Sega Saga. The whole story!!! (Dreamcast in general)

Member Name: trussellp

Product:	Dreamcast in general
Date:	24/03/02 (690 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Failures, cheap and chearful

Disadvantages: no more games for dreamcast!!

I had a vision of the future the other night. A sordid, twisted, nightmarish place, it was, where children and adults ritualistically and involuntarily slump down in front of TV screens, switch on their Microsoft X-Box Version 14.3's and, under the global orders of the all-powerful Overlord, Bill Gates, are forced to play Solitaire until their eyes bleed. In this horrific and terrifying scene one child, a single, solitary boy, turned to his father and asked “Doesn’t anyone else make games consoles?”

Alright, so it’s perhaps a somewhat pessimistic view of what’s to come but, if the recent decision by Sega is anything to go by, it’s an all too likely one. Sega, as you are no doubt well aware, are pulling out of the games console-manufacturing business as of March. And while many will say “good riddance” (cretins) and others “they brought it on themselves” (less arguable, right enough), few can deny that this is indeed a sad day for gamers everywhere. It’s a simple formula: less companies = less competition = less choice + higher prices.

But, as anyone who has followed their story will attest to, Sega have always been up against it. They’ve always been the underdogs and, if the sad truth be told, it’s simply a wonder they’ve lasted as long as they have. So, exactly how long have they lasted? Well, let me tell you…

It was back in 1951 that an American by the name of David Rosen founded a company he called Rosen Enterprises. His company exported art from Japan and, as time passed, began importing early and very crude coin-operated games machines. After buying up a jukebox manufacturing company, Rosen decided to change the company name to Sega – a contraction of Service Games.

Come the 1970s, Sega were producing their own coin-op games and, with the arrival of arcade and home consoles, at the time being largely Atari 2600s and the Col
ecoVision, the company decided to start producing its own arcade games. To the aforementioned consoles, Sega would bring soon-to-be classics such as Zaxxon and Frogger. These comparatively humble beginnings would set Sega on the path to becoming the company we know it as today.

In the early 80s, an American division was formed, named Sega Enterprises (no doubt a nod to the company’s founding appellation back in the 50’s). The aim of this division was to create its own games console and the fruit of their labour was the SG 100. Marketed exclusively in Japan, the SG 100 found itself up against Nintendo, who had already made inroads into the Japanese games market with their newly-released NES. Young upstarts Sega never stood a chance against such competition. This would be a prophetic foreshadowing of Sega’s future.

Sega Enterprises Ltd. (as the entire company was now known) continued their arcade developments and launched, amongst others, After Burner and Outrun to the arcades. They also prepared to release their second console to the world; this one better equipped to handle the competition. The new machine was the Mark III, later re-named the Master System.

At this time Nintendo, enjoying next to no competition for its NES console, signed up practically all third party games developers on contracts stating they could only develop games for the NES, and no other system. This put a serious dent in Sega’s hopes of mounting a direct challenge on Nintendo’s monopoly over the Japanese games industry and they challenged the gaming giant in court, claiming the contracts were illegal. Although Sega won the court case, and Nintendo were forced to amend their contracts, it was too late for the Master System. The NES had built up a loyal band of customers – especially in Japan – and nothing was going to sway them.

Except, perhaps, an entirely new console – a console far, far superior to Nint
endo’s conquering machine. Sega delivered and the 16-bit Genesis (Mega Drive in the UK) was born, backed by a massive, million-pound marketing drive. And gamers loved it.

With Nintendo’s contractual stranglehold on the industry broken, many third party developers flocked to Sega’s new machine, notably Electronic Arts, who would give the Mega Drive many excellent titles such as Madden NFL, NHL Hockey and Road Rash. Come 1991, Sega stepped up the campaign to match Nintendo step-for-step by unleashing Sonic the Hedgehog upon the world. Despite Nintendo coming up with a 16-bit machine of their own, the SNES, Sega continued to enjoy healthy sales worldwide – although perhaps less so in Japan, where gamers were still fiercely loyal to Nintendo.

