Sega of America is the Chicago Cubs of Console Co.'s
The Outlaw
outlaw@purdue.eduOk. Since a lot of people on here seem to like to post and whine about how they are screwed over by SOA then I think this analogy should help give a better understanding of the situation(IMHO).
SOA is the Chicago Cubs of consoles(for those Cubs fans out there....too bad..it's the truth).
First the Cubs side of the analogy then the SOA side:
The Cubs consistently trade away their best players when they ask for more money. The Cubs management does not care about the fans. The Cubs management doesn't have to,though. Why? Because they have a captive audience. No matter how bad the Cubbies do the stadium gets filled up real good. Hence why should the management waste money on the players when they are already turning a good profit.
SOA doesn't give a damn about the Saturn fans. They give a damn about your money. And once you've bought the console they've got it. Yeah, they make sure their are some more titles that you can buy-- --just enough so that you would rather buy those games then spend money on a new console.
(Note:in case you've missed it I am talking about SOA management and the average Saturn owners(who based on my personal experience usually buy one console system).
Why does SOA screw over relations with 3rd developers? They are already making good money off of you since you've already bought the console. (Many Saturn owners I know have justified the purchase for only a few games) Why should SOA put a staff together to work with 3rd party developers? To them it's just a waste of money. The amount of money they would make would not justify the cost of paying those people. They know they can't take the PS's position at this point and so they won't waste effort trying.
SOA will bide its time till Dural. If the partnership with Microsoft is true then SOA won't need to worry about 3rd party developers since they can pull with ease from those game companies who have allied to the MS API's. The problems of porting the code would be greatly diminished from the current situation. Even if the hardware for the Saturn was simpler it wouldn't matter. If the MS API's are supported in Dural then the companies who make the games can then have the ability to port it over in house instead of licensing it to someone else.
Will Dural save SOA? I could care less. I bought the Saturn for Capcom, WD(not for long--remember the Cubs....) and imports in the first place. I bought it for games, for fun, and not because of who made it.
Would I buy something like Duke Nukem or Quake for the Saturn(HELL NO...that's what the PC is for). In all honesty I basically bought the Saturn like I wager many other people did though they don't realize it...Japanese games. Their games differ from ours here in the states. Hell, they still MAKE 2-d games. Take a quick check at all of the games for PC-they always follow trends. For now the trend is realtime strategy and 3-d first person shooters. This isn't to say that the games coming from Japan don't do the same. They do! But between the two I achieve a balance of different things to choose from.
In closing: I realize that this hasn't flown as good as I would have liked it to but I may work on it a little and post it on my web page that I'm working on. The important thing is to realize that all the companies(companies are entities not people...they do not have emotions) are interested in money. The people who really care about the games and gamers are the people who MAKE them and not the people who SELL them. This may seem obvious but I think many people have overlooked this. If you plan on buying a game system from a company then you really should justify the purchase in some very important way to yourself if you are not comfortable with their sales department. So when it comes to being fed up with the people who sold you a product; get fed up. Remember your past experience and weigh that against the justifications you make for buying the next system. If you still buy the system then you still have a right to complain but you do not have a right to feel ripped off.