FMV and Sega

[Psy]

On SegaBase it says "Digital Pictures was one of the very first software houses contacted by Sega of America to produce FMV titles for Sega CD."

So Sega went out of its way to put FMV games on the Sega CD? Why didn't Sega instead got after established PC titles on the CD format already? For example SimCity CD and adventure games by Lucas Art (yes Monkey Island and Willy Beamish made it onto the SegaCD but it is obvious Sega didn't aid Lucas Arts into doing good ports) and Sierra

[cj iwakura]

My guess is they were marketing FMV games as 'the wave of the future', and a way to say 'omg look what Sega CD can do!!', so that genre was their focus for a while.

Yeah, that ended well.

[Iron Lizard]

I wish Sega had just made for real games for the Sega Cd but Sega did have their reasons at the time. The industry had become a bit stagnated. Fmv was supposed to be as cj iwakura said the wave of the future. It was clear that something new was coming. Its interesting to read through Video Game Magazines at the time. You can really get the feel people were sick of the "old 16bit systems" and were hungry for something new. Look at all the failed systems that came out,Cdi 32x, 3do jaguar, Amiga 32 etc. There was a market for what people thought would be the future. Words like Multimedia were still be thrown around with lots of talk of VR. Hell Next Generation Magazine got their start thanks to that mindset. Video Games were going to be interactive movies. It was like the game companies were jealous of Hollywood. Many ads for these games looked like movie ads. Thank god that is over. Really looking back on it I don't think anyone knew what real was going to happen. Sega was just trying to fill the gap.

[Psy]

I wish Sega had just made for real games for the Sega Cd but Sega did have their reasons at the time. The industry had become a bit stagnated. Fmv was supposed to be as cj iwakura said the wave of the future. It was clear that something new was coming. Its interesting to read through Video Game Magazines at the time. You can really get the feel people were sick of the "old 16bit systems" and were hungry for something new. Look at all the failed systems that came out,Cdi 32x, 3do jaguar, Amiga 32 etc. There was a market for what people thought would be the future. Words like Multimedia were still be thrown around with lots of talk of VR. Hell Next Generation Magazine got their start thanks to that mindset. Video Games were going to be interactive movies. It was like the game companies were jealous of Hollywood. Many ads for these games looked like movie ads. Thank god that is over. Really looking back on it I don't think anyone knew what real was going to happen. Sega was just trying to fill the gap.
But the arcades went through this fad earlier with laser discs, Sega only had to compare popularity of its GP World (a laser disc based arcade racer) to Out Run (that came out 2 years after GP World and as we know was sprite based).

Also on the computer systems it is was the adventure games (Sam&Max, Day of the Tentacle, King's Quest) that were selling CD drives back in the early 90's and Sega releasing a track ball for the Genesis and focusing on getting adventures on the system would have made more sense at the time, yhea point and click adventure games were never hot on consoles but if Sega pushed maybe they could have introduced the genre to console gamers.

Of course RPGs was another genre the Sega CD was perfect for and good RPGs came out for it (though not enough) and here again Sega could have showcased the RPGs as a reason to get the SegaCD.

Lastly porting SimCity Enhanced CD-ROM probably would have helped system sales, yes it is just Sim City Classic with FMV clips but it is still Sim City Classic.

[Bratwurst]

There were a lot of directions Sega could have taken the platform in but full motion video was probably deemed the most flashy and therefore had an easily perceived value that a potential consumer could appreciate. A product has to stand out with an identity of its own, the target audience in the US (and perhaps SEGA of America itself) wasn't sophisticated enough to recognize the potential of increased data storage to go beyond steaming video.

This is also a guess, but I'd wager filling a disc with video was probably cheaper than producing other content.

Besides, there were adventure games, if they had sold well enough there probably would have been an incentive on Sega's part to produce more.

[Myrkwood]

Personally I think the lack of one screen colors simultaneously hurt the Sega Mega CD as not only was it expected but it would have helped video streaming alot.

Imagine if DVDs were out back then... man that would have been a selling point if they gave the Sega CD the ability to play those.

[Psy]

There were a lot of directions Sega could have taken the platform in but full motion video was probably deemed the most flashy and therefore had an easily perceived value that a potential consumer could appreciate. A product has to stand out with an identity of its own, the target audience in the US (and perhaps SEGA of America itself) wasn't sophisticated enough to recognize the potential of increased data storage to go beyond steaming video.

This is also a guess, but I'd wager filling a disc with video was probably cheaper than producing other content.

On the personal computer (across the computer platforms) at the time the CD was used for voices, sounds music and fluid animation (more frames of animation).

Also like I said laser disc based arcades were already dead except for a few light gun games, what made Sega think if they couldn't wow people in the arcades with far better video quality then the Sega CD could every hope to do that FMV games on the SegaCD would be any different?



Besides, there were adventure games, if they had sold well enough there probably would have been an incentive on Sega's part to produce more.
Secret of Money Island didn't have a save feature (that is horrible for point and click adventure games), Willy Beamish had horrible load times (while Rise of the Dragon didn't showing that Willy Beamish just was badly coded) and Snatcher (I know it wasn't a point & click) came too late in the Sega CD's life and Sega didn't use it to show off the system with ads showing casing Snatcher (probably could show Rise of the Dragon as well show cause the system mature lineup of games) to show the SegaCD has mature titles for adults while Nintendo is prudish for such mature titles.

Sega could have also gave technical aid to Sierra and LucasArt (the two big names in adventure games) to ensure they could do good ports.

[Iron Lizard]

I'm not saying it was the right choice to go in but it was the attitude of the time. If you just go through a few magazines at the time it makes much more sense. Even when they first came out they did feel amazing. It just took about five minutes to realize they sucked.

[Bratwurst]

On the personal computer (across the computer platforms) at the time the CD was used for voices, sounds music and fluid animation (more frames of animation).

Yes but there was much more dichotomy between the computer and console market in the 90s than there is today. Consoles were sought after as (and considered) an immediate plug and play experience. It would be great if the Sega CD used the medium more like personal computers did, it would have aged better, but marketing isn't always about longevity.


Sega could have also gave technical aid to Sierra and LucasArt (the two big names in adventure games) to ensure they could do good ports.

LucasArts did a Loom port for the TG-16 CD add-on if I remember right, possibly others, but there was definitely interest on their part to bring adventure games to consoles. I really think they were testing the waters and it didn't perform like they wanted or you would have seen more of it.

[Psy]

Yes but there was much more dichotomy between the computer and console market in the 90s than there is today. Consoles were sought after as (and considered) an immediate plug and play experience. It would be great if the Sega CD used the medium more like personal computers did, it would have aged better, but marketing isn't always about longevity.

You got to admit, a good port of Sam&Max:Hit the Road onto the SegaCD would have sparked the interest of console gamers even with the lower amount of colors on the Genesis, at least more then any FMV game did.



LucasArts did a Loom port for the TG-16 CD add-on if I remember right, possibly others, but there was definitely interest on their part to bring adventure games to consoles. I really think they were testing the waters and it didn't perform like they wanted or you would have seen more of it.
Like I said they didn't have saves for Secret of Money Island. Sega should have worked closer with LucasArts so not only did it support saving but supported saving directly to the backup RAM cart.

[Bratwurst]

You got to admit, a good port of Sam&Max:Hit the Road onto the SegaCD would have sparked the interest of console gamers even with the lower amount of colors on the Genesis, at least more then any FMV game did.

