart of the Collab in some way.

Sega effectively wanted a Sega Saturn, and you not knowing that it wasn't Sega who made it. And losses or costs associated would be off-loaded, including the marketing. So they effectively wanted nearly a free ride.

 

[Kataploom]

By the time I started gaming SEGA was already a relic of the past, everything was Nintendo VS PlayStation... Later on I found out that SEGA was a big player... that was actually late 90s / early 2000s... If it wasn't for some TV cartoons I wouldn't even know what Sonic was until I was on high school, so yeah, they peaked early and not many people carry that nostalgia as they do with Nintendo and PS. I'd dare to say that PS and Xbox get nostalgia from more people these days than SEGA will ever do

 

[cireza]

Still a term used today. https://www.trustedreviews.com/explainer/what-is-dlss-4110546

Are you seriously using DLSS to discuss about how hardware from the 90s had to be used, according to you ?

yes

Oh so you agree. Because you were saying the opposite a few moments ago.

Burning Rangers also visually, looks like garbage

That's like your opinion. Burning Rangers is a free roaming game as well, unlike Crash.

This is because you're dodging the technical developmental side of it, and are instead trying to be selective with screenshot or segments of games to act as if they were even when they generally were not post late 1996.

Or the fact that many devs just threw out similar ports with marginal advantages, but that could apply to N64/.PSX shared games too, and in some cases, Dreamcast ports, so that doesn't really help your position.

The only one holding a position here is you. As if you had to fight for your life with huge ass walls of text and pictures from newspapers lol.
You think very hard that you are demonstrating something but there is zero fact behind what you say.

Facts are what they are. History cannot be changed. During the same time-frame of relevant comparison, which would be 95/96/97, Saturn was receiving multi-platform games and a lot of them were perfectly fine on the console. It is not about picking a couple particular cases where this is true while it was wrong for all others. I played, and still play, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Exhumed, Duke Nukem 3D, Wipeout 2097, Destruction Derby, Hexen, Lost World, Pandemonium, Croc etc... on Saturn and they were perfectly fine. This is only a list of 3D games of course, there were 2D games as well and Saturn always had the edge, even if, again, it wasn't that big of a difference is most cases (1/4 MB RAM games excepted of course).

Differences were pretty minor, sometimes in advantage of the PS1, sometimes the Saturn. There is absolutely zero basis to support an argument such as "PS1 was much better at 3D" during this era. It was marginal at best. Saturn also got the first Quake back then, which wasn't the case of the PS1.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Not really, MS advertises games a ton, just not as many as they used to, which also has it's own issues if you go to far. Gamepass seems to be a supplemental strategy(whcih you vaguely point out). Which is not the approach Sega took, in fact they made multiple errors at the same time, going with a "brand ecosystem" approach entirely, while also overdoing it on arcade conversions.

Outside of the obligatory trailers for their Youtube channel, and a (scant) few ads for TV during holiday release periods, no, Microsoft does not do much advertising for their individual software releases. The most over the past two years was for Halo Infinite around its launch, and I saw an ad for Forza Horizon 5 maybe once on TV the entire time. If you actually look at things for where they are, Microsoft's been pushing a lot of the advertising they'd of normally done on a per-game basis and lumping it under GamePass advertising and marketing.

Also I'd like to point out Sega's problem at the time wasn't overdoing arcade conversions, it's that they did not do enough expansion content for the home ports. Arcade-style games were still the dominant type even for the first few years of 32-bit generation. Look at games like Destruction Derby, Battle Arena Toshindan, Twisted Metal, ESPN X-Treme Games etc. and these are all games with heavy arcade-centric game design and would have done pretty well in an actual arcade if conversions were made and some things adjusted. Genres with a decidedly more console or PC-like origin of focus like JRPGs did not really take off until FF VII's release; for others like FPS titles on console it took even longer even tho there were some great ports here and there like with Duke Nukem 3D and Powerslave/Exhumed.

I don't agree with this, they can just release games spaced out per quarter and rotate studios per year, that's what they did with the 360, before Kinect conversions in late 2010, which caused some studios to be cut later, 360 had more FP studios than Nintendo and Sony, people forget this because of the studio wreck post-2012 Kinect did up to the launch of the Xbox One.

You sure you aren't confusing 1P content with 3P exclusives? Because the 360 did have a lot of exclusives pre-Kinect, that's true. But most of those were 3P games, and a lot like the Japanese ones were timed exclusives on top of that. MS only had maybe 5 internal teams during the 360 era; they may have published more games with external studio partners who developed them but those aren't the same as full-on 1P titles IMO since those would've been games made by external teams at the time.

What you're suggesting MS do requires them to actually get studios organized into a cyclical cadence, which won't be fully possible as Zenimax and ABK will operate as subsidiary branches under Microsoft Gaming. They'll have their own publishing space and suite of management, with some autonomy WRT the pace in which they make games. Speaking of which, if any teams feel their games need to be delayed, like Bethesda's done with Starfield & RedFall, then MS seems lenient enough to let them delay them, but that also guarantees they can't establish a fully predictable, steady release cadence.

Which then dropped Kinect as a mandatory option in less than a year. This wouldn't be much different, they have what a +10 studio advantage from their peak and sometimes still had release gaps, if anything it just would mean a steady consistent flow of software. Also some of those will be A and AA games too, and they don't have to spend Halo money on everything, just as they did with the 360, with Crackdown 1 and 2, Fable, half the Jrpgs, N9, Nuts and bolts, etc, and several of those sold pretty well to great.

Well a bigger concern with GamePass's model is that it'll cause a scaling down of several games compared to what many were expecting or hoping for coming off the XBO gen, especially considering the type of money Microsoft has to work with. When you get rumors on something like Pentiment from a team that has been in the AAA space like Obsidian, then a reveal of what the game actually is, some eyebrows get raised. Whether it's a passion project or not, those may not necessarily be the kind of games that warrant a lot of advertising but it can also become a double-edged sword.

Fund too many games with limited market appeal (this is regardless of the game's quality, mind you) and the brand could take a hit in gradually declining mindshare. Sega had a lot of that same problem with some of their games during the latter half of Genesis/MegaDrive period and into the early years of Saturn, part of which I'd personally also say was down to lack of longer-term gen-over-gen brand retention and establishment. Even IP like Sonic struggled to get clear marquee successors out from one gen (MegaDrive) to the next (Saturn). Microsoft has a similar problem with one of its own marquee brands in Halo, but they also might the issue of an imbalance in market-limited niche-appeal games (like As Dusk Falls very recently) to market-mainstream, big notable marquee IP. And that's compounded with the general lack of game-specific advertising among traditional spaces that Microsoft have been doing the past few years, sticking instead increasingly so to pushing that software under the GamePass brand.

Heck, Sea of Thieves wasn't marketed too high at first, it's marketing and mindshare reach increased over time.

It took about five years, and was an exception to the rule. Most games of that ilk, if they don't establish a community early on, just simply die. SoT had MS money to keep producing content at a regular pace and where its struggles early on weren't affecting any bottom line.

If you want an example of a MS game that won't end up as lucky, look towards Halo Infinite.

