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July 11, 2006
Sega's Many Mistakes Revealed
Gamers have wondered for years just how a successful company like Sega (circa 1994) could manage to make one bad decision after another. Consider the 32X debacle, the under-performance of the Saturn, and the eventual all-eggs-in-one-basket console that was Dreamcast. We're talking about the company that canned the Eternal Champions series on the eve of its killer app debut for the Saturn, forgot it owned the rights to Streets of Rage when a fourth installment was pitched, and waffled on Sonic X-Treme for so long that the game withered on the vine. Now Sega of America's former president, Tom Kalinske, is speaking out to confirm some old rumors and reveal startling new information about Sega's management decisions.
Based on Kalinske's comments, it seems that the success of the Genesis in North America and Europe was a lucky accident. New information (at least, new to me) is that not only did Sega turn down Sony's proposal to co-develop a new console together (Sega PlayStation, anyone?), but also twice turned down the chipset that eventually wound up powering the Nintendo 64 (say what you will about third-party software on the N64, but the hardware itself was amazing for the time). Beyond that is the revelation that Sega of Japan was against including the original Sonic the Hedgehog as a pack-in with the Genesis and instead envisioned Altered Beast as a perennial favorite to move units in the American Midwest.
This interview is the most intriguing piece I've read about Sega in quite some time. Kalinske seems to be speaking honestly here, burning bridges and assigning blame where appropriate. After learning a little more about Sega of Japan's management decisions and poor ideas for the then-future, I'm amazed that the company was ever able to produce anything successful at all. How can a single company make so many major mistakes and yet still succeed for so long? Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but it really seems like Sega managed to fail upwards somehow. Kudos to Kalinske for keeping the hedgehog running for as long as he did.
(via GameDaily)
Posted by MattG on July 11, 2006 at 09:30 PM in Nintendo, Retro/Classic, Sony | Permalink
Comments
Very interesting interview.
The success of the Mega Drive/Genesis wasn't a 'lucky accident' any more than that can be said of the Sony Playstation. It was a technically strong product with good games and good marketing.
Unfortunately while Sega of America (and Kalinske in particular) were able to apply strategies learned from the toy industry to break the machine into the market, they couldn't figure out how to maintain momentum, a problem which was exacerbated by the increasingly variable quality of later hardware offerings.
Posted by: Robin | Jul 12, 2006 5:33:20 AM
I second what Robin here said about how Sega just couldn't figure out how to maintain momentum. That's Sega's only real big problem as far as I could see. They're still very lucky to have lasted as long as they did, and it was a sad day to hear that they abandoned developing consoles in favor of making games for multi-platforms.
Posted by: Dosei | Jul 12, 2006 6:58:35 AM
Kalinske mentions that if he had his druthers, Sega would have kept pumping out AAA Genesis games through 1995, and Saturn (presumably) would have launched in Summer/Fall 1996.
But weren't big games like Vectorman, Comic Zone, Sonic 3D-Blast, VF2 all released in 1995? I don't recall them doing much to keep Genesis strong in the face of PSX, let alone against SNES.
In fact, Nintendo pushed SNES hard through 1995 in the exact way Kalinske wishes Sega pushed Genesis. At best, a 1995 Genesis push would have prevented Nintendo from ultimately winning the 16-Bit wars, at worst it wouldn't have changed a thing.
Posted by: Alex | Jul 12, 2006 12:43:30 PM
And I forgot to mention: How could you have an hour to talk to Kalinske about Sega in the early 1990s and not ask a question about the aborted VR helmet?!
Posted by: Alex | Jul 12, 2006 1:01:47 PM
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