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Sega's consoles failed mostly because they only had one blockbuster FP franchise, Sonic (2 if you include Japan)

RAIDEN1

Member
The Master System was a hit in Europe and Brazil. Again, not one hit wonder. "the Dreamcast threw in the towel soon as it got wind of the PS2 coming to town". Sega were on the verge of bankruptcy regardless of whether the PS2 was around the corner. They were selling at a loss for years. Continuous years of bad management lead to Sega throwing in the towel with the Dreamcast. So yeah, stop typing bollocks chump.
As I said before, if anyone is talking bollocks then it is you, you know as well as I do that in the KEY MARKETS that count, ie Japan and U.S the Master System didn't even make a dent because the NES dominated the scene totally...The NES was the king of the hill during that period...Dreamcast was too little too late, because of prior mis-management, hence why you rarely if ever hear anyone refer to the Dreamcast as the SEGA Dreamcast as their name was rock bottom with all that happened before...poor sales in Japan of the console didn't help matters either....it was only in the Genesis era that Sega made Nintendo sweat...
 

Iced Arcade

Member
Sega got fucked from multiple money hatting and screw jobs.

One of the biggest bullet was EA not putting it's games on the Dreamcast.
 
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ManaByte

Member
The Master System was a hit in Europe and Brazil. Again, not one hit wonder. "the Dreamcast threw in the towel soon as it got wind of the PS2 coming to town". Sega were on the verge of bankruptcy regardless of whether the PS2 was around the corner. They were selling at a loss for years. Continuous years of bad management lead to Sega throwing in the towel with the Dreamcast. So yeah, stop typing bollocks chump.

There's actually a video game journalist who once worked for a geometry-named site who was a kid/teenager during the death of the Dreamcast and forever (falsely) blames Sony for that. So his coverage was always fiercely anti-Sony because he blames them for the death of the Dreamcast, when Sega's fall was entirely their own doing and began long before Sony announced the PS2.
 

BlackTron

Member
Never said it was about quantity of games released, it's about the number of games sold.

The title of your thread states that they failed mostly because they had only one blockbuster IP, Sonic. It suggests that Sega had an issue with lack of games software.

Now it appears that what you really meant is that Sega failed not because of lack of quality games, but a lack of games that sold blockbuster sales numbers?

Again I point to Wii U. A game that was a blockbuster on Switch was not a blockbuster on Wii U. I suppose you could call all those Wii U games "blockbuster-worthy".

So using that distinction, I do not think that SEGA's issue was a lack of blockbuster-worthy games, they had them, just as Wii U did; the issues were elsewhere.
 
the likes of the PC Engine and Atari could only dream of performing as well as the Genesis did,
Well Atari didn't have a console at the time but yeah. PC Engine was trying really hard to get that cool teen demographic alienated by the NES, and the younger adults and they took too long.
Sega had multiple blockbusters.

Compared to the (major) competition they were quite behind significantly.

First Party.

Dreamcast had some of the best games during that generation.
Thread is about sales of games.

Sega failed because they spent a lot of money on the 32x and half assed the Saturn launch.
Genesis was in significant decline before than, 32X was made to extend it's life.
 
The title of your thread states that they failed mostly because they had only one blockbuster IP, Sonic.
Considering blockbuster has generally not been connected to "quantity" and had usually been connected to sales most of the industries existence this misinterpretation doesn't make sense. Not to mention just slightly reading the OP would make it make even LESS sense. Amount of games released is a very strange conclusion to jump to. Especially with the additional mention of "2 if you include japan" which makes that conclusion make even less less the sense less sense of all the less sense.

Again I point to Wii U. A game that was a blockbuster on Switch was not a blockbuster on Wii U. I suppose you could call all those Wii U games "blockbuster-worthy".
This comparison doesn't make any sense, the Wii U had multiple blockbuster selling titles, the issue is they didn't have pull in enough people or have third parties release their own blockbusters enough to supplement the gaps. Sega generally never had several multi-million selling hit games on their consoles, most of their biggest hits are within a specific time frame on one console. The other hits on other consoles were mostly just barely scrapping by the 1 million mark and that's a handful of FP games you can literally count on one hand for each non-genesis system individually.
 
