So which one did more damage to Sega overall?>Kalinske+Encouraged the development of Sonic, and in turn made him the official mascot for Sega+Mandated Sonic be the pack-in instead of Altered Beast, led to the Genesis selling millions+Continued competitive adverts after Michael Katz, giving Sega a genuine edge over Nintendo+Subtly put forth the idea that Sega consoles were for edgy kids, allowing blood to stay in MK and Snatcher to release mostly uncensored+Allowed Genesis games into the rental market, which Nintendo was stubbornly against for years+getting best versions of sports titles sold well with normies-Flooded the market with tons of stock that just sat in warehouses, damaging Sega's bottom line and began their sour relationship with retailers-Bankrolled tons of slop at STI, the best game maybe being Comix Zone, a tech demo-tons of failed projects that had no reason to exist (Sega Channel, 32X) or outright died mid development (Sega VR)-wanted to keep the 16 bit era alive even as consumers wanted 3D games-prioritized normie genres like sports games at the expense of translating text heavy genres like JRPGs>Stolar+Correctly deduced supporting Saturn was a money losing endeavor+Bank rolled Dreamcast development, saw online connectivity was the next big thing for consoles+Pivoted towards bringing back games and genres that were successful (Sonic, sports games) after they were mostly absent on Saturn+Dreamcast was a brief success in 1999 and early 2000-His original deal with 3DFX to make the Dreamcast fell through, resulting in a settlement with them-Launching the system at $200 guaranteed it sold at a loss, leading to Sega's exit from the hardware business-Killed the Saturn in the US/Europe right when PS1 and N64 had major releases, and leaving Sega with no viable console overseas for almost a year-"Saturn is not our future", blocked so many good games coming stateside
who gives a shit
>>12529683me
>>12529669>so which one did more damage to Sega overall?Yuji Naka
Both did more harm than goodBut Bernie is given a terrible situation when he became president thanks to his predecessor it's not his fault Kalinske was in a good spot , Sega had tons of money thanks to the arcade market and his predecessor already laid the foundations for the success of the Genesis with agressive marketing and sports sponsorship ,the only great idea he has was the Sonic/Genesis bundle
>>12529683myself
>>12529669>wanted to keep the 16 bit era alive even as consumers wanted 3D gamesKeep in mind this is because they had a warehouse full of unsold Genesis and losing money from it.
>>12529669>-prioritized normie genres like sports games at the expense of translating text heavy genres like JRPGsYou may not like it but this was the correct move. A vast majority of Americans especially back then are deeply into Sports and not Anime slop.
>>12530397You forgot normalfaggots that like sports usually don't care about and buy videogames, this is why Sony won
>>12529669Bernie tried to get VF ported to N64 and other Sega had to stop him, crazy lol.
>>12530475*other Sega people
>>12530468Madden '97-'03 sold over 7 million units for the PS1 in the US and they were much, much cheaper to develop than a Final Fantasy game. Sports games in general did well for the system for very low cost and they could recycle a lot of development to crank out a roster update every year. Hell, Crash Bandicoot games did about as well as Final Fantasy did on the PS1. They had three games in the top 10 and had over 21 million in sales compared to FF's 23 million (not counting FF:Tactics or Crash racing games, which are different genres). Platformers are solidly 'normie' games. Gran Turismo also beat FF as the best selling game on the system and the sequel took the third spot. I would put racing games under 'sports'. Rounding out the Top Ten you have Tekken 3, Metal Gear Solid, and... Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. HP had 8 million in sales, which was only 2 million behind first place and managed to take the 6th spot. So, yeah, fucking 'normie' games were well represented in terms of sales during the era.
>>12529669>-prioritized normie genres like sports games at the expense of translating text heavy genres like JRPGsThose normie sports games were best-sellers on Genesis. Good call.>+Correctly deduced supporting Saturn was a money losing endeavorBad call. Even if it was a poor product, you don't publicly say it and do all you can behind the scenes to sabotage it. Consumer confidence is more valuable than money, and leaving them holding the bag with the Saturn was a shitty play.
