How did SEGA lose the console wars?

[KeighnMcDeath]

Compare Last Battle: Legend of the Final Hero to the Japanese original Shin Seikimatsu Kyūseishu Densetsu: Hokuto no Ken (新世紀末救世主伝説 北斗の拳, lit. "Fist of the North Star: The New Legend of the Post-Apocalyptic. Where is our blood?

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Compare Last Battle: Legend of the Final Hero to the Japanese original Shin Seikimatsu Kyūseishu Densetsu: Hokuto no Ken (新世紀末救世主伝説 北斗の拳, lit. "Fist of the North Star: The New Legend of the Post-Apocalyptic. Where is our blood?

The head exploding then the body looks rather silly. I'm sure there's some in lore reason but it looks dumb compared to enemies being flung off screen. Why were the bosses turned green?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

To represent aliens I guess. It’s ok to kill aliens/mutants/robots but not humans. The enemies flying off screen were just knocked out and arrested by the police. They’re ok.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Sega and Nintendo both released arcade machines where you paid for time on a console. Last battle was part of the mega drive games included in the arcade collection.

I didn't know about this, but there was indeed the Mega-Tech system, which as you say was similar to Nintendo's Playchoice 10, and Last Battle was indeed one of the available titles. I stand corrected.

https://segaretro.org/Mega-Tech_System

 

[Azalin]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention that.I mean Nintendo had Mario 64 as a release title for the N64 while Sega never made a Saturn Sonic game,I mean that is monumentally stupid

It had Tomb Raider early which was a big deal. NiGHTS went toe to toe with Mario 64 in magazine courage of the era, if not even more. Especially during Christmas with Christmas NiGHTS. And you can't under estimate DAYONTA USA or Virtua fighter home console ports. As big as Sonic was the Saturn didn't struggle for iconic games. Fighting Vipers got more attention than Tekken did until 3 came out.

They created Sonic during the Mega Drive era to be their mascot/signature character,his games were Mega Drive's best selling ones.They invested time and money to make him successful and then you don't make even one Sonic game for your next console and basically through all that time and investment out the window?That's stupid, they should have had a Sonic game if not available as a launch game announced at launch and available during the first 6 months. Oh and the end results showed that they didn't have nearly enough iconic games as they needed

Sonic 3D blast and Sonic Jam were both on the Saturn. It's no excuse but it's there. And Sonic is playable in NiGHTS in some fashion I think? Should have had a bigger game but Sonic wasn't totally forgotten on the Saturn.

Oh please, Sonic Jam I had to Google because I didn't even remember what it was, just a collection of the Mega Drive games, that would be like Nintendo not releasing Super Mario World for the SNES and telling them they got a Mario game by getting All Stars, Sonic 3d Blast was basically a port of a Mega Drive game not exactly a reason to buy a new console. They neve made a real Sonic Saturn game that you could put in your iconic games list

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

Oh please, Sonic Jam I had to Google because I didn't even remember what it was, just a collection of the Mega Drive games, that would be like Nintendo not releasing Super Mario World for the SNES and telling them they got a Mario game by getting All Stars, Sonic 3d Blast was basically a port of a Mega Drive game not exactly a reason to buy a new console. They neve made a real Sonic Saturn game that you could put in your iconic games list

I forgot to include Sonic R. The soundtrack is still iconic today despite being a really awkward game.

Sonic was struggling to transition to 3D and no one knew where platforming games were going or how to do high speed in what was around. Not to mention the Saturn was really clumsy for doing 3D on because it had a 2D focus primarily. I wouldn't say any of the games are a reason to buy the console but 3 Sonic games and being playable in others is hardly being ignored by the console.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

It should have had backwards compatibility with Sega CD at the very least.

A: Neither the Saturn nor the Dreamcast is backwards compatible with SEGA CD games. However if you were to put the CD into either system it would play the music tracks on it.

The next major system release was the Sega Dreamcast which was not backwards compatible with any previous systems. Like the Sega Genesis, backwards compatibility with the Saturn might have actually helped the system.

The Dreamcast ended up being the only sixth-generation console with a disc based on CD technology rather than DVD technology; even the Nintendo GameCube's smaller 8 cm (3") discs held 20% more data due to being based on DVD technology.

So can the Sega Saturn play DVDs?

Although the Sega Saturn is full of surprises, the Sega Saturn is not able to play DVDs from the cd slot on the console. The system is compatible with CDs but not with DVDs.

Can Sega CD play VCDs?
The Sega CD has the Cinepak codec but is limited to a 320x240 resolution when playing video. The VCD standard uses a different resolution:

NTSC: 352x240 and PAL 352x288 so I would say "no".