Sega's situation was different, and was a result of several missteps, and self-inflicted circumstances that are only really comparable to Commodore, and for the late period (Dreamcast) Atari post 1993, in how baffling their strategies were despite having clear examples internally and externally on what works and what would be a better benefit long-term.

No, like I said earlier I think there are more similarities between some of Microsoft's marketing strategies and choices (for better and worst) today as there are with a lot of Sega's marketing strategies from the early-mid to mid to mid-late (pre-Dreamcast) '90s. They don't manifest the same ways necessarily, but there are parallels for certain.

Keep in mind I'm mainly speaking about advertising strategy around the brand as dominant advertising avenue (lessened focus on per-game advertising and marketing), proliferation of niche (tho in most cases, quality) games with more limited/restricted marketability, 1P releases that may not offer enough in terms of content compared to peers (Sega with many of their Saturn arcade ports, Microsoft with games like Halo Infinite & Gears 5), and possibly having too many software releases on their plate that could prevent optimized marketing, advertising or even polish for some of said games (Sega with 155 published games across several industry sectors in '95, MS with the sheer amount of games seemingly in development among their original teams & acquired devs).

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Are you seriously using DLSS to discuss about how hardware from the 90s had to be used, according to you ?

Don't be dumb, you can find that same term with games on PC and consoles, I only used that to show the terminology is still in use.

Oh so you agree. Because you were saying the opposite a few moments ago.

So you're going to dilute the discussion by being dishonest and cutting off the rest of the sentence?

That's like your opinion. Burning Rangers is a free roaming game as well, unlike Crash.

That's nice, except for the fact that Crash is till more technically demanding. Open roaming doesn't mean anything by itself, especially given how many plane basic "open" games both consoles have.

Saturn was receiving multi-platform games and a lot of them were perfectly fine on the console.

Which no one argued, now you're moving the goal posts, and guess what, this also applies tot he N64, the 3DO,a nd the Dreamcast at points, it's almost like you're attempt to make the Saturn/PSX seem even and as you agree with another user "the most even of any consoles in history of gaming" unless you're going to backpedal on that, can also apply to other consoles at the time, and doesn't actually support your position at all.

The consoles were not "even" because some multiplats looked similar, or as you say here, "were fine" whatever that means.

Differences were pretty minor,

Fact is you have no real argument, the difference is massive, if there are 500 games for each consoles, and 300 games are similar though lopsided to the PSX in most cases, that doesn't erase the 200 games that clearly show a gap, which are also among the best sellers, among the most known, to consumers, and are among the most covered by media.

You're pretending in this scenario example, that the 300 games are the only thing that's there to dismiss valid facts that one console is better than the other. You wouldn't use such braindead logic for any other console but the Saturn and you know it.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

Outside of the obligatory trailers for their Youtube channel, and a (scant) few ads for TV during holiday release periods, no, Microsoft does not do much advertising for their individual software releases.

Yes they do, I can only assume this is a combination of you not keeping up with physical media/city media, or social media internet talk, and not watching TV. There also may be a regional issue. This is especially true since they have only been aggressively pushing Gamepass since 2020 with the current strategy.

Also I'd like to point out Sega's problem at the time wasn't overdoing arcade conversions, it's that they did not do enough expansion content for the home ports.

No it's both, because even if they were tix the content issue (MK4/Tekken compared to VF for example) they were still over relying on arcade release to sell systems primarily. If what you said wasn't the issue, then the other consoles would have sold a lot higher numbers of arcade titles outside the handful they did.

You sure you aren't confusing 1P content with 3P exclusives? Because the 360 did have a lot of exclusives pre-Kinect, that's true. But most of those were 3P games, and a lot like the Japanese ones were timed exclusives on top of that. MS only had maybe 5 internal teams during the 360 era

In the 360 Era at the peak, Microsoft had almost as many studios as post bethesda buyout which was ahead by only what 2? You can do a archive by year on the wikipedia page for Xbox Game studios where the page was called Microsoft Game Studios and see the old lists.

As for games of FP, Microsoft released 38 FP exclusives on 360, excluding Kinect games, before Xbox One, and 5 after. For a total of 43. 18 of these were fully in house, 3 were partially in house.

What you're suggesting MS do requires them to actually get studios organized into a cyclical cadence, which won't be fully possible as Zenimax and ABK will operate as subsidiary branches under Microsoft Gaming. They'll have their own publishing space and suite of management, with some autonomy WRT the pace in which they make games. Speaking of which, if any teams feel their games need to be delayed, like Bethesda's done with Starfield & RedFall, then MS seems lenient enough to let them delay them, but that also guarantees they can't establish a fully predictable, steady release cadence.

You seem to be thinking of Zenimax and Activision in a bubble, for getting about the internal studios thy already had, and the acquistions they had before Zenimax, which are in several cases working on more than one project, in order to come to this conclusion.

Well a bigger concern with GamePass's model is that it'll cause a scaling down of several games compared to what many were expecting or hoping for coming off the XBO gen, especially considering the type of money Microsoft has to work with. When you get rumors on something like Pentiment from a team that has been in the AAA space like Obsidian, then a reveal of what the game actually is, some eyebrows get raised. Whether it's a passion project or not, those may not necessarily be the kind of games that warrant a lot of advertising but it can also become a double-edged sword.

Game Pass has been around since 2017 nd we haven't seen any evidence f this, same as the Sony fan crying about "lower quality games" that still hasn't happened.

Fund too many games with limited market appeal (this is regardless of the game's quality, mind you) and the brand could take a hit in gradually declining mindshare. Sega had a lot of that same problem with some of their games during the latter half of Genesis/MegaDrive period and into the early years of Saturn, part of which I'd personally also say was down to lack of longer-term gen-over-gen brand retention and establishment. Even IP like Sonic struggled to get clear marquee successors out from one gen (MegaDrive) to the next (Saturn). Microsoft has a similar problem with one of its own marquee brands in Halo, but they also might the issue of an imbalance in market-limited niche-appeal games (like As Dusk Falls very recently) to market-mainstream, big notable marquee IP. And that's compounded with the general lack of game-specific advertising among traditional spaces that Microsoft have been doing the past few years, sticking instead increasingly so to pushing that software under the GamePass brand.

Your Halo example is flawed. As Dusk Falls has been individually advertised more often than usual, and you are still going with an assumption based on nothing every Microsoft 1st Party game is going to be Halo level AAA with matching ad budget, that's not how this works, that's not what Sony does, it's not what MS did before the Kinect cut their studios down, this is imagination. Also the brand is Xbox, not Gamepass, Gamepass gives Access to XBOX.

It took about five years, and was an exception to the rule.

No it's not, you aren't familiar with Xbox stuff at all are you?

No, like I said earlier I think there are more similarities between some of Microsoft's marketing strategies and choices (for better and worst) today as there are with a lot of Sega's marketing strategies from the early-mid to mid to mid-late (pre-Dreamcast) '90s. They don't manifest the same ways necessarily, but there are parallels for certain.

As shown above I think you're reaching quite a bit outside some marginal similarities.

