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Retro|Spective 50: AM3-Hitmaker

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    Retro|Spective 50: AM3-Hitmaker

    We're finally here, at the fiftieth Retro|Spective thread and the first of the subset of threads dedicated to a Development Team rather than a game franchise. Every tenth thread will focus on the releases and history of a particular developer allowing us to look back at titles that were often one and done releases and so wouldn't normally be covered by the normal thread entries. This will also be the last R|S thread for a couple of weeks. This first time out we look at one of the numerous arms Sega once held:

    Retro|Spective Developer Focus : AM3-Hitmaker




    History:
    Born from Sega's AM3 department in 2000, the studio ran for a short while before being merged with Sega Rosso. Headed by Hisao Oguchi, Mie Kumagai and Kenji Kanno when initially spun off in '00, the studio built on the arcade led heritage of its AM3 years when it was one of the key research and development arms of the company. The studio was later spun back deeper into Sega under the moniker of AM3 until it ceased to exist in 2004.

    Releases:
    - Dynamic Country Club
    - D.D Crew
    - Rail Chase
    - Dark Edge
    - Title Fight
    - SegaSonic the Hedgehog
    An isometric arcade title, this oddity of a release introduced the characters Ray and Mighty who have most recently re-emerged in Mania Plus. Using a trackball to control their character, players are tasked with escaping an island whilst collecting rings. The game remains something of a franchise oddity after its control scheme made it too difficult for Sega to produce a home port making it a title few have experienced given the era of gaming it harks back from. Despite this it was well received upon its release.



    - Jurassic Park
    - Cyber Troopers Virtual On
    - Decathalete
    - Sega Rally Championship
    With four courses and three cars even in its fullest form, Sega Rally was a slight arcade experience whether in the home or not but it didn't stop it becoming one of the most beloved racing experiences of the 90's. Based around beating the clock to the end of the stage, the game used a drifting mechanic at the core of its gameplay and proved to be such a hit that it would be a fixed fixture in many arcades for well over the next decade that followed and spawn several follow ups.



    - Rail Chase 2
    - Baku Baku Animal
    - Manx TT Super Bike
    Sega was looking for another arcade racing hit after the success of Daytona and AM3 had this waiting to be released, a motorbike racer based on the Isle of Man races, another game that would stay in arcades for years. The game only features two courses but one of them is a recreation of the real TT course. Sega took a gamble and outsourced the Saturn version but it defied those concerns to go on to be well received and a commercial hit for the system.



    - Last Bronx
    Never shy to change genres, AM3's next game was their take on the 3D fighter. A motion captured weapon based fighting game, Bronx is based on street level fighting in a version of Tokyo were gang warfare rules. The gameplay adopts Virtua Fighters button system and follows a very typical fighting model for the time including ring out victories. Ten years later Sega ported the arcade edition to PS2 for its anniversary.



    - Daytona USA Deluxe
    - Gunblade NY: Special Air Assault Force
    - Daytona USA Championship Edition
    - Sega Touring Car Championship
    - The Lost World: Jurassic Park
    - Winter Heat
    - Star Wars Trilogy Arcade
    - Cyber Troopers Virtual On: Oratorio Tangram
    - Sega Rally 2
    - Virtua Tennis
    One of the big success stories the studio ever made was the popular Tennis series that started with this 1999 release. Taking the form of traditional tennis play, the simple to pick up arcade nature meant that players were quick to warm to the games charms. Players would work through five matches and if successful would take on the games equivalent of a boss though the home port added a campaign mode.



    - Crazy Taxi
    And straight into another arcade mainstay title that was around for a long while when it first came out. Racing against an ever diminishing clock, the player would pick up passengers and deliver them to the required location to win back some more time. The better you played the longer you kept going and the more your score rose until you could successfully lap the games town location. The game spawned a run of follow ups and a couple of knock offs too, they even planned on online version for a while under the rather likeable and sexy name of Crazy Taxi Next.



    - Toy Fighter
    - Confidential Mission
    - Virtua Athlete 2000
    - Star Wars Racer Arcade
    - NASCAR Arcade
    - Virtua Tennis 2
    - Crazy Taxi 2
    - Cosmic Smash
    - Segagaga
    The famed Dreamcast oddity, a Sega management simulator title. Allowing players to manage Sega at a time when Sega itself was mismanaged, the game was wonderfully self-aware of the Dreamcast's failure but sadly remained Japan exclusive. It featured a host of Sega's characters as well as randomly the Karate Kid. The game contained all sorts of odd moments including a fun short 'em up finale defeating each of Sega's consoles.



