Ultimate Paragon
Banned
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to have Sega continue to make consoles.
AHC: Keep Sega in the console game
- Thread starter Ultimate Paragon
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http://althistory.wikia.com/wiki/Ohga_Shrugs
Take a look at Ohga Shrugs. It's actually a pretty good timeline with the same premise. Sony stays out of the market, elongating SEGA's time in the market.
Take a look at Ohga Shrugs. It's actually a pretty good timeline with the same premise. Sony stays out of the market, elongating SEGA's time in the market.
on that same note there is this TL also.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=142101&highlight=Cronus+Invictus
I haven't read it in quite a few years but i'm pretty sure it's what you are looking for. Unfortunately it's unfinished but it's still a good read.
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Butterfly the 32x and fix the saturn debacle
Its not hard at all to save Sega, since Sega impaled itself on its on sword of mismanagement and regional conflicts.
To save the Saturn have Sonic X-Treme get finished, no Shining Force 3 fiasco and perhaps ave Sega moneyhat Enix for a DQ exclusive as well as Konami.
Also, if you take away the 32x, have Knuckles Chaotix as a Saturn launch game could help greatly. Also make sure Sega localizes its games and SoA doesnt abandon the Saturn and force the Dreamcast.
EDIT: Of have Sega and Bandai merge as almost happened or have MS buy Sega and keep the name
Its not hard at all to save Sega, since Sega impaled itself on its on sword of mismanagement and regional conflicts.
To save the Saturn have Sonic X-Treme get finished, no Shining Force 3 fiasco and perhaps ave Sega moneyhat Enix for a DQ exclusive as well as Konami.
Also, if you take away the 32x, have Knuckles Chaotix as a Saturn launch game could help greatly. Also make sure Sega localizes its games and SoA doesnt abandon the Saturn and force the Dreamcast.
EDIT: Of have Sega and Bandai merge as almost happened or have MS buy Sega and keep the name
PhoenicianLegacy
Banned
Back in the late 90's, Sega and Bandai considered a merger. If this happened, that would trigger Sega's survival in the console game.
CD wasnt that bad, if they focused on that and no 32x that would have been enough, the CD was actually neat the 32x while neat has a sucky library (coming from a guy who owns one)
As a collaborato of Ohga shurgs, thanks to the suggestion of the timeline, salnax and other would like how popular become the TL, thanks
THIS, ALL OF THIS, SWF fans nailed it perfectly all sega issue and pontetial(even if pretty bold) solutions.
Sega issues, in 1993-1995 in two years, they killed all major consumer trust with mismanagment of sega.cd, intenral division, the distrasous 32x and them the saturn suprise launch was the beggining of the end of sega, not to say how chatoic was saturn internal development, specially with sega being warry to compete with the arcade division.
need more ideas or suggestion, we can help you
More games publishers creating quality games akin to companies like Capcom and Square on the SNES.
They'd sell more consoles and keep afloat even with a few bad decisions.
They'd sell more consoles and keep afloat even with a few bad decisions.
They dropped the ball BADLY with the Saturn. Bernie Stolar hated the niche games that made the Saturn one of the most beloved systems of all time among importers. The Saturn was great hardware, but the company was run by complete idiots. If the Saturn is even a decent success, they wouldn't have had to bail on the Dreamcast so early and if the Dreamcast survives I think Sega survives as that console had amazing potential.
Keeping the Dreamcast alive would be the best bet. It utilized the Internet before any other console did.
Yea Stolar definately damaged the Saturn but he wasnt the main reason it flopped, the Sega debacle of the mid 90s is near ASB in OTL (Then again, I think Stolar may have been a sony plant)
OTL was such a Sega screw
The problems Sega experienced in developing a suitable successor the the Genesis/Megadrive, problems which led to it's ultimate demise as a console manufacturer, can be traced back to the development of the Sega/MegaCD and the bitter rivalry that emerged between Sega of Japan and the Western branches of the company.
