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Would Sonic have ever been as big a seller without SOA's aggressive pack-in marketing?


Leeroy ST

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14 hours ago, Zoyous said:

But the reason why I ask you what your beef is, 

There is no beef you just won't admit that Sega has a problem with expanding their longer running series or keeping their install base up. That plus the issue of Sega currently (and has been) dealing with a profit issue (I thought you said followed their stock how do you not know this) are facts. Has nothing to do with "beef" with Sega which is the standard deflection diehard fans use.

 

14 hours ago, Zoyous said:

s that you seem to have several threads throughout the forums basically trying to say isn't Atari actually more successful and doesn't this or that Atari system have better games than Sega? I love Atari, too, but in the year 2020 it's nothing but a logo

This is the definition of moving the goal posts, not only are you making up something that never happened but Atari was never a subject in this thread. I never even given my opinion on either company compared to the other so I'm not sure what you've been reading but it's not here.

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13 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Yet you're right, you do have their newer stuff like Yakuza and Valkyria made in the 21st century that seem to keep on chugging dodging that slide.

But as I pointed out in an earlier post neither of these franchises are dodging anything, Yakuza isn't free falling anymore but it's moving up and down a range, and VC has been selling less each entry near consistently. Some of the losses are made up by interest in the west but it's only putting Yakuza back to where it was before.

 

13 hours ago, Tanooki said:

My brother used to work for them even during the Sega Sammy period until they hit a hard time and he had to move to the next opportunity.  They are a good company and have lots of nice stuff, enough variety to find a few things to like.  I'm not sure what this is all about a Sega deathwatch, but if you think he's wanting that, that's fine, but I don't.

No one wants Sega to die. I personally want to see Sega improve as right now they seem to be lead by their acquisitions while the core of the company continues to fumble the same way they did when they were console makers or the first 6 years or so after they first went multiplat. 

 

They also sit on a catalog of some impressive titles that Sega seems to scared or cautious to bring back, now is a good time for a great arcade racing alternative to NFS for example. A modern Outrun could be a good sell these days. I'd even like Sega to attempt a sim again to go against GT and Forza which could work much better if they release on all platforms. Of course, that's just an example they have huge variety of titles that they either have let run stagnant or stopped supporting once sales dropped to low, as you say there's enough variety for most people to find something that they like, something for everyone. 

 

I'm not one of those guys who wants game companies to fail.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

There is no beef you just won't admit that Sega has a problem with expanding their longer running series or keeping their install base up. That plus the issue of Sega currently (and has been) dealing with a profit issue (I thought you said followed their stock how do you not know this) are facts. Has nothing to do with "beef" with Sega which is the standard deflection diehard fans use.

 

This is the definition of moving the goal posts, not only are you making up something that never happened but Atari was never a subject in this thread. I never even given my opinion on either company compared to the other so I'm not sure what you've been reading but it's not here.

 

But as I pointed out in an earlier post neither of these franchises are dodging anything, Yakuza isn't free falling anymore but it's moving up and down a range, and VC has been selling less each entry near consistently. Some of the losses are made up by interest in the west but it's only putting Yakuza back to where it was before.

 I won't admit they have a problem expanding their sales? I mean it's plainly obvious that the sales move up and down within a range. It's only a problem if they overspend on development. If they know their range then they can budget accordingly. It's not really something that's uniquely Sega's problem, though. If you think about a decades-old game IP like a legacy recording artist, choose any genre... Willie Nelson, Cypress Hill, AC/DC, Madonna... their new releases aren't continuing to outsell each previous release, and not nearly as much as they did at their peak. But they can still reliably move units. That's what can be expected of most successful game IPs as well.

 

How can they improve sales and have some kind of breakout hit? How am I supposed to know? When I look at the games that are massive hits these days, I can't really say I'd want to see that sort of thing coming from Sega. Would I want Call of Duty, GTA, Assassins Creed from Sega? No, that's nothing like the style and aesthetic that resonates with me. The only major company these days that has big success with really creative games is Nintendo. Even that market has its limits. The only other "weird" game that I can think of that has been a huge success is the Metal Gear series. It's so badly written, though, with characters named "Big Boss," it's so corny. Personally I can't really understand why that kind of weirdness is a hit and Sega's kinds of weirdness are more modest successes. I'll say this, though... relating it back to music, you can't really say that the number of copies sold relates 1:1 with quality. Mylie Cyrus might outsell a lot of other artists but that doesn't make her material better art.

