Sega never released Shenmue 2 for the Dreamcast in America, choosing to release an updated version for the Xbox instead (well actually Microsoft paid Sega to release the game exclusively for the Xbox). The game sold almost half a million copies on the Dreamcast mainly because a lot of Dreamcast owners in America imported the game from Europe rather than wait for the enhanced Xbox version (which, of course, flopped for a number of different reasons).
I’d say that, in the end, European Dreamcast owners were luckier than their American counterparts. We benefited from the fact that the Xbox was launched later here than in America.
All I know is many Saturn games that deserved localization never left the shores of Japan. I can’t see how anyone can defend that.
The way it can be defended is by saying that people and money don’t grow on trees. Sometimes, there is only so much a company can accomplish. It’s like saying, “Why can’t we get 5 new KOTORs a year?!” Because it’s frankly impossible.
GD, you have to remember that SEGA were in the proverbial shit towards the end of the 32-bit era. They couldn’t waste money on stuff that they have no guarantee would sell.
I don’t know about that… Europe didn’t get games like Bomberman Online and Virtual On OT. Plus games like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 were stuck in 50htz, whereas all NTSC-U games are in 60.
Heck, that wasn’t even published by Sega in Europe, either. It says GT Interactive… ?[/quote]
Yeah, but it would have to have been licensed by Sega, yeah? When you turn a Saturn on, it says “Produced or Licensed by Sega Enterprises Ltd”. Or maybe I don’t understand what license means…
[quote=“Abadd”]Hell, even the games that Sega does release, Sega fans don’t buy. How many Sega fans here purchased Puyo Pop Fever?
[/quote]
raises hand Bought it for my mum’s birthday >.> As she likes puzzle games. Good game too, once you turn off the voices… ah if only there was a way to get the japanese voices. XD
I don’t know about that… Europe didn’t get games like Bomberman Online and Virtual On OT. Plus games like Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2 were stuck in 50htz, whereas all NTSC-U games are in 60.[/quote]
Well it was a bit both really.
USA DC got games like VO II, AFO, Bass Fishing II, Seaman, Typing Of the Dead, D2 ect.
While Pal DC got games like Rez, Head Hunter and Shenmue II
So Sega is well-within its rights to waste millions of dollars converting Virtua Fighter 3 to the Saturn only never to release it, yet refuse to translate a few RPGs out of fear they wouldn’t sell? I see.
What about Shenmue? How much did Sega waste developing that game? 70+ million dollars? With that money Sega could have translated Shining Force III parts 2 and 3, Grandia, Dragon Force 2, Riglord Saga 2, Princess Crown etc, and up to a dozen other RPGs into over a dozen different languages. Was Shenmue guaranteed to sell millions of copies? As far as I know Shenmue was just an expensive experiment sanctioned by Sega of Japan that no doubt would never have been localized had it been released for the Saturn.
When the Saturn failed to take off in America and Europe all Sega could think about was cutting it loose. Sega of Japan really only cared about Japan, and Stolar let everyone know that the Saturn was dead in America in early 1997, thus shortening an already short lifespan.
You make it sound as if even if the Saturn was a global success story none of those RPGs should have been translated anyway. After all, as far as Sega of Japan were concerned we westerners couldn’t even hope to appreciate them for what they are. Forgive me, but I’m almost inclined to view that type of logic as racist.
Sega had the resources; Sega just didn’t care. Is it any wonder, then, that everyone bought a Playstation?
The Saturn stealth launch whereby it was launched five months ahead of schedule was Sega of Japan’s idea. Sega of America warned them of a disaster waiting to happen, but no one was willing to listen (which is odd when you consider the fact that without Sega of America, there wouldn’t be a Sega). Isao Okawa fired most of Sega of Japan’s management before launching the Dreamcast because they almost ran Sega into the grave. These weren’t very intelligent people. You might also find it interesting to know that not only did Sega of Japan refuse to share Sega’s most powerful Saturn graphics engines with third party developers, but they were even horded from internal development teams. That’s how screwed up things were.
The blame for the Saturn debacle rests almost entirely on the shoulders of Sega of Japan. And they made the rest of us pay for their mistakes. The Saturn was starved of quality games all throughout its lifespan no thanks to Sega of Japan and Bernard Stolar. I can think of at least a dozen games (not all of which were RPGs) that deserved localization. A dozen titles doesn’t constitute “some” of the Saturn’s best games.