Sure, it probably would be as expensive as Snatcher on ebay today too. ;)

[Psy]

Sure, it probably would be as expensive as Snatcher on ebay today too. ;)
Not if Sega hyped the adventure genre instead of FMVs (learning from the decline of laser disc arcade games) and Sega could have also asked Worker Designs to localize Urusei Yatsura: My Dear Friends (A point and click by Game Arts only released in Japan) in trying to cash in the growing interest in Anime.

Basically if Sega didn't give Digital Pictures any help they could have redirected those resources into good games.

[Iron Lizard]

Anime was had an underground following at the time of the Sega Cd but it was very small. My friends and I were still copying our vhs tapes. Suncoast had very very small and expensive selection. We had a few good comic stores here but it was still hard to get.It took a few more years for it to catch on at all in the main stream. I don't think trying to capitalize on it would have done Sega much good at the time. Back then if I said the word Anime and people had no clue what that word meant. Instead it was called Japanimation and any mention of it would bring up the aggravating automatic response " You mean like Speed Racer". Though it is the reason I bought Timegal new.

[Psy]

Anime was had an underground following at the time of the Sega Cd but it was very small. My friends and I were still copying our vhs tapes. Suncoast had very very small and expensive selection. We had a few good comic stores here but it was still hard to get.It took a few more years for it to catch on at all in the main stream. I don't think trying to capitalize on it would have done Sega much good at the time. Back then if I said the word Anime and people had no clue what that word meant. Instead it was called Japanimation and any mention of it would bring up the aggravating automatic response " You mean like Speed Racer". Though it is the reason I bought Timegal new.
Localizing a game is not that costly so it wouldn't have been a big risk for Sega, the biggest cost would have been voice talent and actually publishing and distributing it.

[tomaitheous]

I thought Time Gal was cool when I first saw it, but Road Avenger was much better.

I was never impressed by the other FMV games - probably since they were grainy and weren't anime.

Sam and Max would've been cool on SegaCD, though I already had it (and Day of the Tentacle) enhanced versions for CD.

Anyway, even if Sega of America wanted to bring over MegaCD games, there weren't that many games to begin with. If you ask me, it was a lose/lose situation. Well.. I guess they could have also concentrated in porting PC Engine games to SegaCD like Lords of Thunder, Snatcher, and Dungeon Explorer (I usually can't stand US/EU developed games). I dunno

[Iron Lizard]

I liked Time gal much better then Road Avenger.

[Iron Lizard]

Localizing a game is not that costly so it wouldn't have been a big risk for Sega, the biggest cost would have been voice talent and actually publishing and distributing it.

I never will understand why they dont bring out more Japanese rpg's here. Anime was not that big at the time but Final Fantasy was huge. Im still pissed Policenauts never made it. Maybe it is harder then it seems to translate Rpgs. Working Designs always seemed to get crap for their translations. Maybe its that they think that everyone in the U.S. just wants action and sports games. They went as far as to make Sti. Of course it good to make games in places other then Japan but I get the feeling Sega never understood that we were fine with Japanese games ,even the weird ones.

[tomaitheous]

I don't think Sega's sales were strong enough in the RPG department to warrant bring over SegaCD RPGs. Sure FF3 was big, but the RPG audience didn't really grow until PS1. Your average gamer (read: where the money was at) bought action/platform titles. Also, localizing RPGs is a more costly process and then you have to tact on hiring voice actors. They probably figured there was more of a wow factor in FMV games and that they easily distinguished themselves from carts (or the fact that SNES carts couldn't do it). SEGA of America sure did try to push/force FMV games on the public as the next cool thing.

It's too bad the American counter part of SEGA, and to a lesser extent Nintendo who had more RPGs on the SNES, didn't see the growing demand for RPGs as their audience got older. By '94-95 is was pretty obvious, but a little too late by then as the next gen consoles were gearing up.

I actually ordered and beat a quite few Japanese RPGs CD games in '93-94.

[Iron Lizard]

i just wish i spoke Japanese so I would be a mute point for me.

[Psy]

I don't think Sega's sales were strong enough in the RPG department to warrant bring over SegaCD RPGs. Sure FF3 was big, but the RPG audience didn't really grow until PS1. Your average gamer (read: where the money was at) bought action/platform titles. Also, localizing RPGs is a more costly process and then you have to tact on hiring voice actors and semi-talented coders.

Localizing means the game's code is already done and play tested, all you have to do is hire voice actors, writers and translators. Where FMV you have to have writers, developers, programmers (for more talented). actors, directors, sets,ect.

I think Sega's FMV strategy should have just been porting laserdisc arcade games which other did do.



They probably figured there was more of a wow factor in FMV games and that they easily distinguished themselves from carts (or the fact that SNES carts couldn't do it). SEGA of America sure did try to push/force FMV games on the public as the next cool thing.
Again Sega of American could have looked at how the laser disc based arcade games were doing and draw the conclusion that they didn't have the same staying power as the conventional arcade titles (just look at how many of the laser disc arcade titles you actually still see in service compared to their sprite based counterparts)



It's too bad the American counter part of SEGA, and to a lesser extent Nintendo who had more RPGs on the SNES, didn't see the growing demand for RPGs as their audience got older. By '94-95 is was pretty obvious, but a little too late by then as the next gen consoles were gearing up.

I actually ordered and beat a quite few Japanese RPGs CD games in '93-94.

It should have been painfully obvious that the causal gamer was never going to get a SegaCD due to the price and that the stock Sega Genesis (that you needed) was already taking care of the casual gamer. Sega's strategy for the SegaCD should have been the same as SNK's strategy with the Neo-Geo and focus exclusivity on the hard core gamers (in this case by looking after the RPG and Adventure gamer) and older gamers with more disposal income then your average teenager at the time, this would have also have given Sega a strong defence in the video game voice hearings, saying the SegaCD is aimed at a much older audience.

[Term180]

Not all of the FMV games were horrible, they just had crappy replay value.
Double Switch was decent (hey, it had Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket playin' the handyman, Corey Haim when he still knew how to party, and an aging Blondie as his mother!)

Night Trap was cool in an '80s b-movie spoof sort of way.

Ground Zero Texas... well, for an FMV shooter, wasn't a horrible game, but wasn't entirely good either.

TomCat Alley had its fun points, I had no complaints about it (some of the archive footage they used for the game, can also be seen in the film "Top Gun")

Surgical Strike was frustrating, and I can't recall the story very well.

Wire-Head, now there's a funny game, controlling some goofball with an antenna on his head; only downside is you couldn't make him jump off a bridge :p still, not the worst game..

Corpse Killer, now as much as people ragged on this game I friggin' loved it, dunno why, but it has always held a special place in my heart.

Fahrenheit was a fun game the first time through, absolutely no replay value though ("FEEL THE HEAT.... of the fiiiirrre"...I remember that intro FMV/song quite well)

Kids On Site wasn't even really a game in my opinion, I remember getting this as a gift, pretending not to think it was the stupidest, cheesiest thing I'd ever played.

Iron Helix (I think that's the name) I didn't understand one bit.

Sewer Shark was just that, a large brown shark someone fired out into the sewers one day and somehow wound up being marketed as a game.

Who Shot Johnny Rock? and anything else by American Laser Games, I absolutely abhor- despise down to the bone (also, though unrelated since it was a 3DO game, but did anyone ever play Space Pirates?)
Any ALG game is a perfect candidate for the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" crew; the jokes write themselves.

