Bring back sega I say.
That would be a fair battle.
Sony vs Nintendo vs Sega.
Problem is Sony always relied on 3rd party in conjunction with making a few new i’ps here and there.
For example. Activision had Tony hawk’s pro skater. Which, while available on every platform, sold best on PS1. Even though it wasn’t even the best version Note, audio was almost full quality though… Compared to n64 which had better draw distances but compressed audio to make the cartridge cheaper. (Less or smaller memory = cheaper back in those days,. Memory was extremely costly)
Second example Fifa football. Again ps1 had the worst version. But they sold the most & people had the controllers to share with mates which were cheaper at the time than n64 controllers.
The list goes on. Almost endlessly, Tony hawk became synonymous with Sony playstation and disks were taken into school and swapped between friends.
Sega, with the Saturn got priced out, mailny because Sony, who could ‘bulk buy’ cheaper parts + tap into their there already existing supply chain out of Japan, into the western electronic stores. Sega, who wern’t as much of a brand name, or hardly known, (outside of arcades) lost that war so badly, they almost never came back from it.
Along comes Dreamcast in 1998, it blew the game wide open! However, because of 3rd parties hedging their bets on the PS2, it didn’t get the 3rd party support It so much deserved. Sega pumped out gem-after-gem of all styles, but it wasn’t enough.
To note: Dreamcast came out before Ps2, much cheaper, infact, a huge amount cheaper, at $199 vs PS2, AT $299.
While slightly weaker in terms of power, or could still compete, as games released in that time period we’re not too demanding, considering they only had to output a rough 480p for the CRT Tube Tvs being sold at the time.
To note: also Sega had fantastic anti-alllising and coloring tech, miles better than PS1 The chip powering the graphics, was straight outta’ arcade cabinets of the time, so arcade ports were easy as pie too!
It should have gotten a better start,. Releasing at launch with my favourite game of all time ‘Soul Caliber’ from the Tekken developers. Sonic adventure. Powrstone a 3d cross between fighter and platformer, never been done before and now smash brothers owns that territory,. Will still not having some of the features of power stone.
A boxing game and a hoverboard racing game called ‘trickstyle’ from developers ‘Criterion Games,’. Yeh…that developer of the legendary burnout series which in the future years would be Enjoyed by millions.
Dreamcast also the first home console to mass market online play. WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT.!
It’s had a built-in modem, A CONSOLE FIRST, sega included a pac-man style minigame, called ‘Chu-hu rocket’,
Sega gave this away for free in most markets, just to make sure everybody could have a try of online play, at home Infront of the tv, without being a PC nerd or having money to buy an expensive windows tower, separate modem, monitor mouse and keyboard, and everything you needed.
BRING BACK SEGA.
hope you enjoyed my quick take on Segas console struggles.
Peace x