 

One thing that I have heard when reading and listening to interviews with Sega's "star" game designers is that they have a kind of artist's attitude about their work. Rieko Kodama didn't want to continue the mainline Phantasy Star series because in her mind, the story she wanted to tell ended with IV. Ryuta Ueda considered Jet Set Radio to be an expression of the energy in Tokyo in his 20s, so although I wish for more JSR sequels, from his perspective his life has moved on. Maybe it's better if everything isn't franchised and annualized. Personally I love the original Star Wars trilogy but the newer ones aren't as special to me.

 

I also feel the same way about companies like Irem, Taito, the list goes on... as far as my tastes are concerned, they were ultimately "beaten" by companies with less creativity and more money. No way is Midway a better company than Atari Games or Williams, but Midway "won" and owns them now. At least Sega is still in the mix, maybe they'll have another breakout hit yet.

 

16 hours ago, Tanooki said:

...Point is, it's not anti-Sega, it's anti-lying asshole to sell product, it's dishonorable.

Well, I appreciate your candor and your feelings about the ad campaign are understandable. To me, from the "rival" perspective, there was Nintendo who was (it was later ruled) illegally preventing 3rd party companies like Konami, Capcom, etc. from developing and publishing titles on rival consoles in the 8-bit era. That to me is dishonorable, and had much longer lasting consequences. But they got away with it in the sense of establishing a huge, loyal consumer base. Ultimately I think it was good for the industry that Sega was able to break Nintendo's near-monopoly... imagine if they hadn't. I don't like exclusives, and it's still a problem in the industry to this day. Could Sega have had the same success without the confrontational ad campaigns? Take a look at the kinds of TV shows mainstream people like these days and decide for yourself. But anyway, kind of like you, I eventually got a 3DS (second-hand for the same reasons) as well, purely to play the Sega 3D Classics series. It's kind of funny but those strong perceptions about these companies can last a long time.

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Hmm, historically when you compare regions sega sometimes bested Nintendo or at least got second place in a number of console generations. I think sega helped sonic with pack ins, which then sonic helped sega stay aloat. 

 

Sega was always the underdog console, one with a theme of a 'true gamer' even if things were very similar between sega and Nintendo. 

 

Saturn made a profit, just not a large one. Its more famous to losing out to Sony than any fight with Nintendo. I don't think a saturn sonic would have made a big difference. At this point, even if they sold another million consoles in each region, it wouldn't have been enough. 

 

Sega now survives through its careful acquisition of IPs. Total war for the casual history fans, persona for the PD kids, Football manager for the English. These IPs either release a new game every year or near enough, it's akin to EAs fifa, just probably not quite so profitable. (only fifa can apparently release near the same game each year and get record sales). 

 

I included all this as the conversation seemed to drift over to sega, which is an easy issue when talking about them. 

 

The irony of sega now rehashing old IPs, I got mania last year I think and really enjoyed it. The last sonic game I had bought intentionally was sonic adventure on dreamcast if you don't include sonic cd on mobile, and I'm not a huge fan of adventure. Mania totally was up my Alley and I was the target audience. 

 

Panzer dragoon is a pureblood sega fan base, so they decided to remake that and put it on a Nintendo console, the switch. It was never going to be a best seller, but ironically the main fan base would have been prevented from playing it. 

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1 hour ago, Mikebloke said:

Saturn made a profit, just not a large one.

No it didn't, it destroyed their finances and their "war chest" or lack thereof. It let to rich people giving up their own money to help launch the Dreamcast. If you mean specifically IN JAPAN than I suppose although it did dive off later but I guess technically that would be accurate but not in general.

 

2 hours ago, Mikebloke said:

Its more famous to losing out to Sony than any fight with Nintendo.

 

I've seen two sides to this.

 

Yeah some say what you do where they had similar platform as Sony and lost, especially in NA with how the E3's were handled.

 

However, I've also seen people say that their run to the bottom with the Genesis and Nintendo surpassing their lead with SNES (outside of Japan) was just as if not more damage to their brand.

 

Both of these are valid of course.

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3 hours ago, Zoyous said:

 I won't admit they have a problem expanding their sales? I mean it's plainly obvious that the sales move up and down within a range. It's only a problem if they overspend on development. If they know their range then they can budget accordingly. It's not really something that's uniquely Sega's problem, though. If you think about a decades-old game IP like a legacy recording artist, choose any genre... 

 

How can they improve sales and have some kind of breakout hit? How am I supposed to know?

 

This is a disingenuous argument.