Then there were games like Demolition Man or The Terminator that had solid gameplay, and simply incorporated FMVs from their respective films inbetween levels.

FMV, in my opinion, was best taken advantage of by the 3DO, with games like Daedalus Encounter (Mmm.. Tia Carrere..) Psychic Detective (one awesome friggin' game, and the only FMV game with that has more replay value that some non-FMV games) and Wing Commander III (a must-have if you own a 3DO)

[Iron Lizard]

Double Switch?! Are you kidding. Dear good that game blew.

[Term180]

Really? Didn't like Double Switch?
I liked it enough to purchase the Sega Saturn version as well- the Saturn version is fullscreen (with a transparent map-grid) and has smoother FMV (the Saturn version is also split into two discs while the SCD version is a single-disc game)

Also, if you put it (the Sega CD version) in a CD Player, the second track features people chanting "Number 9" backwards, a reference to the Beatles White Album, where people used to believe that by playing a particular track backward, you could hear "Paul is dead", referring of course to Paul McCartney (who hadn't died, but later separated from the group to form Wings)

[Iron Lizard]

I guess i have it out for any fmv but especially one like Double Switch or 7th Guest with the puzzle element. The Cory factor didn't either but I would forgive it if it was a decent game.

[tomaitheous]

Localizing means the game's code is already done and play tested, all you have to do is hire voice actors, writers and translators. Where FMV you have to have writers, developers, programmers (for more talented). actors, directors, sets,ect.


I dunno. That could be a toss up. Translating an RPGs script isn't an easy process (I know - I've worked on ROM and CD translations). You can't just translate from the dumped script and call it done - due to the nature of Japanese language, you have to constantly play test and make adjustments to the script. A professional translation job is expensive. Btw- Working Designs was accused of using College students for there projects because they were cheap (this was by an ex-employee).

Also, having another programmer go through the source and add/change text compression schemes and redo the font routine for English - isn't an easy process either. Going through someone else's ASM source isn't exactly easy (I wonder how well Japanese programmers comment their code). In comparison to writing some simple game logic for a FMV game, I'd say localizing an RPG is much more involved - time and money wise.

I agree with Iron Lizard - FMV suck. Sure they had a novelty aspect.. kinda, but real gamers *didn't* play FMV and/or liked them. My circle of friends considered people who liked such games as "non-gamers". We knew a few... and laughed at them :D

[Term180]

I dunno. That could be a toss up. Translating an RPGs script isn't an easy process (I know - I've worked on ROM and CD translations). You can't just translate from the dumped script and call it done - due to the nature of Japanese language, you have to constantly play test and make adjustments to the script. A professional translation job is expensive. Btw- Working Designs was accused of using College students for there projects because they were cheap (this was by an ex-employee).

Also, having another programmer go through the source and add/change text compression schemes and redo the font routine for English - isn't an easy process either. Going through someone else's ASM source isn't exactly easy (I wonder how well Japanese programmers comment their code). In comparison to writing some simple game logic for a FMV game, I'd say localizing an RPG is much more involved - time and money wise.

I agree with Iron Lizard - FMV suck. Sure they had a novelty aspect.. kinda, but real gamers *didn't* play FMV and/or liked them. My circle of friends considered people who liked such games as "non-gamers". We knew a few... and laughed at them :D

That's exactly what I think of Boosters, Cheaters, Standbyers and Glitchers in this day and age, as non-gamers.
Same with the XBox 360 "Achievement whores" as they like to call themselves; anyone who chooses to play this game or that, simply because they know it's an easy 1000 gamerscore, while avoiding all others, is MY opinion of a non-gamer, or anyone who uses, or has used a cheat/game genie/shark code to complete a game, is a "non-gamer", not someone who happened to enjoy a short-lived genre that was underappreciated and given a bad name by developers like American Laser Games.

Just my two cents...

[Term180]

I guess i have it out for any fmv but especially one like Double Switch or 7th Guest with the puzzle element. The Cory factor didn't either but I would forgive it if it was a decent game.

Fast Getaway, Liscence to Drive, Dream Machine, The Lost Boys; none of those movies you liked?

Ah, guess I'm just an '80s guy at heart :D

Poor Corey Haim.. (ever watch The Two Coreys on A&E? Feldman's got a beautiful wife and house, Haim's single, depressed, and mooching off of Feldman..)

Sorry for the off-topic post

As for the latter; I never played 7th Guest, but I've heard it compared to "Myst", and if it is indeed anything like that, then I can reasonably assume that it did suck as you said...

[tomaitheous]

Term180 - you'd probably dig 7th Guest. Myst was lame, but 7th Guest was better try at the puzzle/FMV genre. BTW - nice avatar. I remember that nut job from the news casts :D

[Iron Lizard]

7th Guest was such a let down. It had such a great hook and feel to it. Then they shoved a bunch of crappy puzzles down my throat. They made such a big deal about it at the time.

[Psy]

I dunno. That could be a toss up. Translating an RPGs script isn't an easy process (I know - I've worked on ROM and CD translations). You can't just translate from the dumped script and call it done - due to the nature of Japanese language, you have to constantly play test and make adjustments to the script. A professional translation job is expensive. Btw- Working Designs was accused of using College students for there projects because they were cheap (this was by an ex-employee).

Also, having another programmer go through the source and add/change text compression schemes and redo the font routine for English - isn't an easy process either. Going through someone else's ASM source isn't exactly easy (I wonder how well Japanese programmers comment their code). In comparison to writing some simple game logic for a FMV game, I'd say localizing an RPG is much more involved - time and money wise.

But in FMV there is the cost of filming, sure you can port laser disc arcades easily but when it comes to doing a new FMV you have huge costs in just producing the video and the more interactive you want to make it, the more clips you need to shoot. FMV kinda worked for light gun shooters as the graphical overlay ontop of the video was what was changing while the video ran uninterrupted, you probably could do the same with a racer by having a FMV track and having all the cars as overlay sprites and changing the speed of the video in relation of the speed of the users car (such tricks are easier to do in the laser disc arcades)



I agree with Iron Lizard - FMV suck. Sure they had a novelty aspect.. kinda, but real gamers *didn't* play FMV and/or liked them. My circle of friends considered people who liked such games as "non-gamers". We knew a few... and laughed at them :D
Speaking of which do you know the SegaCD and TG-CD were not the first systems to offer FMV games in your home? Halcyon Interactive Laser Disc System (http://www.dragons-lair-project.com/community/related/homesystems/halcyon/) came out in 1985 as a home laser disc game system (that had a very short life span)

[Melf]

My question is: if Sega made the Sega CD with hardware rotation and scaling, why didn't it concentrate on that instead of FMV? The CD did some ugly video, which was small, grainy, and bland in color; so Sega makes that its focus?

I'd have made games with gratuitious use of scaling and rotation, similar to the early SNES games. It seems like EVERY early SNES game rotated SOMETHING, even if it was just the logo.

[tomaitheous]

Someone pointed out in another forum(I don't think it was this forum) that the DEV manual stated that the ASIC chip was used for non-realtime display building (like golf games and such).