Especially since the biggest flaw of Sega regarding it's games and lack of high-selling block buster sellers, is not an Xbox issue, as they don't have that issue, and with Gamepass they may never have that issue.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Yes they do, I can only assume this is a combination of you not keeping up with physical media/city media, or social media internet talk, and not watching TV. There also may be a regional issue. This is especially true since they have only been aggressively pushing Gamepass since 2020 with the current strategy.

No, they don't. If they do stuff like billboards or trailer promotions in films, it's extremely selective and irregular. Social media is NOT what I'm talking about here, I specifically mentioned traditional outlets and avenues, as social media would somewhat go in-hand with WOM. I don't watch too much TV these days, but whenever I did have some time to sit around and have it on in the background on certain channels, there was much more likely a chance of me catching a PlayStation advert than an Xbox one.

Them pushing GamePass aggressively since 2020 ties in neatly with the launch of the Series systems, hence this generation. That's been my focus on this the whole time.

No it's both, because even if they were tix the content issue (MK4/Tekken compared to VF for example) they were still over relying on arcade release to sell systems primarily. If what you said wasn't the issue, then the other consoles would have sold a lot higher numbers of arcade titles outside the handful they did.

The majority of the arcade titles that were on other systems (as in, purely arcade ports) also lacked a lot of home-exclusive content, so they fit the criteria of what I'm describing. I specifically mentioned that point for a reason. Your other statement made it seem as though arcade-style games had already gone out of favor and that Sega pushing arcade or arcade-style games at all was the issue.

Except, arcade-style games, as in games with arcade-centric game design, were still very popular going into the 32-bit generation. It's just that those games also had the sense to include a lot of content and since most of those games didn't have arcade versions, there was no situation where that content risked already being "exhausted" by the target audience before the home version came out.

PS1's biggest pushes in 1994 and 1995 were games like Tekken 1 & 2, Wipeout, Destruction Derby, Jet Moto, Battle Arena Toshinden, Loaded, Twisted Metal, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (they even got a six-month exclusivity deal for that in NA), etc. All either arcade games, or arcade-style games. Even 1P-wise in addition to what I mentioned, there was also stuff like Motor Toon Grand Prix and Parappa the Rapper, also very arcade-styled games in terms of game design.

So basically, Sega and Sony's strategy in relying on either arcade ports or arcade-styled games wasn't that much different from 1994 - most of 1996. Sony's only started to change with the release of games like Crash Bandicoot, and stuff like Resident Evil and Tomb Raider (the latter of which also came to Saturn around the same time and IIRC pushed a lot for the system between TV ads and magazines, unless Sony had marketing exclusivity).

The bigger shift towards relying less on arcade ports or arcade-centric (in terms of game design or pick-up-and-play design) for Sony happened in 1997 and onward thanks to games like Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy VII. By that time, though, Sega was releasing quite a lot of non-arcade Saturn games like the Dragon Force series, Shining the Holy Arc, Enemy Zero and in 1998 continuing that with Shining Force III, Panzer Dragoon Saga, etc. They for all intents and purposes started shifting away from relying on arcade ports and heavily arcade-centric games in pushing Saturn around the same time Sony did with PlayStation.

The only difference is, PlayStation actually persisted long enough to have that shift fully settle in as both 1P and 3P studios ramped up AAA releases given the healthy install base justifying the bigger budgets for games like MGS, Legend of Dragoon, Parasite Eve, RE2, Dino Crisis, Xenogears etc. Saturn effectively died in terms of the major market by early-mid 1998 and so AAA dev efforts on it by that point had stalled and died. Actually, they were already getting scaled by before mid-1997!

In the 360 Era at the peak, Microsoft had almost as many studios as post bethesda buyout which was ahead by only what 2? You can do a archive by year on the wikipedia page for Xbox Game studios where the page was called Microsoft Game Studios and see the old lists.

As for games of FP, Microsoft released 38 FP exclusives on 360, excluding Kinect games, before Xbox One, and 5 after. For a total of 43. 18 of these were fully in house, 3 were partially in house.

Right, meaning the other 17 games were made by external studios, with MS just publishing them. I was solely speaking about in-house 1P teams and in-house 1P releases during the 360 generation from MS.

When you break it down to internal teams, that number drops sharply from 38 to something much smaller, even more so if you don't count DLC expansions as separate releases.

You seem to be thinking of Zenimax and Activision in a bubble, for getting about the internal studios thy already had, and the acquistions they had before Zenimax, which are in several cases working on more than one project, in order to come to this conclusion.

Nope, I'm aware of Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Compulsion, inXile, Playground etc. But now that you've brought it up, it's not like we've seen much from these teams either since they were acquired. Or at least, not much that has stuck around.

Obsidian had The Outer Worlds and that kind of came and went. Playground, TBF, has Forza Horizon and that's doing pretty well. Nothing from Compulsion or inXile since their acquisitions. Hellblade II was revealed in December 2019 and almost three years later has but very scant updates, and could even be as late as 2024. I understand that teams still have projects committed to even post-acquisition, and there are transition periods, but you can't compare any of these acquisitions to Sony's of Insomniac and say they have been bearing fruit at an expedient, well-managed pace in comparison.

Game Pass has been around since 2017 nd we haven't seen any evidence f this, same as the Sony fan crying about "lower quality games" that still hasn't happened.

That's highly subjective. I sure wasn't expecting As Dusk Falls to be what it's turned out to be going from the 2020 trailer reveal, which I (and many others) presumed was concept art. The game might have a decent story, but given it's published by XGS and could've been a great chance at injecting something more narratively-driven into the Xbox catalogue, it doesn't necessarily look like a game that was capitalizing on the capacity of its funding source.

At the bare minimum it could've been something a bit more involved and gotten a lot more attention as a result.

Your Halo example is flawed. As Dusk Falls has been individually advertised more often than usual, and you are still going with an assumption based on nothing every Microsoft 1st Party game is going to be Halo level AAA with matching ad budget, that's not how this works, that's not what Sony does, it's not what MS did before the Kinect cut their studios down, this is imagination. Also the brand is Xbox, not Gamepass, Gamepass gives Access to XBOX.

Where has As Dusk Falls been individually advertised? Any of that through the traditional avenues? Or is that mostly WOM and mentions on random podcasts?

I'm not under the presumption that every MS 1P game will be Halo Infinite in terms of AAA (actually I would hope they'd be better all-around considering the myriad of issues facing that game), or have that type of marketing budget. However, one thing MS does struggle with is long-form messaging for their individual games. They clog up the vast majority of news about their games for the June Showcase and after-show, and rarely is there any OFFICIAL news (as in from the dev teams themselves, not superfans who claim to be insiders getting access to games and talking about them in elaborate write-ups) on those games until the next following year.

Even that isn't guaranteed, though. Since Everwild's reveal we've heard no further details on game mechanics, story, lore, characters, themes and in fact have heard more about its troubled development status, just indicating it was revealed way too soon. Same goes for Perfect Dark reboot, which is (or at least was) in even more troubled state. So you have that, then combined with the general lack of game-specific advertising through many of the traditional avenues and whatnot when it comes time for these games to come out, and I think that's a big problem MS still haven't solved and are pretty far away from solving.

No it's not, you aren't familiar with Xbox stuff at all are you?

