The Saga of Sega! The Rise and Fall...
~brought to you by MarkJenkins666@hotmail.com
Introduction
When you think of Sega, some may think "What a bad company!" or "They made the Genesis, didn't they?" or "He he, Sega..." But Sega really has a long and elaborate history, that is mostly untold. This webpage gives a somewhat brief description of the last maybe 15, 20 years of their company, in chronological order.
The Rise
SMS (Sega Master System)
For a little while, Sega had been making games for other older game consoles, and realized it was time they made their own console, so they started at work. There was one problem however: Nintendo had already released their Nintendo Entertainment System or NES (which you'll see pictures of at the bottom of the page) a few years earlier, and it became wildly popular. So the SMS got released in the wake of the very popular NES, and pretty well got screwed. Even though it was technically more advanced than the NES, due to poor timing, it went the way of the BetaMAX. While a few people bought it, noone really remembers it. But how did Sega manage to keep from going under, you ask? Well, for some odd reason, the SMS sold great in Japan, and moderately in Europe. With that money, they funded their next big project, that would blow other systems out of the water.
Sega Genesis
The NES had been the only console with a chance on the market for 5 straight years, and Sega decided it was going to put it to sleep. Sega made the Genesis, which was the fastest console on the market when it came out (7mhz yehaw!). It also had 16-bit graphics as opposed to NES's 8-bit. It's Sonic the Hedgehog was the fastest game ever made to that date, and was applauded. It was also renowned for it's contract with EA Sports, and thus had excellent line-up of sports games. Sega had it made. But then, something was brewing on the horizon with the mongoose to Sega's snake, Nintendo. They had developed the Super Nintendo. At first, people thought it was going to go with way of the SMS, but with slick marketing, and fun games, Nintendo was winning people over. Then, Nintendo came out with Donkey Kong, which revolutionized gaming. It had "32-bit graphics on a 16-bit console". It was then Sega knew the Genesis was going out of fashion, but they had a plan. Over the years, there had been tons of hype about the Sega CD, the first console ever to run CDs. They thought they'd show Nintendo they were in the big leages with this!
The Fall
Sega Game Gear (this is sort of unrelated to the fall of Sega however)
Sega had realized they had an industry they had never attempted before: portable gaming. Until the invention of the Game Gear, Nintendo had little competition in the handheld industry (with exception of the Atari Lynx, and NEC TurboExpress, which both sold abysmally), and was making lots of money off of it. So Sega thought they'd take a crack at it. They realized that Nintendo's Gameboy had no colour, so they attempted to use that to their advantage. Unfortuenately, the Game Gear had it's problems. It took 6 AA's, and only lasted roughly 6 hours, making it very, very power-consuming! Nintendo surely had it beat in the hand-held category.
Sega CD/32x
This was the much hyped add-on to the Genesis that would keep people faithful to Sega by having it latch on to the right side of the Genesis. Unfortuneately, the plan backfired. Not many people bought it, and instead, continued to buy Super Nintendo's. It cost way too much (around $300 I think) and the games were mediocre at best. Then, after they realized they screwed up, the made the Sega 32x, whcih plugged into the Genesis game cartridge, which played more advanced games, and added more memory. But, when that was lauched, Sega quickly abandoned it. Already, the power of Sega was beginning to fade fast.
Sega Saturn
The Sega Saturn was the first 32-bit system ever made, but even though it had that going for it, people didn't have much faith in Sega after the 32x. If Sega was willing ot abandon the 32x so quickly, what makes you think they wouldn't abandon the Saturn, people thought. So naturally, it didn't sell very well. Also, the news of Sony's Playstation may have contributed to the demise of the Saturn.
And now for the final nail in the coffin, the last bad "Your mom" joke before the comic is booed off the stage, the last missed field goal before the end of the football game for Sega:
The Sega Dreamcast!
You'd think a 4-player, internet acessible, 128-bit console would sell very well compared to mediocre 64-bit and 32-bit systems, and usually it would. But, unfortuneately, the Dreamcast had one thing wrong with it: it carried the Sega name! I don't know exactly it didn't sell well, aside from the fact that the last two consoles made by Sega bombed. Maybe they were trying to start a trend. Not only did they start a trend, but they ended one too. Sega now nolonger makes consoles, and is now working for the dog to their cat, (I'm sorry...) Nintendo! Now Nintendo's making Sega make games for the Gamecube (a very good console) and the Game Boy Advance. The even more sad thing is, I saw a flyer in the newspaper in which the Dreamcast is selling for $70 Canadian, a few bucks cheaper than a Game Boy Colour, and half as much as the Nintendo 64! Talk about swallowing your pride...