As I said before, if anyone is talking bollocks then it is you, you know as well as I do that in the KEY MARKETS that count, ie Japan and U.S the Master System didn't even make a dent because the NES dominated the scene totally...

Your ignorance is insulting to the core. Back in the mid 80's and early 90's when games development and hardware developed wasn't like it was now you could make a lot of money from just one of the main markets hence why Amiga, Master System and ZX Spectrum did so well and we big deal in parts of Europe.
 

RAIDEN1

Member
Your ignorance is insulting to the core. Back in the mid 80's and early 90's when games development and hardware developed wasn't like it was now you could make a lot of money from just one of the main markets hence why Amiga, Master System and ZX Spectrum did so well and we big deal in parts of Europe.
I don't dispute the success of the Master System and Commodore machines in Europe, where did I say that? But if you are looking at it from a ranking order and you are one of the big console makers, then making a dent in the US and Japan is more important to you than Europe, so top slot is Japan/US - followed by Europe and rest of the world, (thats the way I interpreted it anyway...) hence why the likes of NEC weren't ever bothered about releasing the PC Engine in Europe as the U.S and Japan was more important to them...
 
Your ignorance is insulting to the core. Back in the mid 80's and early 90's when games development and hardware developed wasn't like it was now you could make a lot of money from just one of the main markets hence why Amiga, Master System and ZX Spectrum did so well and we big deal in parts of Europe.
Issue is that only applies to computers not consoles, at least before Sony. SMS sales were pretty low by the countries it did well in per country basis in Europe despite no real competition, and the Genesis improved that but not by that much. Consoles really never took off until the PS1, and then later on a few years in it would surpass the computer market as well. But even then there were still several countries in Europe that were still low selling relative to other regions. But Sega was successful there. However, to call the SMS a big deal seems like a stretch. The among of share US and Japan had were far ahead of everyone else for console sales.


I don't dispute the success of the Master System and Commodore machines in Europe, where did I say that? But if you are looking at it from a ranking order and you are one of the big console makers, then making a dent in the US and Japan is more important to you than Europe, so top slot is Japan/US - followed by Europe and rest of the world, (thats the way I interpreted it anyway...) hence why the likes of NEC weren't ever bothered about releasing the PC Engine in Europe as the U.S and Japan was more important to them...

Some programmers from (iirc the name) the US TG16game 'Quiet Debuggers' were mentioning how after NEC (and Hudson) cut off there heads after the failure of supergrafx (even in Japan) and lukewarm launch of the Turboduo, and the lack of US popularity of the CD rom drive, that NEC had attempted to desperately grab enough market share in the US from Sega and Nintendo because in their eyes just getting 'enough crumbs to form half a cookie' would have been enough to save the Turbo in the US and give it the opportunity to expand and grow mindshare. Even in Japan the PC Engine was quickly losing relevance and was in trouble.

Probably didn't help they released 3 consoles in 5 years and a CD-add-on with it's own library.

Of course none of their strategies achieved this, but it was clear that the US market was extremely important to success.and Raiden1 says.
 

MastaKiiLA

Member
Sega had arcade hits. They owned arcades for a while. You couldn't walk into an arcade without seeing a Daytona machine, with a VF2 machine nearby. Larger arcades would have rows of Daytonas, Sega Rally's, some old Virtua Racers, banks of VFs, and later Fighting Vipers. Some Virtua Tennis machines later on, and of course, Virtua Cop.

Sega had franchises, but they failed for other reasons. Underpowered machines (especially galling since porting their arcade hits should have been a priority), prematurely shortened lifespans, and an inability to secure the same level of 3rd party support that Sony got. Sega sabotaged themselves. Awful awful management. Their own worst enemy.
 