I keep pretty close watch on Xbox developments, same with PlayStation ones.

Especially since the biggest flaw of Sega regarding it's games and lack of high-selling block buster sellers, is not an Xbox issue, as they don't have that issue, and with Gamepass they may never have that issue.

You're conveniently ignoring that part of the entire reason for GamePass's existence was to shore up goodwill from the dedicated Xbox fanbase in the waning years and to overcome the problem of their 1P games selling considerably less across the board. That even goes for the big marquee games like Halo and Gears.

If you want to bring up the market environment where Sonic 3 was selling less than Sonic 2, and theorize/analyze on why that happened, but not see a similar trend in MS IP like Halo and Gears of War, then that's a very selective reading on your part. If you're denying that MS's 1P games don't sell necessarily well these days (and keep in mind, they have also said that GamePass leads to more game sales, tho data suggests that's mainly for indie games seeing big WOM through the service and probably having softer debuts on other storefronts or platforms), then just look at any NPD charts, or other software charts for other regions. Heck, look at Most Played GamePass charts for Xbox while at it.

Where are the Halo numbers? Why has it not been in NPD Top 20 outside of its debut month (IIRC)? Where is Forza Horizon 5 in NPD? Yes, Xbox games have a high digital ratio, but so do PlayStation's, and many of Sony's games continue to place in Top 20, even Top 10 of NPD months after release. Same with Nintendo, who probably have the most evergreen 1P games out of the Big 3.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

While everyone here has been fighting their console turf wars like they’re still in junior high school, I’ve been playing Panzer Saga and Radiant Silvergun and having the time of my life.

While examining the endless turmoil and chaos of the mid-90s videogame scene is fascinating, I personally find it much better today to simply enjoy the videogames.

 

[Havoc2049]

It took about five years, and was an exception to the rule. Most games of that ilk, if they don't establish a community early on, just simply die. SoT had MS money to keep producing content at a regular pace and where its struggles early on weren't affecting any bottom line.

If you want an example of a MS game that won't end up as lucky, look towards Halo Infinite.

Ya, the numbers aren't looking good for Halo Infinite. They are going to have to basically do a relaunch if they ever come out with a significant multiplayer or single player expansion, if they ever hope to turn the game into a long term success.

Sea of Thieves on the other hand was a hit from day one and Rare has done a brilliant job in supporting the game with content from the get go. The game was the number one selling game in the UK the month it launched and the second best selling game in the US. They hit the million player mark two days after launch and the five million player mark five months after launch. The first Sea of Thieves expansion trailer was shown six weeks after launch and was released eight weeks after launch. There has been a steady stream of content since then.

 

[Havoc2049]

While everyone here has been fighting their console turf wars like they’re still in junior high school, I’ve been playing Panzer Saga and Radiant Silvergun and having the time of my life.

While examining the endless turmoil and chaos of the mid-90s videogame scene is fascinating, I personally find it much better today to simply enjoy the videogames.

So true. I think I'm going to play some Sega Bass Fishing and Sega Marine Fishing with the awesome fishing controller on my Dreamcast this weekend.

 

[cireza]

Open roaming doesn't mean anything by itself

Of course it makes a huge difference but I am not expecting someone that uses DLSS to talk about 90s hardware to have a clue about how a free roaming game is going to be different from a game where you can constantly unload stuff from memory.

The consoles were not "even" because some multiplats looked similar, or as you say here, "were fine" whatever that means.

Of course they were.

if there are 500 games for each consoles, and 300 games are similar though lopsided to the PSX in most cases, that doesn't erase the 200 games that clearly show a gap

Let me guess : numbers taken straight from your...

How about actually playing these consoles and come back with a factual study of absolutely all multiplatform games, to demonstrates that a significant number were largely inferior on Saturn, as you imply ?

From my experience, which is based on me playing both consoles for more than two decades, and I can tell you that this "huge gap" only exists in your head.

 

[RetroAV]

Just wanted to post this interesting tidbit from PandaMonium's review of Ghen War where he interviewed Robert Leyland who comments on Saturn's "higher ceiling' compared to PS1.

 

[cireza]

Just wanted to post this interesting tidbit from PandaMonium's review of Ghen War where he interviewed Robert Leyland who comments on Saturn's "higher ceiling' compared to PS1.

A newspapers expert in this thread is explaining to us that Saturn games could not be any better than what we have seen in 1997, so why even bother with people that have actual experience with the hardware.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Was more friendly to button mashers as well, it also had a focus on characters to connected with the player, which Virtua Fighter did not outside may Akira and barely. The same strategy (though less so) that Mortal Kombat did. Most players had no connection the VF's cast.

US industry dropped from $6 billion in 1993, to $2.5 billion in 1995, that kind of works with the time frame of Fats link. older consoles had price cuts, newer consoles were selling slow, not much software buying.

1996 PSX growth and mass discount 3DO (which ended up backfiring despite the hardware/software sale increases) reversed this course, along with the launch of the N64 after delays.

Before then it seemed like gaming just kind of imploded from 1993-Q2 1996. The SNES(DKC/SF) was pretty much the only thing holding the market together with 3DO having some contribution, the Genesis Sega could not figure out a way to sustain, the Jaguar fell apart after launch and nothing got better, any other early 90's competitor was dead, any other non-3DO new competitor was dead ot irrelevant.

People who were buying TG/SNES/GEN software before just stopped buying, people weren't attracted to some of the well or major marketed software titles, Sonic, the mascot and the well known well marketed face of the Genesis wasn't even selling 2 million copies anymore, MK was making bank but due to a growth in cross-platform releases making up for what were larger individual consoles sales. TG died.

SNES had DKC and SF kind of slow the role of even it's software sales declining.

As posted above for the Jaguar stuff but is still relevant for SNES/GEN from retrospection:



Yeah the timelines all line up here.

Thank goodness for 3DO, PSX, and DKC/SF for keeping SNES half-way afloat, so that the trend would be easier to reverse in 2nd half of 1996. Prevented further damage.

This newspaper article is a great find. If we have any more articles from that period, I would be very grateful. A lot of this history gets lost and it’s critical that we preserve it for future reference.

I remember around 1994-95 that the US videogame industry was in a slump. We thought of it as a “minor crash,” referring of course to the infamous 1983-84 collapse. But I had no idea the decline was so steep—$6 billion to $2.5 billion is pretty dramatic. Add in the chaos from the “multimedia era” with so many new consoles, and you get an appreciation for how chaotic those days were.

As for Atari Corp, many gamers today would scoff at the idea, but Atari was a major competitor through the 1980s. The 2600 Jr (6mm) and 7800 (4mm) both outsold the Master System (3mm). So the sight of a $250 “64-bit” (ahem) Jaguar must have sent Sega America bosses into a small panic.

As always, all that is needed is one or two breakout hits. If Tempest 2000 or AvP became million-sellers, gaming history would be completely different.

 

[Nikodemos]

I remember around 1994-95 that the US videogame industry was in a slump. We thought of it as a “minor crash,” referring of course to the infamous 1983-84 collapse. But I had no idea the decline was so steep—$6 billion to $2.5 billion is pretty dramatic. Add in the chaos from the “multimedia era” with so many new consoles, and you get an appreciation for how chaotic those days were.

