SEGA

[dgnr7982]

I was just reading about the Sega Channel (which I had never heard of until today) - which was a service whereby you could play the latest games on your Genesis through your cable TV - you'd pay a monthly fee then have access 24/7 access to demos of new games and tips that you could play at your leisure till you decided to switch off.

Consider the Game Gear - years ahead of Gameboy which in all fairness only caught up to it with the GBA. TV adaptor, could play Master System games - what a sweet piece of kit. Only problem was terrible battery life.

Saturn - Online gaming (1-on-1), keyboard, disk drive, net browsing

Dreamcast - webcam, broadband net access, multiplayer online gaming

Anyone else think that too often SEGA were too far ahead of the rest that they suffered? - they stuck their necks out many times to offer something new that no one else had done and ultimately suffered for it.
Being able to get games off the net was something that was hyped for the PS2 but hasn't materialised yet Sega offered something almost identical through cable TV many years earlier, the Saturn 8 years ago offered people a chance to play games online - its taken until 2002 for other companies to manage to get console games online.

There were some poor business decisions made along the way but were Sega too good and too innovative? Could they have faired better just re-hashing the same old games ala EA and not making any pioneering efforts.

Anyone else wonder what would have happened if things like the Sega Channel and Saturn Netlink had worked out - surely gaming would be very different today. I personally think its a real shame that things like that didn't pan out they were so far ahead of the rest of the pack.

Anyone (who is also bored at work ) have any thoughts on it?

[olly]

Just to point out: Nintendo were first to online features with their Satellaview add-on for the SNES, released in Japan only.

[dgnr7982]

I am leaving huge gaps - there was also the Megadrive modem

[SharkAttack]

There was a NES modem too.

Sega also innovated with their built in graphics chip cartridge for Virtua Racing on the Megadrive. As far as I know they also had the first (and only?) "Plug in" cart with Sonic and Knuckles allowing expansions on old games.

There mistakes though were from fleecing the general public on wasted machines like the Mega CD and 32X. After those 2 (which did have some decent games but had a shelf life of about a year each tops) the paying customers lost faith.

[Madbury]

There was a NES modem too.

Sega also innovated with their built in graphics chip cartridge for Virtua Racing on the Megadrive. As far as I know they also had the first (and only?) "Plug in" cart with Sonic and Knuckles allowing expansions on old games.

There mistakes though were from fleecing the general public on wasted machines like the Mega CD and 32X. After those 2 (which did have some decent games but had a shelf life of about a year each tops) the paying customers lost faith.

The sad truth indeed. But what we're sega R&D doing in the years of success the Genesis enjoyed. We're they simply caught napping or did the Mega CD and 32X take all that time to develop?

[SharkAttack]

Well Sega went planet crazy. They had some nut job idea of naming the 32X "Mars", a combined Megadrive and 32X in a box as "Neptune" and then follow these up with the Saturn. Dumbos. They bottled it at the last minute but still went ahead and released the "Stop gap" 32X and about 20 games while the terrible 6 month wait for the Saturn took place. What were they thinking! Nobs.

[Molloy]

Sega was really badly run alright. They just threw money away. Their mainly responsible for the mess the arcade industry is in too. They spent so much on R&D building model1, 2 and all those deluxe cabinets it killed innovation and all the smaller arcade operators.

Then there were the Mega Drive 3d glasses, the motion center ring thingy where you break breams to control your character, the lightgun with force feedback, Mega PC..

As one Edge forumer put it:

"To be this bankrupt takes.. SEGA"