100 reasons why Sega is/was stupid.

[The Metal Maniac 0]

I thought DC had really shitty Copy Protection, at least on the first run. Seems to me that we didn't even need to mod my buddy's DC to play burnt games.

[AndrewTS 0]

Now, a reason/reasons so far reaching that it spanned nearly every damn Sega console and had far-reaching consequences...

 

They had a massive boner for licensed games. I mean, a huge, throbbing, priapism that drained most of the blood from the corporate head.

 

Sega published and developed a hell of a lot of licensed games. This is in stark contrast to Nintendo, who stayed far away from the trend. If you examine the list of titles Nintendo has developed and published, except for a few athlete endorsements (Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, Mike Tyson's Punchout) and a few cases when it *really made sense* (Goldeneye), they don't really have any games of the sort. Sure, this didn't stop 3rd parties from flooding the systems with licensed crap (see: NES), but it helped maintain Nintendo's rep as a high quality developer. Why did they stay away? It's difficult to say as I don't think they're been public statements about it. Perhaps since the crash of 85 seemed to have licensed games near the center (see: ET, the insane costs surrounding it, and the poor quality game that resulted). Maybe Nintendo regarded it as a cautionary tale. Or maybe they were too proud to pay another company money to make a game.

 

Regardless...

 

70) Advertising dollars wasted on promoting licensed games

 

As mentioned previously with Beyond Oasis, Sega didn't just have the licensed games developed and published--they marketed the SOBs aggressively. If your game wasn't a sequel to an existing hit, like Sonic, good luck on getting much better than word-of-mouth and game magazine praise. However, that's utterly ridiculous is the simple fact that licensed games don't really need any promotion. Take a look at sales of titles like that insipid Happy Feet game. See Flushed Away: the Game fly off the shelves. Oh, and pretty much anything by EA that isn't a sports title. You don't have to spend beaucoup bucks telling kids that there's a Taz-Mania game out there, Sega. Just make sure it's ankle-biter eye-level in department stores. Use that money for something worth playing.

 

71) Developer resources wasted on licensed games

 

Now, not all these licensed games were terrible. In fact, as licensed games go, Sega was way above the curve. The X-Men games were very good (the 2nd one as exceptional), for instance. However, are these games really something that you should be wasting valuable resources on?

 

Case in point--take a look at Vectorman. 2nd-party developer Blue Sky software had a long and proven track record of quality. When they got a chance to stretch their creative muscle with the Vectorman games (and they *gasp* were promoted heavily by Sega), both games were huge critical and financial successes. Prior to that, they toiled away on average licensed titles, like the Genesis titles Jurassic Park and Desert Demolition. Headgames, Inc, prior to making the awesome X-Men 2: Clone Wars, made the wretched Pink Goes to Hollywood and Taz: Escape from Mars. That's not even including the games pumped out by the nameless teams who made many of the other myriad crap Sega hade made. I'm sure no programmer really was eager to be put on the project to make Crystal's Pony Tale, nor did any gamers want to play it.

 

However, let's say that the stars align, the developers cared, and you ended up with an awesome game that just happened to have a license attached. Guess what...

 

72) When a quality product was produced, it didn't build product or brand loyalty.

 

One of the things Nintendo has had to keep them going through thick and thin has been strong intellectual properties. Sure, the NES was swamped with crap, but people will still treasure Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Kirby, and the like. The SNES, perhaps the most well-loved system next to the Playstations, has lots of great updates/additions to those IPs, which are merely icing on the cake compared to the excellent 3rd party offerings. Despite the N64's dearth in quantity of good titles, people still go back and play the classics like Mario and Zelda.

 

However, Sega seemed to be less than interested in this approach. Maybe you'd get a good X-Men game, but did it didn't really register to a lot of people that "oh, this is a Sega effort, maybe they make other great games." No, it's "wow, WOlverine is badass", and then when Capcom puts out a title with them...on SNES, well, they'll buy that one perhaps. There's nothing exclusive to the property. Any company with the dough can bankroll a title with the licensed property name. None of the goodwill gets transferred to the maker of the title. It isn't like how Sonic is synonymous with Sega, and you'd only get Sonic games on a Sega system.

 

Here and now! Make a movie game! Make a comic game! Hurry, hurry, hurry! Oh, and put out a new Sonic!

 

When Sega actually produced a new, high quality IP, it seems like it was an accident. Hell, Streets of Rage 1 is frankly a *shameless* Final Fight clone, unlike the vastly better and relatively innovative sequel. Golden Ax was mired in mediocrity after the stellar first title. They ignored RPGs, assumed shooters were dead, had weak racers, and only made the occasional (usually bad) fighters. "Sure-fire" hits like arcade ports, sports titles, and licensed titles seemed to be all they trusted to pay the bills. Oh, and Sonic.