Issue is that only applies to computers not consoles, at least before Sony. SMS sales were pretty low by the countries it did well in per country basis in Europe despite no real competition, and the Genesis improved that but not by that much. Consoles really never took off until the PS1, and then later on a few years in it would surpass the computer market as well. But even then there were still several countries in Europe that were still low selling relative to other regions. But Sega was successful there. However, to call the SMS a big deal seems like a stretch. The among of share US and Japan had were far ahead of everyone else for console sales.
Consoles were a huge deal before SONY. The Master System was big in Europe and the NES and PC-Engine were big sellers never mind the Mega Drive, Snes and Gameboy.
To make out the Master System didn't have any composition in Europe is silly and naive. Looking over how it had the NES, Atrai 2600 to battle with it was also up against the ZX Spectrum, Atari ST and Amiga


What next? FF7 the 1st RPG
 

ManaByte

Member
Consoles really never took off until the PS1
jack black wtf GIF
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Just to play Devil's advocate, the PS1 was the first console to clear 100 million sales.
You can't arbitrarily decide the threshold that suit your argument. Might as well have someone come and say they didn't take off until the PS2's 155+ million instead and no other save for certain portables can be considered a success. Just as OP simply decided Sony's threshold for "Greatest Hits" games on PS1 at 150k was too low to agree, in turn proclaiming that SEGA's games that achieved similar sales, but not the top sales of the top runaway hits that surpassed that by several millions, were inherently unappealing as if that's the one factor that decides commercial success 🤦‍♂️
 
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Klart

Member
We can look at some of Sega's most known created console games outside of Sonic and VF:

GEN

  • Alexx Kidd in enchanted castle
  • Altered beast
  • Columns
  • Comix Zone
  • Flicky
  • Fatal Labyrinth
  • Golden Axe
  • Kid Chameleon
  • Last Battle
  • Phantasy Star 2-4
  • Revenge of Shinobi
  • Ristar
  • etc.
Not mentioning Streets of Rage 1-3, arguably the best beat'm up ever, certainly on console? Yeesh.
 
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Celine

Member
Just to play Devil's advocate, the PS1 was the first console to clear 100 million sales.
Videogames through time became bigger and bigger.
If one look closely, though, it would see that the big expansion PS1 brought to the table compared to the NES was in the "other region" that is the european Countries and other smaller markets.

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

PS1
Japan (include other asian markets): 21.6M
America: 40.8M
Other: 40.1M
 
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German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
You can't arbitrarily decide the threshold that suit your argument. Might as well have someone come and say they didn't take off until the PS2's 155+ million instead and no other save for certain portables can be considered a success. Just as OP simply decided Sony's threshold for "Greatest Hits" games on PS1 at 150k was too low to agree, in turn proclaiming that SEGA's games that achieved similar sales, but not the top sales of the top runaway hits that surpassed that by several millions, were inherently unappealing as if that's the one factor that decides commercial success 🤦‍♂️
FeistyIndolentHedgehog-size_restricted.gif
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
The thing with Sega is they had mega arcade hits that everybody wanted to play at home. They didn’t need ongoing franchises back then, they had them as well but the arcade hits were enough to get people to buy them
 
Good job taking the post out of context, so people won't know I was talking about Europe.

Consoles were a huge deal before SONY. The Master System was big in Europe
No it wasn't, and Europe was what I was referring to in the post you quoted. It wasn't a big deal, it sold small to modest numbers on a country by county basis, on forums like this and Gamestop years and years ago there was constant talk of the growth of Europe and how UK (and some though Germany) would be the "3rd" biggest console market post Sony. The SMS sold decent numbers in certain countries which basically no competition, the Genesis improved it by not by a wide margin. When Sony came out with PS1 several countries were suddenly selling over 1 million pieces of hardware or getting close to it, Sega was nowhere near that ballpark average.

You can't arbitrarily decide the threshold that suit your argument. Might as well have someone come and say they didn't take off until the PS2's 155+ million instead 🤦‍♂️
Except the post quoted by me, intentionally put out of context, was specifying Europe. And no consoles did not take off in Europe, until the PS1, computers were king along later with PC, and the PS one not only actually brought good sales numbers to various European countries it surpassed the computer market in many of them, overtaking it overall cumulatively.

Just as OP simply decided Sony's threshold for "Greatest Hits" games on PS1 at 150k was too low
Are you hallucinating?

The thing with Sega is they had mega arcade hits that everybody wanted to play at home.

No they didn't that's exactly what the problem was, few people actually wanted to play them at home. If they did then outrun ports or Daytona would have sold millions of copies.
 