The scaling/rotation overall is more limited than the SNES. You can't do full screen scaling/rotation BGs at 60fps. *Full* screen even at low res(256x224) for just a BG layer(the whole screen) is 12fps due to the Genesis VDP bandwidth. Some games clipped the display or kept the BG layer at less than half screen width (see the Chuck Rock racing game, Soulstar, etc) to increase the FPS. That's just the BG layer, start adding dynamic scaling sprites(usually the second BG layer) and fps drops even more. And to top it off, you're basically limited to 16 colors per layer (the SNES used a special 256 color tile mode for mode 7). This was probably what mainly deterred developers. In the end, the ASIC setup is more like a hack job when paired with the Genesis VDP. Some developers did get some decent effects out of it, hiding it's limitation - the later batman SegaCD a perfect example.

Still, customers paid for the chip so it should have received some more love then it did. Scaling sprites and rotating Boss parts aren't as taxing(on bandwidth/fps) as whole BG layers and would have been nice to see ingame Sega style.

Psy - thanks for the link! That's pretty damn advanced for 1985 - wow.

[Iron Lizard]

My question is: if Sega made the Sega CD with hardware rotation and scaling, why didn't it concentrate on that instead of FMV? The CD did some ugly video, which was small, grainy, and bland in color; so Sega makes that its focus?

I'd have made games with gratuitious use of scaling and rotation, similar to the early SNES games. It seems like EVERY early SNES game rotated SOMETHING, even if it was just the logo.

It just that people were tired of platformers , fighters, side scrollers etc. They wanted "THE FUTURE" and Sega tried to deliver with horrible results.

[Melf]

They delivered some alternate, Biff Tannon-run, bleak future where Corey Haim is still a star and people actually care about Kriss Kross and Marky Mark.

[Iron Lizard]

They delivered some alternate, Biff Tannon-run, bleak future where Corey Haim is still a star and people actually care about Kriss Kross and Marky Mark.

Yes and payed for it with their reputation.

[Psy]

Yes and payed for it with their reputation.
FMV didn't die because of the washed up actors they used, it died because of sucky game play. Anyway their acting is FAR better then the voice acting on the CD-I Zelda games.

[Iron Lizard]

FMV didn't die because of the washed up actors they used, it died because of sucky game play. Anyway their acting is FAR better then the voice acting on the CD-I Zelda games.

You misunderstood. I meant Sega's reputation suffered because of their iinsistence on using fmv. Yes sucky game play did them in.

[Psy]

You misunderstood. I meant Sega's reputation suffered because of their iinsistence on using fmv. Yes sucky game play did them in.
I think it hurt Sega's pocket book far more then its reputation, Sega invested its resources in FMV that sunk the SegaCD that again Sega invested resources into. After the whole FMV disaster Sega still had reputation to lose on the 32X, surprise launch of the Saturn, killing of the Genesis, having Bernard Stolar as head of SOA, and later killing of the Saturn (they built up their reputation again with the Dreamcast to lose it with the killing of the Dreamcast)

[cj iwakura]

Double Switch was awesome. It's Night Trap with replay value.

Less deliberate comedy, but it's a lot more fun to play.

And Corpse Killer has some of the best FMV ever, mostly care of Winston and Dr. Hellman.

Also, Road Avenger > Time Gal, but both are fun. Road Avenger just has a much better story going for it.

[TmEE]

The scaling/rotation overall is more limited than the SNES. You can't do full screen scaling/rotation BGs at 60fps. *Full* screen even at low res(256x224) for just a BG layer(the whole screen) is 12fps due to the Genesis VDP bandwidth. Some games clipped the display or kept the BG layer at less than half screen width (see the Chuck Rock racing game, Soulstar, etc) to increase the FPS. That's just the BG layer, start adding dynamic scaling sprites(usually the second BG layer) and fps drops even more. And to top it off, you're basically limited to 16 colors per layer (the SNES used a special 256 color tile mode for mode 7). This was probably what mainly deterred developers. In the end, the ASIC setup is more like a hack job when paired with the Genesis VDP. Some developers did get some decent effects out of it, hiding it's limitation - the later batman SegaCD a perfect example.


12FPS only... I could display around the same on MD on its own and I wasn't using DMA and I was loading windows BMPs... a demo of my work : MD doing FMV (http://www.hot.ee/tmeeco/DWNLOADS/CAR.RAR)

[Iron Lizard]

I think it hurt Sega's pocket book far more then its reputation, Sega invested its resources in FMV that sunk the SegaCD that again Sega invested resources into. After the whole FMV disaster Sega still had reputation to lose on the 32X, surprise launch of the Saturn, killing of the Genesis, having Bernard Stolar as head of SOA, and later killing of the Saturn (they built up their reputation again with the Dreamcast to lose it with the killing of the Dreamcast)

They usually go hand in hand

[Genesis Knight]

But...Red Zone has FMV at far more than 12FPS.

[Psy]

They usually go hand in hand
Not in this case, the Sega Genesis was still hot and the Sega marketing machine was focused on the Genesis. Also unlike the Genesis, 32x, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, Sega simply let the SegaCD slowly die off, the SegaCD in 1996 had no new game released (or any being developed) but official Sega still supported the system till later in 1996 when Sega pulled the plug on the Genesis.

[Iron Lizard]

Not in this case, the Sega Genesis was still hot and the Sega marketing machine was focused on the Genesis. Also unlike the Genesis, 32x, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, Sega simply let the SegaCD slowly die off, the SegaCD in 1996 had no new game released (or any being developed) but official Sega still supported the system till later in 1996 when Sega pulled the plug on the Genesis.

The Sega Cd did have a small owners base. As the price for it went down more people bought them.At the time it was a hot system to have. All 3 of systems were pulled for different reasons. The 32x straight out bombed bombed. The Saturn died a slow painful death in The U.S. and the Dreamcast as great as it was just was not enough.

However I fail to understand how you can possibly say that fmv did not tarnish Segas reputation or that Sega wasted wasted huge resources on them. Yes resources were wasted on the Sega Cd but as far as spending money on Fmv goes I would argue that it was actually cheaper for Sega. Almost all those games were made by 3rd party developers and were licensed. Most in fact came out on other platforms. Sega itself did not produce very many games fmv.How many exclusive Sega Cd fmv games are there? Tomcat Alley ,Make my own Video and a few others maybe maybe? No I do not think it hurt Sega's pocketbook as much as it hurt their reputation. Lose the reputation, no one buys and then it hits the pcoketbook

It hurt much more when Sony had thier way with Sega outside of Japan thanks to Sega becoming a a near joke. Sega's reputation had been great when they started slugging it out with Nintendo. People were sick of Nintendo's arrogance and Sega stuck it to them the best it could. Sega's success was based on that. You can have the best product in the world but if people, who tend to be fickle, think you suck they wont give you the time of day. If the Sega CD had just been one horrible mistake like Nintendo had with the Virtua Boy( ill call the n64 a smaller mistake) maybe we wouldn't remember how bad fmv was. But beacause of it I think most look at it as the beginning of the end for Sega. Yes resources were wasted but on unnecessary hardware like the 32x and my beloved Sega Cd, and Sega completely retarded handling of the Saturn outside of Japan. Fmv was the first taste that most people got of " What the hell are they doing?" which has now turned into things like" Why did they make so many fmv games"

[tomaitheous]

12FPS only... I could display around the same on MD on its own and I wasn't using DMA and I was loading windows BMPs... a demo of my work : MD doing FMV (http://www.hot.ee/tmeeco/DWNLOADS/CAR.RAR)

TmEE: I've seen your demo over at forum already ;)

Genesis Knight:

Here's some of the numbers via VDP DMA-

For 32H cell mode, the DMA can transfer 166bytes per scanline with the display it off. In a 224 vertical res setup (NTSC) 39 scalines are vblank with the DMA using 36 out of those 39 (mentioned in the dev docs somewhere that there's a delay for 3-4 scanlines before the DMA will start, after active display has ended). This gives a transfer rate of 5.976k per vblank frame.