    - The Maze of the Kings
    - Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller
    - Cyber Troopers Virtual On: MarZ
    - Astro Boy: Omega Factor
    - Initial D: Special Stage
    Made as the last game they worked on, this PS2 incarnation was based on the Ver.2 instalment of the arcade game. It was broadly a faithful adaptation adding in a story mode though requiring the downgrading of the arcade visuals to fit the host console.



    Share your thoughts and memories of AM3's releases

    #2
    What a bloody awesome studio.

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      #3
      One of the best.

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        #4
        Sega Rally Championship and Crazy Taxi are two of the greatest video games of all time for me. Also very fond of Initial D: Special Stage.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Superman Falls View Post
          - SegaSonic the Hedgehog
          An isometric arcade title, this oddity of a release introduced the characters Ray and Mighty who have most recently re-emerged in Mania Plus. Using a trackball to control their character, players are tasked with escaping an island whilst collecting rings. The game remains something of a franchise oddity after its control scheme made it too difficult for Sega to produce a home port making it a title few have experienced given the era of gaming it harks back from. Despite this it was well received upon its release.
          This is the reason I bought my first arcade cabinet (Aero City) I kept the Aero table just for this game, but then realised the Sega trackball panel also fits on my Taito Canary - plays much nicer up-right for me, so I sold the table!

          I first played this when I was 8 years old, I went to an arcade at the top of Debenhams in Harrow. Spent all my saved pocket money (£10) It's a very pretty game and at the time it was jaw dropping for 8 year old me.

          Love this game!

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            #6
            Some really awesome titles there. Crazy Taxi. Virtua Tennis. Virtual On! Fantastic.

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              #7
              I absolutely love Gunblade NY, and L.A. Machineguns, those massive force-feedback guns on the cabs really made you feel like you really were in the action. Awesome mindless fun.

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                #8
                Sega had such talented teams back then. I still don't understand most of Sega's decisions like ignoring so many of their older properties. Virtua Tennis reminds me they missed releasing the DC version in time for Wimbledon. Segagaga looked insane but I wanted a translation... Little touches like Alex Kidd popping up made me wish it had been in English although it's a miracle it got made at all.

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                  #9
                  I’m surprised they made Star Wars Trilogy Arcade, it’s still my favourite Star Wars game although I’d love a bit more competition on it up in Arcade Club.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by shinobi7000 View Post
                    Virtua Tennis reminds me they missed releasing the DC version in time for Wimbledon..
                    That was thanks to the baboons at SEGA Europe at the time, the same bunch of idiots that thought it be great to advertise Soulcalibur on National TV by showing someone sending an e-mail via Dreamaera, rather than show off footage of one of the best looking games around (at the time)

                    Back on topic AM#3 were and are still brilliant and nobody makes a better light gun game than those lot . The Lost World and GunBlade New York are my fav lightgun games ever, was gutted we never got DC versions

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Team Andromeda View Post
                      by showing someone sending an e-mail via Dreamaera, rather than show off footage of one of the best looking games around (at the time)


                      When I went round a friends's house in August '99 and saw Soul Calibur I immediately knew the Dreamcast was a must-have console. It really was a 'killer app' sort of game, so Sega should have been promoting it all over the place.

                      Sega should have also had loads of TV adverts for Crazy Taxi, because it was astonishing to have an arcade perfect port of such an amazing coin-op. And the game felt really fresh and fun at the time.

                      The Dreamcast could have been a big hit if Sega had got the marketing and business side of things right. As much as lots of people - especially enthusiast gamers - bought the Dreamcast, it always felt like a niche console, rather than a proper mass market product like the PS2 went on to be. Such a shame, because I still think the Dreamcast was good tech for its time - and the image quality(I love how clean, clear and sharp it is) still impresses.

                      This thread shows one aspect of Sega's rich arcade heritage. If only the company had managed to build upon that success - as well as the success of machines like the Mega Drive. But the Dreamcast, for many reasons, was always going to be Sega's last hurrah in the console market.
                      Last edited by Leon Retro; 20-07-2018, 09:28.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Leon Retro View Post


                        When I went round a friends's house in August '99 and saw Soul Calibur I immediately knew the Dreamcast was a must-have console. It really was a 'killer app' sort of game, so Sega should have been promoting it all over the place.

                        They should have had loads of TV adverts for Crazy Taxi as well, because it was astonishing to have an arcade perfect port of such an amazing coin-op. And the game felt really fresh and fun at the time.