In Japan, the MegaDrive (and the Master System before it) had always been a struggling niche system, lagging behind both Nintendo and the NEC PC Engine (aka, the Turbo-Grafix). When the MegaCD was released in Japan in 1991, in response to the introduction of a CD based attachment to the PC Engine, the new Sega add-on attracted a fair amount of interest from Japanese third party developers, eager to develop games for the CD-ROM format, and as a result, the MegaCD actually boosted the sales of the MegaDrive a bit in Japan. As the MegaDrive had performed poorly in Japan anyways, the prevailing logic at SoJ was that the next console should be a CD based machine built around all-new hardware.
In the West, however, the situation was very different. The MegaDrive was already the dominant console in Europe and other PAL regions, owing in part due to the popularity of, and it's backward compatibility to, it's predecessor, the Master System. Furthermore, in North America, the Genesis had managed to attain a brief ascendancy over Nintendo in 1992 and 1993, so Sega already had the dominant hardware in the West. The MegaCD prototype sent by SoJ to SoA was allegedly deliberately sabotaged because SoJ was afraid of what the West could do with the new hardware. The SegaCD/MegaCD was not released in America until the end of '92 ('93 in Europe) and, thanks to the initial issues with the prototype, game development for the console in the West was delayed, and so the Sega/MegaCD was severely lacking in third party developer support outside of Japan, and subsequent sales of the Western version of the console were poor.
So when the time came to develop a successor to the MegaDrive/Genesis, SoJ found themselves at odds with their subordinate western branches. For SoJ, the answer was the Sega Saturn, a stand alone 32-bit CD based console with all-new hardware that had absolutely nothing to do with the Genesis. Sega's Western branches, however, after the poor performance of the Sega/MegaCD in those regions. preferred sticking with the tired-and-true Genesis/MegaDrive hardware, and were in favor of the 32X; a far cheaper cartridge-based 32-bit upgrade for the Genesis/MegaDrive. While many in hindsight have claimed that the 32X was doomed from the start, pre-orders of the add-on reportedly exceeded a million units in the US alone, so there was certainly sufficient interest in an upgraded Genesis/MegaDrive in the West.
However, the hardware of 32X, as an add-on, proved problematic for programers, who found it difficult to fully harness the power of the 32X via the Genesis/MegaDrive. Furthermore, the console did not come with a pack in game or new controllers, and initially retailed at $170 (it was rapidly dropped to $150). Additionally, an upgraded Genesis/MegaDrive with the 32X hardware (along with additional upgrades) built in and more thoroughly integrated into the system, and thus, easier to use, was in the planning. This “Sega Neptune” would have retailed for $200 and would have included new 6-button controllers and a pack in game, which in turn discouraged gamers from buying the 32X add-on unit upon release. Even more damning for the 32X, Western developers began receiving their development kits for the Saturn at the same time as the 32X kits, and SoJ was adamant that the Sega Saturn would be the wave of the future. As a result of all this, the 32X was dead within a little over a year of launch.
Unfortunately, the Saturn proved to be just as problematic as the 32X. SoJ's new baby was extremely expensive to produce, and as such, was very expensive at retail, launching in the US at a whopping $400. Furthermore, the Saturn was notoriously difficult to program for, meaning that games on the Saturn generally looked worse then their incarnations on the Sony Playstation, even though the Saturn had more raw horsepower. Many third party developers simply decided to forgo the Saturn (and the 32X) altogether, giving the Playstation a much larger library of games. After a disastrous early launch, the Saturn swiftly fell behind the Playstation, both in sales of hardware and software, and combined with subsequent price drops needed to compete with the Playstation, and later, the N64, drove Sega into massive debt.
Things were even worse for the Saturn in Europe and the PAL regions, until then Sega's strongest markets. Generally speaking, PAL gamers like to get the most out of their older consoles, meaning that aging systems generally have longer lives there then in Japan and North America, and new systems with backwards compatibility with the older consoles are looked upon much more favorably. The Saturn was an expensive, all new piece of hardware with few games for itself and could not play any games from older Sega consoles. Even worse, because Sega was already loosing money on the Saturn in America, Sega made the decision to stop production for the Genesis/MegaDrive and it's add-ons right around the time the Saturn launched in Europe, infuriating Sega fans there, many of whom bought Playstations instead. The UK, traditionally a loyal Sega stronghold, was the main exception, and Sega consoles continued to enjoy popularity there even into the Dreamcast era.