If you have an image that's full screen using only 1 layer(usually BG) and the screen resolution is 256x224, that means it takes 28672 bytes to make up the whole image. 28.672k / 5.976k = 4.7978 frames before the whole image transfer/update is finished. So 5 frames to update the image (this is full screen remember) and there is 60 frames in a second (NTSC) so 60/5 = 12fps.

There are ways around this like shortening the screen res down to 256x200 and/or keeping the scaling/rotating to less than half the screen height (think of the Sonic 3D mario cart level, Chuck Rock racing game, Soul Star, etc). 256x200 gives you about 9.7k per frames transfer rate or about 20fps (roughly what a lot of PS games ran at).

But remember, if you start adding additional layers like scaling sprites and what not, then you'll increase the amount of bandwidth (kilobytes) total to build that frame out.

Besides the color limitation I mentioned before (and using doubling layers to increase color count to 31 colors cuts the fps in half or doubles the bandwidth, depending on how you look at it), there's also the limitation that you have to divide the VRAM (usually by half - down to 32k) to allow for double buffering since you can't upload all the changes/image data you want in a single frame.

It really is a poor setup. The SNES has the same problem too with the addon chips. You can't write to VRAM during active display. It's mode 7 though has no such limitation and runs up to 60fps at 256 color tiles. Too bad it doesn't scale sprites in hardware :p Of the 3 consoles of that generation, only the PCE allows you to write to VRAM during anytime without penalty. And they never bothered with addon chips ;)

[Psy]

The Sega Cd did have a small owners base. As the price for it went down more people bought them.At the time it was a hot system to have. All 3 of systems were pulled for different reasons. The 32x straight out bombed bombed. The Saturn died a slow painful death in The U.S. and the Dreamcast as great as it was just was not enough.

While the Saturn had a slow painful death but Sega pulled the plug too soon, there was a gap between the Saturn and Dreamcast were SOA had nothing to sell. In both cases it also showed Sega was not willing to be the underdog anymore, think what would have happened if Sega pulled the plug on the Mega Drive (and Genesis in the North America) in 1990 because Super Famicom slowed Mega Drive sales in Japan to next to nothing.

Commodore went 8 years with a Amiga user base the size of the Saturn user base, and that was with hemorrhaging money with their mismanagement so what was Sega excuse? Oh yhea Sega was hemorrhaging even more money then Commodore due to even more mismanagement, and even now that they are out of the hardware biz they still are hemorrhaging money so you can't blame poor Saturn or Dreamcast sales on bringing down Sega. Any company not hemorrhaging money at the same rate as Sega would have classed the Dreamcast a success and launched a marketing blitz to counter the PS2 hype, also most companies could have at least broken even with the Saturn as 10 million units is not that bad.




However I fail to understand how you can possibly say that fmv did not tarnish Segas reputation or that Sega wasted wasted huge resources on them. Yes resources were wasted on the Sega Cd but as far as spending money on Fmv goes I would argue that it was actually cheaper for Sega. Almost all those games were made by 3rd party developers and were licensed. Most in fact came out on other platforms. Sega itself did not produce very many games fmv.How many exclusive Sega Cd fmv games are there? Tomcat Alley ,Make my own Video and a few others maybe maybe? No I do not think it hurt Sega's pocketbook as much as it hurt their reputation. Lose the reputation, no one buys and then it hits the pcoketbook

It hurt much more when Sony had thier way with Sega outside of Japan thanks to Sega becoming a a near joke. Sega's reputation had been great when they started slugging it out with Nintendo. People were sick of Nintendo's arrogance and Sega stuck it to them the best it could. Sega's success was based on that. You can have the best product in the world but if people, who tend to be fickle, think you suck they wont give you the time of day. If the Sega CD had just been one horrible mistake like Nintendo had with the Virtua Boy( ill call the n64 a smaller mistake) maybe we wouldn't remember how bad fmv was. But beacause of it I think most look at it as the beginning of the end for Sega. Yes resources were wasted but on unnecessary hardware like the 32x and my beloved Sega Cd, and Sega completely retarded handling of the Saturn outside of Japan. Fmv was the first taste that most people got of " What the hell are they doing?" which has now turned into things like" Why did they make so many fmv games"

Sega invested in Digital Pictures also had Sewer Shark as a pack-in, lets not forget Sega advertising dollars going to advertise Digital Pictures games.

As for reputation, Sega was still doing everything right on the Genesis and in the arcades at the time, thus no net reputation was lost at the time.

[Iron Lizard]

While the Saturn had a slow painful death but Sega pulled the plug too soon, there was a gap between the Saturn and Dreamcast were SOA had nothing to sell. In both cases it also showed Sega was not willing to be the underdog anymore, think what would have happened if Sega pulled the plug on the Mega Drive (and Genesis in the North America) in 1990 because Super Famicom slowed Mega Drive sales in Japan to next to nothing.

Commodore went 8 years with a Amiga user base the size of the Saturn user base, and that was with hemorrhaging money with their mismanagement so what was Sega excuse? Oh yhea Sega was hemorrhaging even more money then Commodore due to even more mismanagement, and even now that they are out of the hardware biz they still are hemorrhaging money so you can't blame poor Saturn or Dreamcast sales on bringing down Sega. Any company not hemorrhaging money at the same rate as Sega would have classed the Dreamcast a success and launched a marketing blitz to counter the PS2 hype, also most companies could have at least broken even with the Saturn as 10 million units is not that bad.




Sega invested in Digital Pictures also had Sewer Shark as a pack-in, lets not forget Sega advertising dollars going to advertise Digital Pictures games.

As for reputation, Sega was still doing everything right on the Genesis and in the arcades at the time, thus no net reputation was lost at the time.


You not making much sense. I am having trouble following your points. Commodore went out of Business. Not to sound like an Asshole but how old are you? Your points are so black and white. A company has sell its product to say in business. Sega was not. Did you forget Sammy of all companies bought them out?

[Psy]

You not making much sense. I am having trouble following your points. Commodore went out of Business. Not to sound like an Asshole but how old are you? Your points are so black and white. A company has sell its product to say in business. Sega was not. Did you forget Sammy of all companies bought them out?
I am 27. Like I said Commodore lasted 8 years with a user based about the size of the Sega Saturn and for the most part its Amiga market was profitable and Commodore went bankrupt do to losing more money then the Amiga market earned them. Another example is Sega was in better financial with the Sega Master System and it didn't sell that much better then the Saturn.

My point it that the Saturn and Dreamcast on their own were not failures and the only Sega could have easily made a profit off these machines.

[tomaitheous]

I remember reading that Sega had accumulated a lot of debt from the SegaCD and 32x failures, and that this carried on into the Saturn and Dreamcast era. So while the Dreamcast was profitable, Sega was still knee deep in debt. That's all hearsay though.

[TmEE]

Saturn is a pain to program for... developer without decent SDK got scared of it...