>>12529669Bernie. The Sega Saturn should have continued and they should have done more to sell more Saturn consoles, with aggressive advertising and exclusives from strong 3rd party developers. They should have tried everything to keep retailers happy. They should also sell Saturn at a lower price than the PS1. Bernie was a fucking moron.
>>12530732Sega would have gone bankrupt sooner
>>12530732There was no way they could price the Saturn under $300 back when it was new. It was over-engineered and too expensive to sell that cheaply. It would have gutted them.
>>12530887It couldn't gut them more than just not having any units sold.
>>12530745This would arguably have been a better outcome.
>>12530891>It couldn't gut them more than just not having any units soldActually yesSega did just that>“Every month, or even every week in Sega’s case, we had meetings to examine the current situation. Each department would report on where it stood in relation to its goals. So, imagine if the sales goal for the end-of-year sales war is, say, 3 billion yen, and the profit goal is 300 million yen—but wait, the profit is in the red. That profit is a very important factor, so what does the business side do? They decide that it’s not necessary to have sales of 3 billion yen. Instead, 2 billion yen will do. In other words, they stop selling 1 billion yen’s worth of hardware. That way, if each unit sold is losing 5,000 yen, and we extend that to 20,000 units, that’s 100 million yen lost. By stopping the sales of 20,000 units, in a way that becomes 100 million yen in profit. So they slammed on the brakes in terms of unit distribution. Even though there were people that wanted to buy the console, Sega didn’t want to sell it, because the more they sold the more they went into the red.
OP is a white weeb faggot that will never be Japanese
>>12530896If they already have the hardware in stock, not selling it is just gonna lose more money then whatnot.What a stupid logic.
>>12530909He talk about production lineSega willingly choose to not fabricate enough Saturn to not lose a tons of money on fabrication
>>12530910We are talking about the american side of the company though.Or are you telling me SoJ took control over that after the genesis fiasco?
>>12530913I think he talk about the japanese market,he talk in yen not dollars
>>12530891Sega was losing something like $100 every time they sold a Saturn at $400 when it was new. If they dropped the price below the PlayStation's original $300 price they would have been losing double that. They did drop the price pretty quickly after it launched because their sales numbers were dogshit. The PlayStation was outselling them, according to Sega's own numbers, by nearly a three-to-one ratio. That was awful. They were lying to the public about their sales numbers, lying about how much they were spending on marketing, they had several games that outright flopped for the machine early in its life, and they were getting murdered by Sony. Than the N64 dropped in '96. It was $200, more powerful than the Saturn, and not sold at a loss. It was a shitshow.I mean, who was really surprised though? Everywhere that Sega handled the release of the Master System/Mark III it flopped. The Mega Drive/Genesis also was a huge flop in Japan. It only sold 3.6 million units and never finished a sales year better than third place in that market. It took 3 years to sell decent number in the US. It made up for it and eventually secured a 60% market share but that was the high water mark for them and a fluke. In hind sight it is a wonder that Sega, a highly dysfunctional company at the best of times, was ever able to even reach 60% market share in a major market at all.https://archive.org/details/sega-fiscal-year-1997-brand-review
Bernie killed Sega of America; Tom made it what was the most successful Sega has been in their entire history.>-Flooded the market with tons of stock that just sat in warehouses,That's how you normally sell things in America. But, SoJ forced the 32x and then the early Saturn launch, making SoA lose all company goodwill with stores, developers, and consumers. Then stores returned everything out of spite.>-Bankrolled tons of slop at STIComix Zone was better than most jap crap titles and Sonic 2 was the best 16-bit Sonic game.>Comix Zone, a tech demoNo, that was The Ooze.>-wanted to keep the 16 bit era alive No, he wanted the Genesis to be kept alive, because it was selling well, hence the failed attempts at bringing 3d to it with the 32X and VR. What he should've done is tell SoJ that the Saturn must have backwards compatibility, and then jump to it with full strength.>-prioritized normie genres like sports gamesA good call. It sold games, sold consoles. Genesis didn't have good JRPGs anyhow. Enix and Square were both publishing on the SNES.>+Correctly deduced supporting Saturn was a money losing endeavorThat was just doing what SoJ told him to do.>+Bank rolled Dreamcast development,He did no such thing; it was all done in Japan, even the 3dfx and NV2 based attempts were done with japan at the helm. SoA was no longer independent by the time Bernie was at the helm.>>12530159This guy gets it.
