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Sega - One Year As A 3rd Party
January 31st 2001 - The day Sega dropped the bomb. The
day Sega said enough was enough and dropped out of the
hardware market.
For years since the Sega Saturn they'd been taking
loss after loss, predicting sunshine just over the
next hill. Despite being the first on the block with a
new 128-bit super console, the Dreamcast was both the
end and the beginning of an era. It was the final time
a console would bare the "Sega" logo, but also be the
start of an era where content rules and the "Sega" logo is unleashed upon the entire world.
Peter Moore, president and COO for Sega of America
issued a statement to the Sega gamers of the world on
that day saying "we understand that Sega's decision to
cease manufacturing of the Dreamcast console was an
emotional one for many gamers, as it was also, an
emotional one for us. Like many of us at the company,
Sega has always been a part of our lifestyle --
starting with the arcades thru Sega Master System to
Genesis in the early 90s and Sega Saturn to today with
Dreamcast. We understand that gaming is a big part of
your everyday lifestyle and Sega has made a great
impact on your life.
However, in this situation, we had to separate the
emotional aspect of this announcement from the
business aspect of the announcement." Mr Moore went on
saying how "we decided to focus on what has been our
greatest strength for more than 40 years -- great
content."
By May of 2001 Sega began to unveil their new view on
life and every attendant of the E3 show couldn't help
but miss the "Sega Unleashed" poster covering LA's
Convention Centre. But twelve months on from Sega's
revolution, has EA run in fear? Has Sega really been
unleashed upon the world? Or are they still only at
the stage of drawing up plans for world domination?
Taking a look at the Sega Library of yester year it
seems 2001 was in fact a slow start for the house of
Sonic. Because of the long development time games go
through these days, it wasn't until today that Sonic
made it to the Gameboy Advance, and last Christmas
when the blue hedgehog appeared on Nintendo's
GameCube.
Most of last year was spent getting their footing
right for being a 3rd party, including re-arranging
staff, re-assuring investors and re-gaining their
finances. Development teams researched the different
consoles and got warmed up for the future by porting
older Dreamcast titles. These included games like Chu
Chu Rocket, REZ, NFL and NBA 2K2 along with other
Naomi ports such as Super Monkey Ball and Virtua
Striker.
Peter Moore proved the clear benefits of this warm up
move and also the entire change to a 3rd party by
saying "after you spend $5 million making a game, you
can double your audience by porting it to additional
platforms for another $500,000." For Sega it was clear
that was the road they
needed to take for profits.
2001 will be remembered as Sega's transitional year.
Both employees and fans required time to get used to
their new position, meanwhile both telling themselves
sunshine really is just over the hill even though it's
just port after port slowly come out.
Instead, this year, this E3 show, and this Christmas
season will be the one to watch. The warm up phase is
over and Sega's all star teams are ready to give it
everything they've got. A quick jump down to their
release schedule proves this with titles like Virtua
Fighter 4, Gun Valkyrie, House of the Dead 3, Jet Set
Radio Future, and Sega GT 2002! Yes Sonic is running
at full speed once again. Or is he?
Now Sega doesn't have warehouses full of hardware to
shift, they have no need to show their cards for
upcoming games so early. It's well known that 3rd
parties love to copy Sega, as seen most recently with
the Simpsons Road Rage. The same was seen a few years
ago when Sega revealed Jet Grind Radio. Sony
franticly tried to beat Sega to the punch by releasing
a dance game modelled on early screen shots of Jet
Grind Radio, and another company took the Cell Shading
technique and managed to release a title using it
before Sega.
Hence the new 3rd party Sega is keeping their cards
well hidden and it makes you wonder what they have up
their sleeves.
Out of Sega of Japan's nine development houses, such
as AM2 and Sonic Team, two already feel at home with
one main console. This attitude indicates we'll see a
vastly different array of titles on each console from
Sega, rather than the same titles ported to a vast
array of different consoles.
In an interview with MSNBC, Peter Moore said,
"Amusement Vision has had great success with Super
Monkey Ball and they also did Virtua Striker for
GameCube. Mizuguchi [Tetsuya Mizuguchi, president of
United Game Artists] is focused on PlayStation 2. We
are in a unique position because we have enough
talent with our many studios to allow designers to
focus on one platform, then discuss porting the games
to other platforms later."
Looking at the release schedule once again, all the
titles mentioned are due out in the first half of
2002. In fact except for Panzer Dragoon and Shenmue 2
we have no idea what Sega has planned for this fall,
let alone this Christmas!
While 2001 brought one of the biggest events in
videogame history, it also brought the slowest year in
Sega history. Now however, in 2002, Sega finally is
unleashed and we eagerly await what secret titles we'll
being playing later this year. Bring on the E3, bring
on the future! Bring on EA's worst nightmare and bring
back Sega!
If you have any thoughts on all this please share it
with us on the Sega World Weekly forum:
http://www.segaworldweekly.com/forum/
Was haltet ihr davon?
Ich glaube nach dem eher lauwarmen 2001 (viele konvertierungen), wird 2002 wieder ein richtig kreative
s SEGA Jahr, in dem innovation und kreativität SEGA's größter Trumpf sein wird.