I honestly cannot understand how Sega fans can be so forgiving of Sega’s handling of the Saturn.
What about halfway through the Saturn’s lifespan when the Saturn was still competing against the Playstation for a share of the market? Was it a wise decision not to localize Riglord Saga 2 and Treasure’s Silhouette Mirage at that time?
Arcie: Any game released on a home console has to be approved by the owners of said console. If you were to release Happy Hamster Party 4 on PlayStation 2, you’d have to have a publishing agreement with them, submit your game for concept approval, go through a quality assurance approval process, etc. before your game ever hit the market. Doesn’t mean that Sony really had anything to do with Happy Hamster Party 4, but it’s licensed by them. Dig?
Apples and oranges. The decision to spend money in certain areas is made well in advance. For example, there could have been a decision somewhere along the lines of, “Okay, we have to make a choice here. Either localize these games, or release VF3” (just hypothetical). And with the nature of development, unforseen problems may have occured during the porting of VF3, causing it to get booted. Just because you decide to do one thing over another, doesn’t guarantee that it would work out.
But, in reality, development budgets and localization budgets are completely separate, so the hypothetical situation above, which was shown just to explain a point, would never really happen. It was probably more along the lines of, “Well, we can only fit one or two more games into our lineup this year… which ones should we pick?”
Hahaha… I’ve made my feelings known on this subject before But, again, development budgets have nothing to do with localization budgets. Localization costs are handled by the individual territories, and development is handled by Japan.
When you’re in a sinking ship, there’s not a whole lot of point in spending all your energy trying to patch the holes with bandaids. You try to stay alive so you can fight another day. Sucks, but it’s what a company must do to stay alive. Would you rather Sega have gone bankrupt in the days of the Saturn, and never allow the DC to have seen the light of day?
Sure, that logic is racist, but it is a product of your own assumptions and imagination. If you can prove to me that this is why Sega didn’t release any of those games, I’ll agree with you.
But, if Saturn was more successful worldwide, it would have been possible to expand the localization teams, and allow for more bandwidth. So, yes, it could hypothetically have been possible for those games to have been released. As I’ve stated on previous occasions, having money and being a first party allows you to do fun things. Like how Sony made and released Ico worldwide. Most companies wouldn’t do that unless they had the cash reserves to do so.
Again, speculation on your part. At the beginning of the days of Saturn, Sega of America was a 1000+ employee operation. By the time the DC came about, it was less than 300 people.
You were saying?
And the reason why everyone bought a PlayStation was because Sony did a great job of creating a system that was easy to develop for, thus attracting a lot of developers. And 3D was what was hot, and the PSX was better at it than the Saturn. That, and the fact that the Saturn launch was handled so poorly, it pissed off retailers, thus hurting the Saturn’s chances of success from the get go.
Not entirely sure about that. I’d always heard rumors that were different, but have no official info.
Though I don’t know for sure, I somehow don’t really think this is 100% accurate. The Saturn was just plain damn hard to develop for. Do you have sources for your claims?
Again with the “all the best games.” How are you so sure that all those games were so damn good, first of all? And were you not happy with the ones you did get?
Most people simply move on =\
Those games were not going to win the fight, I guarantee it. There were larger, more fundamental issues at play.
Apples and oranges. The decision to spend money in certain areas is made well in advance. For example, there could have been a decision somewhere along the lines of, “Okay, we have to make a choice here. Either localize these games, or release VF3” (just hypothetical). And with the nature of development, unforseen problems may have occured during the porting of VF3, causing it to get booted. Just because you decide to do one thing over another, doesn’t guarantee that it would work out.[/quote]
But I think it shows terrible mismanagig of resources and titles which was one of the fundamental problems with post-Megadrive sega frankly
[quote]
Hahaha… I’ve made my feelings known on this subject before But, again, development budgets have nothing to do with localization budgets. Localization costs are handled by the individual territories, and development is handled by Japan. [/quote]
I think Shemue was more about Yu Zuki’s dreams (dare I say vanity), Shemue was one game that was far too OTT a game that in the end it was toned down dramatically (but still was memorable), as UK:R point out he always has some great folly ibut Outrun 2 may prove to be the last what with Sammy cracking the whip.
