Bubsy3000
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Posts posted by Bubsy3000
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Cool. Usually screen for is visible when the unit is off. Not to say it works, but without visible blotches on the screen it's likely fine.
Wish I could find one, I'm not buying unknown condition online for any real amount of money, but I'd definitely buy irl if I found one for that price range.
Check out Goodwill or random Thrift stores most people don't know what they have found a Saturn a like 20 games for $30 at one.
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I can't even come up with a list of 5 games that would make me buy such a thing
I think the CD-i has some popular PC games like Myst but I may be mistaken. That plus Flashback and Burn:Cycle equals 3 games already! Just need two more ummmmmmmm.........
Tetris and....
In any case, if Philips want to test the waters, it is now or never. The concept of releasing a reimplentation of your old hardware has been generally accepted, but the market is not yet satiated. If they wait 1-2 years, the window probably has closed.
Of course as mentioned before, an Odyssey^2/G7000 console would be much more classic than a CD-i console but perhaps also more obscure. I'm not sure if the two formats make sense to combine into one system, as they're quite different and more or less one decade apart. Even if Philips would honor their foray into MSX computers - where they made some excellent hardware but I'm not at all sure about their software catalog - that would be one rather weird system trying to cover everything from 1978 (?) to 1995.
Don't think Odyssey^2 would be more obscure, didn't it sell over 2 million copies?
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"Playboy's Complete Massage"
Seems like a good deal. Games for the kids as well as "games" for mom and dad.
imma hold out for 'Girls of the Big 10'
Hahahahahahah! That would be awesome, that's for sure!
Sorry guys but those adult CD-i games are rated R censored at best.
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Are Metal Slug and Contra considered SHMUPS because I know a lot of sites change the rules on whether SHMUPS are games only involving vehicles or people with guns.
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I've heard PC gamers talk about the 7th Guest so I suppose that would be a second good game next to Burn:Cycle
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Oh it was Martin. Yeah, a lot of publications use him as a key informant. IGN did to.
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Looks like you got an in-tact complete Microsvision then! Look like someone didn't realize what they had, especially in the condition it's in.The manuals are in fair shape, each had been folded in half years ago and carry the results of that. The button overlays have indentations from frequent use, but are not broken. The stickers on the games are excellent.
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Doctor Hauzer is interesting to play to see the influence it had on Resident Evil, and some clever tricks it did.
I played it without the translation, but I kinda like the spooky atmosphere and constant traps.
If you like old fashionned survival-horrors, it's a nice experience, even without the translation. But I guess it won't hurt to actually have a translation.
At least it IS possible to play it without the translation. That's good.
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I picked up two 9v yesterday and this does indeed only require 1. There's a place for a 2nd, but no actual metal connectors.
There might be a bit of screen rot in that the screen does look darker in the center, but nonetheless the image is clear and visible. Both games worked fine! So far so good.
How are the papers? Are they in good condition or torn/bend?
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I put this in the dedicated Panther thread, but just had the same reply from yet another ex-Imagitec design source (another artist this time) when asked if they had even witnessed any Panther development whilst at the company:
"This has been the line from the various people likes of myself, Unseen64 and GTW have had whenever we asked ex-imagitec design artists and coders about possible Panther development at the company:
" I can't remember an Atari Panther being at Imagitec TBH "
So at this stage, i cannot even add Imagitec Design to list of known Panther developers.
Between this and the guy you said had made up memories about the Panther (Michael?) Imagitec probably never even saw a dev kit.
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N64 sales in Japan (officially) go until at least 2000, likely 2001, and by "beat" you mean virtually tied, as in technical terms the Saturn still outsold it. Anyone aware of the market at the time can tell you that by the time the Dreamcast came out, Sega basically shifted their focus to that, even in Japan, even if Saturn received some 3rd party releases afterwards. Nintendo OTOH had that time to basically focus solely on N64 i the region and (for handhelds) GameBoy Color, so I'm not particularly surprised that N64 sales (almost) caught up to Saturn there for that reason alone. Still, however, it's pyrrhic victory in Nintendo's case because they simply lost too much ground to both Sega and Sony that gen coming from SFC to even call the N64's final performance in Japan respectable.
I don't see why you think I'm saying *everyone* is anti-Sega; very specifically implied you in that, you seem to be trying to deflect that implication by casting others into it. And, I would not have made the assertion if I didn't notice a pattern in your posts on this and other similar topics, your tone in those posts, your leaps of logic, attempts at countering points with questionable samples, and many parts lacking understanding of context. It's the cumulative output from you in those areas (at least from what I've seen in those threads) that led me to that conclusion; if I noticed it with others (well, I HAVE somewhat seen in one other individual on the boards, but this isn't about them atm), I'd of implicated them as well.
