hmasalia
Forerunner
Classic Gaming: Sega vs Nintendo
Onto the second and final part of the Sega vs. Nintendo War that originally started in the early ‘80’s, but was to end in the early 2000’s with Sega losing all respectability in the hardware industry, all by their own hand as well:
Sega Saturn vs. Nintendo 64
The year is 1995, and after milking the Genesis as dry as it could possibly go Sega moved onto its first 32 bit dedicated system the Saturn with great anticipation by gamers worldwide. While the system itself was a beast with two processors and various other memory adding devices for its time, the complexity of this caused many a problem for software developers in actually trying to utilize it. The quadrilateral polygon-based system deviated from the standard triangle system the other consoles were using at the time, and it got so problematic that software developers ended up writing games in assembly rather than C.
Meanwhile the N64 was released a year later in the US and two years later in Europe, but had the major advantage of having a 64 bit architecture compared to the Saturn’s 32 bit architecture. The one factor which was the talk of the town as it were was that Nintendo had opted to stay with the cartridge format for its games as opposed to the new format being produced, the CD. This meant that software developers often went elsewhere with games due to the ability to have cheaper production costs not only for media but for speed, and games like Final Fantasy went to the newly released PSX due to these reasons.
The Saturn debuted in at $399 due to the fact that Sega surprised launched it four months earlier than they had stated in a press release. The fact the console had a lot of hardware behind it it didn’t deem it necessary to sell it for a loss like most consoles are sold for, and this is one of the big mistakes as many die hard Sega stockists and software developers felt cheated by the surprise launch, as the only titles available for the system were Sega ones. The customer alike felt screwed in the ass because they were being charged a large amount of money for a system that was not all it was cracked up to be, and the combination of this started the downfall of the Sega hardware empire. Most people can’t remember more than a handful of Saturn games just for this reason, many developers no longer wanted to write for a bent up shit company that used underhanded tactics, so when only two years later Sega started to publicly talk about their next project, the Dreamcast, the Saturn was considered a dying format and no one really wanted to bother with it at all.
The N64 was sold for a measly $199, half the Saturn’s price, and due to no surprise launch they avoided pissing off stockists and software developers, and had a great run of games for its whole reign. Nintendo relied on old favourites like the Mario, Pilotwings and Donkey Kong franchises, and Zelda’s Ocarina of Time on the N64 is considered possibly the greatest game of all time. Not only that but there were other greats that came from the N64 like the Turok series, Super Smash Brothers, Golden Eye, Lylat Wars, the list goes on for the N64. The N64 also had the rumble pack which the Saturn did not have, which gave the user their first force feedback device on any Console at all.
It is plain to see that the Nintendo 64 wins hands down with the third generation of Sega vs. Nintendo, Sega’s marketing strategies effectively killed off their future and the N64 made up the two years it lost easily with twice the memory in its architecture, and a vast library of games to satisfy the user.
Dreamcast vs. GameCube
[img=http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9914/81424187ay6.jpg]
Here we have it, the final gaming generation of Sega in the hardware industry, and if only they had marketed their machine better it needn’t have been. Gone were the days of being able to tout a console as being 8, 16 or 32 bit, as now graphics engines and processors similar to PC’s prevailed and the Dreamcast was the first and last of the Sega consoles to ever do this.
The DC was a pioneer in the online gaming genre as it contained a built in modem and internet access, which it took the PS2 until 2002 to support. When the DC was released it enjoyed a great amount of support by the user base and sold like hot cakes on a cold day in the US; however it was not taken up as well in Europe due to the problem of advertising. In the EU the advertising companies rarely budgeted correctly so the console didn’t get nearly as much coverage as the 9/9/99 slogan used in the US for its launch date (somehow 14/9/99 doesn’t have such a great ring to it).
To further insult the European gamers when the PS2 was released US Sega cut the price of the DC by $100 but did nothing for anywhere else as it was literally just going for the most popular people as it was a dying company by then. The PS2 eventually killed off the Dreamcast because of a number of follies by Sega, firstly the GD-ROMs provided held up nothing to the newly released DVD technology that the PS2 was heralding, the PS2’s technical specifications were almost double the Dreamcast’s in most places and the PS2 was backward compatible. Secondly Sega’s previous disrespect for the software developers meant they had lost many friends in that department so were mostly relying on Sega’s own releases to boost the system. The third party developers seemed to be waiting to see the outcome of the PS2/Dreamcast battle so the amount of titles launched waned more than usual, and the only real franchises left to build on were Sonic, Daytona Racing and Ecco The Dolphin, not a class action line up. Furthermore a lot of the DC’s games were simply PSX ports which had already been released so weren’t exactly new games.
This said the DC still has very much a cult following today as it was definitely ahead of its time with the online gaming capability through SegaNet. If it wasn’t for the fact that back in the day an ISDN line could cost you the earth, this may have been able to save the DC with enough support, but unfortunately it tried before the capability was affordable much like the old Virtual Reality arcade games. The DC never went head to head with the GameCube as in March 2001 production of the console was discontinued, only for the following May Nintendo’s GC to be launched.