 

Sega has had consistent issues with games being introduced that start or grow shortly into big or massive names in sales and minshare and always don't capitalize on it or end up shattering that mind share which leads to a CONSISTENT decline in those series over and over and over again. 

 

Their Acquisitions are the only time this isn't common but core Sega studios have shown this over and over whether their are 4 or 15+ entries to the series. In some cases they made do something that bumps a series up giving an opportunity a turn around and I call that lightening in a bottle because they again don't capitalize on it or screw it up and I've listed game examples. This is a problem Sega seems to have more than other major japanese developers/publishers, and it's a major problem.

 

It even hurt them during their console run, so pretending this isn't a problem or making strange comparisons that don't apply doesn't help Sega, I want Sega to do better, and I like their games, but that's not stopping me from pointing out a factual problem they need to resolve that's been constant in their history,

 

3 hours ago, Zoyous said:

 I don't like exclusives, and it's still a problem in the industry to this day. Could Sega have had the same success without the confrontational ad campaigns? T

 

I don't get this growing modern day thing of wanting games on all platforms and yelling at platform holders for exclusives or buying out companies (although I so thing that is a bad thing for different reasons) the console industry can't work or sustain itself without unique software and features from the others, when you have too much overlap things implode and we've seen that happen in the industry before. It sucks but that's the way things are.

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9 hours ago, Zoyous said:

 Well, I appreciate your candor and your feelings about the ad campaign are understandable. To me, from the "rival" perspective, there was Nintendo who was (it was later ruled) illegally preventing 3rd party companies like Konami, Capcom, etc. from developing and publishing titles on rival consoles in the 8-bit era. That to me is dishonorable, and had much longer lasting consequences. But they got away with it in the sense of establishing a huge, loyal consumer base. Ultimately I think it was good for the industry that Sega was able to break Nintendo's near-monopoly... imagine if they hadn't. I don't like exclusives, and it's still a problem in the industry to this day. Could Sega have had the same success without the confrontational ad campaigns? Take a look at the kinds of TV shows mainstream people like these days and decide for yourself. But anyway, kind of like you, I eventually got a 3DS (second-hand for the same reasons) as well, purely to play the Sega 3D Classics series. It's kind of funny but those strong perceptions about these companies can last a long time.

Fair enough, just wanted you (or anyone) to know where that was coming from so I explained it.  I knew Nintendo was up to something early on, maybe late 80s, I just didn't care because I was using their stuff so it gave me more variety to choose from.  Sure it would have been nice had more of those developers did games for Sega at the time, but sometimes I also think if they had to split their resources it would have left for less to go around on the Nintendo console and handhelds too which would have sucked. :D  And yes I do agree, it was good Sega did that at least the right way to break their back on the grips a few years into the Genesis life.  I'm not big on exclusives, unless they're made by a 1st or 2nd party, that's expected, encouraged, as it gives purpose to own a device.  But to pull a stunt like a timed delay (like RE4 for GC, then a year later PS2 Capcom announces it severely as a middle finger), or where a game is just bought out/stuck there (like Half Life pulled from DC for PS2) that's crap.

 

Honestly yes I think Sega would have been better off had they parroted the Nintendo ads instead of directly cutting lies against them while dual insulting gamers for being too stupid, too childish, or color blind(game gear) to want to use Nintendo systems.  Earlier Sega had on the genesis a heap of garbage and little high quality that wasn't an arcade port, but once they started having the goods they could have ran solid ads like Nintendo did, lots of footage, play up the qualities of the system with some weird quirky junk around it.  Those ads in the day before we had internet, youtube, and talking head online shills with instant upload updates really moved games.  Oh and the 3DS, I've had a love/boredom run with it.  I'm an ambassador, sold it for that new model and later sold it and the games, then helped a friend buying his system, and bored again.  But I realized it's better to have it, enjoy the strange stuff and later missed games, than not at all.  It can happily sit for months, then get use, it's all good.

 

And yeah...those feelings can last.  I still get aggravated seeing those lying old sega ads.  The same thought I had in the day calling them on their shit about speed with Sonic vs Mario Kart I brought up.  SNES had a game that ran the same pace as sonic, even if it wasn't as detailed, but Road Runner Death Valley Rally is speedy, just less detailed/colorful either due to the hardware or by design given it mimics an old WB cartoon.