Worth noting that, as per the article itself, those numbers come with a caveat: they don't include CD-ROM games.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Worth noting that, as per the article itself, those numbers come with a caveat: they don't include CD-ROM games.

I assume those numbers were the main consoles and not PC/Mac. Not sure if 3DO would be included, but their sales numbers were far behind Sega and Nintendo (understandable as it was far more expensive). As always, more news articles from the period are needed. I’ll have to dig through the early issues of Next Generation for more sales numbers.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

As for Atari Corp, many gamers today would scoff at the idea, but Atari was a major competitor through the 1980s. The 2600 Jr (6mm) and 7800 (4mm) both outsold the Master System (3mm). So the sight of a $250 “64-bit” (ahem) Jaguar must have sent Sega America bosses into a small panic.

Only if you don't take into consideration markets outside of America. Master System estimates are around 10-13 million worldwide.

As always, all that is needed is one or two breakout hits. If Tempest 2000 or AvP became million-sellers, gaming history would be completely different.

Possibly. But, you'd also need a plan for steady high-quality content, marketing, production and distribution. The amount of money Atari needed to shore up with Jaguar to compete with Sega and Nintendo in first-party content, let alone Sony in third-party content securement, required a lot more than just Tempest 2000 or AvP being breakouts, realistically speaking.

 

[SirTerry-T]

I think it's easy with these sort of discussions to overlook that a lot of Sega's issues with the Saturn launch and what happened later were caused by Sony's success with their "hearts and minds" PR assault with the PlayStation launch rather than any huge technical shortcomings the Saturn may have had.

Sony were a huge media company and knew how to run a hype campaign...the irony being that especially here in the UK and Europe, Sony's PR campaign was clearly taken from the same playbook that Sega UK/Europe created back during the Megadrive era.



Back then, Sega were the loud and trendy new kid on the block against the rather safe and boring (at least as far as public image was perceived) Nintendo.

Sony's explosion into the minds of UK gamers can pretty much be pinpointed down to the time Sony ran their Wipeout "nosebleed" press campaign, after that it was an uphill battle for Sega and the Saturn as far as the press and public were concerned.



Sony's PlayStation was the console of choice for that all important 18-24 crowd...the 90's clubbers and ravers, the kids with the Designers Republic designed tee shirts.

Sega and Nintendo couldn't really compete with that, regardless of how great their products were.

 

[cireza]

Sony ran their Wipeout "nosebleed" press campaign

A game that was also available on Saturn by the way. This simply shows that throwing money in marketing, with people being uninformed, was the right way to win back then. And this is what Sony have been doing : spamming TV, magazines etc... with ads.

 

[Paasei]

There was never any real marketing for the Dreamcast, either. That and all the previous mistakes/poor decisions in combination with PlayStation and later PlayStation 2, nobody really knew about the Dreamcast even existing. Maybe that the devices had different names per region was also a thing that didn’t work out.

 

[SirTerry-T]

A game that was also available on Saturn by the way. This simply shows that throwing money in marketing, with people being uninformed, was the right way to win back then. And this is what Sony have been doing : spamming TV, magazines etc... with ads.

Yep...and to be fair, back then Sony were masters at it.
Look how many people bought into the "Emotion Engine" bullshit.

 

[Drew1440]

Yep...and to be fair, back then Sony were masters at it.
Look how many people bought into the "Emotion Engine" bullshit.

In all fairness Sega did that with the MegaDrive, remember 'Blast processing' or the Vitrua Processor?

 

[SkylineRKR]

Playstation was an entirely different thing at the time. I remember this era very well, as I was about 16.

What happened was that Sega and Nintendo were still around, but they didn't evolve. They pretty much targeted the same audience they had been targeting for a decade. Sega's Saturn was ofcourse a more mature and expensive device than the Genesis, but they didn't really capitalize on this. They marketed it towards a rather limited crowd.

Sony, for example, came along and put demopods at clubs, raves and also offered their system and games via more retailers, some of them that had little to do with gaming. They were more widespread and their marketing was aimed more at young adults, which was likely the the crowd both Nintendo and Sega didn't capture yet plus the biggest spenders I can imagine. So when you were 16-18, chances where you would rather buy a Playstation since it sort of defined young adults. Playstation was the first system I actually saw in living rooms, not tucked away in kid bedrooms. Back in 1994 or so, a typical class I was in would have perhaps 5-6 kids with a console, mostly boys. But since PSX these numbers changed.

Nintendo was always this looming shadow. I was an intern at a gameshop back in 1996 or so and our narrative was we wouldn't advise against buying a PSX (and Saturn still), but they would say Nintendo will probably dwarf them with its hardware once its out. Project Reality or Ultra 64 was really seen as the holy grail and Saturn and even Sony more as stop gaps. Another thing that was sometimes said was that CDs were prone to breaking, not for kids, and that cartridges would be better in the long run, we just kinda banked on Nintendo based on history still. But this narrative changed once N64 surfaced via import. Mario was absolutely a game changer, but it was sort of obvious Nintendo lost a LOT of support, cartridges were expensive, no media playback and games looked foggy in general. I wasn't impressed and crossed it off my list, I knew I made the right choice with Playstation. And the amount of people still interested in it was low, and getting only lower over time. In the end Playstation was pushed as the console of choice.

 

[SirTerry-T]

In all fairness Sega did that with the MegaDrive, remember 'Blast processing' or the Vitrua Processor?

Well yeah, which is why I mentioned Sony using Sega's "Big Book of Advertising Bullshit"

 

[cireza]

In all fairness Sega did that with the MegaDrive, remember 'Blast processing' or the Vitrua Processor?

Blast Processing was a marketing wording, but there was truth behind the fact that the MegaDrive was largely more capable in terms of raw CPU power, which showed in exclusive games, with higher resolution, more elaborated physics, more things on screen etc...

Sony was basically occupying all the communication space with ads (while many of these games were actually coming to Saturn), ridiculing 2D to their advantage, and buying exclusivity from third parties because they weren't even developing any game back then. This was combined with their usual lies and false advertisement, which they have been very famous for, and still put up to this day by the way.

They basically bought their way into the market back then, and we got the video-game scene we deserve.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

A newspapers expert in this thread

Jealousy is a bad thing. Especially since only one news article was posted in this thread and was unrelated to your uneducated pot and was addressing a different topic, unless you're talking about the other thread, in which I say again jealousy is a bad thing You can put more effort in your psots if you wanted to, you just choose not to. .

why even bother with people that have actual experience with the hardware.

You mean the people who have been complaining about the Saturn the most for years, the people you are ironically ignoring?

Of course it makes a huge difference but I am not expecting someone

I know you have some issues comprehending these things, but OPEN roaming means nothing, It's like comparing Bubsy to Crash bandicoot and saying Bubsy is more taxing because it's more open, you clearly are out of your league and have no idea what you're saying. Which is why you [provide nothing to back your junk yet in this thread, and will provide no elaboration outside drive bys nonense.

Of course they were.

Still ignoring that this applies to other consoles as well, means absolutely nothing and doesn't spport you position THESE specific consoles are more even than others, something which you agreed with when another poster brought it up.

