[quote=“Al3xand3r”]Noone said Sega doesn’t make good games anymore, still from your list of games the only one that’s a game of the caliber that you’d wanna buy a console for it is propably just Shining Force IV and ofcourse it just has that potential rather than be that good for sure.
Perhaps Shenmue Online as well but that’s on PC, plus it still only has potential, we can’t know if they will end up as good as we hope.
The rest games can be great for what they are but, uh, sports games, racing game, fun game (monkey ball), hack and slash games… There’s no real substance to them, it’s not something you can’t find elsewhere in other forms and not something you’d buy a console for…
But a spectacular RPG like SFIV will hopefully be? Now that’s really something and you can’t just say “oh well there’s RPGs in other consoles” cos these games have depth and personal preference of it over others WILL make someone buy the console that has it rather than another one.
The other kinds of games which are shallow and just for “fun”, every console has it’s share of that kind of games, they don’t really affect purchase of one, they are time killers until the next really good game appears.
IMO.
:)[/quote]
SEGA always been about fun games.IE Sonic no the deepest, nor are games likes REZ, Panzer Dragoon, Space Channel 5, Samba De Amigo, JSR
Shining Force and Sakura Wars V should be full of substance .
Let me tell you the demo of Out Run II kicks ass, never mind the full game .
I’ve played the demo of Blood Will Tell too, and that’s shaping up to be SEGA best PS 2 effort (after VF IV Evo)
Well you know as well as I do that final sales matter as more than initial sales. =/ And frankly, not being able to sell 1 million copies of a big new console game over 3 consoles is rather disappointing, especially for an icon like Sonic.
i’ve lost just about all respect i have for the company sega/sammy/whatever. they have become a ‘wannabe’ of everyone else instead of being industry leaders and innovators.
i still believe the creative minds of the team andromeda/smilebit/AV/hitmaker conglomerate are some of if not the best in the business, but they are continually marginalized by the corporate sega concerned with making money.
i know that many of them have been with sega for 10 years or more, but on some levels i wish they would become independent so i could cut all ties to sega and they would get the freedom they deserve to create the artistic masterpieces that they want to make. but i realize that would be a forfeiture of the franchises such as PD.
sega is making a lot of money these days and i wish they would just funnel it to that team regardless of what they bring in off it. years from now, people will associate the stagnation of eastern gaming with sega’s turn to the mainstream.
otogi 2 is the only thing i am interested in that is remotely sega-related at this point. after that?
Sonic Heroes sold 1.83 million units worlwide.[/quote]
I’d just like to add that Sonic Adventure 2 for the GameCube sold close to a million copies while Sonic Adventure DX sold almost 300 000 copies on top of the millions and millions of copies those games sold on the Dreamcast between them. Those are by no means poor sales figures.
No one can deny Sonic’s popularity outside of Japan
[quote=“Megatherium”]i’ve lost just about all respect i have for the company sega/sammy/whatever. they have become a ‘wannabe’ of everyone else instead of being industry leaders and innovators.
i still believe the creative minds of the team andromeda/smilebit/AV/hitmaker conglomerate are some of if not the best in the business, but they are continually marginalized by the corporate sega concerned with making money.[/quote]
This is someone’s cue to say that making money is Sega’s reason for existing.
I think the spirit of Sega still lives on, but there seems to be little room for innovation in the industry anymore. In an industry where everyone would rather buy the same sports games EA releases every year (for example) rather than try something new, how is Sega supposed to survive? All Sega can do now is latch onto the latest trends. Sega used to be an industry leader - now where Sega used to lead it can only follow.
What I will say, though, is that I agree with most of what has been said in this thread. However, the current state of things (what that “state” is is up for debate) is not due to any sort of Sammy influence.
There is a huge difference… HUGE… between developing as a first party and a third party. Sega’s been doing the former for decades, and the latter for a couple of years. The method of doing business, designing games, etc. is extremely different, and Sega has yet to fully make the shift (IMHO).
The statement that does bug me, though, is this:
“but they are continually marginalized by the corporate sega concerned with making money.”
So, tell me… let’s just simplify things for a second and just look at this statement at face value. Is making a business plan to lose money better? And if “corporate Sega” (who, by the way, is primarily made up of developers, anyway) was concerned that those teams weren’t going to make money… doesn’t that mean that the games they’re making aren’t appropriate for the market anyway?
The ideal plan would be to make something that is both creative and appropriate for the market they’re developing for… although, in reality, that probably isn’t as easy as it sounds.