But by the time time the Dreamcast came out, it was much too late. Despite a massively successful launch in the States, Sega was already drowning in debt, and the Dreamcast was swiftly overshadowed by the PS2 thanks to Sega's poor reputation with consoles, lack of DVD capability (which was a result of lack of money at Sega), and a lack of copy protection for the console (which actually resulted from the rushed development of the Dreamcast, to get the console to market as fast a possible to attempt to recoup from the losses of the Saturn).
So if you want to keep Sega in the console business, you need to go back to the Sega CD era and get Sega of Japan on the same page as Sega of America and Sega of Europe. SoJ needs to actually help with launching the SegaCD in the West, rather then attempting to hinder their efforts out of petty jealousy. Then, you need SoJ to actually work with SoA/SoE on the development of the next console. SoJ was right about one thing: the next console needed to be a stand alone CD-based system. But the console also needed to be reasonably priced, easy to program for, and (especially for PAL regions) backwards compatible. If the Saturn had been built off the existing MegaDrive/Genesis hardware, that would have saved Sega a lot of money in development and production, would have made backwards compatibility a matter of design, and also would have made programing much easier given the hardware similarities of the new console with the MegaDrive/Genesis. I'm envisioning something like the Sega Neptune, but with a CD drive built in, while still retaining the cartridge slot. Such a console would likely have retailed for $300 at launch, making it competitive with the Playstation, and would have maintained the loyalty of gamers in America and Europe via backwards compatibility. With a successful 32-bit console under their belts, Sega could have taken more time to carefully develop the Dreamcast, avoiding the critical errors they made in desperation while creating that system. After that, well, who knows where Sega would be today.........
In Japan, the MegaDrive (and the Master System before it) had always been a struggling niche system, lagging behind both Nintendo and the NEC PC Engine (aka, the Turbo-Grafix). When the MegaCD was released in Japan in 1991, in response to the introduction of a CD based attachment to the PC Engine, the new Sega add-on attracted a fair amount of interest from Japanese third party developers, eager to develop games for the CD-ROM format, and as a result, the MegaCD actually boosted the sales of the MegaDrive a bit in Japan. As the MegaDrive had performed poorly in Japan anyways, the prevailing logic at SoJ was that the next console should be a CD based machine built around all-new hardware.
In the West, however, the situation was very different. The MegaDrive was already the dominant console in Europe and other PAL regions, owing in part due to the popularity of, and it's backward compatibility to, it's predecessor, the Master System. Furthermore, in North America, the Genesis had managed to attain a brief ascendancy over Nintendo in 1992 and 1993, so Sega already had the dominant hardware in the West. The MegaCD prototype sent by SoJ to SoA was allegedly deliberately sabotaged because SoJ was afraid of what the West could do with the new hardware. The SegaCD/MegaCD was not released in America until the end of '92 ('93 in Europe) and, thanks to the initial issues with the prototype, game development for the console in the West was delayed, and so the Sega/MegaCD was severely lacking in third party developer support outside of Japan, and subsequent sales of the Western version of the console were poor.
So when the time came to develop a successor to the MegaDrive/Genesis, SoJ found themselves at odds with their subordinate western branches. For SoJ, the answer was the Sega Saturn, a stand alone 32-bit CD based console with all-new hardware that had absolutely nothing to do with the Genesis. Sega's Western branches, however, after the poor performance of the Sega/MegaCD in those regions. preferred sticking with the tired-and-true Genesis/MegaDrive hardware, and were in favor of the 32X; a far cheaper cartridge-based 32-bit upgrade for the Genesis/MegaDrive. While many in hindsight have claimed that the 32X was doomed from the start, pre-orders of the add-on reportedly exceeded a million units in the US alone, so there was certainly sufficient interest in an upgraded Genesis/MegaDrive in the West.
