Genesis of success: 20 years of Sega's dark horse console

[InternalPrimate]

Yesterday an article (http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/sega-genesis-turns-20.ars) on the Genesis was published on ars technica. It's pretty well done, and even references back to Sega 16 for further reading!

[TheEdge]

Cool Article, thanks


Sega, as a whole, never fully recovered from the stumbles suffered during the mismanagement of the 16- to 32-bit transition period. The company made a strong showing with the Dreamcast in 1999, but by then, even a promising console wasn't enough; Sony had sewn up the market for itself with the PlayStation series. Before long, Sega gave up the hardware business all together. But despite Sega's long legacy of hardware blunders, one name will always stand out above all else in the minds of the Sega faithful: Sega Genesis.


I like the way they sum it up.

[AD2101]

Very well written article, it even went into how the success of the Genesis eventually led to Sega's downfall. It seems like most people peg the Saturn as "The beginning of the end" of Sega home consoles, but the 32x and Sega CD were really the start of it all, at least that's the way I've always seen it.

[Iron Lizard]

Its amazing to think not only was Atari offered the NES but also the Genesis.

[Melf]

Atari under the Tramiels = the original retarded monkey of the gaming industry.

[CRV]

Atari under the Tramiels = the original retarded monkey of the gaming industry.

I think the Nintendo thing happened when Warner still owned the home division.

[Melf]

It's not just that. The family made almost no sensible decisions at all.

- Shelving the 7800 shortly after launch and then reviving it when it was too late.
- horrible promotion of the Atari ST computer.
- Sitting on the Lynx for two years and brilliantly timing it to release alongside the Game Boy.

[Zebbe]

They can't beat Sega's decisions from Game Gear to Dreamcast. Nobody can!

[Melf]

Yeah, even the Tramiels looked at Sega between '95 and '99 and thought "damn these guys are clueless."

[gamevet]

Very well written article, it even went into how the success of the Genesis eventually led to Sega's downfall. It seems like most people peg the Saturn as "The beginning of the end" of Sega home consoles, but the 32x and Sega CD were really the start of it all, at least that's the way I've always seen it.

The Sega CD was a viable addition and even SNES owners were wondering when they would get such a device for their console.

The 32X being released so close to the launch of the Saturn, along with Sega not having an NFL game ready for the Saturn launch, really alienated the fanbase they'd built with the Genesis.

There was such a long void between when the Genesis was dying down in retail and when the Saturn was released. Even if the Sega CD and 32X weren't released, you have to wonder if the general public would have known any different. The cool image that the Genesis had, was pretty much gone by the time Sega launched the Saturn.

[Psy]

The Sega CD was a viable addition and even SNES owners were wondering when they would get such a device for their console.

Too bad SOA focused on marketing FMV games on the SOA and didn't try harder to get PC ports. For example Quest for Glory on the SegaCD would have been cool.

[gamevet]

Too bad SOA focused on marketing FMV games on the SOA and didn't try harder to get PC ports. For example Quest for Glory on the SegaCD would have been cool.

Digital Pictures was the worst offender. Sega did release titles like Shining Force CD and Ecco CD, but some of the best titles were developed by 3rd parties like Konami and Game Arts.

The Sega CD did get ports of Amiga/PC classics Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island, Heart of the Alien and Heimdall. The add-on had a solid selection of gems, if you took the time to weed out the FMV crap and games with nothing more than a CD soundtrack added.

[Psy]

Digital Pictures was the worst offender. Sega did release titles like Shining Force CD and Ecco CD, but some of the best titles were developed by 3rd parties like Konami and Game Arts.

The Sega CD did get ports of Amiga/PC classics Loom, The Secret of Monkey Island, Heart of the Alien and Heimdall. The add-on had a solid selection of gems, if you took the time to weed out the FMV crap and games with nothing more than a CD soundtrack added.
Yhea but Monkey Island didn't make use of the ability to save onto the SegaCD and instead used a password system.

Also the SegaCD had limited scaling and rotation yet we didn't see anything like Sonic Drift updated for the SegaCD to showcase its scaling and rotation.

[Megadragon15]

Loom never came out for the Sega CD. It came out for the Turbo CD Super CD/TurboDuo.

[gamevet]

Loom never came out for the Sega CD. It came out for the Turbo CD Super CD/TurboDuo.

Oh yeah!;)

[otaku]

yay! Edge had a cool article to recently on the state of the shmup

[tomaitheous]

Yesterday an article (http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/sega-genesis-turns-20.ars) on the Genesis was published on ars technica. It's pretty well done, and even references back to Sega 16 for further reading!

It could have better without the snide/bitter remarks against Nintendo/8bit games. Definitely a bias piece. That latter part of the article was good though. I disagree about SOJ pulling the 16bit market out from SOA. The Megadrive in Japan was failing (or failed). There was no software to support the US market. As it was, the US market was taking on more US and EU software (which was a low point of Sega for me). While the SFC(SNES) had tons and tons of titles coming out in Japan. I don't think there was anything Sega could have done differently. Sega of Japan was more than ready to move on, Sega of America was in a pickle over how to keep their user base. After all, many of the NES user base migrated over to the Genesis.

And the reviewer top 10 list - only half at most are must plays and of those halves I could have suggested other/better titles. Since when was Aladdin and some football game a must play?