[Psy]

Here is a youtube video of the intro Urusei Yatsura (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n32B4Gzbn5I), this is game runs off a stock MegaCD not 32x. The reason the intro looks so good is the intro is a animation file (like FLI/FLC) and not a FMV file, meaning it was done in a animation program were they could limit the pallet to that of the Sega Genesis (we also seen this in the cut scenes of Popful Mail)

This looks way better then grainy FMV that is common with the SegaCD/MegaCD, it also shows that it would have been possible to make the cut scenes from games like Sam&Max and Day of the Tentacle look good.

It also shows a bit of the game, that again shows the SegaCD/MegaCD very capable of good looking adventure games.

Basically I'm surprised SOA went with Digital Pictures as long as they did, when far better looking games were coming out of Japan for the Mega CD, I'm also surprised SOJ let SOA keep marketing the Sega CD like it was. Plus Sega of America released its own FMV games in house.

While I think a good chunk of the debt Sega took on was from the SegaCD and 32x bet lets not forget the money they sunk into Digital Pictures (and its own FMV games). Sewer Shark and Night Trap cost Sega nothing, Sega actually got money for licensing and could have got more if it didn't have Sewer Shark as a pack-in (The 5in1 was a much better pack in anyway). Then Sega actually spent money to aid Digital Pictures in getting the rights for bands for the Make my Video series, which not only wasted money but contributed to the flood of horribly bad titles for the Sega CD like that of the Atari 2600 in the early 80's (but with far fewer titles).

[evildragon]

I can't load the page for some reason. Youtube must be done.

[Zebbe]

Works great for me.

[evildragon]

Yea, I had to reboot my domain controller. DNS got raped again.

[Psy]

BTW any chance anyone can add English subtitling to Urusei Yatsura on the SegaCD and release it via patch or full ISO?

[tomaitheous]

BTW any chance anyone can add English subtitling to Urusei Yatsura on the SegaCD and release it via patch or full ISO?

Highly doubtful :? Nice animation example. I love to see animation like that over FMV... any day.

[Psy]

Highly doubtful :? Nice animation example. I love to see animation like that over FMV... any day.
Other then translating, what technical issues there be putting in subtitles?

[RedAngel]

The first Sega net loss was in the fiscal year 03/31/1997 to 03/31/1998, so the main responsible was the Saturn. The problem with Sega CD and 32X is that Sega invested a lot of money on them but they were discontinued in 1996 along with Genesis :? .

[Psy]

The first Sega net loss was in the fiscal year 03/31/1997 to 03/31/1998, so the main responsible was the Saturn. The problem with Sega CD and 32X is that Sega invested a lot of money on them but they were discontinued in 1996 along with Genesis :? .
The Saturn was only a tad less usefulness then the Sega Master System yet that was partly due to the Sega Master System being on the market longer. The SegaCD and 32X weakened Sega to the point the Saturn wasn't profitable enough to keep Sega going.

[tomaitheous]

Other then translating, what technical issues there be putting in subtitles?

A lot. You'd have to figure out the what type of engine it's using for the cinemas, disassemble it, and fully understand it. It's one thing to have the source code, but disassembling a binary doesn't have the structure or labels or comments of the original source - that's no easy feat. Then you have to figure out if the format/engine can be adapted for uploading tiles for a static part of the screen(the subtitles), and that's if there's room in VRAM. VRAM using can/does change from frame to frame, so it's not static. Who knows, you could get lucky and find an area of VRAM that's static through out the cinemas that you could upload to (though you'd still have to deal with tilemap entries and such).

[TmEE]

Or you'll take the movie files, and edit them instead... but you may need compressors and decompressors, and lots of time to put the subtitles in each frame...

[Psy]

Or you'll take the movie files, and edit them instead... but you may need compressors and decompressors, and lots of time to put the subtitles in each frame...
That would solve the cut scenes but then you have the voice acting within the main game engine.

[tomaitheous]

Or you'll take the movie files, and edit them instead... but you may need compressors and decompressors, and lots of time to put the subtitles in each frame...

True, if Urusei Yatsura were using FMV or some sort of frame format. There has been talk about Gulliver Boy (not a SegaCD game) getting subtitles for the cinemas if the game ever sees a translation as those are uncompressed frames so adding subtitles would be easy.

[BlowMyCartridge]

My question is: if Sega made the Sega CD with hardware rotation and scaling, why didn't it concentrate on that instead of FMV? The CD did some ugly video, which was small, grainy, and bland in color; so Sega makes that its focus?

I'd have made games with gratuitious use of scaling and rotation, similar to the early SNES games. It seems like EVERY early SNES game rotated SOMETHING, even if it was just the logo.

Sega didn't focus on scaling/rotation and Mode 7 effects because SNES already had them, simple as that. They didn't want the Sega Genesis/CD to be seen as equal to SNES, they wanted to look better. FMV games, though totally unsuited for the hardware, showed us games that the SNES could never produce, which is what Sega wanted.

[Joe Redifer]

Sega didn't focus on scaling/rotation and Mode 7 effects because SNES already had them, simple as that.
Well, to put it bluntly, it is not even close to being that simple, unfortunately. Scaling was a HUGE thing in the arcades and in home systems at the time, and technically the Sega CD could do more with scaling and rotation than the SNES could (which could only do the background layer). Unfortunately the reason most games on the Sega CD don't go in to that territory is twofold. #1, the Sega CD development systems were often incomplete or very difficult to program for. Using the scaling was a huge pain in the ass. #2, the Sega CD and Genesis did not communicate with each other fast enough, so the best you could get with the Sega CD scaling was about 22 frames per second vs 60fps on the SNES. If the Sega CD could display at the same time it rendered, it could do 60fps, but it can't. Also when doing the scaling the amount of colors is also severely limited compared to other Genesis games do to the communication issues as well. It was not true parallel processing.

[BlowMyCartridge]

So you think if the system was more technically capable, then Sega wouldn't have devoted so much time and money to FMVs and more on games that would feature scaling/rotation?

[Joe Redifer]

Sega of America would have gone FMV no matter what because they were stupid. However we would have likely seen much better games from Japan and a few from the US and UK other than just Core and Malibu or whoever did Batman Returns.

[BlowMyCartridge]

Well yeah, that's sort of what I was saying. They wanted to do FMV regardless of what would've worked best of the system.

Why does everyone hate FMV games so much? Is it the titles put out within the genre or the concept of the genre itself??

[lordofduct]

It was not true parallel processing.

By definition it was parallel processing... two processors accessing the same program and sharing the information over a bus. Parallel processing always comes with that one tiny little issue... the bus. Bus speeds in machines tend to always be miserably low due to the amount of electrical interference that is inherited at high speeds (i.e. why your 2.8ghz P4 processor communicates with the rest of the computer on a 4 lane bus clocked at usually 200mhz each... e.g. 800mhz FSB).

A slotted bus (the cartridge slot connector on the SCD) is even lower and only with a 16-bit width. Hence all the issues you described in your post.

Just saying, it is parallel processing by definition.



Back on topic though... many people have brought up very good points about WHY FMV was used a lot, and why they didn't pay attention to the other genres as much.

I will say this:
RPGs - sorry, but this genre never really got any love especially in the US until the late 90's. The genre was plagued with poorly made rip offs, bad translations, and massive storage necessities (which SCD could of soothed the qualm of). But the SCD had a small market share, so now instead of having to jack the price to afford the manufacturing costs (i.e. Phantasy Star 1 and it's insane price tag), now they have to skimp on money because there isn't enough people out there to buy them.