And I'm not the sort of guy to make those type of implications lightly, but when a spade's a spade you kinda have to call it for what it is imho. But, while you seem to be possibly thinking I'm some sort of fanboy (never mind I've also mentioned of Sega's incompetence with certain business strategies during the period, their failure at building long-term IP presence gen-over-gen with perfectly valid IP, lack of home-exclusive bonus content for arcade ports of the era, etc., things an actual "fanboy" would try avoid doing at all costs :/), at least you haven't outright said it, so while we obviously aren't seeing eye-to-eye on these discussions I at least respect the fact you haven't tried de-legitimizing or dismissing my (imo) fair-and-balanced points...at least not yet.
I really don't get it, we have transparent sales figures for Japan, the Dreamcast had NOTHING to do with the Saturn momentum collapsing that happened BEFOR the DC came out. You could argue it made it worse but the Saturn was already done in Japan by the time the DC came out. The attach rate on the N64 was already almost double the Saturns in 1998 as well. People brought more games on the N64 than the Saturn in Japan across numerous games and not just Mario and Zelda as you continue to imply. Saturn got all the genres covered plus an early system seller with Virtua Fighter and it still collapsed.
The reason why we don't see eye to eye is you seem to argue based on the assumption most are anti-Sega. You've made some very odd comparisons to try and explain the capabilities of both the Saturn and the Genesis even though the example used for the two are worse than their competitors. You also haven't really agree on them not having long-lasting Ips otherwise you'd understand it took years before the Genesis started getting hit games. An statement you continue to disagree with despite almost all the best selling Genesis games of 800k or more being post 1992 outside Haltered Beast, Ms. Pacman and Sonic.
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Assuming this thread is still about the Panther. ..
Software support was so poor that despite what The One Magazine reported and was copied and pasted as fact, Atari hadn't even secured a version of Pitfighter which already existed on the ST and Lynx and was thankfully abandoned on the 7800.
You can also try asking Domark's head of software development for his thoughts on supporting the Panther and get another major UK publishers thoughts.
If it wasn't going to get traction with UK publishers..The US and Japanese support was never going to simply follow.
US publishers aren't really comparable to the UK/JP but I see where you're coming from.
Though I'm curious about your Pit Fighter comment. You think it would have been bad if the 7800 got Pit Fighter? I think it may have helped the 7800 given Pit Fighter was popular at the time. Sure in retrospect it would be a crap game but for the time it may have helped.
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As rumors says, Bruno Bonnell was very impressed by Atari when he co-funded Infogrames in 1983; the total name change was probably done in that optic - that Atari was relevant to HIM.
And probably, as it's said, because being able to say he is/was CEO/owner of Atari made him feel all funny.
I mean today, when Bonnell talk about his past experience as businessman, he never say "Infogrames", he always says "Atari", even if people ask him about pre-2000 stuff.
Kind of hurts Ataris real historical legacy though. Kind of jerk move against Nolan and Warners Atari to be honest.
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Those momentum cutters were called FFVII and Dragon Quest VIII. This isn't hard to figure out.
You're acting as if SFC's impact in Japan was not a factor for N64 still managing to save some face. Why, I do not know. N64 owners in Japan seemed to gravitate more to fewer games in bigger numbers, whereas Saturn owners there gravitated to more games in smaller numbers. And no one said it was "just" JRPGs, but lack of JRPGs did play a large part in N64's massive drop from SFC in that region.
Not that this really matters; you will most likely try finding a way to strawman in other talking points just like in the other thread, because by now your intents in these threads seems to be more clear and I have to say, it's somewhat pathetic. You can probably guess what I'm getting at, but save yourself the trouble and just keep it in your head, as I will mine. What i will say, though, is that such "things" hamper these kind of discussions in the long-term :/
It wasn't, because the Saturn was originally doing better and then the N64 caught up and never looked back. Saturn got ports of games selling bucket loads on the PSX that were not on the N64 and the N64 still sold evenly without any of those genres being represented.
N64 Jrpgs may have been an issue when competing with the PlayStation but the N64 did not need them to beat the Saturn. You need to realize that not everyone is Anti-sega by pointing out that they didn't handle things well. You're refusal to admit what's well documented by Segas own staff in both countries is baffling.