I just wish that people would be more willing to embrace creativity. I’d personally rather play something unique and fresh (like Jet Set Radio was when it came out) than yet another first person war simulation.
That’s very true, Solo. The problem is that oftentimes “artists” could care less about what people want.
I personally don’t see what’s wrong with examining everything that’s popular, then finding something that you can get excited about, then do it better.
The business people would feel at ease because it’s a popular theme, genre, or whatever, the audience gets a breath of fresh air in one of their favorite areas, and the creator gets to flex some creative muscle.
Unfortunately, there are very few people who can actually do that.
I don’t mind playing a game that plays basically the same as other games in the genre, so long as there’s something new added to the experience. For example, I absolutely loved Skies of Arcadia even though, with the exception of the ship battles, it played very similar to a number of other RPGs out there. The fact that the world, characters, art style etc were mixed in a way that formed an original experience made all the difference, even if - when the game is pulled apart - it’s mainly just made up of a bunch of elements from other games/stories put together.
It’s when developers take the same engine, the same generic art style, weapons, type of characters etc and make a game that just feels like more of the same it’s hard to get excited except for when I first play it and go “wow look at those graphics”, which only lasts so long. Which is one of the reasons I couldn’t bring myself to get into Doom 3 (no offense to Doom 3 fans, the game is impressive and everything, but it didn’t satisfy me enough to play it until completion…)
i earnestly believe that many of the underground titles could be huge or at least decent sellers if they adopted an acutual strategy to help them sell. they rely too much on the gamer that searches them out rather than making their product appealing.
the games they made have been appropriate for the market as long as they have been making games. the sales have just been eclipsed by all the halos, and GTAs. games have to be million sellers- it seems- to get any respect.
you may think this is the golden age of gaming since more money is flowing than ever before, but do you understand my disaffected point of view on the state of the industry? i have deeply rooted beliefs in what games SHOULD be to separate from other mediums and i have deeply rooted interest in creating a fertile environment for innovation that progresses with technology. seeing an industry leader like sega recede into the mundane is not encouraging.
i’m sure you know much more about the industry and sega than i do so maybe you could clarify what is going on with the developers that i am interested in.
the personnel that i was interested in were extracted from their own smilebit team and injected into amusement vision along with hitmaker and have since been re integrated into segasammy. we have not seen a game from them in a long long while, nor have i heard of any games on the horizon being made by them. from my point of view it looked very much like marginalization.
is the spikeout game headed for xbox made by AV? i’d like to keep track of the developers whose games i enjoy.
[quote=“Megatherium”]
i earnestly believe that many of the underground titles could be huge or at least decent sellers if they adopted an acutual strategy to help them sell. they rely too much on the gamer that searches them out rather than making their product appealing.[/quote]
This is a “chicken or the egg” sort of situation. To get “proper” marketing behind games, it takes millions of dollars, particularly if you want TV advertising. Which puts even more risk behind the game, as you now have to sell X number more units to cover that cost. Take JSRF, for example. That had TV exposure, and a ton of magazine advertising. But, it still failed to appeal to anyone outside of the extremely hardcore. Was it a great game? No. But it was good enough so that it should have sold more. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, people just aren’t interested.
[quote=“Megatherium”]
the sales have just been eclipsed by all the halos, and GTAs. games have to be million sellers- it seems- to get any respect.[/quote]
Well, there’s a reason why sales have been eclipsed by those games… because they represent what every gamer (for the most part) out there wants. And a game doesn’t need to be a million seller to get respect. There are games that sell half a million, three quarters of a million, etc. that get plenty of respect. The problem is that for most big titles, it needs to sell that much just to break even.
[quote=“Megatherium”]
you may think this is the golden age of gaming since more money is flowing than ever before, but do you understand my disaffected point of view on the state of the industry? i have deeply rooted beliefs in what games SHOULD be to separate from other mediums and i have deeply rooted interest in creating a fertile environment for innovation that progresses with technology. seeing an industry leader like sega recede into the mundane is not encouraging.[/quote]
Not sure I think we’re in a golden age of gaming yet. That’s a bit premature. When titles like Ico are still as rare as they are, it’s hard to say that this is the best it’s going to get. And sure, there’s more revenue, but that doesn’t necessarily mean more profit. More money is exchanging hands, but that is happening both ways. Sales are going up, but so are development costs. And yes, games should be separate from other mediums… for the most part. I don’t see an inherent problem with overlap. Particularly an overlap of the creative talent.