                        The Dreamcast could have been a big hit if Sega had got the marketing and business side of things right. As much as lots of people - especially enthusiast gamers - bought the Dreamcast, it always felt like a niche console, rather than a proper mass market product like the PS2 went on to be. Such a shame, because I still think the Dreamcast was good tech for its time - and the image quality(I love how clear and sharp it is) still impresses.
                        That French idiot spent all SEGA Europe money on sponsoring every football team known to man and didn't have any money left to push the likes of CT, Virtual Tennis ect. SEGA Europe was run by a bunch of baboons at the time. Had TV adverts showing off no footage of games, but rather people having haircuts and sending e-mails, came up with horrible game cases and after coming up with the tagline of 8 billion players Made sure Pal users couldn't enter their own ISP details and so killed any hope of the Online taking off in Europe and many Pal games had their Internet functions taken out as a result

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Team Andromeda View Post
                          That French idiot spent all SEGA Europe money on sponsoring every football team known to man and didn't have any money left to push the likes of CT, Virtual Tennis ect. SEGA Europe was run by a bunch of baboons at the time. Had TV adverts showing off no footage of games, but rather people having haircuts and sending e-mails, came up with horrible game cases and after coming up with the tagline of 8 billion players Made sure Pal users couldn't enter their own ISP details and so killed any hope of the Online taking off in Europe and many Pal games had their Internet functions taken out as a result


                          It's like Sony infiltrated Sega and made sure the Dreamcast had no chance in hell of finding success.

                          Despite that, I still cherish the Dreamcast and go back to it quite often. There are quite a few fun games for the machine - and the image quality through VGA is still nice enough to impress.

                          Of course, it's always annoying to think that the people in charge of Sega Europe at that time were morons.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Team Andromeda View Post
                            That was thanks to the baboons at SEGA Europe at the time, the same bunch of idiots that thought it be great to advertise Soulcalibur on National TV by showing someone sending an e-mail via Dreamaera, rather than show off footage of one of the best looking games around (at the time)
                            Originally posted by Team Andromeda View Post
                            Had TV adverts showing off no footage of games, but rather people having haircuts and sending e-mails
                            Yeah, it was a classic example of just being tone deaf to the era.

                            Like I get what they were doing. They were trying to make it into a lifestyle brand in the manner that the Playstation did earlier in the decade. In isolation, there was nothing wrong with it - in fact, the campaign itself wasn't bad. I loved the ad about the kids throwing rocks at the buoy in the ocean, with the tagline "We all play games... Why don't we play together?"

                            The problem was that things had moved on.

                            In the mid-90s, videogame ads tended to look like this: (NSFW), though feel free to post if you can guess what this is before you click it:

                            ADVERT

                            Advertisers didn't understand the product, and videogames were for nerds! They had zero faith that products would sell themselves on their own merit; instead, we had stuff like that advert, where they related it to things that people did understand, which tended to be ultra-violence, gore, sex, or a kind of weird industrial edginess which was all the rage back then.

                            But things move quickly. By 1999, circumstances had changed. The students who had bought into the Playstation in the mid-90s were now urban professionals. More people understood videogames than ever before, and by 2000, it was perfectly reasonable to - SHOCK - show videogames in their advertising, along with a bit of stuff that vicariously communicates the experience of playing them.

                            Sega's ads were fine, but the problem was that they were the only advertising. They needed an "ad stack"; a range of ads that appealed to different markets, including one important market they missed - people who like videogames.

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                              #15
                              Originally posted by Asura View Post

                              But things move quickly. By 1999, circumstances had changed. The students who had bought into the Playstation in the mid-90s were now urban professionals. More people understood videogames than ever before, and by 2000, it was perfectly reasonable to - SHOCK - show videogames in their advertising, along with a bit of stuff that vicariously communicates the experience of playing them.
                              Also, the PlayStation was getting on a bit by 1999, so games like Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast looked incredible next to what the PS1 was offering. Crazy Taxi also looked incredibly beautiful and exciting at the time.

                              I'm pretty sure a good marketing team could have marketed the Dreamcast as something fresh and exciting. You could have had fun TV adverts on daytime television - and more edgy adverts after the watershed. It's always best to cover all bases when it comes to marketing.

                              There were many problems with the Dreamcast though. EA didn't support the machine. There wasn't enough third party support in general. And GTA3 was always going to be Sony's 'killer app' that would really grab people's attention.

                              So as much as the Dreamcast had a lot going for it, which is why lots of gaming enthusiasts bought into what Sega was offering, there were clear holes in Sega's overall approach. When the Dreamcast failed, I realised it hadn't really stood much of a chance next to Sony and its PS2. The PlayStation brand was really strong at that time - and Sony managed to build a lot of hype for the PS2. Lots of gamers - especially the more casual variety - had bought into Sony and were happy to wait for the company's next machine. So it was especially easy for lots of gamers to dismiss the Dreamcast when the marketing for the machine was so feeble.
                              Last edited by Leon Retro; 20-07-2018, 10:30.

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