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Look, I know what your angle is in this discussion and it's probably what's preventing you from being more well-reasoned here, so likely consider this the last response from me on this unless you happen to say something completely out of left field that makes zero sense and warrants a rebuttal. Anyway...
Your PS numbers are actually really, REALLY skewed, because you're using LTD numbers, NOT numbers from time of release or months following. Of course you can look up some NPD or whatever-site-you're-using-to-get-numbers and see 2 million and use that in your defense, but that's 2 million over the course of the PS1's commercial retail presence. So for something like Twisted Metal 2, that's equivalent to going from 1996 to 2002 (I believe that's the year PS One was officially discontinued and the last commercial releases were officially tracked, just going on a hunch there). It'd be like me saying Tekken 3 sold 10 million units...on its launch day....in 1998. Which obviously would not have happened. Those are numbers including both the original and Greatest Hits re-release (those were $20 btw), and track it years following the initial release phase.
This is what I meant earlier when I said your points lack context; you're using these various games in one system's case to paint a perception they did gangbusters right at release, within "launch period phase" (say 3 months), or well before the games I specifically mentioned as being big pushes for the system starting late '96 with Resident Evil, Tomb Raider etc and accelerating its sales (btw, you threw in Parappa as one of your examples...that falls in line with the timing of games I already mentioned as being when PS1 steam started to really pick up), yet for the other platform you're both going off of memory perception and (likely) limiting your range to very specific time periods to conveniently cut them off at a very specific point (Sonic in this case). If that's not subconscious bias at work, I don't know what is. You're also failing to factor in things like the aforementioned Greatest Hits re-releases, which significantly cut the price on games (games had to have at least 400,000 in sales to qualify for it I believe, but the time range for that 400K was pretty damn generous, more than I initially thought tbh) and would obviously boost sales. There was no Greatest Hits equivalent on Genesis or SNES. But you aren't taking any of this into consideration.
I also said early PS1 and early Genesis situation was "comparable", never did I say they were "exact". So in at least some of these instances you are basically arguing semantics. And again, you keep using "million seller" as your only metric for constituting a "successful" game; you still haven't taken into consideration that not every game needed to sell a million to be considered "successful" by their publisher back then, heck that isn't even the case today unless you're a company like Square Enix that considers 6.5 million a "failure" because you can't manage your own budgets, but I digress. You STILL haven't factored how with many arcade ports, home sale numbers were a bonus on top of the revenue generated in arcades, and a lot of those ports were to help diversify system library offerings and bring in modest income rather than being some do-or-die "it's gotta go mega-big!" situation in regards sales. That's partly because, unlike something like say FF6 or Chrono Trigger, the average arcade game didn't need a massive team of people working on it, so they had smaller budgets. Smaller budgets meant baseline requirements of sales being lower to justify porting and publishing costs on other platforms.
My 3DO stance actually makes complete sense; again, you're lacking context. 3DO sales weren't slow mainly on the price; they were slow on the price AND people knowing alternatives were right around the corner or on the way, in this case the Jaguar. It's the COMBINATION that led to those initial slow sales. With no Jaguar present, 3DO would've had less pressure to lower its price, and hardcore early adopters would've justified spending more to get one. In case sales were still slower-than-expected, they would've lowered the price but NOT to the degree they did in our timeline, because (again) less active competitive pressure. That's basic business strategy. And your example in trying to imply a 3DO by itself would "scare" (these are companies, not people :/) Sega even more doesn't add up; the price of the 3DO alone would have still meant more modest early sales, even if there was nothing else on the horizon.
You're completely wrong about Jaguar w/ a CD included being cheaper than PS1. The main reason PS1 was able to hit that price-point was because Sony owned their own assembly processes and manufactured CD drives themselves. They ALSO owned part of the CD format and thus didn't need to pay royalty fees. Atari would have benefited from none of that, and given their relative financial position, would not have likely taken the losses on lost revenue just to push for a cheaper launch price; at such a point they'd be losing too much money. A re-speced Jaguar....wait, didn't I already say the Jaguar wouldn't likely need a big respec? Are you under the impression the Jaguar itself was simply too weak, and it wasn't the hardware bugs and poor SDK being issues? Because again, I seem to be one of the few thinking the Jaguar wouldn't of needed a big redesign to compete w/ PS1 and Saturn if they just got the hardware bugs worked out and made a much better SDK to make Tom + Jerry use more intuitive. Ironic, that. Never mind the fact that a re-speced Jaguar would still most likely be a cartridge-based Jaguar; going up against two CD-based systems, would be very bad for them giving people the impression it was "old technology". Not even the N64 was able to shake off that stigma in the long-term once it launched.