However, the hardware of 32X, as an add-on, proved problematic for programers, who found it difficult to fully harness the power of the 32X via the Genesis/MegaDrive. Furthermore, the console did not come with a pack in game or new controllers, and initially retailed at $170 (it was rapidly dropped to $150). Additionally, an upgraded Genesis/MegaDrive with the 32X hardware (along with additional upgrades) built in and more thoroughly integrated into the system, and thus, easier to use, was in the planning. This “Sega Neptune” would have retailed for $200 and would have included new 6-button controllers and a pack in game, which in turn discouraged gamers from buying the 32X add-on unit upon release. Even more damning for the 32X, Western developers began receiving their development kits for the Saturn at the same time as the 32X kits, and SoJ was adamant that the Sega Saturn would be the wave of the future. As a result of all this, the 32X was dead within a little over a year of launch.
Unfortunately, the Saturn proved to be just as problematic as the 32X. SoJ's new baby was extremely expensive to produce, and as such, was very expensive at retail, launching in the US at a whopping $400. Furthermore, the Saturn was notoriously difficult to program for, meaning that games on the Saturn generally looked worse then their incarnations on the Sony Playstation, even though the Saturn had more raw horsepower. Many third party developers simply decided to forgo the Saturn (and the 32X) altogether, giving the Playstation a much larger library of games. After a disastrous early launch, the Saturn swiftly fell behind the Playstation, both in sales of hardware and software, and combined with subsequent price drops needed to compete with the Playstation, and later, the N64, drove Sega into massive debt.
Things were even worse for the Saturn in Europe and the PAL regions, until then Sega's strongest markets. Generally speaking, PAL gamers like to get the most out of their older consoles, meaning that aging systems generally have longer lives there then in Japan and North America, and new systems with backwards compatibility with the older consoles are looked upon much more favorably. The Saturn was an expensive, all new piece of hardware with few games for itself and could not play any games from older Sega consoles. Even worse, because Sega was already loosing money on the Saturn in America, Sega made the decision to stop production for the Genesis/MegaDrive and it's add-ons right around the time the Saturn launched in Europe, infuriating Sega fans there, many of whom bought Playstations instead. The UK, traditionally a loyal Sega stronghold, was the main exception, and Sega consoles continued to enjoy popularity there even into the Dreamcast era.
But by the time time the Dreamcast came out, it was much too late. Despite a massively successful launch in the States, Sega was already drowning in debt, and the Dreamcast was swiftly overshadowed by the PS2 thanks to Sega's poor reputation with consoles, lack of DVD capability (which was a result of lack of money at Sega), and a lack of copy protection for the console (which actually resulted from the rushed development of the Dreamcast, to get the console to market as fast a possible to attempt to recoup from the losses of the Saturn).
So if you want to keep Sega in the console business, you need to go back to the Sega CD era and get Sega of Japan on the same page as Sega of America and Sega of Europe. SoJ needs to actually help with launching the SegaCD in the West, rather then attempting to hinder their efforts out of petty jealousy. Then, you need SoJ to actually work with SoA/SoE on the development of the next console. SoJ was right about one thing: the next console needed to be a stand alone CD-based system. But the console also needed to be reasonably priced, easy to program for, and (especially for PAL regions) backwards compatible. If the Saturn had been built off the existing MegaDrive/Genesis hardware, that would have saved Sega a lot of money in development and production, would have made backwards compatibility a matter of design, and also would have made programing much easier given the hardware similarities of the new console with the MegaDrive/Genesis. I'm envisioning something like the Sega Neptune, but with a CD drive built in, while still retaining the cartridge slot. Such a console would likely have retailed for $300 at launch, making it competitive with the Playstation, and would have maintained the loyalty of gamers in America and Europe via backwards compatibility. With a successful 32-bit console under their belts, Sega could have taken more time to carefully develop the Dreamcast, avoiding the critical errors they made in desperation while creating that system. After that, well, who knows where Sega would be today.........
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Bumping this thread due to nostalgia (been playing several RPGs on my Dreamcast).
Y'know I've been thinking lately, and frankly, the 32x, as a concept, seems to me more viable than the Sega CD.
