Shenmue Killed SEGA Refutations?(The Rise & Fall of SEGA)

高野和泉

高野和泉

"SAKURA FESTIVAL!"
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I apologize in advance if this is the wrong section since I'm not too sure where it falls categorically since the intent and content are loosely tied to the common misconception heard about this franchise revolving around Shenmue 3 discussions. But I wanna link to a legendary article that can be used clearly to inform/refutes people's misconception of "SHENMUE KILLED SEGA" still heard even now around Era/Gaf & other gaming/SNS outlets.

source:

When Before IGN was a meme:

https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/21/ign-presents-the-history-of-sega?page=1

The chronicled Rise and fall of SEGA...and how SAMMY axed their visionaries talents from their company after the take over.

Almost shed a tear when I finished. Let me know what U think?:unsure:
 
Moved thread to Shenmue & Shenmue II section which is a more suitable board for discussing the franchise in general.
 
There are lots of myth around the old Sega. But I seriously believe that neither Shenmue nor the PS2 killed Sega. Sega killed Sega. They lost their grasp in Marketing in the late 1990s unlike in the early 90s. Both Shenmue and the Dreamcast were more advanced than the stuff sony had the offer.

In Retro perspective the Dreamcast was the better console than the Ps2. Dreamcast games still look great today. You cannot say the same Thing about the ps2 games. The Ps2 was and is s till great but it is a bit overated in humble opinion.

In one Thing Sony was undoubtedly better. The Marketing. And Sega did too many mistakes in the pre Dreamcast era. So they were eventually doomed. That's a pity.
 
In short, I think the Playstation 2 killed the Dreamcast, (and almost SEGA in general).
Mainly because of the DVD player.
People really wanted to watch dvd's. It was a big deal back then. That, together with the already big Playstation 1 costumerbase was more than enough.
If the DC had a DVD player we could have the Dreamcast 3 (or something equivalent) right now.
The Dreamcast was an amazing system tho. With amazing games.
 
DVD was expensiv back then. Sony only could get the DVD hard drive because they were one of the DVD Inventors. If Sega went for DVD they had to pay fees, that would have made the DC much more expensive. To offer a expensive console again right after the Saturn failure would have done much more harm than not using DVD. We are talking about 1998 after all and back then DVD Players costed a fortune at least in Europe.

Sony als could do some more risky Investments because they had the Money to do so. Sega as gaming Company could not do that.

And at the beginning the DVD Playback of the ps2 was not that great. Some DVDs were not working and the Picture was not that great. It is always enlighthing to read old Magazine articles about that.

Sony always has been lucky. They were there at the right time with the right product. At the time the competitors did some stupid mistakes. Combined with the superior Sony Marketing nobody could stop them.

In the end nothing could have saved Sega I am afraid. The only Thing that could have stopped Sony would be to work with them. Sega should have taken the offer to make the Sony/Sega Gaming System.
:sneaky:
 
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Sega's damaged past played a big roll in it but outside stuff like EA's dickish move of not supporting the system because they weren't able to get the ridiculous freedom they asked for and Ken Kutagari overhyping the PS2 are also factors.

Shenmue was a risky investment in a time where the finances were already in a troubled state, that is undeniable.
But it can't be blamed for everything. Ultimately it were the customers who killed Sega, by their power of not giving them their money and buying other products instead.
 
It’s not that Shenmue killed SEGA, but the way they threw money at it was indicative of why they fell, along with the 32X/Mega-CD debacle and other various instances of serious mismanagement.
 
Mittens2317 said:
It’s not that Shenmue killed SEGA, but the way they threw money at it was indicative of why they fell, along with the 32X/Mega-CD debacle and other various instances of serious mismanagement.
Click to expand...
Exactly that. They pissed off the consumers no end with all the add-ons etc. Also all the infighting that went on between Sega America and Sega Japan contributed to their downfall.

Sega America had a deal lined up with Sony for a joint venture on the new console but Japan turned it down and went with the Saturn. How things could have been so different. I read a while back that a Sony worker commented that at the time Sega's 3D games were leaps beyond anything out there and had they been able to work together they were confident they could have something out that would have supassed the eventual playstation.

Couple that with the poor Saturn launch, the issues to programme for it and cost they were always stuffed. By the time the Dreamcast came it was the last throw of the dice and they couldn't afford to take on Sony. It's a shame as now the DC is regarded as one of the best consoles ever made.

So in a nutshell Shenmue didn't kill Sega but it had a very very small part due to its costs.
 
Sega did indeed many strange Things in the 90s. They also had the Change to get n64 chip set and turned it down. Might have been a better choice for their next gen console than the Saturn way maybe. Although the Saturn was hard to work with it could some impressive Things.

The Shenmue tech demo looked way more impressive than anything the ps1 could do. They characters something like real faces. I cannot remember any n64 or ps1 game that could do something similar. But I might be wrong or maybe I have just forgotten some nice games. And I also have to Point out that the Shenmue stuff was just a tech demo.Might have been impossible to get the same graphical Quality in a real game.

But still impressive how advanced Sega was back then.
 
Yea, just more media misinformation. The Dreamcast install base was so minuscule at the time, Shenmue would have had to sell multiple copies per purchased console to save the system. Even Yu Suzuki stated the Shenmue saga actually made the former publisher a profit, when you consider its million+ sales, licensing deals, and technology it helped create for various titles.
 
Shenmue was the forerunner of the big budget titles of today. Unfortunately it was way ahead off its time. Sega was also the wrong publisher for such an risky matter. Some big publisher like Sony might have survived such project but they were not as advanced back then as Sega was.
 