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I think this thread is broadening further than sonic, but can't help but say that the market cannot sustain too many competitors. Sonic probably helped secure sega in the 90s as a valid competition against Nintendo, because Alex the kid wasn't going to cut it. Philips, Panasonic, even going further back Mattel and Coleco, they are not house hold console gaming names. The market can only reasonably sustain 2 companies at a time and fits the notion of a "console war". If it wasn't sega, then maybe the tg-16 would have housed the counter culture gamers, and perhaps they would have made a saturn like system too, only to lose out just like sega. 

 

I think late mega drive was fine, though it was of course complicated by the mega cd and 32x (mostly the 32x I don't think the cd was that bad). I remember the Chaotix crew vividly, as a storyline in sonic the comic, however the game doesn't inspire a lot despite its potential. The death of 2d probably ruined the sonic franchise, though its interesting to note others kept with 2d and survived (if only just!). 

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10 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Honestly yes I think Sega would have been better off had they parroted the Nintendo ads instead of directly cutting lies against them while dual insulting gamers for being too stupid, too childish, or color blind(game gear) to want to use Nintendo systems.  Earlier Sega had on the genesis a heap of garbage and little high quality that wasn't an arcade port, but once they started having the goods they could have ran solid ads like Nintendo did, lots of footage, play up the qualities of the system with some weird quirky junk around it.  Those ads in the day before we had internet, youtube, and talking head online shills with instant upload updates really moved games.  Oh and the 3DS, I've had a love/boredom run with it.  I'm an ambassador, sold it for that new model and later sold it and the games, then helped a friend buying his system, and bored again.  But I realized it's better to have it, enjoy the strange stuff and later missed games, than not at all.  It can happily sit for months, then get use, it's all good.

It's funny because despite older console companies doing things like stealing engineers and trying to dodge the court system (or matel fans throwing rocks at Atari executive cars) the ads were pretty straight forward.

 

Yeah, they threw jabs at each other but they also elaborated and explained why they believed their product was better and treated their consumers more intelligently, look at the early Coleco ads when they were first starting out, multiple jabs at Atari and Mattel, but you also got excited because they gave you a reason to and didn't make up buzz terms like blast processing and pretending there was some secret formula that gave Genesis the speeds.

 

The only other time I've seen Sega style ads were Sony for the PS2 and PS3 but they got better later in the PS3 times.

 

 

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No. Without the pack in, sonic simply wouldn't have sold as well. Don't forget it also came out on master system and gamegear, no comment on those versions sales numbers.

 

Don't get me wrong, I loved sonic, especially the three (I think) gba titles, which seemed to capture the original feel, even over many genesis sequels, heck there's a topic here titled "anchor games" (or something like that) where I mention the sonic series being one of the few reasons I even own most Sega consoles.

 

BUT, sonic was made really as an answer to mario, which was kicking it's ass at the time, but it lacks most the charm, isn't nearly as refined, was shorter, and let's be honest, just wasn't as good of game/series. Sega wanted that Nintendo crowd, but the types of people who would bother with a genesis, weren't the type of people who wanted that type of game, to heck with a more dumbed down less refined version.

 

Yes Mario was packed in with every nes, in addition to being available on multiple formats of stand alone carts (mario/duck hunt, mario/duckhunt/track and field, and even just mario) seriously, mario was Nintendo's "pacman, somehow being more available than the console it was on. But, each new mario over all still sold amazingly, despite NOT being packed in.

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8 hours ago, Video said:

But, each new mario over all still sold amazingly, despite NOT being packed in.

All Main mario games on the NES were packed in at some point.

 

8 hours ago, Video said:

to heck with a more dumbed down less refined version.

I don't think this is the view point, Mario was pushed above many of Nintendo's own properties, and infamously, third party partners, but managed to retain that same younger audience over and over. Sonic wasn't really dumbed down, it was a better looking and faster Mario with the edge which attracted the older kids and teen demographic. That's not really dumbed down as much as being flashy and impressing people.

 

The biggest issue I've seen with Sonic back in the day was that they didn't really change it up. Sonic 2 added some improvements and introduced some new problems but after that game you were basically playing the same game 2 more times, and Sonic CD felt like a random level generator with terrible design.

 

Outside SMW, Mario did try adding or changing things in each game, sometimes at the alienation of certain fans, and Nintendo gave it complete attention and polish, at the expense of other developers.

 

Mario has had games with problems and bad design, more than some fans will admit, but Mario has and likely will never have a Sonic 2006 tier mainline game. Or going even earlier, putting out unfinished spin-off racing games like Sonic R. Sega treated Sonic more like a flashy brand to ride on than the core of their companies vision. Just looking at the Genesis games it seemed clear Sega thought they could just consistently ride Sonic 1 sales each entry and it ended up not happening.

