Honestly, I gotta say it’s Tom Kalinske. The guy’s a genius, an absolute legend, and the most underrated figure in gaming history. People often overlook him, but he was the one who really aimed for a mature audience, pushing the boundaries of what video games could be.Kalinske wasn’t just about making fun, kid-friendly titles, nah, he saw the potential for mature storytelling, mature gameplay, and a mature gaming experience that could appeal to grown-ups just as much as to kids. That was his whole vibe. He understood that the mature audience was out there, ready to be captivated by complex stories, sophisticated gameplay, and more than just simple arcade fun. It was like he saw the future of gaming before anyone else did.You gotta remember, back in the day, the industry was kinda stuck in a kiddie zone, especially with Nintendo dominating the scene with their family-friendly image. But Kalinske? He was the mastermind who was willing to challenge that, to aim for a mature audience and say, “Hey, gamers are more than just kids. They want mature stories, mature gameplay, and mature experiences.” That’s what made him a genius. He knew that if he aimed for the mature market, he could revolutionize the industry.And let’s talk about Sega, especially Sega of Japan. Kalinske was the one who really understood that the mature audience was a huge untapped market. He pushed for more mature titles, more complex characters, and gameplay that made you think. But here’s the crazy part, the Japanese side of Sega, especially Sega of Japan, turned their back on him. They didn’t see the mature potential. They stuck to their traditional, more kiddie-focused approach, and that’s where the industry lost a real genius.
>>12204194Why'd you write so much
>>12204194So this is what mature gamers want?
>>12204226a chili dog?
>>12204194Nuthin' but fax!
The man who killed Sega
>>12204194>he saw the potential for mature storytelling, mature gameplay, and a mature gaming experience that could appeal to grown-ups just as much as to kidsWhich is why most story-driven games were mostly on the SNES now isn't it?
>>12204194I bow to KalinskeGOD
kalinskids, when will they ever learn
Tom Kalinske, savior of video games.
>>12204782>mismanaged the genesis inventory so hard he plunged the entire american division into massive debt.Oh is this the new cope that Sega of Japan fans are using instead of just admitting that Sega Saturn was a failure? Lmao.
I ran OP's text through AI and it drew Joe from Gamesack
>>12204214op absolutely did not write that.
>>12205220You also get this if you feed it a post glazing Working Designs.
>>12204823But enough with Saturn's Yuji Naka and Dreamcast's Yu Suzuki.
Was the 32X a good idea?
>>12205684Hell no, neither was the Sega CDThey should have done like Nintendo and put chips on their games to enhance them, not make a whole fucking accessory
>>12204194Reddit thread
>>12205684The 32X was the reason why both Xtreme and Knuckles Chaotix ended up as failures.
>>12204782Kek, you got OP assblasted
>>12205220kek, it's probably uses keywords and links it to what images can be found online, and Joe shills SoA a lot
>>12205684It wasn't a bad idea, but it was the worst possible execution. If there was no Saturn for at least a few years, and if they put a decent polygon accelerator in there (at least a Saturn VDP1), it could've been a good stopgap until they either rework the Saturn or straight up jump to the Dreamcast.
great man who tried to save us from autistic nintendildoes, shame it fell on deaf ears
>>12204823Weird way to say Bernie Stolar
>>12206354STOLAR?you cant be serious...
>>12204194>They didn’t see the mature potentialI lost here
>>12204678>more sports What a retard
>>12204194Americans acting like this guy was some kind of videogame god will never not be funny. Didn't this guy smoke a ton of money with FMV shit?>>12204678>LOWER THE PRICENothing to do with making good games and it really depends, it's a good strategy if you're not selling the product at loss or can at least staunch the bleeding to a large degree (like Sony and Microsoft often do with PlayStation and Xbox, because they can afford it). Nintendo did this with the 3DS, cutting the price from $249 to $17O 5 months after launch (soon before Vita's release date), now imagine how absurdly overpriced that thing was, that's how you do it, at the cost of stupidly loyal (like Nintendo fans are) and impulsive consumers, not at the cost of your struggling company's limited resources. Stolar tried the same strategy with the Dreamcast at $200 (instead of $250, preferably since Sega was operating in the red at the time) and we know how well that ended up for them.>COOL FOR TEENS>MAKING FUN OF NINTENDO This was a Sega of America strategy even before Tom Kalinske, I think it was Al Nielsen's marketing idea and approved by Michael Katz. Nothing to do with making good games either.>MORE SPORTSOnce again, sports and celebrity licensing was something Sega of America was doing even before Kalinske and it was indeed a good strategy to associate a product with someone famous / popular (Nintendo did it with Punch-Out and Mike Tyson too). Again, nothing to do with making good games, in fact, Sega of America released a ton of sports shovelware, some of them relied on a famous person's name to sell rather than on its gameplay.>DEFEAT MARIOMario got great games, Sonic was SEGA's Mega Drive's answer (replacing Sega System's Alex Kidd) and it was indeed a good game... developed by the Japanese branch.Yes, Sega of America under Tom Kalinske's tenure sold like 20 million Genesis' units, but in the long run he also damaged the brand.
Did Kalinske have a vision? I've never seen an executive be so out of leftfield.