Sega adding in the 2nd VDP likely would've happened (assuming a timeline where PS1 actually launches), but the difference here is a later Jaguar would have a very big problem: lack of compelling content. Even assuming both it and PS1 would be cheaper than Saturn, you'd still be looking at a Saturn that's technically more powerful than the Jaguar and a PS1 that's certainly so, though the Jaguar would still be technically competitive and the differences in the systems likely not manifesting strongly until some 2+ years after the gen was underway. A $299 PS1 would still cause some issues for Saturn but in this timeline you yourself have created, 32X wouldn't be a factor because modest 3DO sales + no '93 Jaguar means much less incentive for a 32X, freeing Saturn up from that mess. So that's a Saturn in much better public standing with the Western market, likely meaning more focus to stick with the original release date plan.
Atari in that scenario would lack active market share thanks to no Panther and lack active development experience to pull from in the 16-bit gen to help in the 32-bit gen as a result. They wouldn't have Sony's pockets, or Sega's 1st-party studios, and would likely lack the pull to get most any of the big name devs to drive exclusive content to Jaguar for launch. So you'd be looking at a stable of stuff like Cybermorphs, Tempest 2000 and AVP for Jaguar's launch window, Ridge Racer, Tekken etc. for PS1s, and (non-buggy) Daytona, Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon etc. for Saturn's. All during Fall '95, likely September. In that situation, I don't see Jaguar's lineup being a strong draw compared to Saturn's or PS1's, and that's despite Tempest and AVP being good games. The question is would they have been good ENOUGH, because Atari would be in a situation in this timeline where they likely wouldn't have the pull to get much more great stuff as exclusive content in that critical launch window, whereas PS1'd get Toshinden, Destruction Derby etc. and Saturn would get Virtua Fighter 2, Sega Rally, Clockwork Knight etc. Looking at it this way, it's honestly the Jaguar that seems to lose out the most here.
That's why I've been insisting the whole time Panther DID need to be a thing, and preferably in 1990 and not 1991. Without it any lane of success for a non- '93 Jaguar is both pretty impossible and dismal imho.
EDIT: Seeing your 2nd reply above confirms everything I suspected. It's impossible to have an honest discussion on a topic like this with someone as agenda-driven as yourself, so don't consider replying unless you actually want to take off the hater glasses.
Clear biases on your part here, yet I'm the one who gets labeled in this thread? What ridiculous absurdities xD
They aren't skewed. The middle selling games I posted had reached 90% or more of their LTD within 1.5 years or before. The bigger ones like Rayman and Crash sold 1-2 million or more within their first years and then went on to sell 4+ million later. That's still a bunch of million sellers or near million sellers within 1 year of the PSX's life. Rayman was already over 2 million sold after 96 for example.
And what am I skewing against? the Saturn? The Genesis? None of those consoles had multiple hit games like the PSX in such a short time frame. There's a reason starting from 1996 PSX exploded. You think it was a ghost that did it? N64 was the one that had games that took awhile to reach high numbers, but many more of those still hit them unlike the Saturn or the Genesis. Twisted Metal sold most of it's LTD when TM 2 came out and T<2 itself reached 1 million in some months.
Also you didn't mention 96 you named games like Tekken 3 which was a 1998 game and FF7 which was a 1997 game. PSX had hit games less than 1 year from launch. Same in japan where it got hit games by 95. I don't understand why you're downplaying the PSX software sales here at all.The SNES wasn't as good as the PSX, but you got plenty of games doing over 500k before SF2 which after that, you got many more 1 million games shortly after.
The Genesis had Altered beast and Ms. Pac-man before Sonic. Sonic in the US was two years after launch for it to get one huge hitter and only having 2 big hitters before it. There's no spin here, it was a very slow burn, and the Genesis hit games sales would not substantially improve until after 1992 and most of the Genesis best selling games were released post 1992. MK, Aladdin, etc.
I also didn't only use million seller. I even mentioned Ridge Racers 500k+ in the US, there are not similarities between the Genesis and the PSX other than you trying your best to waive that it took the Genesis around 4 years to start getting a flow of big hit software.
Also your low budget excuses don't mean anything for Genesis sales. We are talking about Console sales not Sega being ok if a game sold 50 copies because they MAY have made money on it. You can't talk about console sales than switch the subject. Those games were not moving the hardware which is why the SNES was quickly able to catch up. Not until Sonic and MK later on did the games start moving significant hardware. None of the other details matter if the goal is to be the #1 console manufacturer. In order to do this you have to sell consoles.
