Current Events > Sega had some decisions that made no sense.

(+) Yeah! (+)

"This new Golden Axe game looks bad. Better make the characters descendants of the originals so as not to hurt the marketability of Axe-Battler and Tyriss-Flare."

1) If you release a bad Golden Axe game, that hurts the Golden Axe IP. That hurts everyone in the franchise by default.
2) If the fans are already on the fence about the game, the lack of returning characters is more likely to hurt its chance of selling.

Also, Golden Axe II (home console version) was criticized as being additional levels to the original without changing up the gameplay. So Golden Axe III tried to copy the acclaimed arcade game The Return of Death Adder by adding branching paths. All they needed to do to accomplish this was sacrifice the graphics. Golden Axe III looks a half-step up from the 8-bit era. It's the first and only 12-bit video game.


(Golden Axe I on the left, Golden Axe III on the right)

The real kicker? The game wasn't even released outside of Japan. They threw away a franchise by downgrading a game in order to copy one aspect of an arcade game... in response to criticism that the last game was too much like the first one. (What?)

"Streets of Rage? What's that?"

One of the most popular beat 'em up franchises of all time -- Streets of Rage 2 heralded by many as the greatest beat 'em up -- and Sega of America's chief doesn't know what the game is and won't allow it to have a game on the Saturn.

"Needs more consoles."

The ideal customer, according to Sega, sounded something like this: "I know Sega Saturn didn't even have a proper Sonic game, but I'll be first in line to get a Dreamcast. Its graphics are gonna be better than the PlayStation!"

They had so many peripherals, add-ons, and aborted consoles that they lost consumers' trust. If within a span of a few years, the Sega CD, the Sega 32-X, and the Sega Saturn have all come on the market and have gone off the market, why would anybody trust you that your next console was worth investing in? My guess is it'll be discontinued within 18 months.

"Americans? Pfft. What do they know?"

Anything Sega of America tried to do, Sega of Japan intentionally thwarted as a power game. Considering that Nintendo was always Number 1 in Japan, you might try listening to what Site B has to say about the international market. You might last longer.

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They decided to release all their games on PC tho

A lot more than most developers/publishers can say

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Don't forget surprise releasing the Sega Saturn at a gaming event without even telling their 3rd party developers, causing most of their launch titles to end up many months behind the actual launch and leaving the console with almost nothing on release.

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s0nicfan posted...

Don't forget surprise releasing the Sega Saturn at a gaming event without even telling their 3rd party developers, causing most of their launch titles to end up many months behind the actual launch and leaving the console with almost nothing on release.

"It's out there..."

Store owners were like, "WHAT??? It's out? Why didn't I get any of those?"

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Damn_Underscore posted...

They decided to release all their games on PC tho

A lot more than most developers/publishers can say

True. I had a CD back in the day with Sonic 2, Shining Force, and a couple other games.

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After all these years, I am still pissed at only getting 1/3rds of a game with shining force 3.

But yeah, sega of japan was petty as hell, constantly butting heads with the more successful sega of america branch. They were constantly in-fighting at sega. Also, despite phantasy star online being my favorite game of all time, yuji naka is a ol' bumbitch (sega of america wanted to use the nights engine at one point to actually make a working version of that sonic xtreme game, yuji naka threw a bitchfit at baka gaijins using his engine, and threatened to leave sega over it, lol. Peter moore told yuji naka to fuck off at one point).

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The reason for most of this is that last thing. Sega of Japan sucked and Sega of America did well starting with Genesis. Sega CD was to compete against TGCD in Japan - remember, they LOST to the pcengine in Japan. And the 32x was a weird compromise because the Japanese branch wanted to move on while Sega of America was doing well and didn't want to move past Genesis yet

I think they shifted management here around the time the Saturn came out because the leadership of Sega of America got sick of it. I think that's what I've read

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MadDewg posted...

After all these years, I am still pissed at only getting 1/3rds of a game with shining force 3.

I broke down last month and finally bought the Japanese discs and patched them to English. I will finally finish the saga soon.

s0nicfan posted...

Don't forget surprise releasing the Sega Saturn at a gaming event without even telling their 3rd party developers, causing most of their launch titles to end up many months behind the actual launch and leaving the console with almost nothing on release.

Tom kalinske was forced to to that

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As much as we criticize Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft on here near enough every other console company out there has done waaaaaay more dumber stuff than any of them.

Sega is a real shame because they just somehow lost their minds in the mid-nineties and just never really recovered.

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