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No it wasn't, and Europe was what I was referring to in the post you quoted. It wasn't a big deal, it sold small to modest numbers on a country by county basis, on forums like this and Gamestop years and years ago there was constant talk of the growth of Europe and how UK (and some though Germany) would be the "3rd" biggest console market post Sony. The SMS sold decent numbers in certain countries which basically no competition, the Genesis improved it by not by a wide margin. When Sony came out with PS1 several countries were suddenly selling over 1 million pieces of hardware or getting close to it, Sega was nowhere near that ballpark average.
You are so ignorant. Overlooking the Master System was going up against the NES, it also had to overcome and beat the massive userbase the likes of the Zx Spectrum had built up.
The ZX Spectrum in the UK alone sold over 3 million units of hardware
 
You are so ignorant. Overlooking the Master System was going up against the NES, it also had to overcome and beat the massive userbase the likes of the Zx Spectrum had built up.

It didn't go against anything, the SMS was not a BIG HIT in Europe it sold niche to modestly well on a country by country basis, Sega never over took the computer industry and it was basically by itself on consoles. The only one ignorant here and revising history is you.

Look at conversation on board back in 2004 or 2005 about the size of UK's gaming market which was the highest or close to the highest in Europe and look at their numbers. Sega couldn't even do a 4th of whatever Sony brought in years and years earlier with SMS or the Genesis, and in those days (2000's) that UK market still wasn't that high for consoles, but if you ignore Japan and the US is was far and away from most other regions at the time.

The reality is that consoles in Europe did not really take off on a country by country basis on average until the PS1.

That's not knocking on Sega doing well and sharing some popularity in some countries there, but let's not be a fool and say it was BIG in Europe and act like it was putting a dent in the computer market because it wasn't. It also basically had no competition except a more expensive on average NES with more expensive games, which was very late in several countries, a 2600 jr. which was already year and years old and just a revision of the 2600, and the XEGS, which did ok but the Atari computers did pretty well in Europe so there wasn't as much of a reason to buy a XEGS as much as a SMS on the same level when you already had a computer, especially during the late period when the XE and other 8-bits where cheap.

And guess what, Sega took advantage of that and carved up its market but let's not overstate the reality of their platform in Europe.
 
It didn't go against anything, the SMS was not a BIG HIT in Europe it sold niche to modestly well on a country by country basis, Sega never over took the computer industry and it was basically by itself on consoles. The only one ignorant here and revising history is you.

Look at conversation on board back in 2004 or 2005 about the size of UK's gaming market which was the highest or close to the highest in Europe and look at their numbers. Sega couldn't even do a 4th of whatever Sony brought in years and years earlier with SMS or the Genesis, and in those days (2000's) that UK market still wasn't that high for consoles, but if you ignore Japan and the US is was far and away from most other regions at the time.

The reality is that consoles in Europe did not really take off on a country by country basis on average until the PS1.

That's not knocking on Sega doing well and sharing some popularity in some countries there, but let's not be a fool and say it was BIG in Europe and act like it was putting a dent in the computer market because it wasn't. It also basically had no competition except a more expensive on average NES with more expensive games, which was very late in several countries, a 2600 jr. which was already year and years old and just a revision of the 2600, and the XEGS, which did ok but the Atari computers did pretty well in Europe so there wasn't as much of a reason to buy a XEGS as much as a SMS on the same level when you already had a computer, especially during the late period when the XE and other 8-bits where cheap.

And guess what, Sega took advantage of that and carved up its market but let's not overstate the reality of their platform in Europe.



It sold millions in Europe. And SEGA was able to not only put a dent in Microcomputer Market but overtake the ZX and also completely outsell the NES
To say the Master System didn't have any competition is ignorance at its peak.

The UK gaming market wasn't that big? Explain to me who both the ZX Spectrum and the Mega Drive each were able to sell 3 million of Hardware in the UK alone, much the same for the Amiga
 
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here we see a clueless kid who only played emulators decades later crapping all over the keyboard.

games like Golden Axe, Shining Force or Shinobi were top AAA back then and sequels were anxiously expected...

Sega failed because the American branch wasted tons of money on all kinds of peripherals and was pretty much at war with the japan HQs, so they nuked it.
 
I miss the Dreamcast

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51klxmFosnL.jpg

53290.jpg
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DC was crap. Same as N64: both consoles had a dismal library when compared to their 16-bit predecessors. But I understand that nostalgic tint by kids with their first console.

why? Because Sony got all third parties for themselves while Nintendo and Sega were fighting...
 