The GC is well… a bit of a failing in Nintendo’s books, as I mean sure it has a good library of games building on past franchises, although what they were thinking of with “Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker†I have no idea. On the Hardware side though it was faster than the PS2 processor, producing better sound but with not as good graphics, one of the primary factors in the user base at the time of the sixth generation of consoles. Nintendo opted for the 8cm DVD in order to try and give them a better chance against piracy, but as always this was eventually cracked; most notably however even though the GC had a DVD player it had no DVD video functionality, which is one of the main problems when compared to the PS2 and Xbox.
Nintendo for some reason as well focused on making the GC compatible with the Gameboy systems in order to use them as game pads for games and also to pass data between each other; taking a note from the original PSX they included a LAN capability so you could connect up to eight GC’s together, though then you had to find eight TV’s as well which you’d be stretched to find in most people’s homes.
As was said before Nintendo did continue their great game franchises along with the new console, Mario became Paper Mario, Super Smash Brothers became Super Smash Brothers Melee, there was a new Mario Kart etc; if there's one thing you can count on Nintendo to do, its produce great games from their long standing franchises.
As far as online gaming went there were not many online playable games at all, ironically the most notable title being Sega’s Phantasy Star series which was brought out for the DC. So when the online gaming did finally kick off on the PS2 and Xbox the GC had little to offer, which just ended up as another mark on the wall against the console compared to its two competitors.
All in all the sixth generation of consoles was a sore point for both Sega and Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft had basically taken over the market and Nintendo’s GC was basically peddling old tricks that everyone else had tried before with the LAN gaming, interconnectivity etc. Yes, Sega may have finally died on the hardware battlefield but if anything that was most likely because Sega US and Sega Japan didn’t really like each other. This had caused them to piss off all their third party software developers with the dropping of the Saturn, and the online gaming brought out too early to be affordable. Out of the two though the final round goes to the DC simply for the innovation of bringing online gaming to consoles and to show it could be done in a viable manner with the current technology. If they had had the games they may have been able to carry on.
So there you have it, out of all the console battles between Sega and Nintendo, Sega only won one of them, but that does not mean that they didn't put up a good fight in the other showdowns. Both Sega and Nintendo have brought us great games to play and great game comparisons too, so like someone put in the comments of the first article, who really won? Us gamers - that’s who.
Souce:
Classic Gaming: Sega vs Nintendo Part 2 » Shoutwire.com
Onto the second and final part of the Sega vs. Nintendo War that originally started in the early ‘80’s, but was to end in the early 2000’s with Sega losing all respectability in the hardware industry, all by their own hand as well:
Sega Saturn vs. Nintendo 64
The year is 1995, and after milking the Genesis as dry as it could possibly go Sega moved onto its first 32 bit dedicated system the Saturn with great anticipation by gamers worldwide. While the system itself was a beast with two processors and various other memory adding devices for its time, the complexity of this caused many a problem for software developers in actually trying to utilize it. The quadrilateral polygon-based system deviated from the standard triangle system the other consoles were using at the time, and it got so problematic that software developers ended up writing games in assembly rather than C.
Meanwhile the N64 was released a year later in the US and two years later in Europe, but had the major advantage of having a 64 bit architecture compared to the Saturn’s 32 bit architecture. The one factor which was the talk of the town as it were was that Nintendo had opted to stay with the cartridge format for its games as opposed to the new format being produced, the CD. This meant that software developers often went elsewhere with games due to the ability to have cheaper production costs not only for media but for speed, and games like Final Fantasy went to the newly released PSX due to these reasons.
The Saturn debuted in at $399 due to the fact that Sega surprised launched it four months earlier than they had stated in a press release. The fact the console had a lot of hardware behind it it didn’t deem it necessary to sell it for a loss like most consoles are sold for, and this is one of the big mistakes as many die hard Sega stockists and software developers felt cheated by the surprise launch, as the only titles available for the system were Sega ones. The customer alike felt screwed in the ass because they were being charged a large amount of money for a system that was not all it was cracked up to be, and the combination of this started the downfall of the Sega hardware empire. Most people can’t remember more than a handful of Saturn games just for this reason, many developers no longer wanted to write for a bent up shit company that used underhanded tactics, so when only two years later Sega started to publicly talk about their next project, the Dreamcast, the Saturn was considered a dying format and no one really wanted to bother with it at all.
The N64 was sold for a measly $199, half the Saturn’s price, and due to no surprise launch they avoided pissing off stockists and software developers, and had a great run of games for its whole reign. Nintendo relied on old favourites like the Mario, Pilotwings and Donkey Kong franchises, and Zelda’s Ocarina of Time on the N64 is considered possibly the greatest game of all time. Not only that but there were other greats that came from the N64 like the Turok series, Super Smash Brothers, Golden Eye, Lylat Wars, the list goes on for the N64. The N64 also had the rumble pack which the Saturn did not have, which gave the user their first force feedback device on any Console at all.