 

However, while proven series began to grow overripe and rot, under-nourished properties tended to wither and die on the vine.

[luke-o 0]

73. My saturn just died, so now i cant play panzer dragoon 2.

[razazteca 0]

So the Disney games featuring Mickey Mouse happened by accident?

[AndrewTS 0]

So the Disney games featuring Mickey Mouse happened by accident?

 

I'm not sure what you're asking.

 

If you mean them actually being good, I'd chalk that up to being happy accidents. However, even Mickey had a bad game (Fantasia on Genesis).

 

Although Capcom brought us the pretty good Magical Quest games.

 

Sony Imagesoft made Mickey Mania.

[razazteca 0]

The Mickey Mouse games were fun platform games and a general google search would show that the games were fan favorites with high rankings. I would say the Mickey Mouse series of games on the Genesis were equal with the secondary platform games like Earthworm Jim and Vectorman in fan approval and gameplay.

[luke-o 0]

I still think castle of illusion is a fucking class game.

[AndrewTS 0]

Castle of Illusion and World of Illusion are excellent exceptions. Not only were the games carefully refined and polished, but even though Sega didn't own the characters, notice the titles. They seemed to want to build some brand recognition into it, rather than use some lame generic title.

 

Heck, in another smart move, they used Castle of Illusion as a major Game Gear title early on.

[Guest Smues]

73. I don't remember the full details, but they paid some Italian soccor team to put the SEGA logo on their jerseys. The problem? Sega is slang in Italy for masterbation. I sure love to sega while I watch soccor.

[AndrewTS 0]

I should have stated this earlier, but I don't count luke-o's #73. It's just a personal gripe, it's not something industry-wide or anything that affected a lot of gamers to my knowledge. Smues should rename his to 73.

 

Let's bi--er, talk about controllers.

 

74. The Genesis stock pad = a fighting gamer's nightmare.

 

The SNES and Genesis are fun to compare on specs, as it's very interesting how they complement each other. However, it's rather interesting how the Genesis was positioned more as an NES killer at first, rather than the 16-bit rival we currently think of it as.

 

However, it seems remarkably short-sighted in that context to see the Sega Genesis stock controller. 3 action buttons. A start button. The exact same number of buttons as the NES pad (even if the Select button on it is pretty much useless most of the time).

 

But hey, that's cool. It's not like some industry-changing arcade game is coming out that requires 6-buttons, right? Oops.

 

Well, come out it did. The Super Nintendo/Super Famicom came out after the Genesis/Megadrive, with a stock pad that had 6-buttons in addition to the start and select buttons. Unfortunately for Sega, and fortunately for fighting gamers, Nintendo scored the home port of Street Fighter 2: The World Warrior.

 

Sega, realizing their mistake, released the Sega 6-button Arcade pad, with a layout perfect for Street Fighter 2 (and the other billion knockoffs of it). Eventually it did get the Special Champion edition, but the control sucked without the 6-button. Players would have to switch between punches and kicks with the start button (ugh) without the new and improved pad.

 

So, Sega made this awesome new controller the standard, did away with the old 3-button pads, right?

 

Right?

 

No. Perhaps regarding the pad as an unnecessary new improvement (how dare they admit their original design was a bit too short-sighted!), Sega continued to pack in the obsolete 3-button pad. 1st party games tended to act as if the 6-button didn't exist, and that the 6-button was a luxury that you didn't really need.

 

Yet, they'd use their own Eternal Champions to push an utterly stupid and worthless accessory. This is quite a contrast from Sony, whose Dual Shock was quickly adopted as a standard, packed into new systems, and immediately was supported by 1st-party games as well.

 

75. The Original American Saturn Controller

 

Stop me if you're heard of this before--a major hardware developer, who should really know better, releases a game controller that is frankly a hideous, over-sized, unwieldy piece of crap that should be melted down and beaten over their own heads rather than actually used to control a video game. This is in spite of the fact that there already are much better designs out there they can use/steal.

 

Nope, not the original xbox controller, but...

 

 

This piece of crap. Frankly, the original US Saturn pad was a nightmare. The d-pad sucked. The triggers were unresponsive junk. The shape and size was extremely awkward. Yet, the original Japanese Saturn pad (a design which would replace the US Saturn on eventually) was a thing of beauty. Sega had actually test-marketed this beast and it was given the thumbs up as being better than the Japanese pad.

