Dedicated SEGA fans.. Can they make a difference?

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Consoles are heading more toward PC territory now, designing hardware is less of an issue, its software which Sega have traditionally done well in.

Sega have done well in the arcades in the past, aswell as software in the home market.

However, in recent years they have lost Yu Suzuki (former head of Sega's internal AM2 division responsible for Shenmue, Outrun, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop and many more), dispanded Sonic Team (formed around 1990) and are in the midst of a restructure after pachinko earning's have been dramatically low in recent years. Even when merged with Sammy, Sega (as other people have said) don't have the finances to remake old consoles anymore.


The last remake they did (to my knowledge) was the MegaDrive 3 (or 4) around 1999 which is *still* on sale online and in certain retail stores. (I already own MegaDrive 1 & 2).

They don't need to remake the Dreamcast anyway. The original has loads of great games (most of which I own) AND new unofficial games are *still* released each year. Some of my personal favourites include Last Hope: Pink Bullets (shoot'em up), Feet Of Fury (Dance Dance Revolution clone with awesome original music tracks) and Cool Herders (Bomberman-esque game where you go round herding sheep).

[john1979]

It's an absolutely stupid idea with zero chance of ever happening.

[spiff]

Reminds me of this other forum whenever a powerpc with the amiga brand slapped on was released.

[Cpt. Hindsight]

I don't see why Sega should even think about it.
The Wii U is considered to be a failure although they sold about 11 million units. That's obviously not enough to motivate third parties to develop for it.

Would EA, Ubi or Activision support a platform that's selling bad? See above.
So Sega would have to do all bigger games by themselves. Does Sega have the money and/or the manpower to develop five AAA titles a year? No.

Case closed.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Cpt. Hindsight

I don't see why Sega should even think about it.
The Wii U is considered to be a failure although they sold about 11 million units. That's obviously not enough to motivate third parties to develop for it.

Would EA, Ubi or Activision support a platform that's selling bad? See above.
So Sega would have to do all bigger games by themselves. Does Sega have the money and/or the manpower to develop five AAA titles a year? No.

Case closed.

Yes, it's doubtful that this group of enthusiasts will have much impact on SEGA's strategic decisions, however, why are ppl here mostly upset over this? Can you really blame the die hard fans to give it a try?

I for one wish them luck and a bit of sympathies, while standing firmly behind what I said in post #7 about selling its name to a Steam Machine maker and throw some SEGA software at the bundle to capitalize on loyal suckers ;-)

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

Yes, it's doubtful that this group of enthusiasts will have much impact on SEGA's strategic decisions, however, why are ppl here mostly upset over this? Can you really blame the die hard fans to give it a try?

Yes, I can blame grownups for not using their grownup brains.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Yes, I can blame grownups for not using their grownup brains.

maybe you can read this first

http://thegg.net/hot-news/the-sega-d...project-dream/

[idrougge]

Read it. Sounds like what fifteen year olds "Dream" about all the time.

[Adrian Browne]

That article is old. Many dreamcast 2 articles were misleading mainly due to this Patrick Lawson guy, not necessarily his real name. This guy was booted from the team.
He spread loads of bullshit all around the net.

The actual stated aims of project dream are quite different. I wish them luck but, they claim to have a hardware guy working on something too - I'll believe it when I see it.

Theres no evidence that project dream actually know what they are doing, so far as I can see. But I'll watch how things unfold nevertheless even if it's just a pipedream.

[Arnie]

5. If Sega don’t like our proposal, we are planning to push forth and create a machine capable of doing so, however that will require crowd funding.

This will probably be the outcome and would take more than crowd funding to make it a reality.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Arnie

This will probably be the outcome and would take more than crowd funding to make it a reality.

Ye there are a whole lot of "ifs" here but at least the Shenmue 3 kickstart showed there's at least some cash available in that crazy Sega fanboi group ;-)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ysnet/shenmue-3
I'm not sure what kind of hardware they would try to make but as I said previously, I don't think there is any reasonable hope for a dedicated console and I'm pretty sure Sega senses that.
However, ill repeat myself again and state that the idea of a Sega branded Steam machine could lure in some of those fanbois. If you intend to buy a Steam Machine, why not a Sega with their exclusive library of their own stuff, the competitors are a pretty boring bunch IMO. Then again..the whole steam machine concept is not guaranteed to succeed either, but at least the hardware wouldn't be wasted...

[trixster]

If these guys genuinely think they can get Sega back into the hardware market with a petition then they are completely deluded.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by trixster

If these guys genuinely think they can get Sega back into the hardware market with a petition then they are completely deluded.

That statement has already been repeated a lot in this thread ;-)

[Retro-Nerd]

And it is the sad truth. The hardcore Sega fans wouldn't like the idea of game streaming box. And the few that might like the idea are irrelevant.

[trixster]

Originally Posted by eXeler0

That statement has already been repeated a lot in this thread ;-)

I know. I reckon that's because it's true

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

And it is the sad truth. The hardcore Sega fans wouldn't like the idea of game streaming box. And the few that might like the idea are irrelevant.

Well most of these retro revival attempts fail, we the ppl in Amigaland are obviously painfully aware of that..
And recently the Retro- console (the one using old Atari Jaguar moulds) failed spectacularly at indie gogo.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/retro-vgs#/
So the default and easy answer is that anyone who thinks different is crazy - and statistics may even support that claim. ;-)

SEGA has not had a good year financially. The company execs are probably sitting there trying to figure out how to turn the losses into profits. How they do that exactly is obviously the billion dollar question. We've all seen how just a few moments of poor judgement can doom a company.
I honestly don't know where in the long list of potential stuff to do to fix the financials the idea of a new console sits. Probably near the bottom of that list..

However, claiming that SEGA simply wont touch the "hardware question" is not accurate. Look at all the expensive "crap" they are producing...
http://www.segaarcade.com/arcade/18

SEGA is not only a software company. maybe you don't have any Arcades left where you live but I just visited the last one left in my town and there were a bunch of big, recent (2013-2014) arcade games made by SEGA, so their future focus is not so easy to determine.
Just sayin. ..

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by trixster

I know. I reckon that's because it's true

Maybe it will turn out to be true, and while everyone is more than welcome to express their opinion, simply repeating the same line over and over again doesn't really add a lot, does it? And is not what makes a thread interesting to read IMO. 😆

[Retro-Nerd]

I know that Sega still makes arcades games. Though these wouldn't work here in Germany anymore. But we are talking about the home market.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

I know that Sega still makes arcades games. Though these wouldn't work here in Germany anymore. But we are talking about the home market.

Ye, I guess Arcades are on a path to extinction outside Japan but it's very clear what games they still make..it's the type you can't easily mimic at home at a reasonable cost, namely 4-person competitive racing or flight simulator with advanced, moving rigs and railshooters with big ass guns. And of course, genuine old scool pinball machines.
Still, these are very expensive to manufacture compared to an off the shelf component based console. But ye, as long as they can actually sell these big machines, the margin is bigger.. But then again, the numbers must be painfully slow.
I get the feeling that SEGA will soon need to make up their mind about their future focus.

[eXeler0]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

And it is the sad truth. The hardcore Sega fans wouldn't like the idea of game streaming box. And the few that might like the idea are irrelevant.

Just for the record, I was talking about Steam machines as in Valve's Steam.
Also, maybe it's worth mentioning that all recent SEGA arcade boards are simply rather low-specced PC's running either custom Linux or Embedded Windows. A tradition going on since the Dreamcast days I guess.