As for Sega… well, I can’t really go into detail. As for the ex-Smilebit team, they were merged with AV. Hitmaker is still separate. No teams have been “integrated into Sammy.” Sega and Sammy still have separate offices. They are far from being marginalized. All teams underwent restructuring. The only reason why they got “pulled out” from Smilebit was because Smilebit was going to become Sega’s development team, from what I can see. If they stayed, their talents would probably have gone to waste.
I can tell you, though, that the ex-Smilebit team is probably not the team working on Spike Out, since that was originally an arcade game developed by Nagoshi-san (the president of AV).
i didn’t really mean advertising. i meant putting things in to the game itself that are appealing. take GV, what exactly could you put in a commericial for GV? showing the intense action of it would probably just confuse most people and scare them away from it. there weren’t any cinematic elements to the game at all. i’m not only talking about actual cinematics, i also mean the actual gameplay; it was jerky and nonsensical until you learned how to play it.
i loved the game- it lived and died on its gameplay alone, but the gameplay was the only real focus. i also hated JSRF, i thought they ruined everything that the original had established.
i’d like to know what kind of budget was put into a game like GV, it sold a bit over 10,000 copies last i heard. in the long run, do you think it is better for the industry to cater to the larger population of gamers, or the ones that truly appreciate it as an art form?
in the past 5 or so years, i’ve witnessed much of the creativity from the east stagnate- thankfully the west has stepped up their creative output. i am sure that this is not simply my tastes maturing. the majority of what i am seeing overseas is follow ups to pokemon and final fantasy wannabes. there are many revolutionary ideas that are only now possible to realize with the technology we have, but no one is taking those necessary steps of progression.
do you know how well ico did in sales?
i guess some sites reported that inaccurately. i heard that the teams were being reintegrated as the AMs to be first party rather than the 2nd party development houses.
[quote=“Megatherium”]
i didn’t really mean advertising. i meant putting things in to the game itself that are appealing…[/quote]
This goes back to the point in one of my first posts. Creating games that are within the realm of “mass market,” but making sure it’s something the creator is passionate about. Adding a deeper story/cinematics/etc. wouldn’t have done anything for GV’s sales. It was a much deeper problem.
Just out of curiosity… what did you feel JSRF destroyed from the original?
I don’t know what the budget was (and even if I did, I wouldn’t say), but it did sell more than that. As for what I think the industry should strive for is a market that can support both mass market and hardcore. Just like indy movies have a large enough audience to make money (not tons of money, but enough to pay the bills), I wish games had an independent market. PC is as close as you can get, but the QA on PC game development is SO damn expensive (due to all the different configurations) that it’s difficult to do for cheap, or you’re just stuck doing mods.
[quote=“Megatherium”]
in the past 5 or so years, i’ve witnessed much of the creativity from the east stagnate- thankfully the west has stepped up their creative output. i am sure that this is not simply my tastes maturing. the majority of what i am seeing overseas is follow ups to pokemon and final fantasy wannabes. there are many revolutionary ideas that are only now possible to realize with the technology we have, but no one is taking those necessary steps of progression.[/quote]
Actually, a lot of it is the maturing of your tastes. Not just yours, but the game market in general. US game developers were raised in a much different market… one that was dominated by PC (in terms of what was considered “top end”) for the longest time, and finally those design concepts are making their way to consoles. It makes for cheaper development costs, which allows you more time to concentrate on content generation and design. Japanese design hasn’t changed in the last 10 years or so (with a few exceptions, of course). And they wonder why their market is shrinking… shrug
As for Ico, it did about 150k, I think, but I know a lot of that was at a discounted price. However, the reason why I brought up Ico was as a reference to games as art, not about sales.
No, that much is true. The teams are no longer going to exist as “Hitmaker” etc. in name, but the teams are still the same. They aren’t getting integrated into Sammy. They’re getting re-absorbed into Sega (yes, there still is a difference).
[quote=“Abadd”]This goes back to the point in one of my first posts. Creating games that are within the realm of “mass market,” but making sure it’s something the creator is passionate about. Adding a deeper story/cinematics/etc. wouldn’t have done anything for GV’s sales. It was a much deeper problem.