The way I see it, Sega CD was a dud because, ultimately, coding for several hundred megabytes of game data was absolutely impossible in the early 90s, and, at any rate, the Mega Drive was incapable of adequately utilising it anyway. The data which could (and ultimately did) fill a CD in 1991-1994 were FMVs (which ended up looking absolutely crap due to low graphics power) and uncompressed audio (experience enhancing, but not to system-seller degree). Thus it had a fundamental flaw.
A performance add-on, on the other hand, could help the Mega Drive continue fighting the SNES. Its biggest weakness was its trans-generational nature. It was vastly more capable than the NES, but inferior in certain key areas (color depth, sound fidelity) to the SNES. Sega attempted to redress some of the shortcomings with a compute chip inside a select number of cartridge titles (a solution which was adopted by Nintendo as well). Unfortunately, these were costly to produce, resulting in high cartridge prices. A better option would've been a console add-on with an extra graphics chip, a dedicated sound chip and extra memory (general, video and sound) to properly use them. For storage, high-capacity versions of the standard MD cartridge (with a big "Sega Turbocharger <or whatever name> REQUIRED" sticker on cartridge and box). This (along with a proper SDK) would've considerably extended the MD's life into the mid-90s. Of course, this necessitates a PoD where Sega of Japan has considerably less influence than OTL.
One more thing that needs to be done in this PoD: standardise a layout and parts list. The OTL MD had eleventy different revisions with (sometimes wildly) varying levels of sound and/or video output quality (a few of them were totally crap). Youtube has many videos discussing these diferences (and even modding guides to improve some of the boards).
EDIT: So, what say you? Could/would a 'turbocharger' addon (handwaving away the latter-date 32x) have made more sense than the Sega CD?
Y'know I've been thinking lately, and frankly, the 32x, as a concept, seems to me more viable than the Sega CD.
The way I see it, Sega CD was a dud because, ultimately, coding for several hundred megabytes of game data was absolutely impossible in the early 90s, and, at any rate, the Mega Drive was incapable of adequately utilising it anyway. The data which could (and ultimately did) fill a CD in 1991-1994 were FMVs (which ended up looking absolutely crap due to low graphics power) and uncompressed audio (experience enhancing, but not to system-seller degree). Thus it had a fundamental flaw.
A performance add-on, on the other hand, could help the Mega Drive continue fighting the SNES. Its biggest weakness was its trans-generational nature. It was vastly more capable than the NES, but inferior in certain key areas (color depth, sound fidelity) to the SNES. Sega attempted to redress some of the shortcomings with a compute chip inside a select number of cartridge titles (a solution which was adopted by Nintendo as well). Unfortunately, these were costly to produce, resulting in high cartridge prices. A better option would've been a console add-on with an extra graphics chip, a dedicated sound chip and extra memory (general, video and sound) to properly use them. For storage, high-capacity versions of the standard MD cartridge (with a big "Sega Turbocharger <or whatever name> REQUIRED" sticker on cartridge and box). This (along with a proper SDK) would've considerably extended the MD's life into the mid-90s. Of course, this necessitates a PoD where Sega of Japan has considerably less influence than OTL.
One more thing that needs to be done in this PoD: standardise a layout and parts list. The OTL MD had eleventy different revisions with (sometimes wildly) varying levels of sound and/or video output quality (a few of them were totally crap). Youtube has many videos discussing these diferences (and even modding guides to improve some of the boards).
EDIT: So, what say you? Could/would a 'turbocharger' addon (handwaving away the latter-date 32x) have made more sense than the Sega CD?
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If some games already had turbocharger chips, then it would seem that thats possible in a cartridge slot. So, build your turbocharger as a male-female device, so it plugs into the existing slot, and a game cartridge plugs into the other end.
Maybe that female end has an enhanced connector that new games require (couple of extra pins, say) but which is backward compatible with existing cartridges...
Then you could have a '+' or 'enhanced' version of the console that had the new slot and processor built in. Would that work?
Maybe that female end has an enhanced connector that new games require (couple of extra pins, say) but which is backward compatible with existing cartridges...
Then you could have a '+' or 'enhanced' version of the console that had the new slot and processor built in. Would that work?
