100 reasons why Sega is/was stupid.

[AndrewTS 0]

At it's best, they were the #1 console maker in the U.S., had quite a bit of "edgey" marketing and kicked Nintendo's asses for a bit.

 

Then there's pretty much every other point in time.

 

Sega, once a mighty force in the game industry, is a 2nd rate publisher that was bought up by a damn pachinko company. How did they get there? By being really, really dumb. Everyone knows the biggies, but let's reflect on all of the little things that made them yesterday's news, shall we? Add as many as you want.

 

1. Beyond Oasis -- Sure, it's near the end of the Genesis lifecycle, but one of Sega Japan's more respected figures (albeit more as a music composers) has directed this kick ass little game that rivals the Zelda series in many ways. So, do you actually market it? Or throw it out on the market with limited production, a few lousy magazine ads, and pretty much ignore it's existence? Well, if you're Sega America, yes, that's exactly what you do. Who cares about building what could be a mega-huge new IP leading towards the next-gen when you can hock a ton of crappy licensed games?

 

2. We don't need no stinking RPGs -- Sega had absolutely no interest in promoting RPGs in the States at all. It's arguably because of Nintendo taking a wash on Dragon Warrior back in the 8-bit days, but come on--things changed a hell of a lot since then. Despite the fact that Sega had a glowing RPG series of their own, and a really good strat RPG series as well, you'd barely know they existed based on Sega's American marketing.

 

3. Knuckles' Chaotix -- So, the 32X is not really doing all that hot...granted, this happened before with Sega CD, but surely Sega could do something to save it? A must-have title to spark interest in the platform? Let's go to Sonic!...wait, no, how about that new character, Knuckles? Okay, great. So...do we get the Sonic 3/Knuckles team on it? Naw, how about most of the key Sonic CD players? Okay, questionable, but acceptable. But Knuckles alone wouldn't be in it...how about Knuckles and a bunch of other fuzzy and non-fuzzy anthropomorphic characters? Sure, why not. Although, how about we implement a play mechanic that gimps their speed at the expense of new play mechanics? Hmmm...now, we're getting a little more dubious. Okay, how about we release it in what is clearly an unfinished state--nearly no enemies in the levels, tons of little bugs, and virtually no puzzles that make any uses of the great new play mechanics? Brilliant! Oh, and make it impossible to buy anywhere.

 

4. FMV games -- Back before Nintendo figured out non-gamers would go nuts over digital sudoku, training their brains, and electronic puppies, Sega reached out towards the casual/non-gamer market. Sega decided that these potential gamers weren't interested in games because they weren't enough like really ****ty movies. Man, wasn't Dragon's Lair great? The animation, the humor, the deaths, the....um...gameplay based on pressing arbitrarily selected button commands at specifics points in time? Well, that's what Sega decided their CD system needed. But let's boil down the game to it's basics. Forget the gorgeous animation humor--that gameplay! That's it! Married to really grainy footage of actors who were hasbeens or never weres. Of course, Sega wasn't the only one to get into the act, because the 3D0 folks did too. Before Dana Plato and Kirk Cameron moved onto more worthwhile projects like snorting lots of coke and/or Christian propaganda films, they were doing FMV games.

 

5. "We're done here, shut out the lights when you're done Ninty." -- You have to hand it to Sega, they knew when to move on. None of this silly "supporting your system as long as it's commercially viable." Oh no. When the 32X and upcoming Saturn were on the way, it was time to focus exclusively on them. What? What's this? Nintendo has a new game coming up? With a computer-generated ape? Ah, who cares. They're like totally stuck in the past, dudes! It's all about sticking crap in the cartridge slot of your existing system and really awful 3D!

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Before Dana Plato and Kirk Cameron moved onto more worthwhile projects like snorting lots of coke and/or Christian propaganda films, they were doing FMV games.

 

Ha! Funny stuff. The "and/or" sells it.

 

6. Showing off the awesome BLAST PROCESSING~! in a commercial that mocked, of all games, Super freakin Mario Kart. That's the Sega = WCW equivalent of Tony Schivonie telling people that ol' unpopular Mick Foley was going to win the title - to me, anyway.

 

http://gameads.gamepressure.com/tv_game_co...cial.asp?ID=883

[AndrewTS 0]

7. The awesome pack-in value that was Altered Beast. Because if anything will make you satisfied with your purchase, it's a slow-ass, generic side-scrolling beat-em-up that's got rather freaky voices, decent graphics and not much else.

[BUTT 0]

8) The Eternal Champions ad that made fun of Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat.

 

http://www.sega-16.com/Media/Print%20Ad%20...Ad%2050_jpg.jpg

You can't see it, but below the picture on the bottom left, the caption says "Hey Johnny Cage, afraid you'll get whipped by a girl?"