Just out of curiosity… what did you feel JSRF destroyed from the original?[/quote]
i agree with that belief. perhaps GV is a lost cause without redesigning key aspects of it, but there are other examples. lets take a game like soul calibur, there are events RIGHT IN the gameplay that are aesthetically attractive; an elaborate combo string, or perhaps a gruesome throw attack. now i magine if some action game employed that kind of ‘elegance’ into its gameplay? it would be quite a thing to see someone clear an area of enemies with that kind of style in each kill. that is something i strive for when coming up with the gameplay concepts for a game that i am designing. and i think mainstream and underground alike would be able to appreciate it.
as for JSRF… JSR has consistently been my selection when posed with the question of “what’s your favorite game?”. it was such a unique experience- a game where you must actually run from the enemy. that combined with the fluid execution of the spray paint system created a great gameplay experience. beginning a tag, seeing the opposition start closing in, nearing. nearing. wondering how much more of the tag you’ll be able to compete before they reach you, trying to rush it without screwing it up. finally completing it at the last second, then sprinting away just as they reach you. running through the streets and alleyways with them hot on your trail, and finally seeing your escape path; a rail that leads up to the roof tops. the later levels provoked more suspense and trepidation in me than any survival horror had ever come close to. the visual design the level design was amazing and well thought out. the soundtrack was one of the bests out there and it really added to the atmosphere of the game. and the story was plain ridiculous… in a good way.
now i’ll work backwards, the story of JSRF was basically a much less interesting re-telling of the story of JSR. i personally could only tolerate a couple tracks of the BGM. i thought they turned the characters into fugly clique templates rather than original designs, the level design was absolutely terrible with the plethora of ‘copy-pasted’ rooms and bland open areas. the now here’s what makes it a blasphemy… the replacements for the cop and spray paint system were some of the worst game concepts i could imagine. you were never actively chased through an area, you were warped into these little skirmishes and the cops posed absolutely no threat to you. to make it more interesting, i played through the game killing the cops by knocking them into the electrical fences rather than painting them. not that it even matters with the cop system destroyed, but the spray paint system was totally senseless.
the entire game ends up being a series of orders for you to go from point A to point B. it’s like an easter egg hunt except you have a map to all the eggs, and none of them are really hidden to begin with. oh, and there’s some worthless racing segments to the game- get 10 cans, boost in the straight away, you win.
yeah, i can see what you mean. but i think there is creative talent and creative ideas out there and those individuals are not even considering videogames as a venue for there ideas/talent because all they are seeing is some reflex-tester hobby centered around pressing buttons and watching virtual boobies. literally and metaphorically… i think.
yes, i think my interest in more mature western games does have to do with my tastes maturing. i know that my respect for hitman contracts would not exist if i was introduced to it at age 7. however, i meant that my disinterest in the east’s products is not the fault of my tastes maturing because i still greatly enjoy the games of the 32, 16, and 8 bit eras and i can plainly see that they just aren’t coming up with anything as ground breaking as burning rangers, NiGHTS, or the panzer dragoons. even stuff like ranger-X where you controlled two characters at the same time or the classic games where their greatness can’t easily be expained, like cool spot or streets of rage. they still come along occasionally, but their market is more concerned with other things.
alright. well, whatever the case may be, i hope sega as a whole snaps back together. i’ll be very disappointed with them if i don’t take interest in a single game that they make next year, like last year. at least they were able to offer up otogi 2, i mean, it’s something.
and actually, from speaking with other gamers, the consensus is that jsrf did much better amongst the mainstream crowd than the extremely hardcore. maybe it didn’t do well, but i know many “extremely hardcore” gamers that view it as an extreme disappointment. there wasn’t much to attract the extremely hardcore since the game was so easy and there weren’t any advanced strategies to develop.
was my answer to what i disliked about jsrf thorough enough?
I’m quite annoyed with Sega at the moment. The new Shining Force looks stunning, but it’s not a Shining Force game. All it has is the Shining Force name. Where’s the traditional turn-based battle system Sega?
A wolf in sheep’s clothing is no sheep.
A friend of mine who used to work for Sega of Europe describes Sega as a “dead company”. He couldn’t believe how people with business degrees and years of experience could make the mistakes that pushed Sega to the brink of financial ruin. He lost all faith in Sega when he discovered Sega of America turned down Yuzo Koshiro’s proposal to develop Streets of Rage 4 for the Dreamcast (I wonder if that was another one of Bernard Stolar’s bright ideas).
Unless the new Shining Force turns out to be a great RPG in its own right (which, knowing Sega, it probably will), I have no intention of giving Sega my money.