Platformers and other action type games - The genesis had them, not a lot of people had a SCD, why are you going to buy a 300 dollar machine so your platformer is just a little bit better. They kept to the Genny for this stuff, hardly any load times there and a hardened base of programmers who knew how to utilize it. Mode7 and rotation and all that hubbub sounds really cool, and looks cool... but is it really necessary for a game? Is it worth the 300 dollars for a console? NO, and the devs knew this, why waste tons of cash on a game that is going to sell to yet another small user base.

The SCD needed something that stood out!

Adventure games? - this stuff was on PC, PC gamers loved it... PC gamers to Console gamers are like Skiiers to Snowboarders. They don't hate each other, but they don't like each other either. The games were fun, the games were amazing... but as artwork in an ad? Come on... when your user base is a bunch of 7 to 13 year olds... monkey Island looks drab when standing next to Contra Hard Corps or Earthworm Jim or Mortal Kombat...

In comes FMV!

FMV was a HIT in the 80's... one hell of a hit! There was a big issue with it though, the hardware failed constantly, had to be repaired, the discs were massive, and everything was just a pain in the rear end. A lot of arcades gave up on the LaserDisc not because it didn't make them money from users, but because it had to be repaired so often and was just a fidgety mess. None the less, customers DID love it.

With other "multimedia" devices in the higher range coming out that supported these kinds of titles (you may not have heard of most of them... but there was more then just the CDI and the sort... things like the VIS, Tandy machines and other computers... keep in mind this was the EARLY 90's, not the day of Windows yet. Oh and the 3DO was in huge talks just over the horizon... which was also a haven of FMV titles too, and we all knew it before it came). FMV looked and sounded cool in concept... and "interactive movie"... come on, what KID didn't dream about this at night? Still today we attempt to get the live action movie like games going, we just haven't gotten there yet.

Anyways, it was a bastion of prosperity in theory. A bunch of titles that prior to the SCD could NEVER be mimmicked on home hardware and was lost in the arcades due to hardware failing... FMV sounded like a gold mine. It had the flair that grabbed peoples attention when they stared at the ad, it had concepts that sounded so freakin' cool and cutting edge (the thing the SCD was trying to do), and it offered high end features usually only available to Video-Philes and other rich dicks. All at a 'somewhat' affordable price... somewhat.

Tack on the fact that making these titles was somewhat easier and cheaper in some aspects... hardly any coding was required, all you needed was a basic user interface and a video camera. Some cheesy actors, Saturday morning slapstick humor... and bam, fools gold that could drag in the consumers like drones!

Drones we are! Don't forget that boys and girls... despite how much we LOVE Sega... we are still drones in their eyes!

[tomaitheous]

Why does everyone hate FMV games so much? Is it the titles put out within the genre or the concept of the genre itself??

More to the fact they were "empty shell of game" designs. If it had more colors and a better palette, it wouldn't have been much different in my opinion. I had a PC at the time and purchased the first line of IDE CD units (1x) when they first came out. The PC VGA had a better palette and more colors (and they were unrestricted colors too) and yet FMV games for it still sucked. I was glad to see the trend die out. Though, I don't consider games like Myst and Journey Man project FMVs, I still didn't care for them either. PC CD games like Sam 'N' Max, Day of the Tentacle, and Full Throttle were great and should have been ported to the SegaCD or have more games like this on the SegaCD since the Japanese MegaCD lib was pretty thin in comparison to what Sega needed to sustain it's position in the US (and EU too?).

[BlowMyCartridge]

To say that FMVs were only empty shells of games really depends on how you choose to define a game.

[Joe Redifer]

By definition it was parallel processing... two processors accessing the same program and sharing the information over a bus.
You're right. I guess when most people think "parallel processing" they think that the extra processor power increases the speed at which said program is run. I think that is what was on my mind.

[AxelStone]

To say that FMVs were only empty shells of games really depends on how you choose to define a game.

I find FMV titles meaty and satisyfing...........while they last. It's a matter of opinion, I love cheesy crap from the 80's and early 90's so naturally FMV games would be right up my alley.

[BlowMyCartridge]

I find FMV titles meaty and satisyfing...........while they last. It's a matter of opinion, I love cheesy crap from the 80's and early 90's so naturally FMV games would be right up my alley.

I totally agree. Which I acknowledge that some titles are lacking in replay value, I don't think that that alone is enough to completely cripple a game. Yes, they are games.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I think that fmv just wasn't being used correctly, I really like it as a background layer with sprites in front. Not sure if it counts as fmv but the background in that dracula bram stoker game is hot. Too bad the gameplay reaks. Night trap kicks ass as a full motion video game though. It has its appeal.

[Psy]

Back on topic though... many people have brought up very good points about WHY FMV was used a lot, and why they didn't pay attention to the other genres as much.

I will say this:
RPGs - sorry, but this genre never really got any love especially in the US until the late 90's. The genre was plagued with poorly made rip offs, bad translations, and massive storage necessities (which SCD could of soothed the qualm of). But the SCD had a small market share, so now instead of having to jack the price to afford the manufacturing costs (i.e. Phantasy Star 1 and it's insane price tag), now they have to skimp on money because there isn't enough people out there to buy them.

Sega could have put more money toward marketing RPGs.



Adventure games? - this stuff was on PC, PC gamers loved it... PC gamers to Console gamers are like Skiiers to Snowboarders. They don't hate each other, but they don't like each other either. The games were fun, the games were amazing... but as artwork in an ad? Come on... when your user base is a bunch of 7 to 13 year olds... monkey Island looks drab when standing next to Contra Hard Corps or Earthworm Jim or Mortal Kombat...

How many 7 to 13 year old would have bought the SegaCD? I think only older gamers ever would have been interested in the SegaCD so adventure game would have made sense.




In comes FMV!

FMV was a HIT in the 80's... one hell of a hit! There was a big issue with it though, the hardware failed constantly, had to be repaired, the discs were massive, and everything was just a pain in the rear end. A lot of arcades gave up on the LaserDisc not because it didn't make them money from users, but because it had to be repaired so often and was just a fidgety mess. None the less, customers DID love it.

With other "multimedia" devices in the higher range coming out that supported these kinds of titles (you may not have heard of most of them... but there was more then just the CDI and the sort... things like the VIS, Tandy machines and other computers... keep in mind this was the EARLY 90's, not the day of Windows yet. Oh and the 3DO was in huge talks just over the horizon... which was also a haven of FMV titles too, and we all knew it before it came). FMV looked and sounded cool in concept... and "interactive movie"... come on, what KID didn't dream about this at night? Still today we attempt to get the live action movie like games going, we just haven't gotten there yet.

Anyways, it was a bastion of prosperity in theory. A bunch of titles that prior to the SCD could NEVER be mimmicked on home hardware and was lost in the arcades due to hardware failing... FMV sounded like a gold mine. It had the flair that grabbed peoples attention when they stared at the ad, it had concepts that sounded so freakin' cool and cutting edge (the thing the SCD was trying to do), and it offered high end features usually only available to Video-Philes and other rich dicks. All at a 'somewhat' affordable price... somewhat.

Tack on the fact that making these titles was somewhat easier and cheaper in some aspects... hardly any coding was required, all you needed was a basic user interface and a video camera. Some cheesy actors, Saturday morning slapstick humor... and bam, fools gold that could drag in the consumers like drones!