 

Now if Sega was just another third-party publisher, or if SF2 and MK were Nintendo exclusives, then this would make sense. But Sega was a first-party publisher, and those games were available for their system. Conceivably they would want people to buy those games so that they could make money off of them, but Sega felt it was best to mock them in order to get their own game over. I'm sure Capcom, Acclaim and Midway were real happy.

 

P.S. Fuck what anyone says, I love Eternal Champions and nothing can change that.

 

9) Feeling that the best way to get people to buy Gunstar Heroes was packaging it with a Fruit Roll-Up.

[AndrewTS 0]

10. Gunstar Heroes' new box art.

 

Old: http://gunstarheroes.classicgaming.gamespy...apanese_box.jpg

New: http://gunstarheroes.classicgaming.gamespy...gunstar_box.jpg

 

Although I guess it's not that bad compared to other box art changes.

 

11. http://ytmndsega.ytmnsfw.com/

 

12. Shining Force 3.

 

A game so HUGE and EPIC it had to be split into 3 parts.

 

A game too HUGE and EPIC for the US and Europe to get parts 2 and 3.

 

13. Sega making a game so HUGE and EPIC it apparently had to be split into 3 different games with different SKUs, rather than making it a multi-disc game.

 

14. Panzer Dragoon Saga's limited production - "Nope, we still don't think people really dig RPGs in the US much. Let's make, like, 20 copies of it."

 

15. Sega Ages -- "Imagine your favorite games from the classic Sega days...now imagine them being raped by semi-PS1 era polygons and terrible control. And sold separately. And since US gamers will be wise to it by that point, let's plop them together on one disc and market them as 'classics'".

[ChrisMWaters 0]

16: Still, as of yet, not releasing a true sequel to "NiGHTs into Dreams".

 

The Wii would be the perfect console for this, IMO

 

17: Mocking Playstation and Nintendo 64 in their commercials...when both systems are more fondly remembered IMO. That was a risk at the time, proved to be a bad one.

 

18: What hurt them in Japan, I think: no DVD player for Dreamcast, compared to the PS2.

[AndrewTS 0]

16: Still, as of yet, not releasing a true sequel to "NiGHTs into Dreams".

 

The Wii would be the perfect console for this, IMO

 

17: Mocking Playstation and Nintendo 64 in their commercials...when both systems are more fondly remembered IMO. That was a risk at the time, proved to be a bad one.

 

comment on 16 - actually, the tubes say such a beast is in the works, and will be shown/announced soon at Wee3 (the new, eunuch-y version of E3).

 

comment on 17 - I distinctly remember that, and laughing my BUTT off at it. "So long, Plumberbox; you weren't worth waiting for." (launches it in a skeet shoot cannon and blasts it apart)

[AndrewTS 0]

19. Streets of Rage 3 localization: Okay, I can accept Ash being cut, because at least they left in the character hidden in the game coding so that a Game Genie could bring him out of the closet SoA locked him in.

 

However, completely screwing up the plot beyond any sort of logical comprehension? Terrible.

 

But even stupider? Changing the characters' outfit colors. They did it to give them more, I'm not kidding you, "gender-neutral" colored clothing.

 

Censoring character sprites that appeared un-censored in earlier games. Oh noes, put a jacket on that whip-wielding dom hooker! Cover up the legs of that punk mohawk chick!

 

EDIT: Fixed the number

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Hey, *I* had #18. Get your own number!

[AndrewTS 0]

20. The Activator -- Okay, the Power Glove sucked. U-Force REALLY sucked. Wii-Mote is still to really prove itself. However, at least they had buttons and solid traditional design backing them to some extent.

 

I can't really make the Activator seem any more retarded than Sega themselves can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMW9HSrljhA

[{''({o..o})''} 0]

21. No Chakan sequel

[Guest Princess Leena]

- Having Sega CD, 32X, Saturn and Genesis games all releasing at the same time. And Sega ignored them all and pushed the Saturn, which was a lost cause. It made Sega seem like a scam. Especially when all of them but Genesis had very little in the game department.

 

- Game Gear, which killed 6 batteries in a couple hours. Yeah, I definitely shouldn't be complaining about the Wiimote's battery life.

 

- Sega 32X had those awful cardboard cases, which Genesis also eventually had. I hated those things.

[AndrewTS 0]

22- Having Sega CD, 32X, Saturn and Genesis games all releasing at the same time. And Sega ignored them all and pushed the Saturn, which was a lost cause. It made Sega seem like a scam. Especially when all of them but Genesis had very little in the game department.

 

23- Game Gear, which killed 6 batteries in a couple hours. Yeah, I definitely shouldn't be complaining about the Wiimote's battery life.

 

24- Sega 32X had those awful cardboard cases, which Genesis also eventually had. I hated those things.