By adding a 'movie card', you are able to play VCD on SEGA Saturn. You could try the Dreamcast S-Video Cable WWW.NCSX.COM for excellent video quality on S-Video capable monitors and televisions.

Finally you can also watch VCD (not DVD!)movies on your Dreamcast machine. The Dream VCD Player supports all usual functions such as forward, backward, volume control, etc. The attached remote allows wireless control of your movies.

Unlike the Playstation, nearly all of the Saturn's games have audio and/or speech recorded in Redbook format CD-readable tracks.

The Sega CD plays CD games and adds hardware functionality such as a faster CPU and graphic enhancements such as sprite scaling and rotation. It can also play audio CDs and CD+G discs. Top: Original Sega CD (bottom) attached to a Model 1 Genesis. Bottom: Model 2 Sega CD (on right) attached to a Model 2 Genesis.

A Look at the SEGA Saturn CD Player​

I know I usually reseve discussions about video games for my posts on my “Awesome Classic Video-Games!!!” blog. However, this next post truly deserves a space here because it tends to bend the rules a little. I have written much about games for SEGA’s obscure 3D console, the Saturn. Yet, I forgot to mention one really cool non-video gaming item that comes along with the machine. Readers, I’m talking about the SEGA Saturn CD Player.
In this age of mp-3s and I-Tunes, the SEGA Saturn CD Player is a nice piece of music tech nostalgia from the 1990s. The program works like most conventional CD players in that it can play both Saturn game soundtracks and regular audio disks. It also features the standard playback controls, such as “Play/Pause,” “Stop,” “Skip,” and so on.
Of course, The SEGA Saturn CD Players adds a little more depth to the traditional CD player. One of my favorite features is the “Adjust Vocals” button. SEGA Saturn owners can click the Globe button to access the Advanced Controls. From there, they can click the button with eigth notes labeled “Adjust Vocals.” This command opens a window with a knob which allows players to adjust the pitch of a given musical track: anywhere from inhumanly low to unnaturally high, with the original pitch denoted by a bubble in the center. Players can also mute vocals by pressing the A Button (Needless to say, I’ve been tinkering with “Adjust Vocals” a lot by distortiing music, which is extremely funny!!!).
Other features of this program range from interesting to totally random. Players can shuffle tracks, adjust surround sound (another one of my favorite tools), adjust the track sequence , scan track intros, and repeat the A and B sections. I don’t see how this last feature fits with the function of a CD player, but it works well if you want to know the nusical form of a song.
There is one other feature that I almost forgot to talk about here. The SEGA Saturn CD Player comes equipped with a built-in screensaver of a spaceship zooming around the cosmos. No other CD player that I know of can do that. For those who want to see how the SEGA Saturn CD player works, there are several tutorials available on YouTube.

Does the Dreamcast play CDs?

However, the Dreamcast did retain the ability to read standard CD-ROM discs, and thus still suffered from software piracy as bootleggers managed to fit certain games on CDs and exploit the Dreamcast console's compatibility with the MIL-CD format.

Yeah…. Talk about fucking up. There are a lot of peripherals for these systems I should look at along with canceled items.

 

[Halfling Rodeo]

How much do people care about backwards compatibility really? It's never been something that really sold systems is it?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I must be a nut about it since earlier consoles and cross-compatibility like the Colecovision expansion module to play Atari carts. They should have made the Intellivision module instead of the failure Adam Computer. They should have developed their Super Game Module as well before ADAM. 1K to 32K would have been huge at the time. Niche crowd I guess but at least Sony tried for a few consoles.

 

[Late Bloomer]

I remember firing up Daytona USA on the Sega Saturn (after having spent a good hunk of change at the time) and thinking oh shit....

I ended up really liking the Saturn though. And the Dreamcast for that matter. Was bummed to see them call it quits on the console front.

 

[AdolfSatan]

PSX games were easy to pirate, which meant the entirety of the third world that wanted to game was getting one. There was no contest, with a PSX you could easily afford two CDs a month, whereas stuck with cartridges you'd be buying one original every few months. All competition got phased out.

 

[Eirinjas]

There was silly competitiveness and power struggles between Sega of Japan and Sega of America that harmed their business. They were almost never on the same page. The original Dreamcast had one R&D team in Japan and one in America. The American prototype systems used 3dfx chips that outperformed the Japanese prototype systems. However, SEGA went with the Japanese team's design because of the massive butthurt Sega of Japan felt over being shown up. 3dfx sued both Sega and NEC for breach of contract.