How about actually playing these consoles

Which I have, but this contradicts your comment above about listening to people who have experience with the hardware, the majority of which are against your position, from companies and including the homebrewers trying to find the secret sauce. So you have nothing either way, and notice, you're still saying nothing with substance, you're just accusing me of not playing hardware because you can't handle another view.

ridiculing 2D to their advantage,

Sony could have not jumped into the console rce and this still would have happened without them, and ws before they launched.

Just wanted to post this interesting tidbit from PandaMonium's review of Ghen War where he interviewed Robert Leyland who comments on Saturn's "higher ceiling' compared to PS1.

Reminds me of the Atari Jaguar guys saying that the jaguar had a higher ceiling than the PSX is you could dodge the 69k and had full graphical access to both RISC's.

It's now 2022 the secret sauce isn't there.

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

No, they don't. If they do stuff like billboards or trailer promotions in films, it's extremely selective and irregular. Social media is NOT what I'm talking about here,

I never said or implied that i was focusing on social media, I literally said and quote: "you not keeping up with physical media/city media, or social media internet talk, and not watching TV"

City media is billboards, on the road or in the urban cnets, on the busses, etc. Physical media is self-explanatory, News papers, mags etc.

You are most likely projecting some local or regional anecdote over the whole country to act as if they haven't been doing any marketing. I think you'll be surprised.

Your other statement made it seem as though arcade-style games had already gone out of favor and that Sega pushing arcade or arcade-style games at all was the issue.

Which doesn't make sense, since I said that the actual issue was they were over relying on them by themselves/primarily to sell machines, which no one else was doing. Not even Atari.

PS1's biggest pushes in 1994 and 1995 were games like Tekken 1 & 2, Wipeout, Destruction Derby, Jet Moto, Battle Arena Toshinden, Loaded, Twisted Metal, Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 (they even got a six-month exclusivity deal for that in NA), etc. All either arcade games, or arcade-style games. Even 1P-wise in addition to what I mentioned, there was also stuff like Motor Toon Grand Prix and Parappa the Rapper, also very arcade-styled games in terms of game design.

So basically, Sega and Sony's strategy in relying on either arcade ports or arcade-styled games wasn't that much different from 1994 - most of 1996

Sony did not RELY on arcade games. Also Tekken 2 came out on consoles in 1996, even in Japan.

I also think using 1994-1995 is sketchy, as the Playstation was slow to start, and what really got Playstation moving in later 1995 and sprinting in 1996 still within the Playstations starting year, were games that were not arcade titles. While the Saturn over relied on them in comparison.

Heck, Rayman sold better than your entire PS1 94-95 list in US and that was a 2d Platformer.

Most of 1996. So

The bigger shift towards relying less on arcade ports or arcade-centric (in terms of game design or pick-up-and-play design) for Sony happened in 1997 and onward thanks to games like Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy VII.

This completely wrong, the best hardware moving titles in 1996 were mostly unrelated to arcade games in the US. Resident Evil, Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, DHT, and such.

Even in Japan among the best selling titles were Arc the Lad 1 and 2, Biohazard/Resident Evil, Crash bandicoot, New Super Robot Wars (jrpg), Popolocrois (jrpg), Wild Arms. Persona, Clock Tower 2, 4th super robots wars and others, yes you had Your Tekken, Soul edge and such, but arcades were generally not the big movers, and some gained steam just by the early novelty of playing 3D fighters at home and then dropped off. Outside Tekken.

The consumers were still buying the games, the issue is relying on arcade games to convince consumers to buy hardware, and no one was depending on arcade games more than Sega not just with the Saturn, but with the Dreamcast too. That's not to say there weren't some great non-arcade titles on the Saturn but they were generally not the focus.

Right, meaning the other 17 games were made by external studios, with MS just publishing them. I was solely speaking about in-house 1P teams and in-house 1P releases during the 360 generation from MS.

When you break it down to internal teams, that number drops sharply from 38 to something much smaller, even more so if you don't count DLC expansions as separate releases.

I'm not surprised you glossed over the rest of that paragraph, who are you comparing to? That's not not much different than Sony's PS3 gamer output outside sports/Sing/move stuff, and keep in mind I'm excluding Kinect. You're trying to paint 21 number as "poor" in internal releases on the 360, but compared to what? There's only two companies to even compare with on the home console front. I also never included DLC expansions so the number would have been higher if I did.

Nope, I'm aware of Ninja Theory, Obsidian, Compulsion, inXile, Playground etc. But now that you've brought it up, it's not like we've seen much from these teams either since they were acquired. Or at least, not much that has stuck around.

This isn't really relevant to your claim, that when they DO have products ready that it's going to clog the system when MS inevitably goes to cycled releases across their entire studio collective.

That's highly subjective.

It's objective because it's a fact that nothing has happened yet, so until it does it's not subjective.

You're conveniently ignoring that part of the entire reason for GamePass's existence was to shore up goodwill from the dedicated Xbox fanbase

No it wasn't, Gamepass in a primitive form was even making rounds with the original Xbox One plans. You also bringing up also which sold 5 million in 3 months on the Xbox one and calling it winning is also rather baffling, Add in the good sales of Gears , and Forza Horizon and the fact that Gamepass first started in 2017 which is when they released the One X, the reasoning here doesn't make much sense. This seems like you are basically just reconstructing fanboy arguments against Gamepass.

Personally I don't care much about Gamepass because I prefer physical games, which means I don't care much for the new PS5 equivalent either. I'll use both of them on occasion, but I think people are making too much out of both services.

If you want to bring up the market environment where Sonic 3 was selling less than Sonic 2, and theorize/analyze on why that happened, but not see a similar trend in MS IP like Halo and Gears of War,

Halo 4 to Halo 5 didn't lose significantly over half of it's sales, Neither did Gears 4 to Gears 5, Neither did Forza 6 to Forza 7, and by that point Sega was barely marketing the Genesis well and kept dropping the ball with poor choices, in contrast to Microsoft trying to salvage the Xbox One to the point where they released two revisions, one an upgrade to resolve a commonly repeated issue consumers had with the original, and restarted their marketing campaign with them to great effect. There's no parallels here.

Where are the Halo numbers? Why has it not been in NPD Top 20 outside of its debut month (IIRC)? Where is Forza Horizon 5 in NPD? Yes, Xbox games have a high digital ratio, but so do PlayStation's, and many of Sony's games continue to place in Top 20, even Top 10 of NPD months after release. Same with Nintendo, who probably have the most evergreen 1P games out of the Big 3.

Halo Infinite is a digital focused game that was marketed with a separate MP and SP campaign with the retail release barely marketed..

Don't forget Halo 4 dropped off NPD quite early with a fast declining MP community and still ended up with high sales, so you trying to correlate NPD ranks especially these days with sales success seems just a tad silly. Not to mention Sales numbers are generally not really pushed even with other big games since Phils (first) ascension, which he replaced with player numbers, we know Forza Horizon 5 is a hit, but we still haven't gotten numbers from any high-credible sources (just some "insiders" that estimate 10 million at best).