Your 3DO stance doesn't make sense, it was price that was the main issue with the 3DO, the price was seen as doom until the Jaguar basically handed 3DO a break. Without a Jaguar there would be nothing there to stop the 3Do continuing to get all the software companies on board and have more time to prepare than react. It still wouldn't be 1st place but it would sell more and the M2 likely would have finished. The 3DO would be $300 by the time the PSX came out.
Also yes a Jaguar with a CD drive would have been cheaper in 1995. In 1993 the jaguar launched at $250 and was less than $150 by Christmas 1995. The CD Drive for the Jaguar was $150 and part of it being $150 was due to how it was designed and it being an add-on. But even if you were to assume the CD drive would still be $150 Jaguar would still be under $300 in 1995.
It's also logical to come to the conclusion that if the Jaguar was released in 95 instead of 1993 it would have a bump in specs just because of cheaper technology. I don't see why that's something you write off.
32X wasn't the only reason the Saturn failed, so you pretending no 32X gives Saturn a better standing in the US doesn't make any sense. The Saturn still had marketing issues, it still had no message, it still didn't have the games people were interested in, it still would have had the SOJ/SOA in fighting, it still would have been given bad image after Sony's $299, and it still would have pissed off retailers.
Sega had been self-destructing since 1994, even without a 32X that wouldn't change. Atari literally would only have to wait and Sega would collapse on itself. Any modest competition to the Saturn by Atari along with the N64 and PSX would have just made Segas situation worse. Atari in 5th gen could have even gone to last place and they still would have taken Segas spot because they still would abandon the Saturn and the DC would still fail.
But in reality it's more probable that a complete jaguar with decent games and marketing would sell more than the 2 million or so the Saturn did in NA just by being consistent.
This has less to do with being Anti-Sega and more to do with you not acknowledging Sega was their own enemy for years.
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Lately I've been on the lookout for an original version GBA, as I want to attempt a backscreen mod on one.
Yesterday I lucked out and found one in a junk shop, it came in a carry case with
- 3 games: Pokemon Blue, Warioland, and Super Mario Land (damaged label)
- 2 rechargable battery packs, although one is missing its battery
- a GBA-Gamecube link cable
and all for a grand total of £8!
No bad for $10.
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That's some great luck right there! Along with the box too!
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You shouldn't insult yourself like that. After all we need you to bump more old threads in the Want to Buy section because you got nothing else better to do apparently.Maybe they use a different name now because their old one is synonymous with idiocy, and nobody's buying their crap anymore.
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It's almost as if Dreamcast never came out in Japan and cut off a lot of Saturn's momentum there as a result of it. It's almost as if Mario and Zelda weren't household name brands in Japan thanks to Famicom and Super Famicom which would explain why those games likely still did very well sales-wise (we can look at the Wii U as proof of this).
Hmmmm.... Dude, you're really over-complicating this. Throw in what was just said with everyone else saying JRPGs and the cartridge format, and there's your whole answer. Are we done here? xD
We have Japanese sales figures due to the transparency of the tracking organizations, the DC did nothing to cut the Saturns momentum it was already losing Momentum before then.
Mario and Zelda weren't the only reasons for it either, N64 best seller list trumps the Saturns yet they sold around a similar amount. If it was just about Jrpgs than the Saturn would have at least produced a gap of a few million, it didn't. More people brought non-rpgs games on the N64 than they brought Rpg games on the Saturn.
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Thats an odd cop-out for a small mistake misreading a thrill kill joke. Let's move on, unless you think lashing out is a valid strategy.No you're just oblivious to how much people here don't like you and yet you keep making one account after another to borderline troll people with your tiring infinite self felt wisdom.
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'You're giving a lot of examples to try justifying your points but you're failing to elaborate on most of them, from what I'm seeing.
Your perception of "major seller" seems to be with modern sales in mind or those when the market was particularly big, but again you are failing to take into consideration the market size of the time or the fact that Sega's publishing strategy accounted for a different means of balancing budget with revenue and profit. You're also forgetting the arcade versions bringing in revenue to justify home ports (and seem to be overstating the degree of money that was lost with arcade games as a whole during that period; there was a reduction in the West yes, but it wasn't the sharp stone drop you're making it out to sound like, not until a bit after the 5th gen was underway, which obviously affects Model 3 but that is a discussion for another time).