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ManaByte

Member
DC was crap. Same as N64: both consoles had a dismal library when compared to their 16-bit predecessors. But I understand that nostalgic tint by kids with their first console.

why? Because Sony got all third parties for themselves while Nintendo and Sega were fighting...

DC was far from my first console but it's one of my favorite of all time.
 

supernova8

Banned
I think they just didn't have deep enough pockets. PS1 and PS2 mopped the floor in their respective generations and the only companies able to keep up were ones with deep pockets - Nintendo and Microsoft.
 
It sold millions in Europe.
It sold niche to modest numbers by a country by country basis, wouldn't be surprised if UK was the highest.

And SEGA was able to not only put a dent in Microcomputer Market but overtake the ZX
The ZX primarily sold in one, country are you serious? (also apparently ZX sold 5 million not 3, nearly all in UK)

Unless you are saying SMS sold 5 million and over in the UK your comparison doesn't work, you can't compare an estimated Sega figure across Europe to a computer that mainly sold in just one country to make it seem like the SMS was more successful than it actually was. It didn't dent any computer market that dent was by the Playstation, and then eventually it took over in several countries.

The UK gaming market wasn't that big?

Don't delude yourself, you know we are talking about consoles not the "gaming market" in vague terms. Yes, it was not that big at the time before Sony.

Mega Drive each were able to sell 3 million of Hardware in the UK alone, much the same for the Amiga

You're numbers are off, but even if we accept it that debatable figure that's an improve over the Master System but it's still not taking off across Europe, that's basically most of the Mega Drives sales in the region in one country, where computers were still king.

I don't understand this desperation to upplay the SMS or Megadrive sales figures, the fact is consoles did not take off in EUROPE until SONY with the PS1. I don't understand why this is a major controversy, the SMS had niche to modest sales by a country by country basis, the the Mega Drive improved in come countries, and did worse than others.

It almost seems like this is some sort of undercover fanboyism trying to make it seem like I'm not saying that the SMS and Genesis didn't sell well, never said that. But you are clearly blowing the success of either Sega console way out of proportion across Europe.

Even early on Sony was the fastest selling console in the history of the UK, and that was with 50k units in 5 weeks.


Sony (Japan), consumer electronics concern, says that its PlayStation 32-bit video games system has sold 50k units in five weeks, making it the quickest-selling system in the UK. Meanwhile, Sega (Japan), games specialist, says that its Saturn 32-bit games system has sold 50k units wholesale since it was launched in the UK in summer 1995. Sony aims to sell 2 mil PlayStation units in Japan by end-1995. Sony also says it has sold 300k PlayStations in N America and 200k in Europe since early-autumn 1995. Sega claims to have sold 1.5 mil Saturns in Japan and 100k units in Europe. Article discusses PlayStation and Saturn in further detail.

So again there's no attacking Sega's sales, just that they weren't that big across Europe, Mega Drive improved on the SMS in some countries like UK and maybe a couple other countries, and they made their money and had their mindshare. But to deny that Across Europe consoles didn't take off and sell significant numbers until Sony is quite silly.
 

Jaxcellent

Member
So many blockbuster ip's on the Dreamcast and Genesis and Saturn too imo... I love Sega, and it was an absolute blast growing up with Sega games. I pity the youghsters these days they grow up with the highest graphical standards...they don't even realise how innovative Sega actually was...
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
I don't think it's that Sega's games had a narrow reach, it's that they didn't nurture their franchises over time, they preferred new IP.

Sega had tons of strong selling Genesis titles, but literally none of them carried over to the Saturn in any real way. Not Sonic, not Altered Beast, not Phantasm Star, not Toejam and Earl, not Ristar, not Vectorman...

It wasn't that these games weren't popular, Sega just chose to focus on new IP. And then they scored some hits on Saturn as well, but here too many of them weren't continued on.

It's the dead opposite approach of, say Nintendo, who kind of put the same 10 games out every generation. Clearly it wasn't as commercially successful but as a fan I much prefer Sega's approach.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
Sega made too many mistakes. Shinobi is dead, and they needed indie devs to remind them that the Streets of Rage and ToeJam and Earl franchises are till profitable.
Sega didn't even have anything to do with Toejam and Earl 4, the rights to that one reverted to the creators as per their original contract.