 

[Fatnick]

In all fairness Sega did that with the MegaDrive, remember 'Blast processing' or the Vitrua Processor?

Hang on! The SVP was an actual thing. The chip was used in Virtua Racing and, to be fair, was more powerful than the Super FX chip (albeit more expensive too!)

 

[Nikodemos]

Hang on! The SVP was an actual thing. The chip was used in Virtua Racing and, to be fair, was more powerful than the Super FX chip (albeit more expensive too!)

Unfortunately, the Mega Drive had some design flaws which prevented the SVP from reaching its full potential (actually, the same story with the Sega CD and 32X).

 

[Eddie-Griffin]

This newspaper article is a great find. If we have any more articles from that period, I would be very grateful. A lot of this history gets lost and it’s critical that we preserve it for future reference.

I remember around 1994-95 that the US videogame industry was in a slump. We thought of it as a “minor crash,” referring of course to the infamous 1983-84 collapse. But I had no idea the decline was so steep—$6 billion to $2.5 billion is pretty dramatic. Add in the chaos from the “multimedia era” with so many new consoles, and you get an appreciation for how chaotic those days were.

As for Atari Corp, many gamers today would scoff at the idea, but Atari was a major competitor through the 1980s. The 2600 Jr (6mm) and 7800 (4mm) both outsold the Master System (3mm). So the sight of a $250 “64-bit” (ahem) Jaguar must have sent Sega America bosses into a small panic.

As always, all that is needed is one or two breakout hits. If Tempest 2000 or AvP became million-sellers, gaming history would be completely different.

yeah I have a few things on the slump I'll need to dig through at some point, there were articles about certain retailers actually reducing shelve space for games as a response, and in their place and expansion of computer stuff, music Cds, and movies.

It made sense why Multimedia had been picking up in the games industry and the tech industry in general from late 92 onward. The idea was all the separation was unsustainable, expensive, and inconvenient, and the thought was people would inevitably move to unifying devices which was slightly false and slightly true at the same time, we still have separate devices today which prove more efficient at certain things, but we have also moved toward adopting unifying devices in common usage.

The problem back then was the tech either wasn't there, was there but too clunky, or you had the right device but your company mainly focused on one areas, so the other features you tried to imitate or create with limited experience sucked, so it was better for the customer to just to buy a device that focused on those areas without the frustration.

Speaking of Atari, Nes, and SMS, if you want to be technical, the actual console in 2nd place was the 2600 jr. with the 7800 in third place and the SMS in 4th. For a console that is wrongfully blamed for the crash with misinformation that people didn't want it anymore, people sure still wanted it. It had to have sold around 6 million units given that Atari eventually reached 30 million 2600's sold or more.

I believe that the Atari 2600 Jr. would have doubled it's sales if the 7800 wasn't there, I also believe that works the other way around too. Both consoles were making mad profit. 2600 Jr. wasn't far from the NES in the earlier days. Devs were making/porting new games to it to. You know, the console no one wanted anymore? Or so the gaming historians say.

Sega was expecting 400k-700k consoles by end of the year 1986 with their SMS. So like Nintendo, Sega had a high production of consoles ready ahead of launch to flood retailers. but unlike Nintendo, they didn't have the mafia NOA staff, they didn't have the money to buy major marketing partners, no distributors helping them strong arm product on the shelves, and was more expensive compared to the other two's base units (but I believe NES cost more if you got the ROB pack.)

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=QBhcAAAAIBAJ&pg=2846,1271636

Seems Sega Master Systems were sitting on shelves until 1988 when things picked up, for some reason American consumers didn't want SMS systems until later on, which of course the Genesis was released before that could become anything. Even that was only selling modestly until 1991. While the Atari 7800 in 1986 old all they could produce with less money and promotion than the other two, also sold many 2600's. Which according to the LA times, was still their number 1 console through 87.

The situation back then is radically different from the history given by the game sites and the youtubers. But yes, as you say Atari was a major player and pretty much always was until the Jaguar, even in computers they were a major player for a few years. The Lynx was there final relevant and profitable product.

If Sam Tramiel didn't have that heart attack and was still in control, he likely would have had continued trying to salvage the jaguar and put out another system later instead of giving up. That's the real thing that killed the jaguar and the company as a whole imo.

Playstation was an entirely different thing at the time. I remember this era very well, as I was about 16.

What happened was that Sega and Nintendo were still around, but they didn't evolve. They pretty much targeted the same audience they had been targeting for a decade. Sega's Saturn was ofcourse a more mature and expensive device than the Genesis, but they didn't really capitalize on this. They marketed it towards a rather limited crowd.

Sony, for example, came along and put demopods at clubs, raves and also offered their system and games via more retailers, some of them that had little to do with gaming. They were more widespread and their marketing was aimed more at young adults, which was likely the the crowd both Nintendo and Sega didn't capture yet plus the biggest spenders I can imagine. So when you were 16-18, chances where you would rather buy a Playstation since it sort of defined young adults. Playstation was the first system I actually saw in living rooms, not tucked away in kid bedrooms. Back in 1994 or so, a typical class I was in would have perhaps 5-6 kids with a console, mostly boys. But since PSX these numbers changed.

Nintendo was always this looming shadow. I was an intern at a gameshop back in 1996 or so and our narrative was we wouldn't advise against buying a PSX (and Saturn still), but they would say Nintendo will probably dwarf them with its hardware once its out. Project Reality or Ultra 64 was really seen as the holy grail and Saturn and even Sony more as stop gaps. Another thing that was sometimes said was that CDs were prone to breaking, not for kids, and that cartridges would be better in the long run, we just kinda banked on Nintendo based on history still. But this narrative changed once N64 surfaced via import. Mario was absolutely a game changer, but it was sort of obvious Nintendo lost a LOT of support, cartridges were expensive, no media playback and games looked foggy in general. I wasn't impressed and crossed it off my list, I knew I made the right choice with Playstation. And the amount of people still interested in it was low, and getting only lower over time. In the end Playstation was pushed as the console of choice.

Funny thing about N64 was how it changed attitudes by the time it launched and became the "kids fisherprice console", when the original Ultra 64 ads, and arcade games marketing it (Killler Instinct for example which never released on it until 2 iirc, and couldn't run either lol) made it seem like Nintendo was changing direction aiming at a broader older crowd, like teens or college kids. Sure Goldeneye became a pretty big deal on the N64, but that didn't really erase the perception people had of the N64, which was different when people were anticipating the "ultra 64" before.

It wasn't until the Gamecube where Nintendo went back to that Ultra 64 style presentation, but they still couldn't lick that perception they were kiddie.

Worth noting that, as per the article itself, those numbers come with a caveat: they don't include CD-ROM games.

Computers and consoles were more separate then than now.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

No it wasn't, Gamepass in a primitive form was even making rounds with the original Xbox One plans. You also bringing up also which sold 5 million in 3 months on the Xbox one and calling it winning is also rather baffling, Add in the good sales of Gears , and Forza Horizon and the fact that Gamepass first started in 2017 which is when they released the One X, the reasoning here doesn't make much sense. This seems like you are basically just reconstructing fanboy arguments against Gamepass.