Drones we are! Don't forget that boys and girls... despite how much we LOVE Sega... we are still drones in their eyes!
VCDs were also vastly inferior to LaserDiscs and the SegaCD wasn't even as good as VCD players due to the color pallet and lack of decent video compression.

[lordofduct]

Market towards a product that no one has shown a large desire for. It's all numbers and statistics, and RPGs didn't have the numbers to warrant large marketing. ([edit] in the USA that is, and FMV was very large in the US as opposed to Japan... I'm not sure about Europe)

Marketing is a LOT of money.

You might think that the console was purchased mostly by older people. Which is probably true. But in 1992 the assumed market for videogames in the USA were children, ages 7 to 13 or so. Why do you think they freak out so much about violence in our childrens videogames.

...

I don't get what kind of point you are trying to make with the VCD/Laserdisc comment. Yeah we all know the SCD can't play VCDs (more then just the color palette though, Mpeg-1 (format of VCD) was established in 1992, where as the SCD was released in 91'. Also, at first Mpeg required extra hardware to be decoded).

All I'm saying is what does this have to do with FMV titles?

[Psy]

Market towards a product that no one has shown a large desire for. It's all numbers and statistics, and RPGs didn't have the numbers to warrant large marketing. ([edit] in the USA that is, and FMV was very large in the US as opposed to Japan... I'm not sure about Europe)

Marketing is a LOT of money.

Nintendo of America did market Earthbound, during its launch campaign Nintendo Power hyped as much as they could, it didn't work but at least Nintendo tried to get US audiences to warm up to RPGs.



You might think that the console was purchased mostly by older people. Which is probably true. But in 1992 the assumed market for videogames in the USA were children, ages 7 to 13 or so. Why do you think they freak out so much about violence in our childrens videogames.

Even if they assumed that, using the SegaCD to attract older gamers is perfectly logical. The computer industry acknowledged the older gamers even back then, back in the early 80's Sega tried to merge the computer and console market with the SC-3000 and in 1991 Commodore was trying to merge the two markets with the CDTV (and again later with the CD32).

There was far more violence (and sex) on computers but they got away with it and Sega could have too if it marketed the SegaCD as if it was like the AtariST or Amiga (both which most people at the time ran through their TV) but cheaper (even the SegaCD combos were way cheaper then the AtariST with a CD drive) and from a more reputable company (Sega was more reputable then both Commodore and Atari back then).

Sega could have stole gamers from Atari and Commodore simply by pointing out how badly they treated their fan bases (Atari with having flooded the market with horribly bad games that older gamers still remembered in the early 90's, Commodore for releasing more short lived hardware then Sega eventually did) and that Sega had yet to do such things :)

...


I don't get what kind of point you are trying to make with the VCD/Laserdisc comment. Yeah we all know the SCD can't play VCDs (more then just the color palette though, Mpeg-1 (format of VCD) was established in 1992, where as the SCD was released in 91'. Also, at first Mpeg required extra hardware to be decoded).

All I'm saying is what does this have to do with FMV titles?
Laserdiscs actually had good video and audio quality for the time, it beat the crap out of VHS. VCD looked worse then movies pre-recorded on VHS tapes and the SegaCD looked even worse the VCDs.

Part of the reason Laserdisc arcade machines were popular was the video quality as people at home couldn't see that kind of video quality at home till S-VCDs and DVDs unless they had enough money to buy a Laserdisc player (and more for the Laserdiscs)

[lordofduct]

I still don't see your point you are trying to make with the VCD issue.

What does this have to do with Sega of Americas choice to market FMV titles. I get that Laserdisc had good video quality... VCD on the other hand didn't come out until after the SegaCD was released. Either way, these are for movies, not for gameplay mechanics.

This is like comparing arcade quality games to an NES. We know they aren't going to be as good as the arcade, but we still love them as we get to play them at home finally.


As for you marketing reasons. Earthbound shows that it is a big risk to push an RPG in America... And as for you second reason. OK so Sega is already butting heads with the SNES and PC-Engine in Japan. And they are butting heads (hardcore) with the huge userbase of SNES/Genesis lovers. Now going up against even more areas like the home computer industry is a hell of a fence to jump, and a lot of money for a company.

A company who makes most of there money from the Arcade industry in Japan. If you want to get into all the marketing issues you should keep in mind all the issues that outline marketing. Signs of failures are signs of further failure. I don't know all the reasons that they made the choices they did, but there are lots of reasons out there that point to maybe why.

For instance fighting against the home computer industry is STILL a costly and hostile area today 15 years later when dealing with companies like Sony and Microsoft who have billions of dollars to throw around.

Notice how Nintendo really isn't going after the PC market...? They don't have the money.

[Psy]

I still don't see your point you are trying to make with the VCD issue.

What does this have to do with Sega of Americas choice to market FMV titles. I get that Laserdisc had good video quality... VCD on the other hand didn't come out until after the SegaCD was released. Either way, these are for movies, not for gameplay mechanics.

This is like comparing arcade quality games to an NES. We know they aren't going to be as good as the arcade, but we still love them as we get to play them at home finally.

FMV relies on video quality as their pretty skimpy when it comes to game play. In the arcades the laser disc based machines provided video quality above what the average person had at home. Lets remember at this time you had the Laserdisc rides where you had a theatre that could move around in sync with the picture to give the allusion of being part of action on the screen. The picture quality of the SegaCD can't provide this allusion due to its hardware limitations, when you take away this allusion all your left with is stock footage and/or bad acting.



As for you marketing reasons. Earthbound shows that it is a big risk to push an RPG in America...

Earthbound did get a cult following so it wasn't a total loss.




And as for you second reason. OK so Sega is already butting heads with the SNES and PC-Engine in Japan. And they are butting heads (hardcore) with the huge userbase of SNES/Genesis lovers. Now going up against even more areas like the home computer industry is a hell of a fence to jump, and a lot of money for a company.

A company who makes most of there money from the Arcade industry in Japan. If you want to get into all the marketing issues you should keep in mind all the issues that outline marketing. Signs of failures are signs of further failure. I don't know all the reasons that they made the choices they did, but there are lots of reasons out there that point to maybe why.

For instance fighting against the home computer industry is STILL a costly and hostile area today 15 years later when dealing with companies like Sony and Microsoft who have billions of dollars to throw around.

Notice how Nintendo really isn't going after the PC market...? They don't have the money.
Back in the early 90's the home computer industry was still young and a good chunk mostly only used them for gaming.

[Joe Redifer]

Would you guys believe that there were FMV games released to movie theaters? No, not stuff that you saw on the Sega CD or 3DO, but original FMV stuff meant to revolutionize the movie industry with "interactive entertainment". Yup, real movie theaters. The year: 1995.

Check out these clips from Mr. Payback (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tp8av0SesI) (note that the graphical overlay is missing since this is the video directly from the discs and also follows no linear order... they're just random clips).

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Damn and I thought Night trap was cheesy! That stuff is hilarious, is it on laserdisk?

[Joe Redifer]

It was on LaserDisc.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

Were you a projectionist?

[Joe Redifer]

Indeed.

[Dirt Ball Gamer]

I always wanted to be a projectionist being a film nut. I would have liked to do drive in theater work in the 70s if I was alive then. Im a rabid Roger Corman fan.