January 31st 2001 - The day Sega dropped the bomb. The
day Sega said enough was enough and dropped out of the
hardware market.
For years since the Sega Saturn they'd been taking
loss after loss, predicting sunshine just over the
next hill. Despite being the first on the block with a
new 128-bit super console, the Dreamcast was both the
end and the beginning of an era. It was the final time
a console would bare the "Sega" logo, but also be the
start of an era where content rules and the "Sega" logo is unleashed upon the entire world.
Peter Moore, president and COO for Sega of America
issued a statement to the Sega gamers of the world on
that day saying "we understand that Sega's decision to
cease manufacturing of the Dreamcast console was an
emotional one for many gamers, as it was also, an
emotional one for us. Like many of us at the company,
Sega has always been a part of our lifestyle --
starting with the arcades thru Sega Master System to
Genesis in the early 90s and Sega Saturn to today with
Dreamcast. We understand that gaming is a big part of
your everyday lifestyle and Sega has made a great
impact on your life.
However, in this situation, we had to separate the
emotional aspect of this announcement from the
business aspect of the announcement." Mr Moore went on
saying how "we decided to focus on what has been our
greatest strength for more than 40 years -- great
content."
By May of 2001 Sega began to unveil their new view on
life and every attendant of the E3 show couldn't help
but miss the "Sega Unleashed" poster covering LA's
Convention Centre. But twelve months on from Sega's
revolution, has EA run in fear? Has Sega really been
unleashed upon the world? Or are they still only at
the stage of drawing up plans for world domination?
Taking a look at the Sega Library of yester year it
seems 2001 was in fact a slow start for the house of
Sonic. Because of the long development time games go
through these days, it wasn't until today that Sonic
made it to the Gameboy Advance, and last Christmas
when the blue hedgehog appeared on Nintendo's
GameCube.
Most of last year was spent getting their footing
right for being a 3rd party, including re-arranging
staff, re-assuring investors and re-gaining their
finances. Development teams researched the different
consoles and got warmed up for the future by porting
older Dreamcast titles. These included games like Chu
Chu Rocket, REZ, NFL and NBA 2K2 along with other
Naomi ports such as Super Monkey Ball and Virtua
Striker.
Peter Moore proved the clear benefits of this warm up
move and also the entire change to a 3rd party by
saying "after you spend $5 million making a game, you
can double your audience by porting it to additional
platforms for another $500,000." For Sega it was clear
that was the road they
needed to take for profits.
2001 will be remembered as Sega's transitional year.
Both employees and fans required time to get used to
their new position, meanwhile both telling themselves
sunshine really is just over the hill even though it's
just port after port slowly come out.
Instead, this year, this E3 show, and this Christmas
season will be the one to watch. The warm up phase is
over and Sega's all star teams are ready to give it
everything they've got. A quick jump down to their
release schedule proves this with titles like Virtua
Fighter 4, Gun Valkyrie, House of the Dead 3, Jet Set
Radio Future, and Sega GT 2002! Yes Sonic is running
at full speed once again. Or is he?
Now Sega doesn't have warehouses full of hardware to
shift, they have no need to show their cards for
upcoming games so early. It's well known that 3rd
parties love to copy Sega, as seen most recently with
the Simpsons Road Rage. The same was seen a few years
ago when Sega revealed Jet Grind Radio. Sony
franticly tried to beat Sega to the punch by releasing
a dance game modelled on early screen shots of Jet
Grind Radio, and another company took the Cell Shading
technique and managed to release a title using it
before Sega.
Hence the new 3rd party Sega is keeping their cards
well hidden and it makes you wonder what they have up
their sleeves.
Out of Sega of Japan's nine development houses, such
as AM2 and Sonic Team, two already feel at home with
one main console. This attitude indicates we'll see a
vastly different array of titles on each console from
Sega, rather than the same titles ported to a vast
array of different consoles.
In an interview with MSNBC, Peter Moore said,
"Amusement Vision has had great success with Super
Monkey Ball and they also did Virtua Striker for
GameCube. Mizuguchi [Tetsuya Mizuguchi, president of
United Game Artists] is focused on PlayStation 2. We
are in a unique position because we have enough
talent with our many studios to allow designers to
focus on one platform, then discuss porting the games
to other platforms later."
Looking at the release schedule once again, all the
titles mentioned are due out in the first half of
2002. In fact except for Panzer Dragoon and Shenmue 2
we have no idea what Sega has planned for this fall,
let alone this Christmas!
While 2001 brought one of the biggest events in
videogame history, it also brought the slowest year in
Sega history. Now however, in 2002, Sega finally is
unleashed and we eagerly await what secret titles we'll
being playing later this year. Bring on the E3, bring
on the future! Bring on EA's worst nightmare and bring
back Sega!
If you have any thoughts on all this please share it
with us on the Sega World Weekly forum:
http://www.segaworldweekly.com/forum/
Was haltet ihr davon?
Ich glaube nach dem eher lauwarmen 2001 (viele konvertierungen), wird 2002 wieder ein richtig kreative
s SEGA Jahr, in dem innovation und kreativität SEGA's größter Trumpf sein wird.