What are these "areas" you are referring to? IMO you need to list actual technical areas, and I've already done some myself and could do more. Nevermind the Genesis could accomplish things like Mode 7 in software and in fact various games *did* implement it in software via the CPU to do so. You are also overestimating StarFox's impact; on a technical level the game was outdone by Virtua Fighter on SVP cart a little later.
Yeah, after mid '94 they were running into trouble w/ Genesis but we can agree that was caused by deteriorating corporate in-fighting pulling away focus from Genesis. And again, it feels like you are retroactively strong-arming with your Saturn quips there; 3D racers, platformers, 3D fighters etc. obviously were still big. It's precisely those types of games that helped PS1 so much early on; in Saturn's case it was more an issue w/ home ports of arcade titles being content-starved, but that's something I'd rather get into when talking about the misconception of arcade-style games suddenly "losing market appeal wholesale" in 5th and even 6th gen when many games of that very ilk have results that prove otherwise :/
As for the Panther quip....well, we'll have to agree to disagree there xD. If it's the same Atari as was managing the 5200 and 7800, I don't see them doing so well w/ Panther so as to just eclipse Genesis in the NA market, assuming things played out the same there. In my own timeline scenarios I see Panther doing well but that assumes Atari literally did everything correct; they didn't have the elbow room to afford even the slightest mistakes in the home console market, and in my own scenarios I still see them messing up here and there, just not to such a degree so as to completely fall well behind SNES and Genesis like the TG-16 did. And that of course is assuming a '91 Panther release; anything later and things would just play out worst, even with the extra power.
No, Major seller means Major seller. Which the genesis did not have outside of Altered Beast and Ms.Pac-man before Sonic. other systems had games selling near 1 million or hitting past 1 million within the first years, the Genesis had very few even decently big sellers for a long period of time. most of the bigger sellers came after 92.
But that's irrelevant, Segas strategy, did not work. So it doesn't matter how you try to keep using it as an excuse for them, it didn't work, they had hot arcade games that looked good and then never kept following through with those games. Outside of Altered Beast not one Sega arcade game sold 1 million on the genesis. Their lack of long-term strategy prevented them from capitalizing on their head start and only started attempting to remedy the problem post Sonic the Hedgehog and still couldn't manage to do it competently.
I'm also not overstating anything, you and many other Sega guys continue to waive the fact Nintendo had the perception. it doesn't matter of Virtual Racing had a better chip, Star Fox had the PERCEPTION of being this big behemoth of a game, and the SNES had the perception of being two steps ahead. Sega never put out software, or marketed them competently enough when they did, to get rid of that perception. The fact the SNES was actually more powerful just made that perception stay. It's why VR sdid nothing close to SNES Star Fox, because Sega hadn't done anything to improve the Genesis perception.
Also it wasn't just corporate in fighting, you don't make the same mistakes four years in a row ONLY with corporate in fighting. They never had a clear message in the US, they had no idea how to handled the momentum Sonic gave them, their game contract choices and marketing decisions were poor, and all this applies to Japan as well. Genesis was never handled well and that was the main issue with the system. Sonic and MK basically saved it from crashing earlier.
Also I have already listed games within the PSX's first year that cover many genres in the above post. But my thing is it's more confusing you're trying to use the PSX situation to help the Genesis, and downplay Saturns mistakes, which doesn't make any sense.
Also firstly, the 5200 and 7800 where made by two different Ataris. Secondly, it wouldn't take much for Atari to beat the Genesis for second place. bundled in a good show off game, market titles that have hype from third-parties, and automatically the Panthers is in second place. The incompetence of Sega can't be underestimated.
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The Genesis/PS1 comparison is both in terms of software style output and overall being a slow-and-steady burn until the "breakouts" arrived. I know when people think of PS1 they think of the cinematic games like MGS, RE2, FFVII and VIII etc., but the truth is the early library focused mainly on action-shooters, platformers, sports games, and arcade ports and arcade-style games. Quite a lot like the Genesis, actually (and SNES as well). Not only in those terms, but also particularly in the Western marketing; Sony basically continued what Sega already was establishing with Genesis/MegaDrive, which Nintendo themselves started taking inspiration from in marketing SNES and Gameboy in the West during the rest of the '90s.
PS1 did have some early big games yes, but I think a lot of those are in relation to under-performance from the Saturn in those territories, rather than the games themselves. Stuff like Ridge Racer and Toshinden, Twisted Metal, Loaded etc. did well but not in the sort of numbers later releases like Tekken 3 and FFVII accomplished. That can be chalked up purely to timing of release, though; the hardware install base was smaller and didn't start to steamroll until around mid '97 onward, primarily off the release of games like FFVII.