Their more generous licensing to third party publishers has had some pretty cool results. Streets if Rage, Wonder Boy Dragon's Trap, Panzer Dragood, Space Channel 5 VR... I think they sold Rez back to Mizuguchi too.
 
And none of those were major selling blockbusters, good job not reading. Even niche games like most Silent Hill games can be anticipated that has nothing to do with performance.
Oh, it's about the blockbusters, like animal crossing or fifa.

yeah, I don't give a crap to those. Still, I'd say before Sonic and SEGA marketing selling it, those were the games that made gamers crave for a Genesis...
 
Sega didn't even have anything to do with Toejam and Earl 4, the rights to that one reverted to the creators as per their original contract.

Their more generous licensing to third party publishers has had some pretty cool results. Streets if Rage, Wonder Boy Dragon's Trap, Panzer Dragood, Space Channel 5 VR... I think they sold Rez back to Mizuguchi too.

all those games were published with the Sega logo and little information besides. You might not believe it, but back in the 80s then even Miyamoto was pretty much all unknown figure - I only knew about him around the time they were hyping up N64.

for all purposes, Sega was the creator of all those games, even though now we know they were just publishing...
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
all those games were published with the Sega logo and little information besides. You might not believe it, but back in the 80s then even Miyamoto was pretty much all unknown figure - I only knew about him around the time they were hyping up N64.

for all purposes, Sega was the creator of all those games, even though now we know they were just publishing...
This is not true. There is no Sega logo on any of them.

All of these projects were the result of other companies approaching Sega and buying a license. They were not Sega's idea and Sega didn't have input.
 
I don't think it's that Sega's games had a narrow reach, it's that they didn't nurture their franchises over time, they preferred new IP.

Sega had tons of strong selling Genesis titles, but literally none of them carried over to the Saturn in any real way. Not Sonic, not Altered Beast, not Phantasm Star, not Toejam and Earl, not Ristar, not Vectorman...

It wasn't that these games weren't popular, Sega just chose to focus on new IP. And then they scored some hits on Saturn as well, but here too many of them weren't continued on.

It's the dead opposite approach of, say Nintendo, who kind of put the same 10 games out every generation. Clearly it wasn't as commercially successful but as a fan I much prefer Sega's approach.
You do have a point, but I think that's because after sequels like Vector Man 2, Phantasy Star IV, Ristar, didn't do as well as they hoped that they decided to try and find the next big thing.

But even your post here kind of illustrated the problem that the lack of major blockbuster IP was an issue, and if Sega drops Ips that don't do well for awhile or doesn't push them as hard and decided to try something else then it hurts their ability to resolve that issue.
 
There is no Sega logo on any of them
E0fjclRWYAUwmLF


Jup? Who the hell is Jup? I only notice this today, to counter this.

Sega logo was widespread in all Genesis games, even ones you clearly knew were not by them, like Konami, Capcom or EA. The rest was in small print like this. It was common practice...

go back your emulators and pseudo 8-bit indies, stop pretending you lived in that era of gaming...
 
E0fjclRWYAUwmLF


Jup? Who the hell is Jup? I only notice this today, to counter this.

It's not JUP it's JVP although the old school graphics I can see why you thought it was a U.

That stood for Johnson V. Production which was the dev team that made Toe Jam until it became a success, then they changed their name to Toe Jam Earl productions.

In fact I don't think Sega ever owned the IP, just it was contracted to Sega for publishing and they couldn't use it anywhere else until the contract expired, and then the third game was on Xbox.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
E0fjclRWYAUwmLF


Jup? Who the hell is Jup? I only notice this today, to counter this.

Sega logo was widespread in all Genesis games, even ones you clearly knew were not by them, like Konami, Capcom or EA. The rest was in small print like this. It was common practice...

go back your emulators and pseudo 8-bit indies, stop pretending you lived in that era of gaming...
I'm talking about the new titles in those series, not the classic ones. I am saying Sega has been letting other publishers and devs go ham on their IP but they've been pretty hands off about it.
 
