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« on: January 14, 2006, 09:07:55 PM »
Hi Gamebasher.
Let me explain my thought process in response to your question about what I think Sega's faults would be. It's not anything specific but I was just thinking back to the old days of Snes and Genesis.
If you had to choose one console, I would go with the Snes always. While Sega had some good games, to me, now and then, I always felt Nintendo's games were better. Now it might not be fair to compare this because I haven't played Vectorman but let's compare it to Donkey Kong Country. Vectorman was Sega's response to Nintendo's DKC, at least in graphics. Now, I don't know what the gameplay was like but choosing between the two, I'd take DKC. (And I consider DKC to be the worst of the Donkey Kong Countries). The reason is because I look at DKC and you've got characters that show personality. But Vectorman is just a bunch of shapes. At least from what I've seen, again might not be the best comparison.
The reason I bring that up is aside from a couple other notables like Sonic or Shenmue, Sega (at least to me), doesn't quite have this personality. I can't quite seem to find the words to discribe it. The best I can come up with is the reason my brother hates Sega. He always says they try to hard to be cool. Like Sonic Adventure 2 in the opening level of Station Square, they've got song's with lyrics. Or the final boss fight of SA2, the music has singing as well. I understand what he means by that. To me, the Station Square song can be corny and annoying but I do like the final song. So, to me Sega always has this sort of unbalance to it. I like it and hate it at the same time. Sometimes it works to their advantage and sometimes it doesn't.
One more example is F-Zero GX. I absolutely love this game and consider it one of the best experiences I've had with the Gamecube. I think it's outstanding and one of Sega's best games ever. The franchise really seemed to click well with Sega's collaboration. All the unlockables that Sega will throw in a game worked well. They gave each racer a bio and themesong. And again, while I like some songs compared to other, it gave a real good blend of personality. Even the whacked out story was pretty enjoyable. At the same time, people often point to the first scene of F-Zero with Black Bull being confronted by the badguy as one of the problems with Sega which I can only describe again as their trying to be too cool.
So, one reason being that I still feel Nintendo compared to Sega is the better software provider for the most part. The other is the fact that people must of chosen Sony over Sega for a reason and I'm not sure it was just the marketing of Sony. Yes, we can site the way they started to bungle up the release of their consoles as turning people away, but there had to be something from Sony that appealed to people more then Sega. The marketing might have helped but I think games like Final Fantasy 7 and Grand Theft Auto also helped steer people to that choice for a console. I'm not sure that if Sega went back into the console business they would necessarily get games that really seemed to appeal to people so much that would make them choose their console.
I'm not sure if I was able to fully convey my thoughts on the matter that well but it's more a feeling that I have then any real glaring evidence on their part. The truth is, I would consider buying a Sega console if they went back to market but I'd want to wait first and see what games it would get.
Now for some quick points:
I do see them as very much stronger now, and they have thrown in new and innovative games constantly.
I agree with you on this as well. I feel that Sega has really turned around and are much stronger. I know many people who still love the Dreamcast and consider it to be the console released. Most people agree now that it might be Sega's best console though I think for the most part it's pretty close between it and the Genesis. Still, with this sentiment and Sega games keeping their appeal, they are definitly stronger.
I agree with you that it was very kind of SEGA to support Nintendo. Still, I do suspect that, at least in the beginning, it was more a question of making as much money as possible, as quickly as possible, in order for them to break out of the financial quagmire they were in then, after the hardware exit.
That's a good point I never thought of before. Did Nintendo offer Sega some big contract to get the Sonic games on their console? Because Sonic is Sega's biggest money-maker (as far as I know) so it does seem strange that they wouldn't have released all games on all consoles to make as much money as they could. If not, then I think it really shows the support Sega has for Nintendo.
Two other things: If Sega does really support Nintendo, then why do we always seem to hear about Sega and Xbox collaborating? Last year, someone showed a chart of the evolution of controllers since Atari down through to the new Revolution controller. What I found interesting was they connected the Xbox controller as almost the successor of the Sega controller. Also, people always seem to talk about Sega releasing their back catalogue of games on the Xbox360 as a virtual library like Nintendo's doing with Revolution. Sega, I believe has never said that was happening, and has already made some deal with Gametap. But people always seem to think that Sega's more likely to do that then release them on the Revolution?
The final thing was, as I was posting this and referring to the Snes, I was thinking to myself as I often do, that the Snes was Nintendo's best console. I've got the most games for that system than any other Nintendo system. Then it occured to me. Maybe that's because Nintendo and Sega were the market leaders that helped make the games so good. Therefore, you're probably right that Nintendo and Sega leading the market would result in a better market for fans.
That's my novel. You probably weren't expecting something so long but stuff just kept coming to me.
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