Remember the Master System and how it was doomed to failure up against the NES? History always repeats itself and, in 1992, Sega released their Game Gear handheld console in direct competition with Nintendo’s Game Boy. The Game Gear was essentially a portable Master System but despite boasting impressive full-colour graphics it was torn apart by Game Boy. But, with the Mega Drive doing so well, was Sega really that worried about its little handheld machine? Possibly not, but consider this: whether they knew it or not, this was Sega’s “golden age” and they would never again enjoy the kind of success they saw with Mega Drive.

In 1993 everything started to change. The SNES was becoming increasingly popular and Mega Drive sales were dwindling. Instead of concentrating on producing better quality titles for its machine, Sega made the first in what was to become an increasingly embarrassing series of blunders. Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the awe-inspiring foolishness of (pithy drum roll, please) The Mega Drive Add-on Farce.

Despite being considered by many as technically sound and (editorial snigger) a “good idea”, the first of the Mega
Drive add-ons, the Mega CD, was woefully under-powered and merely added a few scaling and rotation techniques to the original Mega Drive hardware. Also, being CD-based, it gave developers a chance to cram in loads of Full Motion Video and try to pass it off as gameplay (I give you Dragon’s Lair, Microcosm and the utterly, utterly laughable Night Trap as evidence).

The muted, and rather bemused, response that greeted the Mega CD did nothing to deter Sega and the company blundered onward, releasing the CDX; a Mega Drive and Mega CD in one machine that also doubled as a CD player. At £400, however, it was possibly a tad pricey.

By 1994, Sega were continuing to go console-crazy. They released the Nomad, which was a portable Genesis with a backlit, LCD screen (it was, thankfully, never put on general release in the UK). They even licensed the Mega Drive technology to JVC, who produced the Wonderboy – a Mega Drive/Mega CD combination that also played karaoke CDs. Pointless? Perhaps. Extortionately expensive? Oh God, yes.

And the madness didn’t stop there. In their desperate attempt to halt the Mega Drive’s slide, Sega released a second add-on – the ill-fated 32x. This hilarious-looking piece of kit plugged into the cartridge port of the Mega Drive and, frankly, made the whole thing look uncomfortably like a small toilet. Yes, it was the first 32-bit games console (although Commodore’s Amiga32 could also argue that point and Atari’s Jaguar had bypassed 32-bits completely, going straight onto 64-bits). Yes, it boasted a few top games, such as Star Blade, Virtua Racing Delux and Doom, but it was expensive and, with excited rumours abound regarding Sony’s inaugural leap into the games industry, far too little far too late.

So, while Sega’s arcade R&D boys continued to wow the world with the likes of Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter, Sega’s home consoles again found themselves wal
king down Loser Street. What could possibly raise Sega back to the Big Time once more? Why, another console, naturally. This time, a true 32-bit machine with enough power to kick Sony into touch and see off anything Nintendo were huffing and puffing about. The Saturn was here, and it wasn’t taking any crap.

Or was it? You see, in a style that was quickly becoming standard for Sega, i.e. making a mess of things, they made a rather unfortunate error of judgement. Failing to interpret market trends for all things 3D, in other words realising that people wanted lots more 3D things, Sega developed the Saturn as primarily a 2D machine. Sure, it could create the most beautiful and complex 2D worlds we’d ever seen (example – Clockwork Knight) but it simply wasn’t what the public wanted. They wanted glorious 3D, and Sony’s PlayStation was about to give it to them.

Sega, realising their suicidal faux pas, quickly stuffed Saturn’s insides with hastily produced 3D hardware. The effect was rather like Heinz finding out people love coffee and deciding to shove a load of caffeine into their cans of tomato soup – the manufacturers were happy but the chefs didn’t like it one bit.

Developers quickly found out that the Saturn’s mish-mashed insides – which looked like they’d been dumped in with a wheelbarrow – made the machine extremely tricky to develop games for. The result of this was that third party developers quickly deserted the machine in favour of the PlayStation – the most vivid example of this being Eidos, whose Tomb Raider game was premiered on the Saturn, but who were easily persuaded to abandon the machine and defect to Sony. And the most galling thing for Sega through all this was the fact that the Saturn was generally recognised as the superior machine. Too bad it was such a bitch to program.