 

I had mentioned Sega pretty much handing over the 16-bit era to Nintendo. Making Genesis games for a while=not bad, but you forget that 1st party support was pretty much canned and they STOPPED MAKING the system. However, that is something you do a console that was a major disappointment (see: Gamecube, which Nintendo stopped manufacturing a while back), NOT a huge success like Genesis. However, the very existence of Sega CD 32X games was beyond retarded. I honestly don't recall any notable Genesis titles coming out after Saturn hit, let alone Sega made ones.

 

Everyone I knew with a Game Gear had a battery pack, which usually provided more battery life than just batteries alone. I liked the Game Gear to some extent, but the system had its flaws.

 

The cardboard cases actually began with Sonic & Knuckles, a Genesis game.

[Special K 0]

Re: the ActiVator!!!!!

 

Oh, My God. I have never seen this until now. It's just indescribable.

 

It must have cost a hundred bucks. And it was just a shitty octagon so that you could flail about to simulate pushing buttons? Jesus Christ Almighty.

 

I mean, it honestly makes me want to weep empathetic tears for kids who got this.

 

The Saturn could have been killer, with some arcade-perfect fighter ports. (should've tried to get with SNK) ANd a handful of legendary games which were ALL released in extremely rare quantities. Panzer Saga, Shining Force 3, Dragon Force, Radiant Silvergun.

 

The Saturn was slatly more popular than the playstation in Japan on launch, IIRC. Sega of America was clearly just a shitty companay.

 

On the plus side, the Dreamcast costs next to nothing and has lots of good games, which costs next to nothing. Good times.

[AndrewTS 0]

25. Sega CD longboxes. The same company that bucked the trend of cardboard boxes during the Master System/Genesis days for those super-sturdy plastic cases introduced the awful long-box. I'm pretty sure 98% of every damn one of these that were manufactured (including the US Saturn and Playstation 1 cases) either have a big crack of them, have broken tabs, or are heavily damaged in some way.

 

PS1 did have 2 other types of long boxes though: the plastic longboxes, which kicked ass save for the paper coverings stuck on them (the original Darkstalkers PS1 casing is a thing of beauty), and the rather-lame but rather sturdy all-cardboard boxes, which Primal Rage and Street Fighter Alpha came packaged in. Either one beat the fragile Saturn/SCD ones.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Well, the Saturn did better in Japan because they had SEGATA SANSHIRO!

[AndrewTS 0]

The Saturn was slatly more popular than the playstation in Japan on launch, IIRC. Sega of America was clearly just a shitty companay.

 

Pretty much 80% of what we've covered/will cover is all SoA's fault, but yeah, Saturn was quite successful in Japan at first.

 

However, that didn't translate to the U.S. because of:

 

26. The "stealth launch" -- There are accusations of PS3 being DOA just by the launch numbers. This is silly. Saturn in the U.S. was totally DOA.

 

Sega "stealth launched" the Saturn in the US, during E3 2005, with like no games at all save for the shoddy Daytona and VF ports.

 

Right after it was announced that the Saturn was available NOW, Sony then announced Playstation would retail for "$299". Saturn was $400.

 

Saturn in US was dead before it even really had a chance.

[AndrewTS 0]

Well, the Saturn did better in Japan because they had SEGATA SANSHIRO!

 

By the time Segata came around, Saturn was already in a steady decline.

[Guest Smues]

27. As was the norm for Sega, spending all their time attacking the gameboy instead of bothering to put out quality game gear games. What specifically am I attacking here? That god damn "Would you rather play the full color game gear, or the Game Boy with its CREAMY SPINACH COLOR?" I had a gameboy and thanks to that damn ad my dad spent a good 3 years teasing me about the 'creamy spinach color'. Oh course the gameboy had a much larger selection of good games, color be damned, and last way longer than the game gear.

 

28. Releasing the awesome Nomad too late and for too much money. And not marketing it for shit either. Very few people I knew knew what a Sega Nomad was, which is a shame because it was so cool to be able to play your Genesis games on the road.

[AndrewTS 0]

29. The Menacer -- both the Master System Phaser and NES Zapper were really good light guns. Simple, effective design, lightweight, very accurate, and had many playable games that supported them. Great examples of K.I.S.S., really.

 

Now, the Sega/Nintendo wars could be quite easily and effectively summed up as a ****-waving contest back when they were ripping each other apart in their commercials. However, the phallic phun was elevated to a whole new level when they introduced their "next-gen" light guns.

 

WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!?: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp...0px-Menacer.jpg

 

Why, it's the Sega Menacer, of course! Who needs a gun that you can easily aim and shoot with with one hand? This one requires you to hold it with both hands, and to look through a little scope to use it.

 

This one we can't entirely blame Sega for, as Nintendo did it first, and just as bad:

http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/Nintendo/s..._superscobe.jpg

 

However, this makes the Menacer even worse--when the Super Scope came out, everyone realized it sucked, but by then it was too late. What prompted Sega to COPY its awful design?!