It is plain to see that the Nintendo 64 wins hands down with the third generation of Sega vs. Nintendo, Sega’s marketing strategies effectively killed off their future and the N64 made up the two years it lost easily with twice the memory in its architecture, and a vast library of games to satisfy the user.
Dreamcast vs. GameCube
[img=http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/9914/81424187ay6.jpg]
Here we have it, the final gaming generation of Sega in the hardware industry, and if only they had marketed their machine better it needn’t have been. Gone were the days of being able to tout a console as being 8, 16 or 32 bit, as now graphics engines and processors similar to PC’s prevailed and the Dreamcast was the first and last of the Sega consoles to ever do this.
The DC was a pioneer in the online gaming genre as it contained a built in modem and internet access, which it took the PS2 until 2002 to support. When the DC was released it enjoyed a great amount of support by the user base and sold like hot cakes on a cold day in the US; however it was not taken up as well in Europe due to the problem of advertising. In the EU the advertising companies rarely budgeted correctly so the console didn’t get nearly as much coverage as the 9/9/99 slogan used in the US for its launch date (somehow 14/9/99 doesn’t have such a great ring to it).
To further insult the European gamers when the PS2 was released US Sega cut the price of the DC by $100 but did nothing for anywhere else as it was literally just going for the most popular people as it was a dying company by then. The PS2 eventually killed off the Dreamcast because of a number of follies by Sega, firstly the GD-ROMs provided held up nothing to the newly released DVD technology that the PS2 was heralding, the PS2’s technical specifications were almost double the Dreamcast’s in most places and the PS2 was backward compatible. Secondly Sega’s previous disrespect for the software developers meant they had lost many friends in that department so were mostly relying on Sega’s own releases to boost the system. The third party developers seemed to be waiting to see the outcome of the PS2/Dreamcast battle so the amount of titles launched waned more than usual, and the only real franchises left to build on were Sonic, Daytona Racing and Ecco The Dolphin, not a class action line up. Furthermore a lot of the DC’s games were simply PSX ports which had already been released so weren’t exactly new games.
This said the DC still has very much a cult following today as it was definitely ahead of its time with the online gaming capability through SegaNet. If it wasn’t for the fact that back in the day an ISDN line could cost you the earth, this may have been able to save the DC with enough support, but unfortunately it tried before the capability was affordable much like the old Virtual Reality arcade games. The DC never went head to head with the GameCube as in March 2001 production of the console was discontinued, only for the following May Nintendo’s GC to be launched.
The GC is well… a bit of a failing in Nintendo’s books, as I mean sure it has a good library of games building on past franchises, although what they were thinking of with “Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker†I have no idea. On the Hardware side though it was faster than the PS2 processor, producing better sound but with not as good graphics, one of the primary factors in the user base at the time of the sixth generation of consoles. Nintendo opted for the 8cm DVD in order to try and give them a better chance against piracy, but as always this was eventually cracked; most notably however even though the GC had a DVD player it had no DVD video functionality, which is one of the main problems when compared to the PS2 and Xbox.
Nintendo for some reason as well focused on making the GC compatible with the Gameboy systems in order to use them as game pads for games and also to pass data between each other; taking a note from the original PSX they included a LAN capability so you could connect up to eight GC’s together, though then you had to find eight TV’s as well which you’d be stretched to find in most people’s homes.
As was said before Nintendo did continue their great game franchises along with the new console, Mario became Paper Mario, Super Smash Brothers became Super Smash Brothers Melee, there was a new Mario Kart etc; if there's one thing you can count on Nintendo to do, its produce great games from their long standing franchises.
As far as online gaming went there were not many online playable games at all, ironically the most notable title being Sega’s Phantasy Star series which was brought out for the DC. So when the online gaming did finally kick off on the PS2 and Xbox the GC had little to offer, which just ended up as another mark on the wall against the console compared to its two competitors.
All in all the sixth generation of consoles was a sore point for both Sega and Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft had basically taken over the market and Nintendo’s GC was basically peddling old tricks that everyone else had tried before with the LAN gaming, interconnectivity etc. Yes, Sega may have finally died on the hardware battlefield but if anything that was most likely because Sega US and Sega Japan didn’t really like each other. This had caused them to piss off all their third party software developers with the dropping of the Saturn, and the online gaming brought out too early to be affordable. Out of the two though the final round goes to the DC simply for the innovation of bringing online gaming to consoles and to show it could be done in a viable manner with the current technology. If they had had the games they may have been able to carry on.
So there you have it, out of all the console battles between Sega and Nintendo, Sega only won one of them, but that does not mean that they didn't put up a good fight in the other showdowns. Both Sega and Nintendo have brought us great games to play and great game comparisons too, so like someone put in the comments of the first article, who really won? Us gamers - that’s who.
Souce:
Classic Gaming: Sega vs Nintendo Part 2 » Shoutwire.com