 

Apparently, Sega test-marketed it to the same group of avid gamer Sasquatch that approved the xbox Duke.

 

76. The Saturn NiGHTs controller.

 

When the 32-bit wars went into full swing, Sega and Sony had the power under the hood to do good 3D, but customers weren't exactly equipped with the tools to needed to appreciate those 3D worlds in full. Sony introduced the Dual Shock controller. Nintendo launched the N64 with Super Mario 64 and a stock controller with analog input. Sega? Well, they brought us this:

 

 

Packed in with NiGHTs, the "3D Control Pad" (as Sega called it) is about 3 times the size of the revised US pad, and implements analog control...for NiGHTs. And...that's pretty much it. The controller was gushed over by Diehard Game Fan Magazine...and, well, pretty much no one else (come on, "big friendly doughnut" doesn't sound appealing to you?). The functionality of the controller seemed to be compromised not only by its size and shape, but the analog input itself--an odd looking device that appeared to be a big plastic teet. Dual Shock, meet your match! The Uni-Boob Controller!

 

Well, on the bright size, it's not like the Saturn's 3D was its drawing point anyway. Besides, the design wasn't *that* bad...maybe with a few improvements...

 

 

...or not.

 

77. Dreamcast Controller

 

Abandoning the soft, easily-rollable d-pad of previous Sega pads, sporting 2 massive slots for expansion devices, a mere 6 action buttons (when competing systems all had 8-ish), there's plenty to bitch about the Dreamcast controller. From personal experience, this thing hurts like a bitch playing fighting games with--and that's a shame, since the best Dreamcast exclusives (or semi-exclusives) were fighters. It's still perfectly functional and works well for Soul Calibur, but fireball, half-circle motions and the like found on fighters like Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street Fighter 3 Third Strike basically beg for a joystick or 3rd party pad.

 

Despite coming after the Dual Shock, and the extremely awkward N64 rumble pak, rather than integrating rumble into the controller itself, Dreamcast relied on an optional Jump Pak, that I honestly never, ever seen anyone use.

 

Too bad, though, because the controller introduced nice, springy analog trigger buttons, a feature borrowed and improved upon well for the Gamecube controller.

[AndrewTS 0]

78. OMG TEH GUNS!!~~

 

 

Meet Shadow. He's an amnesiac with a dark past. Is he a hero or a villain?

 

Neither. He's a shitty character design that Sonic Team, having seemingly mined out all of their lousy peripheral characters from times past, turned to to help reinvigorate the franchise.

 

When Shadow's spinoff game went into the works, you'd think Sonic Team would finally overhaul the aging Sonic Adventure engine. Naaaaw. They gave Shadow a gun, threw in some half-ass branching paths, and called it a day.

 

The camera in the game is beyond broken, and the gun mechanics are ridiculously tacked on. How about choosing your path? Well, it pretty much works like this--EVERYBODY is trying to kill you. So whoever you don't try to kill back determines your side. Pity you don't really have a way of getting the humans or aliens to STOP FRIGGIN TRYING TO KILL YOU, but that would have taken some additional programming Sonic Team wasn't really interested in doing.

 

The game's director, Takashi Iizuka, hyped it as being a more mature direction for the series and completely downplaying the gameplay improvements (or lack thereof).

 

GTA-loving rugrats who previously ignored the series because "Sonic is teh kiddy and teh gay" no longer looked at the series the same way. It was now simply "teh gay." Or for those who tried the game, "s***."

 

 

79. No Streets of Rage for you!!! Part 1

 

Much like the Sonic series didn't get a new, 3D, high quality entry on Saturn--or even the Dreamcast--the Streets of Rage series was slated, canceled, rumored, canned, teased, and faded into obscurity.

 

Streets of Rage Online has basically the entire saga summed up:

http://soronline.classicgaming.gamespy.com/misc_sor4.htm

 

The weird thing is, Sega wasn't above making 3D beat'em ups that weren't related to Streets of Rage, no matter how dubious their quality.

 

Besides the sorta-ok Dynamite games, Sega also produced the crappy Zombie Revenge, and the obscure arcade/Xbox beat 'em up Spikeout.

 

80. No Streets of Rage for you!!! Part 2

 

After the success of Sonic Mega Collection (mainly on Gamecube), Sega opted to once again to try to capitalize on the quality and success the Sonic series once had.

 

They did this with Sonic Gems Collection, a compilation that contained some of the lower-key/rarer/2nd tier games in the series. Included in it was the centerpiece, Sonic CD. Also included was Sonic the Fighters (previously unreleased on console), Sonic R, and many Game Gear titles.