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Stooky

Member
Sega always had games. They lost with bad hardware decisions.
32x- lost money ( I had one at launch not enough games) it was poorly designed, over heating problems etc.
Sega Saturn- releases a year after 32x . Its an amazing 2d machine, but the industry was trending to 3d so they didn't get alot of the ports. The same reason why Jaguar failed.
Dreamcast - It was a great system with great games but never had a chance because of hacking/pirating . Blame the widows os.
 
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Nikodemos

Member
Sega always had games. They lost with bad hardware decisions.
32x- lost money ( I had one at launch not enough games) it was poorly designed, over heating problems etc.
Sega Saturn- releases a year after 32x . Its an amazing 2d machine, but the industry was trending to 3d so they didn't get alot of the ports. The same reason why Jaguar failed.
Dreamcast - It was a great system with great games but never had a chance because of hacking/pirating . Blame the widows os.
DC had the pirating problem due to their decision to allow a multimedia player interface into the console, not the Windows compatibility (which was never really expanded upon). The CD-cracker 'played' some code which exploited vulnerabilities in the CD media player.
32X was a terrible mistake that should've never seen the light of day, but SoJ really wanted a 2nd-tier console, and SoA preferred to dump it onto the Genesis as yet another add-on, instead of fighting for shitcanning it outright.
Saturn was born out of Sega's shortsightedness regarding technology advances, in general, and SoJ's unwillingness to get a true 3D solution for home consoles, in particular (due to the negative effect it would have represented for their arcade branch).

But the design mistakes had started much earlier, even so far as the Master System days.
 
Sega didn't even have anything to do with Toejam and Earl 4, the rights to that one reverted to the creators as per their original contract.

Their more generous licensing to third party publishers has had some pretty cool results. Streets if Rage, Wonder Boy Dragon's Trap, Panzer Dragood, Space Channel 5 VR... I think they sold Rez back to Mizuguchi too.
Yeah they didn't do anything with TJ&E for so long, someone else had to demonstrate its viability.

That's bad business practice.
 
It sold niche to modest numbers by a country by country basis, wouldn't be surprised if UK was the highest.


The ZX primarily sold in one, country are you serious? (also apparently ZX sold 5 million not 3, nearly all in UK)

Unless you are saying SMS sold 5 million and over in the UK your comparison doesn't work, you can't compare an estimated Sega figure across Europe to a computer that mainly sold in just one country to make it seem like the SMS was more successful than it actually was. It didn't dent any computer market that dent was by the Playstation, and then eventually it took over in several countries.

There's little point in having a debate with you. The points you miss or overlook that before the PS gaming systems were able to sell millions of Hardware in the UK alone, back then it didn't matter if you only did well in one of the major territories, you could still make millions and sell loads of games in the UK alone. The Master System had a number of rival gaming platforms to contend with and it had a battle to get distribution in the main High Stree retail who typically only stocked Microcomputers and left the consoles for the likes of Toys R Us or the catalogues. The Master System was a huge seller in the UK, sold so well that even in 1995 SEGA was still publishing software for it, crazy when the 32X and Saturn had already been brought out and that was part of SEGA's downfall really.

Simply trying to support too many platforms at one time, never mind its Arcade business
 
There's little point in having a debate with you.

Everything you've said has been somewhat inaccurate from ZX sales numbers, to not even addressing Sega's country by country performance because it destroys your narrative and makes it obvious your argument is poor. You need people to believe that modest sales of the SMS in a couple countries means it was big across the entire region of Europe which doesn't make sense..

Just like the Genesis, while improving on the SMS, still wasn't big across Europe, but you attempted to use a debatable number (3 million) in just one country, the UK, as some sort of evidence it was big across the entirety of Europe which is nonsense and you know it.

The points you miss or overlook that before the PS gaming systems were able to sell millions of Hardware in the UK alone, back then it didn't matter if you only did well in one of the major territories,
This has nothing to do with anything, your argument was SMS was big in Europe, and later added the Genesis which was still false. You are instead making a dishonest argument pretending that I'm attacking the Sega consoles for "failing" otherwise you wouldn't even be mentioning this random off-topic tangent about only needing to do well in one territory, the conversation was never about that. You keep changing the goal posts.

the Master System had a number of rival gaming platforms to contend with

And none were consoles, the computer and console markets aren't the same and you know this. It didn't have to contend with anything, it was the best way to play powerful games at home without a computer by itself with no real competition in the same industry at affordable prices for games and hardware, and proceeded to sell it's modest or niche numbers across several European countries, without that much effort from Sega, especially since Sega wasn't putting that much stake in pushing the SMS outside of japan competitively initially. It was the Genesis that tried to be more competitive in the market, but it also didn't have much competition in Europe outside a couple countries where the SNES grabbed significant market share like in the UK for example, but otherwise the console market there overall was small.