>>12204194kalinske was right about sports games, ahead of his time even. look at the wii
>>12207242He is the only reason sega was ever successful
>>12204194Tom Kalinske's greatest strength was that he was good at cross promotion. he didn't really know anything about tech when Sega brought him on. The man worked at Mattel, and was apparently responsible for reviving the Barbie brand, he had a lot of say in the marketing behind Hot Wheels and was behind a lot of the marketing for HeMan and the Masters of the Universe. Apparently with Heman, it was his decision to contact Filmation and turn the toy line into a cartoon series; which popularized the concept of cartoons being used as marketing vehicles for toys. That became dominant through the 1980's. The reason why Sonic became so big under Kalinske was his constant cartoon, comic book, merchandising and even food tie-ins. He had to rely on the engineers at Sega of America for any technical advice.
>>12207242>Didn't this guy smoke a ton of money with FMV shit?Can't be worse than Jeffery Epstein being Retro Studio's CEO.
>>12204194Kalinske was based and redpilled.He was against the Saturn at many points too, I don't like his idea of going with he 32X but in hindsight it might not have been that bad. He did try to delay the release of the Saturn to develop more games though. Unfortunately he had no say in the matter.
>>12210707This man was a dumbass who killed SegaWatch the FY 1997 video
>>12210707>Kalinske was based and redpilled.>He was against the Saturn
>>12210737SOJ killed Sega, Sega's problems go to 2 issues, inability to compete with Sony on 2 accounts (PS1 and PS2) and Sega's lack of understanding of the console market. The second is solely SOJ's fault and the first was highly exacerbated by SOJ's decisions regarding the Saturn, which also were related to the second point, them NOT understanding the console market and not taking it seriously enough.What Kalinske tried to do was make the best of a bad situation caused largely by SOJ. had SOJ properly understood the console market, the Saturn wouldn't have to be revised and it could have beat the Playstation to market with a good lineup potentially changing history. Instead neither Nintendo nor Sega took them seriously despite the fact they knew Sony was seriously developing a console as per their cooperation and approaching both companies in 5th gen development.
>>12210737SoJ refusing to release a 3d sonic for the Saturn killed Sega
>>12211038>>Kalinske was based and redpilled.>>He was against the SaturnFrom what I understand a lot of Sega of America employees defected from the company and joined team Sony, just purely based on some of the bad hardware decisions that were made with the 32x and Saturn. Tom Kalinske really wasn't a 'tech head', so he went with what his 'hardware advisors' would tell him. Tom Kalinske came from Mattel. He was a toy marketing guy at the end of the day. You could see that with the way he handled Sonic. The failure of Sonic Xtreme was really the last straw for him, as he packed up and moved to Leap Frog after the Holiday season of 1996. Which was a huge blunder for SOA.
>>12212703SOA fanboys rewriting history like always Kalinske killed Sega by clinging to the Genesis and hating the Saturn Still producing Genesis games and consoles in fucking 1997 when no one give a shitThe fucking 32x another brillant idea of SOA because they didn't like the Saturn Wanted to replace it with an even harder console to program for
I forgot about the shitty SOA produced games for the Saturn like congo or Ghen warSOA sure know what the US market wanted ahaha
>>12214351Congo is actually good. One of the few times SoA was decent.
>>12211038Correct?
>>12215024Kalinske only did 1 good thing: bundling Sonic 1 with the Genesis and cutting the price.Everything else was retarded.
>>12214348>The fucking 32x another brillant idea of SOA because they didn't like the SaturnThat's a bad faith view of what unfolded, SOA -AND- SOJ wanted the 32x to bridge the gap between the Genesis/Mega Drive and the Saturn, SOJ believed Saturn would be in short supply in the states due to underproduction because of all the new parts that had to be made for it and saw the Atari Jaguar as competition(stupid in hindsight but not back then). Joe Miller pitched the idea of making the add-on to the Genesis/Mega Drive because it was a major revenue driver in North America and thought that would drive easy sales. What went sideways was Sony's PlayStation success in Japan, eating away at Sega's sales there so they stupidly rushed the Saturn stateside too early leading to a lack of product (what they were trying to avoid in the first place) and upsetting developers and disturbers for both products. The one thing to blame here for the entire mess was SOJ not staying on target and waiting for that September release. Another way to look at it is if they just stayed the course and it still went wrong they could have easily thrown Joe Miller and SOA under the bus and called it a day, but instead they did the worse thing you could do in these kind of situation and tried to make quick changes to already planned schedules too fast and too often.
>>12215073A compassion of more recent events was the PS3 vs the 360 and Wii. Sony was in trouble even before launch because they had the same issue as the Saturn with a very large price tag compared to the other two and having comparable porting issues of games where the 360 was usually the better version of the game in spite of hardware advantages, but Sony kept the pace, released as plan, didn't change course and slowly but steadily won the audience back and gain the sales.
>>12214348The Saturn was a disaster for Sega though. He wanted to go 32X but he also wanted to do it as-is and leverage the Genesis install base, which probably wasn't a good idea. But IDK how you can blame SOA when all of these decisions came from SOJ.The thing about the 32X is that it was cheap, the Saturn was expensive and this was one reason it failed. It's either-or, Sega could not support both, which SOJ wanted to do.>>12215073Early release was why the Genesis succeeded in the US and why it failed in Japan. Facing a 300$ PS1 it's not hard to see why Sega made that decision. Sega would have been in a better position had they simply just chosen 1 console, Saturn or 32X. Not both. The Saturn would have been a better next gen console if SOJ knew what they were doing, the saving grace of the 32X was being cost competitive.
>>12204226Chili dong right into the angus...