 

Like with Sonic Mega Collection Plus, though, Sega included some non-Sonic titles in the mix. Mega Collection's choices were usually tangently related: Ristar had been developed by some of the Sonic CD team, Flicky's characters were used in 3D Blast, The Ooze and Comix Zone were developed by Sega Technical Institute, who (with some Sonic Team supervision), made better Sonic games ever than Sonic Team themselves.

 

Well, instead of something actually developed by Sonic Team (like a Phantasy Star or something), Gems included Vectorman 1 and 2, Bonanza Bros., and...all...3...Bare Knuckle games. The Streets of Rage games weren't included a compilation except for the Streets of Rage 2 with crap sound on the Dreamcast Smash Pack. Heightening interest among Sonic fans was that it included the original Sonic CD Japanese soundtrack. Well, these goodies were included for Japanese consumers anyway.

 

The American and Europe versions of the game were announced as having the Streets of Rage games cut the compilation. Apparently sprite-based violence will still earn you a T rating (but beating up mutants in Comix Zone? ACCEPTABLE!), and we know that the kiddies love buying compilations of games they didn't play when they were younger.

 

Well, with those cut from Sonic Gems, maybe they could be included on the T-rated Shadow the Hedgehog, so as to put *something* redeeming on it? Naw...

 

Plenty of Sonic nuts just ended up importing the Japanese version, though.

 

81. No Streets of Rage for You!!! Part 3

 

Flash forward to 2006...Sega is putting out a massive new collection of Genesis classics...it has a little Sonic, it has Ecco, it has Ristar, it has the Genesis Phantasy Stars, it has all the Golden Ax games, it even has Altered Beast for laughs.

 

It's rated Teen, too. Okay, so maybe Sega could show some love to the non-Japanese territories, and *finally* put the 3 Streets of Rage games on there as a bonus?

 

Nope. But gee thanks for the never-released-here GOlden Ax 3, Sega. That totally makes up for it.

 

82. Dear loyal Gamecube consumers...f you. YOU PAY EIGHT DOLLAR EACH!

 

Despite the fact that the Sonic games have sold terribly on XBox, and kind-of-decent on PS2, the same releases on Gamecube have been huge successes. So much so that the PS2 version of Sonic Gems Collection never made it to the States.

 

So, Sega has opted to feed nostalgia nuts by releasing many of their classic titles (including the Streets of Rage games) on Virtual Console. However, shortly after doing the Sega Genesis Collection, curiously almost every single damn one of the Genesis games has showed up for the Virtual Console's Genesis offerings. For 8 bucks a pop. PS2 owners got over 2 dozen games for 20 bucks, in comparison.

 

However, by this point, even the most anti-piracy fan of the series has ROMs of the games sitting on the PC or acquired the original carts, so go to hell, Sega.

[Boner Kawanger 0]

As someone who never owned a Sega console (besides the Game Gear...), I have to say that this has been one of the best threads on the board in quite some time.

[razazteca 0]

If you thought $8 for SEGA games on the Virtual Console was bad what is your opinion on the original Sonic selling for $20 on the GBA?

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Excellent, back on track. Your TSMpedia entry will need to be amended, Andrew! I remember you told me a few weeks ago the SoR ordeal(s) would be added to the list by you in the future, and there it is.

[AndrewTS 0]

Mattdotcom, et al: Thanks, guys, I appreciate the feedback.

 

raza: Well, if the game itself was a perfectly-playing port of a classic, with maybe a few bonuses, I'd say fair enough. I bought the NES Classics Zelda for GBA, so I shouldn't be one to have a double standard on that.

 

However, failing the "perfect port" scenario, if it was a stunning re-imagining of the game that preserved the core gameplay (Sonic Pocket Adventure on NGPC), even better.

 

If it were a mini-version of Sonic Jam, with decent representations of Sonic 1, 2, 3 etc. it would even be awesome.

 

However, 20 bucks for a single, terrible port is unacceptable.

 

Now, unlike the Virtual Console games, there's still cost going into making/packaging the game with the box and manuals, so naturally I expect it to cost more than a download that has likely no fixed costs whatsoever.

 

Venk: Yeah, seeing that did help motivate me (well that and having an unexpected day off), so there ya go. Probably a few more days on the next update(s), though.

[Guest Queen Leelee]

I had a 3rd party DC rumble pack. That shit was wild. Assume what you will with this one.

[Special K 0]

I have a pretty pretty minty fresh Arkadia. It won't load for shit. I literallyh bought it for thatgame. Thank god Bangai-O worked.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

Not to stir up too much trouble, but I've always found Streets of Rage to be a little overrated. I don't really see what makes it stand out from games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, etc.