It was a lot of little mistakes and those mistakes eventually caught up with Sega...they were throwing money around everywhere and ultimately they just ran out of lifelines in the end.
 
Many of the people here saying PS2 killed Dreamcast aren't going to like my opinion. I feel Xbox was the nail in the coffin for Sega after so many overpriced add-ons and failed systems. Sega CD was great but overpriced and many weren't willing to adopt CD technology in a gaming system just yet for the sake of doing so. 32X was a complete waste of time for both consumers and Sega. It didn't add much of anything to the Genesis' power and wasn't worth the additional money. Saturn was overpriced when compared with PS1 and it also didn't have the support that Playstation had.

Shortly after Dreamcast launched, Microsoft announced they were entering the console space with the Xbox. It's my firm belief that the market can only sustain three systems. Whichever was the weakest in the eyes of the public was generally pushed out. Microsoft did that to Sega. Sony killed a company sure, but it was Atari, not Sega, that got the Sony ax.
 
Sega was on a downward spiral when they started messing around with add-ons and released the Saturn. I read a good book on the history of the Sega v. Nintendo rivalry called System Wars, and it really feels like Sega of Japan really needed to work much more closely Sega of America. SOA really nailed the marketing for the Genesis & Sonic in the States. Obviously Sega had lots of success in Europe and Japan prior to Sega's success in America, but the American market is and was huge and Sega could not sustain itself only with European and Japanese business. On the other hand, Nintendo of Japan's relationship with Nintendo of America was much stronger. If I remember correctly, Sega of America was sort of just thrown the 32X and told to make it work and had no idea Sega was even working on the Saturn.

If anything, Sega needed more big games like Shenmue and Sonic and less home arcade experiences and weird experiments like NiGHTS. How could they not release a big SONIC game for the Saturn? How could they mess up something so obvious? Even a beautiful 2D Sonic would've done more for the Saturn than a great, but hard to understand, game like NiGHTS. I can't say that the Saturn was the superior console to the PSX, as much as I enjoyed it, because its library was just so limited in comparison. They really blew it with third parties and in-house games.

Shenmue was more of a hail mary than the future of the company. As has been said here many times, VF made Sega back any money they lost on Shenmue. If Sega had worked on more games like Shenmue and built a legacy on more in depth home experiences, I think they would've made it. Losing the support of third parties also sort of nailed them to the wall. Nintendo really figured out how to sustain their business. As much as I think their games sort of suck these days, I have to give them credit for staying ahead of trends and remaining relevant in the face of massive competition.
 
Whoever thinks Shenmue killed Sega is seriously misinformed. As you fellow posters already shared, Sega’s downfall from the console market is their fault alone and for various reasons, and sadly, the writing on the wall was long before Shenmue and the Dreamcast entered the picture. Most of it doing with how their international offices couldn’t work together and this was seen during the time of Kalinske, Stolar, and Moore, who had their run-ins with the Japanese board (especially Moore telling his translator to tell Yuji Naka to find a Japanese way to “fuck off”).

Other than the Saturn, the Japanese only saw Sega more as an arcade powerhouse as opposed to a console one, and though the Genesis was a success in the US, they never made any return profits because they were always sold at a cheap price. Unfortunately, that was the same with the Dreamcast, and Stolar (despite how the Saturn fans are going to hate me for mentioning him) fought to make it cheap as possible and was instrumental in making the North American Dreamcast launch a success. However, Sega just wasn’t making any profits, which is ultimately Sega left the console market.

They may have left consoles 20 years ago, but they will never be forgotten. Sega in its post-console life has produced some great games and franchises regardless. I love their Initial D Arcade Stage series since I love racing games and I’m already a big fan of the Initial D anime series. For the longest time, Yakuza/Ryu Ga Gotoku was the closest thing to Shenmue we were getting and I’ve come to love that series for what it is.
 
Sega's fear of Nintendo killed Sega. The very reason they kept pushing out hardware instead of playing it smart and keeping the MD/Gen on the market longer and re-develop Saturn and come out swinging with a more powerful competitor, not to mention the disastrous E3 1995 and continued fallout from it.
 
Jigen said:
Sega's fear of Nintendo killed Sega. The very reason they kept pushing out hardware instead of playing it smart and keeping the MD/Gen on the market longer and re-develop Saturn and come out swinging with a more powerful competitor, not to mention the disastrous E3 1995 and continued fallout from it.
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Funny enuf, Sony was also spooked by SEGA's hardware tech so they did a massive price cut to undersell w/ the playstation. :LOL::ROFLMAO:
 
9dragons said:
There are lots of myth around the old Sega. But I seriously believe that neither Shenmue nor the PS2 killed Sega. Sega killed Sega. They lost their grasp in Marketing in the late 1990s unlike in the early 90s. Both Shenmue and the Dreamcast were more advanced than the stuff sony had the offer.

In Retro perspective the Dreamcast was the better console than the Ps2. Dreamcast games still look great today. You cannot say the same Thing about the ps2 games. The Ps2 was and is s till great but it is a bit overated in humble opinion.

In one Thing Sony was undoubtedly better. The Marketing. And Sega did too many mistakes in the pre Dreamcast era. So they were eventually doomed. That's a pity.
Click to expand...

I know it’s your opinion but please post 150 Dreamcast games worth playing. Dreamcast is not better than ps2, ps2 games are very good looking, and I own over 100 games for ps2. Calling ps2 overrated is almost preposterous to me. You might prefer other systems but in no way is the system overrated. The amount of quality available for the system is insane.
 
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