I don't see a 3DO lacking competition from fellow 32-bit systems actually dropping price all that much, honestly. In fact, it'd just be more reason to try maintaining a higher price, to milk the market while it's devoid of direct competition. There'd be no external factors to influence such, anyway. As for a redesigned Jaguar, yes I agree it'd benefit from being better designed and the such, but then there's nothing stopping the same from being the case with the Saturn, either.
A higher-priced 3DO would mean less sales than you think, though it'd still do better than it did as we know it, and that means less pressure on Sega to rush Saturn. Since that would (per your timeline) mean a later Jaguar release, you'd still see the Saturn we have now, but from a brand much weaker (in grand scheme of things) than Sony and therefore not as likely to spook them into rushing the design or putting out a lackluster SDK. Assuming Jaguar would still be w/o a CD, Sega could even leverage having CD onboard as a selling point against Jaguar, and a Jaguar w/ CD from the start would mean a system comparatively priced to Saturn, so no "Surprise Price Bomb" from Atari to create a May Fiasco for Saturn. Their launches would mostly play it straight.
And in that given instance, I don't see Saturn or N64 staying static; no Panther and ONLY Jaguar hurts Atari more than it does Sega or Nintendo, for reasons I've mentioned earlier on (particularly in that super-long post that I swear didn't intend to make so long but I just had a lot to talk about there so there 'ya go o.0)
Ok so heres the thing the PSX was not a slow burn, after the 95 US release the PSX got several hit games in 1996 only 1 year later and some of those games less than 1 year later. Same with Japan with it's 94 release, got his games in 95. Since both launches were late in their launch years you didn't have to wait long.
Crash Bandicoot, Area 51, MK trilogy/MK3, Parappa, Fade to Black (ugh), Gex, Jet Moto, Loaded, Myst, Need For Speed, Ridge Racer, Road Rash, Tomb Raider, Tekken 2, Rayman, Twisted Metal 1 & 2, etc all within ONE year.
In comparison, only Altered Beast did any real numbers for the Genesis within it's first year. The next beset selling game would be Ms.Pac-man followed by Sonic.
You seem to be trying to make an excuses for the Genesis here. The PSX had a variety of hit games most of which hit over 1 million or near that within their first year. Games like Toshinden aren't even on the list. Toshinden didn't even sell 500k in the US.
Twisted Metal 1 sold over 1 million units, Twisted Metal 2 almost sold 2. Loaded did over 400k, RidgeRacer was right next to 600k. These were games that sold systems, I don't know why you're trying to downplay them in importance. Using FF7 which came out two years later, and Tekken 3 which came out 8 (both of which sold less than Crash 1, Spyro 1, and Frogger) doesn't really help you here. The PSX had million sellers within its first year, multiple, across genres.
Your 3DO stance doesn't make much sense either. The 3DO dropped the price initially due to slow sales, and then continued to do by reaction later. So with no Jaguar they would have a lower early adopter count and would likely drop the price sooner. By 1994 they would hear of the PSX and the Ultra and still would have continued dropping the price, it's just they would have less to worry about in terms for competiting for software.
The PSX would still cause Sega to panic and rush in a second VDP. There not being a 1993 jaguar wouldn't change that and I am confused you would think so. in fact Sega might panic more because the 3DO's head start would actually likely be bigger without a Jagur because the 3DO would only start eyeing the PSX and the SAT in 194 instead of wondering if Atari was going to make a comeback.
An increased spec jaguar would still be cheaper in 1995 than a $299 PSX so why you think Atari would be equal in price with or without a CD drive doesn't make much sense. PSX would still walk off the stage saying $299 and the new jaguar is cheaper than the Saturn AS WELL? None of that is good for Sega.
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in 2008? they just discontinued the jag?
or did they just discontinued the jag in 2001?
I am confused
The context of my post was in reference to the buyout spree infrogrames was having in the early half of the 90's. Infogrames was growing at a fast pace then as it was happening Atari had already lost it's brad appeal, discontinued the jaguar and got sold to hasbro.
It's why even in the US I didn't understand the name change. They had some decent games not developed by brought out studios between 92 and late 90's as well. I don't know what Inforgrames marketing department saw but it told them to first initially name a bunch f American based subsidiaries Atari, and they used the Atari logo for publishing games that would usually have Infogrames logo on them. This eventually led to the full name changes several years later.
