Sega's Bad Marketing, part 1.

Why did Sega blow the console business? Hears the facts.
On
January 04, 2008
Those who remember Sega remember the flashy genesis does and blast processing adds, the introduction of sonic the hedgehog, and even that crazy cartoon he had during the early 90's. Today however no one seems to care about poor old Sega, and not many people aside from us retro junk users remember there legacy. So how did Sega lose you ask? how could a company that was on top of its ball pile over after sounding high and mighty with there genesis does, and blast processing adds? Well after doing a little research and pilling the facts together here is what I came up with. So today I bring you the first half of Sega's bad Marketing.

Now I wont bore you with the who Sega was and there add campaign about genesis does, and all there Nintendo insult commercials since we know about that already, so lets star with there first mistake the Sega Game Gear.

Sega Game Gear



Now im not saying the Game Gear was a big mistake, but it was in terms of technical specs. Now this might have sounded like a good idea at the time. I mean with a full color screen, higher end graphics, and better sound then the game boy how could you go wrong?

Well theres the fact that it cost more money then the game boy, was big and bulky, and hardly portable, ran on six AA batteries, and had a battery life of 5 hours.

It was obvious in the end which of the two gamers would stick with, seeing the game boy was cheaper and had a much longer battery life. That also brings me to another point, one advantage Nintendos always had over Sega was that they managed to hold the handheld market for a fare amount of time. Even with all fancier home consoles out there, there's always gonna be people buying handhelds from Nintendo. Thats something sega was never able to grasp.

so with that out of the way lets move on to Sega's next big fault. The abomination known as, the Sega CD.

Sega CD



Now this on the other hand was kind of a bigger mistake. The Sega CD was basically a CD add on for the Sega Genesis. The idea being that Sega thought the idea of playing games on a CD was the way of the future. Sega was pretty ahead of its time wouldnt you say? The problem being they took this idea in the wrong direction.

Though it was capable of things like a wider array of colors, and a higher quality of sound, sega just seemed to waist it on crappy FMV games instead.



Now from what Ive seen,( and demonstrated by the angry video game nerd in his Sega CD review) FMV games most of the time just don't work, and the console was flooded with these types of games. Though it might have looked cool at the time in the end its basically corny acting, mixed with with terrible (sometime repetitive) gameplay. Its funny, comparing the extremely
corny acting to the epic storylines most game have today. These FMV games just look like a bad joke, (I wonder how the guys that acted in them feel today?)

There are only a small number of games that took advantage of the Sega CDs true potential. (as I stated only a small amount.) These included

Sonic CD
Shining Force CD
Final fight CD
Luner Eternal Blue
Luner the Silver star
Earthworm Jim: Special Edition
Road Avenger
Robo Aleste
Snacher
popful Mail

Its funny because there werent many good games on the CD, and those that were good went kind of unnoticed, and are rare now a days and hard to come by.
I think the problem with the sega CD was that I think it might have been a little to early for such a device. I think Nintendo was also planning to release a similar device but they decided to scrap instead, and whys that? because they were smart enough to realize it might not be the best time for CD games.

Sega CDX



Also they created a console called the Sega CDX. It wasnt anything special just a Sega genesis and Sega CD in one. But with a 400 dollar price tag and the Sega Saturn only a year away, it flopped. Though it might have sounded good on paper, in reality not so much.

But As faulty as the Sega CD consoles were, they are god compared to this next device. Possibly there biggest mistake of all time, I bring you the Sega 32X.

Sega 32X



I mean wasn't it bad enough that they released an add on that didn't sell as well to begin with? The idea behind this new add on was that it let you play 32 bit games on your Sega Genesis. It was more meant to increase the life span of the Sega genesis, hoping to get a few more bucks out of there aging console. The problem was that there was really no point to the 32X, there next console was only 6 months away and there was the fact that this device quite expensive for the time.

now as far as the games go, there wernt that many made for this. most of them were ether re-releases of older Sega arcade games like (after burner, or space harrier,) or other arcade brands, it also had possibly the worst port of Doom ever.



The graphics on this port were top notch, but the music was horrible. Thats one of the problems with the 32X I wanted to point out was that they could improve the graphics, But they couldn't improve the Music? Thats kind of a flaw I found with the Sega Genesis they could have worked on to make it a better console, and it would have been better then the crap you had to listen to with this port. But I think you could overlook the terrible music if they just added all the levels. Thats right they only added half the levels, and whys that? Because they were eager to get it out they door for the holiday season. Also there was no way to dash left or right, (Thanks to the Sega controller lacking a Left and right shoulder button.) you could only dash forwards and backwards. This is also a big problem because its vital for dogging enemy fire. So its obvious this port was just an incomplete mess compared to the original PC version.

As for the 32X in general, its also an incomplete mess. There weren't even that many games for it, (including bad games) and the only good original titles I can think of are.

Knucles Chaotix
Shadow Squadron
Virtua Fighter
Virtua Racer Deluxe

also there was the fact that the thing had mechanical problems. I mean the Game Gear and CD you could get away with, but for this theres just no excuse. Because in 6 months the Sega Saturn would ne hitting store shelves. I mean was there really any point in releasing this piece of garbage when there next console was only half a year away. Not only that but the Playstation and the N64 were on there way, also there was the fact that it was 150 dollars when it first came out, but sales for this piece of crap became so bad that stores began to sell it for 20 dollars because they just wanted to get rip of the damn thing.

So Sega was actually making less money then what it was truly worth. I mean what crack head at Sega thought this thing would be a good idea?!?! Were they even thinking?!?!

Sega Neptune



Oh and if that weren't bad enough, they were planning to release another console in between called the Sega Neptune. It was basically gonna be a stand alone 32X, but it never got off the ground. Thats another problem I wanted to point out about Sega, was that they just seemed to be throwing out one console after another. How were game Developers and customers suppose to keep up with this mess anyway?

Well that ends the first half of my research. But theres still plenty more to say, tune in next time when we explore Sega's mistakes further.
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