But there were two more nails to be hammered into Saturn’
;s coffin, and in both cases blame is levelled squarely at Sega. Number 1 – Marketing. They’d gone ballistic with advertising for Mega Drive and, in particular, games like Sonic. The same enthusiastic fanfare for Saturn was very much AWOL. Number 2 – Sega’s insistence on targeting their machine straight at the hardcore gamer. Arcade games such as Sega Rally, Virtua Fighter, Marvel Superheroes and, later, the outstanding Panzer Dragoon Saga and Shining Force 3 may have all been quality titles but they were washed aside by PlayStation’s Tekken, Ridge Racer, WipeOut and Tomb Raider series. While Sega were trying to extract money from the anoraks of the gaming world, Sony were taking their machine to the likes of The Ministry and every student bar up and down the country. While PlayStation was cool, Saturn was crashing.

So, with yet another failure under their belts (and, to all Sega fans who are seething at the very thought of Saturn being labelled a failure – get real and think about it), Sega went back to the labs and tried again. They should have given up, they really should have. But, for reasons best known only to themselves, they started beavering away on yet another console. Did they know then that if it didn’t work out they’d be calling it a day? Did they know that Dreamcast was to be their final throw of the dice? Who knows, but the world wasn’t expecting much when Sega revealed their new baby. And quite rightly so.

But the Dreamcast was, and still is, phenomenal. Graphics capabilities far beyond PlayStation and N64 and with games hardcore gamers and PlayStation-converts alike could all gape at. I dare you to check out Crazy Taxi, House of the Dead 2, Metropolis Street Racer, Sonic Adventure, Jet Set Radio and the simply sublime Shenmue and not be impressed. Sega and third party developers have given us some exquisite games for the Dreamcast.

And Sega’s 128-bit beauty ha
s a built-in modem, allowing users to connect to and browse the internet, e-mail, chat with other users and play online games such as NFL 2001, Chu Chu Rocket and the recently released Quake 3 Arena. You can also buy a keyboard and mouse to make internet browsing and e-mailing easier. Truly, the Dreamcast is the machine Sega were destined to make.

And now it’s dead. Or, to be more precise, as of March 31st 2001 it shall be dead. Why? Well, the official Sega press release states that, essentially, it can no longer afford to go on creating superb software, like it has been doing recently, and build consoles at the same time. Unofficially, we can surmise that it hasn’t made enough money on Dreamcast as it would have liked and, therefore, has taken the only step it possibly could have to ensure the company at least survives in some form.

But it could have been so different. Remember the commercials that ran on TV when Dreamcast was launched? It wouldn’t surprise me if you don’t so here’s a quick recap – fat bloke walks around town telling us how great the machine is. And that was it. No screenshots, no list of forthcoming games, not even any tech specs beyond “it’s one hundred and twenty-eight bit”. What a waste. And, as has been pointed out by esteemed writers on this very site, even their best games have received little or no advertising. Oh, such a waste.

Anyway, what does the future hold for Sega? Well, it’s going to concentrate on developing both arcade and home console games. Sonic is due for an appearance on the forthcoming Game Boy Advance (reported to be more or less a portable SNES, dontcha know?) and Virtua Fighter is among the games heading to PS2.

And Sega are promising that Dreamcast will continue to be well cared for, with up to 70 titles still scheduled for release, such as eagerly-awaited sequels Crazy Taxi 2, House of the Dead 3, Sonic Adventure 2 and Sh
enmue 2. Also on the cards is Daytona 2, Unreal Tournament and Phantasy Star Online, although the effect all this will have on SegaNet, the division that runs Dreamcast’s online activities, is still unclear. And Sega have promised to cut prices on Dreamcast by a third, to get rid of excess stock.

But, either way, it’s still a sad state of affairs, isn’t it? Like most gamers, I was looking forward to an all-out slug-a-thon between Sony, Sega, Nintendo and Microsoft. Four giants in one arena, blasting each other from all sides in a bid to wrench our hard-earned cash from our sweaty, trembling hands – it would have been interesting, to say the least.

But it’s not to be. They’ve been in the console business since 1983 and, let’s face it, 18 years isn’t that bad an innings, but Sega are hanging up their boots and retiring to a life of game developing. The Dreamcast will be around for a little while yet and then it’ll be down to The Big Three of PS2, GameCube and X-Box.

They may be weary, they may be battle-scarred, they may have lost the war, but Sega are finally exiting the fray and, despite a few questionable decisions and dodgy choices, they can hold their head up with pride.

Flawed genius, perhaps. But, Sega; we salute you nonetheless.

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