I Know its Pretty Late but OK Here we Go
Sega Would Have to First Cancel the 32X, and Delay the Sega Saturn till 1996 Where it Would be Priced Lower than the PS1, Because of this The Dreamcast Becomes Less of a Failure to the PS2 and More of a more Mature Competitor to the Gamecube, Sega's Next Console (Either Called the Eclipse, Ringwave, Apollo? etc) Would Replace both the Original XBOX and XBOX 360 in OTL by Late 2004 and Unlike Rareware in OTL Microsoft Never Sees any Profit in Buying Rareware Due to Them not Having a Console and Rareware Stays With Nintendo, Back on Topic the Best Selling games For SEGA's Next Console would Be World of Warcraft and Street Fighter IV, and Would Have Motion Controls Around 2009-2010 to Compete with the Wii and PS Move Unlike the Kinect in OTL Sega's Version of the Kinect Actually Good with the Use of Finger Based Remotes like in PC VR in OTL, Sega would Then Compete Aggressively with the Wii U with a Console that Has VR (Like the ps4) and Unlike the WII U, Would have Games Like Newer Bemani Games, Newer Neversoft Games, Better Sonic Games, a Next Gen Klonoa Game, RPGs Like Little Tail Story, Elsword, Runescape 3, WOW Mists of Panderia, and Sega's Version of The Wii Virtual Console where you can Buy Games from the Atari 2600 all the Way to the Saturn, Sega Would Also Have Apps on There Consoles Like DeviantArt, Youtube, Facebook, Grubhub, Uber, Ebay, Amazon etc and Unlike The Xbox Brand in OTL SEGA Would Be Like the Wii Crowd Exept All Grown Up as Teen/Young Adults with There Heavy Focus on RPGs and JRPGs, Fighting Games, Arcade Ports, Backwards Compatibility ETC Instead of War Shooters, Cinematic Games, Indie Games Etc, and Then Sega Would See The Potential of PC Gaming So There Next Console Released a Year After the Switch (Spectrum, Spartan, Titan? etc) Would Be a PC Console Hybrid in the Same Way the Switch is an Android Phone Console Hybrid
Sega Would Have to First Cancel the 32X, and Delay the Sega Saturn till 1996 Where it Would be Priced Lower than the PS1, Because of this The Dreamcast Becomes Less of a Failure to the PS2 and More of a more Mature Competitor to the Gamecube, Sega's Next Console (Either Called the Eclipse, Ringwave, Apollo? etc) Would Replace both the Original XBOX and XBOX 360 in OTL by Late 2004 and Unlike Rareware in OTL Microsoft Never Sees any Profit in Buying Rareware Due to Them not Having a Console and Rareware Stays With Nintendo, Back on Topic the Best Selling games For SEGA's Next Console would Be World of Warcraft and Street Fighter IV, and Would Have Motion Controls Around 2009-2010 to Compete with the Wii and PS Move Unlike the Kinect in OTL Sega's Version of the Kinect Actually Good with the Use of Finger Based Remotes like in PC VR in OTL, Sega would Then Compete Aggressively with the Wii U with a Console that Has VR (Like the ps4) and Unlike the WII U, Would have Games Like Newer Bemani Games, Newer Neversoft Games, Better Sonic Games, a Next Gen Klonoa Game, RPGs Like Little Tail Story, Elsword, Runescape 3, WOW Mists of Panderia, and Sega's Version of The Wii Virtual Console where you can Buy Games from the Atari 2600 all the Way to the Saturn, Sega Would Also Have Apps on There Consoles Like DeviantArt, Youtube, Facebook, Grubhub, Uber, Ebay, Amazon etc and Unlike The Xbox Brand in OTL SEGA Would Be Like the Wii Crowd Exept All Grown Up as Teen/Young Adults with There Heavy Focus on RPGs and JRPGs, Fighting Games, Arcade Ports, Backwards Compatibility ETC Instead of War Shooters, Cinematic Games, Indie Games Etc, and Then Sega Would See The Potential of PC Gaming So There Next Console Released a Year After the Switch (Spectrum, Spartan, Titan? etc) Would Be a PC Console Hybrid in the Same Way the Switch is an Android Phone Console Hybrid
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