>>12530913>We are talking about the american side of the company though.The consoles were fabricated in Japan.>Or are you telling me SoJ took control over that after the genesis fiasco?They took full control circa 1995. By 1996, Tom admitted to his job being looking out of his office window.
>>12530938>SoJ forced the 32x Nah that's Kalinske ideaSOJ wanted a 1994 Saturn worldwide release but Kalinske didn't want it
>>12530745>>12530887How is that any different from Bernie selling Dreamcasts at $199? Is it a risk to do that for the Saturn? Sure. Would it have paid off? Huge risks are always a gamble, but it would pay off if done right. The Saturn would have been Sega's Gamecube(3rd place), but at least it would give them a chance to stay competitive if done right.
>>12530968>How is that any different from Bernie selling Dreamcasts at $199That was an extremely bad idea actually, probably the worst he has done
hand wringing about who had the blame seems kind of pointless. it's very clear that none of the parties involved had the foresight to survive playstation's dominance and they didn't have the cult following to survive as a little walled garden like nintendo.
Waitu piggu GO HOMU
>>12529669Kalinske killed Sega, Bernie just buried the casket.
>>12530949>SOJ wanted a 1994 Saturn worldwide release but Kalinske didn't want itNo, they just wanted Kalinske to drop developing Genesis games and focus on making Saturn ones. They still had several strong titles under development and a huge market in 1995 (even 1996) so that would've been a mistake.And Kalinske was right, in 1994 a Saturn would've cost something like $500 to release the Saturn and they had maybe three games for it total, and one of those was a Sega CD FMV port.SOJ then asked, if he is not releasing the Saturn, what is he going to use to counter the Atari Jaguar (!!!), and SoA sketched up the 32x on a hotel room napkin to leverage the Genesis sales.And even then the real disaster was launching the Saturn early. It played havoc with store shelf placements and promotion material, something that is set up months in advance through private negotiations, all of which was thrown into the garbage when the Saturn early launched. Look up anecdotes or photos from stores where the Saturn was available: they had zero billboards, ads, kiosks, nothing, they just had a console set up and running Virtua Fighter on loop. Not to mention only a few stores getting units, which made everyone not getting the console even more pissed off. This was directly responsible for every store pulling support for Sega and returning millions of Sega hardware/software, which is what drive the company into the red.SOJ could've avoided it all by either- forcing them to move to Saturn development early- not allowing them to make the 32x- not allowing the early launch (was forced because Saturn sold great in Japan)- not being a bitch about the other deals Kalinske brought them (N64 chipset, Sony deal)Likewise if they told Yuji Naka to stop being an asshole and work on a Saturn sonic game, then the machine would've had one by 1996. He outright refused to work on Sonic and SOJ allowed him to do whatever he wanted.SOJ is at fault.
>>12531420https://mdshock.com/2022/05/09/a-second-atari-shock-the-decline-of-the-16-bit-console-era/ Genesis didn't go well,it was a necessity to move on to the Saturn but Kalinske didn't want it and continued producing a tons of unsold games and consoles...The silicone graphics deal is absurd,the Saturn would have been greatly delayed and the N64 was even harder to program for than the Saturn The real mistake that SOJ made was trusting SOA,they should have been the only one in command
>>12530938Is that you, Famicom?
>>12530732>exclusives from strong 3rd party developersThey did not have those and they would not get those with Saturn's shitty hardware. Ports of genres seen as old and busted (shmups) and 2D fighters would not have done it.
>>12531420Holy fanfic Batman, they didn't get ANYTHING done even with help by a major japanese developer and were too busy fighting over each other at American STI.Take the L.