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I know that; I even acknowledged this in my above reply. But you also have to understand that Sega's publishing model meant they didn't need to rely on a handful of million-sellers to justify the publishing output, and also you have to take in account that with the arcade ports in particular, the home system sales were mainly a bonus on top of the revenue generated by the arcade release (heck, games usually didn't even GET home ports unless they did well in the arcades to begin with). In today's market we know the Nintendo model works out but the market at the time was, on a whole, different, and various models worked for what they did, in their own ways.
Also it's not really a surprise if SNES was catching up to Genesis in America; it WAS following up the NES, after all, which was still being commercially sold up to and even after SNES's release. It was expected to do very well and that's partly why many saw the Genesis as the underdog in that fight. It was expected to get a lot of press and media hype, that's what a follow-up to a best-selling system tends to receive. But you can't pin Genesis's sustained momentum (at least up until 32X) being squarely on the back of Sonic; Sonic was definitely an anchor for the platform but various other releases obviously benefited the system sustaining its momentum in NA, both sports and non-sports, even if they were mega-million sellers as I've already mentioned why that in itself wasn't necessarily an issue for Sega-published games (for 3rd parties, keep in mind most 3rd parties released their games on literally almost any platform that could run them. The combined sales across multiple systems would both justify releasing versions on them AND cover the costs for publishing on them while generating a profit, otherwise they wouldn't have kept doing such).
I'd also suggest you look back over Genesis hardware if you think that was a big issue; there are a few areas where SNES outdoes it but that is primarily in terms of color depth and (arguably) sound (I mention arguably because you can't directly compare sample-based playback to FM synthesis). In other areas such as CPU speed, resolution, RAM bandwidth etc. Genesis routinely outdid the SNES. The perception of SNES being a clear-out more powerful system is actually moreso due to the coprocessors a lot of SNES games tended to include on their carts; this was a pretty smart design decision actually, but did routinely mean SNES games costed more than the Genesis equivalents.
Also I still fail to see these multiple "screw ups" you are implying, which I'm assuming you mean in terms of hardware. The 32X was the only serious screw up, admittedly a big enough one to cause some serious issues for Saturn. The Sega CD is retroactively seen as a 'screw up" because of the infamous FMV games, but at the time on the market it was the best-selling add-on device for a home console, and best-selling CD peripheral add-on as well. If it was such a strong blemish on Genesis at the time, we would've seen a monumental shift in Genesis's market momentum well before late '94. And you can't hold things like the Activator against it too seriously considering things like the Power Glove were also notable blemishes but aren't used against their host platforms (NES in that case).
Of course I can. Until 1993 Sonic was the only major seller. From 93 onward you got your MK ports, Nba jam etc. The Sega model didn't work, because the two year head start (3 year in Asia) wasn't producing results. Sonic, outside Japan, was the first game that did. The SNES caught up with the GEN way too quick to only blame it on the NES success. It just wasn't doing that great until after Sonic 2. You keep mentioning sports games but those didn't become bigger deals until later either, just modest. There's a reason most of the best selling Genesis games were after 92. There was no real momentum until after Sonic. The SNES million seller lists is across multiple genres and companies. On the Gen Midway alone was over a third.
Not to mention Sega was earning less and less money from the arcades as time went on, until the 96 release of the model 3 which then had Sega losing money until Naomi.
As for graphics, back then it was all about how clean, realistic, or pseudo 3D your games were and despite the SNES not besting the Gen in all areas it bested it in the areas the US market wanted. With colorful large sprites, and Mode 7. That's one of the reasons the SNES closed the gap so fast. No other console had that when the SNES launched and the Genesis couldn't do it as well as the SNES when it tried to immitate it. Add in Starfox and the SNES had the preception it was always three steps ahead. It may not have been accurate but the perception was there.
Meanwhile Sega was struggling to keep the Genesis relevant after mid 94 and couldn't find anything to keep it's lead. Which transferred to the Saturns launch, which other mistakes aside launched with games that the US market had no long-term appeal for.
Panther likely would have handled the US market better than Sega.
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What's your opinion on either version of Sonic 3D Blast?
in Classic Console Discussion
Posted · Edited by Bubsy3000
I've had a Saturn before but recently at a thrift store I got a Saturn and 30 games and one of the games was Sonic 3D Blast.
I played the Genesis version and wasn't too much of a fan but the Saturn Version is a different experience altogether. If the Genesis version did not exist I'd say it would be a stand out NA launch title for the Sega Saturn! It's much better than the Genesis Version and the 3D bonus stages are the star of the show!
Now that I have given this game a fair chance I must say that it's better than I orignally thought. I wonder if the game would have been more successful as a Saturn Sonic Title if the Genesis version was scrapped?