[quote=“Abadd”]
When you’re in a sinking ship, there’s not a whole lot of point in spending all your energy trying to patch the holes with bandaids. You try to stay alive so you can fight another day. Sucks, but it’s what a company must do to stay alive. Would you rather Sega have gone bankrupt in the days of the Saturn, and never allow the DC to have seen the light of day?[/quote]
Surely devloping a new console that was itself like to be a finical disaster would be more damaging that potential profitab;le games…
But if you dont do the fun things you dont get the audience
Don’t forget the PSX had a bunch of crap mainstream games that appeal to some people for reasons I dont know.
In any case SEGA was too dominated by its Japanese wing to make the Saturn appeal in the West (and SoJ managment had very narrow ideas about Western gamers)
Not if yet another console is realeased that is underdevolped and underrated while Sega end up 3rd party.
[quote]
Those games were not going to win the fight, I guarantee it. There were larger, more fundamental issues at play.[/quote]
True, but the way (and type) games were released ealry in the Saturn’s life cycle was very damaging IMO.
I mean that had to bloddy redo Virtual FIghter a and Daytona’s graphics eventually.
It’s not that I can’t move on - it’s that I won’t allow anyone to defend the mistakes that almost killed Sega.
Weren’t all those Saturn RPGs I mentioned before worth localizing? Other than them, western gamers never enjoyed Radiant Silvergun, Metal Slug, Thunderforce V among a few other games.
When Sega launched the Saturn ahead of schedule in America people were still in the middle of learning how to program games for it. Sega of Japan never released any official graphics engines to any potential third party developers, whereas Sony was all too willing to distribute software libraries for its newest console. As a result, most of the third party developers that actually did support the Saturn only managed to utilize one of the Saturn’s dual processors.
Camelot, Labotomy, Team Andromeda and Travellers’ Tales and Treasure were among the few who managed to realise the Saturn’s full potential.
Interestly enough, Tom Kalinskie left along with most of his staff because Sega of Japan wouldn’t listen to him and kept over-ruling his decisions (in the end he was convinced that Sega of Japan had to learn their lesson the hard way), and David Rosen (one of Sega’s founders for crying out loud) left with him in a show of support. Sega of Japan had the last say in almost everything.
Also, Sonic X-treme was cancelled because Yuji Naka wouldn’t let Sega of America use the Nights graphics engine. Of course, I doubt that a 3D Sonic game was possible on the Saturn anyway.
Actually, the problem with the libraries for Saturn (and to a limited extent, the DC) was not that there weren’t released… they weren’t understandable. The literature that accompanied the libraries and such was so poorly translated/organized that it was simply faster and easier for developers to make their own stuff. Or so I’ve heard.
But, aside from all that stuff… Geoffrey, don’t think that I think Sega didn’t cause its own downfall. Goonboy Panzer will testify to the fact that I think Sega manages to shoot itself in the foot repeatedly.
With my discussions with you, I merely play devil’s advocate to show you that the issues are more complex than you may have realized and that it’s never black and white. Some decisions may have been bad, but they are never, never done to spite fans, to spite Americans, or whatever else you have said. There is a certain twisted logic (if you could even call it that) to how things are decided, and a lot of it comes from a very archaic Japanese business mentality.
Point taken Abadd. Just make sure you read up on the history of Sega contained in the link I provided (before the site disappears from the face of the internet and the truth along with it). I think you would have agreed with Kalinskie on a number of different issues.
An intrest point though, why did SEGA give so many crap games the green light on Saturn, yet stop the good ones getting in. I remember SSM lamenting the fact that some crappy cycling game was localised yet Grandia didnt get a look in.
True, true, but I think it was most noticable on the Saturn.
“Those of you who are familar with Atari’s fall from grace and the humbling of Nintendo will doubtless see many parallels in the story of Sega and the Saturn. Even in the videogame industry, the words of George Santayana hold true: “Those who fail to learn from the past will repeat it.””
But, again, development budgets have nothing to do with localization budgets. Localization costs are handled by the individual territories, and development is handled by Japan.
Just make sure you read up on the history of Sega contained in the link I provided (before the site disappears from the face of the internet and the truth along with it). I think you would have agreed with Kalinskie on a number of different issues.