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I'd call Mario Sunshine Nintendo's sonic treatment of the series.  Bad ideas, control and camera problems, unsteady difficulty curve, all flash and flair but not much substance.  A big ass mistake in a solid (mostly) line of games going back to the 80s.  I kind of blocked it from my memory and got a bad flashback of it all flooding back about an hour into the damn game on Switch.  I have little to no interest to bother with it anymore, it's just not great, and I fight wanting to even call it good due to all its technical problems.  It's no Sonic CD or turning into a werewolf, let alone a collision and camera nightmare like Sonic Heroes and most since were either, but it's straight up damaged goods.

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On 10/18/2020 at 8:25 PM, Tanooki said:

And yeah...those feelings can last.  I still get aggravated seeing those lying old sega ads.  The same thought I had in the day calling them on their shit about speed with Sonic vs Mario Kart I brought up.  SNES had a game that ran the same pace as sonic, even if it wasn't as detailed, but Road Runner Death Valley Rally is speedy, just less detailed/colorful either due to the hardware or by design given it mimics an old WB cartoon.

Nintendo had an entire magazine that it used for misleading propaganda. They mailed it unsolicited to everyone who registered their system.

 

They said that the extra chips handled other parts of processing typically done by the cpu and that it could run a port of Sonic with the player sprite scaling far beyond what Knuckles Chaotix does.

 

They said that the Genesis was cobbled together by random junk, as though you could build one with parts from Radio Shack.

 

 

They also put ads in regular magazines with blatant lies.

 

Remember how new revolutionary programming techniques unlocked secret microcode to allow FFIII and DKC to display all 256 colors at once? Or how they advanced the technique to allow Killer Instinct SNES to display 512 of the 256 colors at once?

 

 

They even used the U.S. Congress to throw Sega under the bus and then immediately okayed an uncensored Mortal Kombat II.

 

In Japan Hiroshi Yamauchi said that Playstation users were idiots and blamed the N64's failure on "Japanese gamers like to be alone in their rooms and play depressing games".

 

 

People are still brainwashed to believe that Nintendo has always taken the high road, even after they were recently reminded of their broken promise that Night Trap would never appear on a Nintendo system.

 

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You've kind of got a bitchy attitude thing going there from the get go.  There's no harm in mailing out a free magazine if you register a Nintendo, kind of snotty calling it unsolicited propaganda.  I do think Sega did something similar with their Vision magazine as well as I recall my brother getting it free from them as he had the Genesis.

 

I have no clue what you're talking about with Nintendo gloating about added chips to handle processing.  They were very misleading about using enhancement chips until sometime during the NP run when they did a few page spread on what the MMC1-5 chips were, and before that just that pak-watch contents thing for a time did write like MMC in the box on top of the PRG/CHR sizes a game used but it didn't last long.  And can you show me wher ethey claimed the Nintendo could run a 32x game?  Same with the radio shack bit.  I've got issues 1-74 and maybe 10 more over that on a shelf here, quote me some pages and volumes.

 

I had every issue of that magazine until it was corrupted by Future One, and I don't recall any of this ever being printed.  Just how far into the Sega weeds were you?  Or was this maybe EGM that was a huge fanboy screen for Sega and then Sony in that day.

 

I want some print outs because right now you just are coming off kind of angry and defensive lashing out with fantasy I don't remember in the least bit.  This sounds like some Quarterman level rumor and slander mill bullshit that EGM published monthly.  DKC was touted as revolutionary because they did ACM not because they used 256 colors, that was a stock normal thing the SNES did and nothing to brag about, and when was FF3 ever played up as some special coded game either?

 

I do remember the congressional hit job on Sega with MK1, that was a magnficiently messed up bus tossing event over the pre-ESRB era stuff.  I can see how that one would make a Sega fan pretty angry, but then again Sega had been slamming Nintendo in print for being a kids toy, the same crap Sony pulled with N64 calling it the kiddie box.  That was some straight up well earned tit for tat.

 

And I think we can all agree, Yamauchi was an asshole.

 

Nintendo didn't take the high road, they had their times of going low, but they never crossed the line that Sega did in the day with those scamming obnoxious loud and insulting TV and print ads.

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On 10/25/2020 at 1:41 PM, Black_Tiger said:

They said that the Genesis was cobbled together by random junk, as though you could build one with parts from Radio Shack.

 

One could actually debate this to be honest. Especially after 91. 