 

Unsurprisingly, not many games supported the Menacer at all, and Konami balked at both guns when Lethal Enforcers hit the home systems, instead producing the Justifier accessory:

http://www.memm.de/gameselect/pics/lg-justifier.jpg

[Guest Smues]

Damn you I was going to mention the menacer. I used to have one. It worked surprisingly well, and was fun to play T2: The Arcade Game with, but yeah it was pretty stupid how it was set up. And they must have been retarded when they built it because it liked to changes channels,volume, etc on the T.V. all the time, and not just my T.V. Pretty much every T.V. I played it on it would do that. On the flip side of that my T.V. remote would be picked up as if it were the menacer. You couldn't control it for shit, but I used to just hit the display button on my remote (since obviously if i hit the channel buttons I'd lose the channel the game was on) and watch me shoot missles and bullets randomly all over the screen. Sadly since I had no way to control the aim I could never beat the first boss with my remote:(

[Guest Princess Leena]

I remember Saturn had virtually no sports titles whatsoever until it's dying days. Genesis kept getting the sports titles.

 

Good call on the CD cases. I think every one of them I have are broken in some way.

[World's Worst Man 0]

30. Making the Shining Force series into shitty action RPGs that get crummy reviews and that no one buys. At least if they were making quality SRPGs, they'd have a small, loyal hardcore fanbase, even if the games weren't going to be mainstream successes.

[Lightning Flik 0]

31. Speaking of dead, while Phantasy Star IV was awesome, it was absolutely stupid as all hell to make that the last game of the series. It was a crowning achievement that surely would've been just as popular as Final Fantasy if they didn't tank it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Damn, all this is jogging my memory so much...I've literally sketched down over a dozen more additions to the list I'll have to post within the next few days.

 

And I don't mean quickies, either. They're going to be each a few paragraphs long.

[BUTT 0]

32) Ruining the Sonic series. The first Sonic came out in June '91. Sonic 2 followed in November '92. Sonic CD was released in November '93. Sonic 3 came out in February '94, and Sonic & Knuckles followed in October of that year. That's five main series games in under 3 & 1/2 years. Plus they had side games like Sonic Spinball and Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, countless Game Gear games (and Master System ports of those only released in Europe and Brazil and wherever else people actually played that system), the arcade game...........They killed it. People bitch about Nintendo and their countless Mario games but at least those are mostly just spinoffs. How can a Genesis owner get excited about the next side-scrolling Sonic game when there's a new one an average of every ten months. The problems with the newer Sonic games have been discussed to death and there's nothing I can really add to that.

[Zorin Industries 0]

12. Shining Force 3.

 

A game so HUGE and EPIC it had to be split into 3 parts.

 

A game too HUGE and EPIC for the US and Europe to get parts 2 and 3.

 

13. Sega making a game so HUGE and EPIC it apparently had to be split into 3 different games with different SKUs, rather than making it a multi-disc game.

 

This actually soured me on console gaming for a long, long time.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

33) Coming out with an awesome system like the Dreamcast, and then letting it get raped by the PS2.

[AndrewTS 0]

34. Michael Jackson's Moonwalker -- the home game

 

Back before Michael Jackson was a punchline, he was a hugely-successful pop superstar and cultural icon. So much so, that he had gotten his own movie--an odd music video/film called Moonwalker. The film was really, really bizaare, and featured Michael Jackson as a superhero of sorts rescuing kids from the machinations of a drug dealer.

 

 

It also spawned an arcade game by Sega. The game was, really, really bizaare, featuring Michael Jackson using the power of song, dances, and sometimes good ol' fashioned violence for great justice! MJ was the original Elite Beat Agent!

 

The game was a huge fixture at my local roller rink for a long time. The best part, though, was that the game was made by Sega--so friends and I just KNEW it was going to get a home version. I didn't actually own a Genesis at the time, but a few friends did. I was looking forward to playing it.

 

Well, we were wrong. The game never had a home version. Sure, there was a game released CALLED Michael Jackson's Moonwalker on Genesis, but it wasn't the same thing. No, the bizaare, creative, and flat-out awesome arcade game was reduced to a lame platformer with virtually nothing else in common with the arcade original.

 

 

Here's a look at the arcade game.

 

 

Here's what we actually got on the home game

 

Strangely, Sega produced like a billion different console versions, and none of them were anything like the arcade game.

 

Even more strangely, this game was one of the major titles featured during the "Genesis does!" campaign. You know what else Nintendon't, Sega? They don't make a really fun arcade game and then give you a lame, boring home version that's nothing like the original.

[Downhome 0]

11. http://ytmndsega.ytmnsfw.com/

 

Ha, that's what I was going to add to the list.