[treble 0]

I don't get why Streets of Rage is rated T now, anyway. The old Sega 6-Pak game with six Genesis games on it (Sonic, Super Hang-On, Golden Axe, Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, and Streets of Rage) is rated K-A.

[razazteca 0]

I had a 3rd party DC rumble pack. That shit was wild. Assume what you will with this one.

I used a controller converter for 3rd party PS2 controllers with built in rumble.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I don't get why Streets of Rage is rated T now, anyway. The old Sega 6-Pak game with six Genesis games on it (Sonic, Super Hang-On, Golden Axe, Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, and Streets of Rage) is rated K-A.

 

Well, there's definitely enough "animated violence" in it, I guess.

 

Slightly off topic, but dealing with beat-em-ups: This arcade somewhat near me had an awesome brawler game for a while, but it was a long time ago and I can't remember the name. Basically it was a 2D side scroller where you could have up to four people playing, and the thing that was unique was there were a ton of weapons you could pick up and use (chains, 2x4s, pipes, etc). One of the guys you could play as resembled Hulk Hogan. Anyone have any clue what I'm talking about?

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

Almost like Final Fight...nah, Haggard smokes Hogan.

[Prophet of Mike Zagurski 0]

Did it have zombies in it? I know Sega made a zombie beat 'em up with zombies in it.

[razazteca 0]

Sounds like Renegade to me.

[AndrewTS 0]

I don't get why Streets of Rage is rated T now, anyway. The old Sega 6-Pak game with six Genesis games on it (Sonic, Super Hang-On, Golden Axe, Columns, Revenge of Shinobi, and Streets of Rage) is rated K-A.

 

The real reason--content ratings are often stupid and arbitrary.

 

However, it could have been the hookers, beating people with blunt objects, smashing bottles in people's faces, blasting them with a bazooka that nets the T.

 

Not to stir up too much trouble, but I've always found Streets of Rage to be a little overrated. I don't really see what makes it stand out from games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, etc.

 

Streets of Rage 1 is merely a good beat 'em up. SoR3 is a pretty darn good beat 'em up. SoR2 is a fricken classic--one of the best ever.

 

I'd argue the SoR games, or at the very least 2, smoke DD for level design, music, control and overall gameplay. Still giving mad props to DD, though, it's still classic. It's just SoR2 came later and had a lot of history to drawn upon.

 

I think Final Fight is good but the gameplay is very basic. SoR2 has probably 5x the moves, all things considered.

 

Plus, Final Fight and most of Double Dragon's sequels blew hard, while the SoR series was very solid.

[Special K 0]

SoR is pretty awesome, until you figure out how to do the "ARYAAA!!!" Upercut. Over and over....

 

Who's the big guy in tht game? Max? Grab jump. Grab jump. \Grab jump. Oh it's a boss.

[Hawkius Maximus 0]

I kinda take offense at the DC controller entry, since I consider the controller far more comfortable then the PS2 Dual Shock. I've never enjoyed the PS controller design.

 

Yes that statement has gotten me alot of weird looks.

 

And no, I don't have warped hands.

[Special K 0]

The Dc Controller was just fine, though I really like the PS controller. (The Gamecube controller is the best for certain games, Honestly!)

 

I really think if they had left Sega CD/3X well enough alone, they could have killed. Or even marketed correctly. I was fucking creaming in my jeans to play Lunar, which is the only game that had any marketing.

 

Dreamcast is like the greatest eBay thing now. I got theDC, wuth skies of Arcadia and Bangai-o for $20. And my whole purpose was just to play Samba de AMIGO~!~!~!

[AndrewTS 0]

If you find the DC controller serviceable, that's good and fine. However, I find it difficult not to believe that the D-pad shape, the lack of buttons, and the obnoxiously huge expansion slots were steps backward.

 

"The Gamecube controller is the best for certain games, Honestly!)"

 

I'm inclined to agree, if those games don't use the d-pad, like, ever.

 

I do like the triggers and the analog stick on the DC controller, though, so it's not all bad. I think Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, for instance, controls way better with its native controller than on GC. GC control stick seemed just way too damn sensitive in a level like City Escape where you needed your character to NOT shoot off in a random direction when you just slightly tilted the analog stick.

[Special K 0]

I'm inclined to agree, if those games don't use the d-pad, like, ever.

 

yeah that's pretty much what I meant, With platfromers, it was Great!. However, I can't see playing a fighting game on that pad, like ever.