Response: Who Says Sega is Dumb?
Jasper Karalakulasingam
Glug269@aol.comWhere to start? Hmm..you said "SOA is more than likely composed of business managers, marketers, and engineers. These people do not miscalculate." Do you think every professional DOES NOT MISCALCULATE?! Please, nobody's perfect, nobody.
Where has Sega of America miscalculated you ask. Where everyone's pointed to of course: trying to keep the Genesis and 32X alive while simultaneously launching the Saturn. Why did the N64 launch go well? Because by the time it was time to launch it, it had a killer app (Super Mario 64), they had LOTS of hype (I mean lots, CNN was covering it!), and it had completely canned development with the Super Nintendo, thus full concentration on the N64. Sega did neither at it's launch. VF1 was a killer app. in Japan, but in America, people just don't like it. And there was barley any hype for the new 32-bit system on the block; they ******' surprised launched it!!
About RPGs. A while back, RPGs (about 3-4 yrs. ago) were not very popular. Even Hironobou Sakaguchi (President of Square USA) was surprised at the success of FFVI in North America. WD was the company that first actively promoted RPGs. They might have been the start of the former cult-fans of RPGs. Then they slowly started to trickle in. Now, RPGs seem to be pretty popular (at least on the PSX). Both Wild Arms and Suikoden, two nice RPGs for the PSX, debuted at the #1 spot on Electronic Boutique's sales charts, and Wild Arms (which was released May 20), still has a tight hold on the #2-#3 spots (Behind a sports title, Triple Play '98; which will soon be bested by World Series Baseball '98. I don't deny that sports and fighting titles are still very popular in the US.). Suikoden shared the same success.
Even Beyond the Beyond (a RPG which was Beyond the Beyond awful) sold 100,000 copies. When FFVII comes out, RPGs will finally have a foothold in the North American market, I guarantee it!! Why do I say this? There's a lot of hype surrounding it, there's lots of eye-candy (a sure seller in the US for the casual gamer), and there seems to be A LOT of pre-booking going for this title (There are already about 70-odd reserved at my local EB, and about 30 at the Babbages).
Although after all of this ranting, I do kind of agree with Sega of America's ambition to concentrate on the Black Belt though. Let's face it, the Saturn has only sold 850,000 units in North America, hardly a success. I just wish it went out with some sort of bang. I just hope SoJ isn't abandoning the Saturn. The Saturn is still VERY strong in Japan, and the margin between it and the N64 is growing every day. When it's killer apps. come out (Grandia and Virus namely) it could close the gap with the PSX.
One other thing: Sega of Japan should keep a tight eye on what SoA is exactly planning to do with the Black Belt's launch. For it to be successful, any devolvement on the Saturn by Sega must be gone (i.e. full concentration on the Black Belt), there must be a lot of hype, and most importantly, there MUST be killer apps. (i.e. VF3, 3-D Sonic title, NiGHTS 2, Phantasy Star V [RPGs will be pretty popular by then], Scud Race, etc.). If all goes well, look for Sega to be the leader in the next console wars, Until then...ja ne!