 

On 10/24/2020 at 8:54 PM, Tanooki said:

I'd call Mario Sunshine Nintendo's sonic treatment of the series.  Bad ideas, control and camera problems, unsteady difficulty curve, all flash and flair but not much substance.  A big ass mistake in a solid (mostly) line of games going back to the 80s.  I kind of blocked it from my memory and got a bad flashback of it all flooding back about an hour into the damn game on Switch.  I have little to no interest to bother with it anymore, it's just not great, and I fight wanting to even call it good due to all its technical problems.  It's no Sonic CD or turning into a werewolf, let alone a collision and camera nightmare like Sonic Heroes and most since were either, but it's straight up damaged goods.

There were parts of Sunshine that seemed decent among everything seeming, well broken, and there were some good ideas, it wasnt the massive don't listen to feedback, let's make everything worse each entry, that Sonic was going through from 2002-2006, but yeah that game had a lot of issues, but even then it was somewhat playable until later on where I have no idea what happened, ran out of budget, didn't care and slapped things together, or both in the last 3rd+ of the game.

 

But the fact they acted in part that they cared to look over and polish the game somewhat is still an advantage of where Sonic ended up when you know the game isn't done and barely plays but you put it out anyway because fuck it, and then have an ending that pretend the events of the game never happened.

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What are you on about?  Nintendo doesn't run out of a budget for Mario games.  That was just bad design by design, and they just didn't see it.  At best I could throw them under the bus to shove the game out if they were looking at a holiday or end of their fiscal year(Mar 31) but it came out in July.  There really isn't much of an excuse I can think of other what I said, bad design, it's sloppy but they just didn't see it.

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On 10/26/2020 at 7:58 PM, Tanooki said:

What are you on about?  Nintendo doesn't run out of a budget for Mario games.  That was just bad design by design, and they just didn't see it.  At best I could throw them under the bus to shove the game out if they were looking at a holiday or end of their fiscal year(Mar 31) but it came out in July.  There really isn't much of an excuse I can think of other what I said, bad design, it's sloppy but they just didn't see it.

Brah, later levels in Sunshine are basically basic backgrounds and more flat colored platforming than the stuff earlier, and some levels are shorter with less going on, definitely seems like the budget was cut, or at the very least they rushed it to meet the release date. I suppose the latter is more likely.

 

I agree the design was very out of the ordinary for a 3D Mario game and even some other 3D games. I'd be curious if Nintendo would revisit the game and fix some of its issues in a remake like they did with Zelda on the Wii U.

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4 hours ago, Leeroy ST said:

Brah, later levels in Sunshine are basically basic backgrounds and more flat colored platforming than the stuff earlier, and some levels are shorter with less going on, definitely seems like the budget was cut, or at the very least they rushed it to meet the release date. I suppose the latter is more likely.

Still a much better 3D Mario game than Mario 64. I picked up the collection for the switch recently. Playing it reminded me how overhyped that game was with its lame level design. 

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16 hours ago, turboxray said:

Still a much better 3D Mario game than Mario 64. I picked up the collection for the switch recently. Playing it reminded me how overhyped that game was with its lame level design. 

Considering the system it was on, the year it came out, and the controller made for it, I just figured most people would assume it was worse outside rabid fans. I can't go back and play that game, yet I can go back and play Gex 3D.

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Sonic would obviously not have been as successful without the pack-in with the console. The pack-in meant that many people who would not have bought the first Sonic game did it anyway. And then many of those really liked it, and bought the sequel(s). All pack-in game(-franchises) get higher sales than they otherwise would have had.

 

The increased sales of sequels due to high exposure of the first game is similar to how freemium games work. By making them free a lot of people will give them a go, and then many of them will pay for extra content. More than would have bought the game if it wasn´t free.

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On 10/18/2020 at 10:43 PM, Leeroy ST said:

I don't get this growing modern day thing of wanting games on all platforms and yelling at platform holders for exclusives or buying out companies (although I so thing that is a bad thing for different reasons) the console industry can't work or sustain itself without unique software and features from the others, when you have too much overlap things implode and we've seen that happen in the industry before. It sucks but that's the way things are.

Wanting games on all platforms is not a modern thing. It has been like that at least since the 16-bit era.

 

The console industry does not need exlusive games to sustain itself as gaming on PC is more expensive, and impractical if you want to play on a big screen. But individual companies in the console industry probably need exlusives to get sales. Although it is conceivable that a company could save that money, and instead offer a low price console with no exclusive games, and still be profitable.

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