For years the European console market was considered small and it only started taking off with Sony with the PS1, and even then it took until the PS2 (and Xbox in some territories) to really put it on the map for relevancy across Europe. This is just a fact. Even gaming forums were talking about the size of European console market growing over the years. Articles about how Sony took over Europe are was to find.

The problem is you're being misguided in your approach by arguing from a position that my argument was that Sega failed and didn't do well or was not successful to varying degrees, but that was never the argument that was made so you're going around in circles trying to defend Sega against an enemy that isn't there. We are only talking about sales.

The Master System was a huge seller in the UK, sold so well that even in 1995 SEGA was still publishing software for it

This will never be true not matter how much you want to use the word Huge, it was not huge in the UK, it was not Huge in Europe (your original argument you are now slowly moving away from) The Master System was a modest success in some countries and that's the extent of its success. Europe had no relevant console market in any country with a notable number of hardware sales until the PS1, that's just how it was back then. Maybe the SMS was known in your circle but you can't just project that anecdote across a whole continent.

Also Neo-Geo helped SNK go bankrupt, and they were still publishing games for years, that doesn't mean the MG was huge, it just means that there was still money on the table and in Sega's case, decided to why not. Look how long the Genesis and SMS had to sell in south America before the sales numbers were big enough to actually have some impact on Sega's overall consoles sales, these were just not big markets man, sorry.


But none of this has to do with the thread anyway, it's about major selling games, and Sega didn't have many of those. People will complain about the lists I posted because I'm missing games, but even with the missing games there are generally more hits across multiple systems than what Sega put out on there's.

if I changed it to MAJOR hits, there would only be Sonic because it's the only Sega game, when they were making hardware, across ALL their hardware, that sold over 2.5 million units (maybe even 2 but world wide VF2 may have made it) where other competing systems had more than one game that did that over the years, at least the relevant ones.

It is not wise to dismiss the fact that Sega didn't have major sellers to attract games to their consoles, and without Midway on the Genesis this would have applied to third-parties as well. This is a major issue that people need to talk about, games like Virtual-on and House of the Dead were cool on Saturn and Dreamcast but those weren't attracting a large number of people to Sega's ecosystem and incentivizing them to buy more games increasing software sales.

It's not that the games are bad, some of the best games were not that huge, look at Silent Hill 2 and for some people Silent Hill 3. The fanbases may make those games seem bigger than they were but they were good to niche selling respectively. But like Silent Hill many Sega games had a capped audience.
 
Everything you've said has been somewhat inaccurate from ZX sales numbers, to not even addressing Sega's country by country performance because it destroys your narrative and makes it obvious your argument is poor. You need people to believe that modest sales of the SMS in a couple countries means it was big across the entire region of Europe which doesn't make sense..
Like I said there's little point, more so coming from something who made out it wasn't until the PS that millions of units were sold in the UK until they did a google and found out how well systems like the ZX Spectrum actually sold; whilst trying to make out the Master System have no rival in the UK.
 

Ozzie666

Member
Sega has been out of the home console hardware business longer than they were in it. That always strikes me as incredible. Like a lot of people, their early story was amazing, they took america on their second attempt. Then just bad decision after worse decisions. i don't think a Sonic came could have saved the Saturn or the 32X.

I think Sega and the success of the Genesis was extremely lucky, looking back. Sega really had no clue what they were doing, especially in comparison to Nintendo and then Sony.

Sega's success in Europe is pretty special too, considering it was such a micro computer haven at that time. The Master System continued for years, the Mega drive was powerful there. Maybe because of the strong ST/Amiga 68000 connections.

Sega was just lucky, but they were just as hopeless as Atari. Atari had the 2600, then nothing.
 
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