GamePass in it's "primitive form" could be just about anything, so unless you have internal documents from MS that explicitly reference something GamePass-esque they had planned with the 2013 release & rollout, why call back to that? I'm sure they had plans for something like GamePass going that far back, but the circumstances in which they intended to release it sure as hell weren't the ones that actually existed for them in the market once the service actually launched, now were they?

"Good" Halo/Gears/Forza sales don't mean that much when a big chunk of that was due to them going Day 1 on PC and even with Xbox & PC sales combined successive entries have pulled in fewer and fewer sales than prior ones when they simply released them as full-on Xbox exclusives with PC ports coming a good while later down the road. I don't see what the One X's release coinciding with GamePass's launch has to do with this; completely other factors led to the One X and GamePass just happened to be a perk available for the platform as it was part of the Xbox hardware ecosystem.

The fact is, without GamePass it's almost a lock that One X and One S sales would've been a lot lower (the One X and PS4 Pro didn't really sell in that much volume to begin with compared to the base models), because the role of the service acting as a cheap sub-based backlog for many XBO, 360 and OG Xbox titles as well as Day 1 inclusion of all MS 1P games (which were scant between 2017 - early 2021 anyway and varied wildly in quality) are what combined to give the brand a boost in staying power during that period. And despite what you want to believe, that isn't fanboy logic; it's a perspective that can be arrived at based on objective trends in MS's software release pattern and marketing shifts from the 2017 - 2020 period (can even say 2015 - 2020 period since that's when they first initiated Xbox/PC Day 1 support).

Halo 4 to Halo 5 didn't lose significantly over half of it's sales, Neither did Gears 4 to Gears 5, Neither did Forza 6 to Forza 7, and by that point Sega was barely marketing the Genesis well and kept dropping the ball with poor choices, in contrast to Microsoft trying to salvage the Xbox One to the point where they released two revisions, one an upgrade to resolve a commonly repeated issue consumers had with the original, and restarted their marketing campaign with them to great effect. There's no parallels here.

There are a number of similarities but you have blinders on and don't want to acknowledge them, which is very weird. Bringing up something like Forza 7 sales not dropping by half of Forza 6's ignores the fact that the Forza games don't sell that many units to begin with, so they had much less headroom to drop. At some point drops stabilize, and for the Forza games that wasn't a lot of room for them to drop in sales in order to reach a stabilization point.

Same kind of goes going from Halo 4 to Halo 5, and Gears 4 to Gears 5. Larger drops already happened with transitions between prior releases; you're also forgetting that one of the factors in Sonic 3's sales was that it was outright split into two different releases, due to timing constraints, so that would've had a perceptible impact on its sales figures.

Halo Infinite is a digital focused game that was marketed with a separate MP and SP campaign with the retail release barely marketed..

You've ironically just verified my earlier claims on lack of traditional marketing & advertising for many of MS's games over the past few years. Case in point, literally right here.

Don't forget Halo 4 dropped off NPD quite early with a fast declining MP community and still ended up with high sales, so you trying to correlate NPD ranks especially these days with sales success seems just a tad silly. Not to mention Sales numbers are generally not really pushed even with other big games since Phils (first) ascension, which he replaced with player numbers, we know Forza Horizon 5 is a hit, but we still haven't gotten numbers from any high-credible sources (just some "insiders" that estimate 10 million at best).

You're conflating player numbers with sales numbers in Forza's case. Forza games (including the Horizon series) have traditionally done around 2 million copies each entry. FH5 generated (in revenue) an equivalent of 1.45 million copies sold with its early sale a few days before going into GamePass. However, between now and then, especially considering how it tends to not chart that high in Xbox Top 10 charts outside of November, and sales on PC (Steam) about in line with FH4, at best total sales are probably around 3 million if you include the pre-release access revenue as copies sold equivalent.

Also, Phil's first "ascension"? Really? Jeez dude just call it a promotion.

 

[cireza]

Jealousy is a bad thing

You mean the people who have been complaining about the Saturn the most for years, the people you are ironically ignoring?

You don't even know what you are answering to.

I know you have some issues comprehending these things, but OPEN roaming means nothing, It's like comparing Bubsy to Crash bandicoot and saying Bubsy is more taxing because it's more open, you clearly are out of your league and have no idea what you're sasaying.

You should stop discussing technical aspects of video games because this is embarrassing. You obviously don't have a single clue about this.

Still ignoring that this applies to other consoles as well

It doesn't really. I have not seen a single console that did not gain major improvements in the complexity of its games throughout the course of its lifetime. And this includes all consoles from Nintendo, SEGA, Sony, and the Neo Geo. Saturn is no exception.

the homebrewers trying to find the secret sauce

How is this even an argument lol.

 

[chromatic9]

Wipeout first appeared on PS1 in 1995 and then was ported to Saturn in 1996. It was already seen as a Sony game due to that and was one of the first games I got with my PS1.

 

[Celine]

If Sam Tramiel didn't have that heart attack and was still in control, he likely would have had continued trying to salvage the jaguar and put out another system later instead of giving up. That's the real thing that killed the jaguar and the company as a whole imo.

The last time Atari Corp. had a positive operating income was in the fiscal year ending December 1989, after that they recorded six consecutive operating losses.
They manufactured 225K Jaguar consoles but could sell to retailers only 125K up to December 1995.
There was nothing to salvage, Atari was an irrelevant entity by that point in time.
I sometime joke by saying that Atari best customer at the time was Sega which paid $50 million for Atari's patents.

Even their relative success with the Atari 7800 was more a matter of living off the Atari brand popularity gained in the past and being cheap.

 

[ThatPolishGuy]

 

[Lysandros]

I would disagree on this point. While Saturn software often struggled in 1995, by 1996-97, programmers were better able to tackle the hardware and multi-platform games reached parity. In most instances, the PSX & Saturn versions of any given title are more or less equal. Indeed in many cases, Saturn would come out ahead, particularly when coders could take advantage of its unique architecture (usually exploiting VDP2).

As a general rule, software titles created for both platforms equally achieved the same results, while titles created specifically for one platform would be better than it’s translation.

I really ought to write a couple articles on this topic for Sega Saturn Shiro. In the 90s, it was universally accepted that when it came to third-party games, Sony had the better version while Sega either struggled or got table scraps. The truth is far more balanced, but by that point, nobody paid attention to Sega anymore.

Guess i was living in an alternative reality at the time where 3D multiplatform games generally ran at higher framerates, with better effects, higher details and smoother textures on PS1. Developers commenting about PS1's higher 3D capabilities were also mirages surely. An actual Saturn developer posted earlier in this thread, did you read it? So you are saying that Saturn could run Porsche Challenge (1997) or even Rage Racer (1996) at same fidelity and performance and could produce the likes of Ridge Racer Type 4, Ace combat 3 or Vagrant Story late into his life cycle?... What 3D Saturn game PS1 couldn't possibly match and exceed exactly? Let's just agree to disagree, Saturn had its advantages in matter of 2D, but i am not particularly fond of this trendy historical revisonism about the machine's 3D capabilities compared to PlayStation. As widely known PlayStation was architectured to be a 3D machine from the ground up contrary to its competitor and the games did the talking. For me that's the end of it.