What Was Sega Thinking?

There was a great deal of mistakes made on the part of Sega that lead to Sega’s ultimate departure from the console market. These mistakes came at such crucial times in the industry that it leaves me scratching my head and asking myself this question, “What was Sega thinking?”

Mistake number one was when Sega partnered with Tonka. Tonka was a toy company that made trucks, not video games. Sega felt like Tonka being a successful toy company could push their new console to compete with NES. The problem was that Tonka had no idea what to do with the console and by the time Sega took back the rights to the Master System it was too late.

Mistake number two was releasing the Genesis to early. Sega felt like they had a superior console with the release of the Genesis, and they were right. The problem was the technology was very new and Nintendo used the wait and see approach which lead them to create a 16 bit system that could handle games with 32 bit undertones, like Donkey Kong Country.

Mistake number three and probably the biggest mistake of all was the constant release of new add on technology. Sega had the Genesis, 32x, Mega Drive, and later brought out the Sega Saturn. These extensions were both over-priced and the games were few and far between. Genesis consumers were both confused and outraged, which lead to some jumping ship and heading back over to the Nintendo side of the fence.

These three mistakes could have been adverted if Sega would have just stayed true to the formula that had made Nintendo so successful. Genesis was a huge success, so why not cater to that console and make superior software that pushed the console to its limits. Instead of inventing add-on technology, Sega should had developed the Saturn and brought the console out with an affordable price and a killer app.

One has to wonder what Sega could have accomplished if they would have stuck to Nintendo’s formula. I would imagine that how we play games and what consoles we play would have been vastly different. Who knows, maybe I would have a Dreamcast 3 hooked up to my television right now.

The Decline of Video Games in the 1980's

During the time period between 1978 and 1983 the video game industry was riding high with such hits as Space Invaders, Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and the Atari 2600, but as the industry entered 1984 it experienced consumers that seemed to loose interest. This decrease in consumer interest posed some serious problems for companies like Atari.

The Atari 2600 was becoming a stale product and some of their best engineers had defected to create their own company. Atari’s Ray Kassar who noticed this downward trend had to announce some dismal numbers after previously forecasting stupendous numbers. This announcement caused stock for Warner Communication to tumble, and brought to light Ray Kassar’s suspicious selling of 5,000 shares of Warner Communication stock. The Ray Kassar debacle coupled with Atari’s saturation of the market ultimately lead to the decline of the video game industry.

Though Atari had a lot to due with the decline of the market, the company was not all to blame. Other companies like Commodore, Coleco, IBM, and Apple gave consumers the opportunity to own a personal home computer. Suddenly consumers focused their attention on home computing other than playing their home consoles.

The sudden shift from video game consoles to home computers was not overnight, but from the years 1981 to 1984 the home computer helped bring kids home from arcades and just like with a snap of magical fingers kids wanted a Commodore 64 or Coleco’s Adam. Game publisher’s stated making games for the home computer and steered away from the Atari. This proved to be another dagger in the video game industry as well, because consumers could not only complete word processing projects, but play some popular video game titles as well.

Of course we all know that by the time 1986 came along Nintendo resurrected the video game industry, but reflecting upon publications from the early 1980’ stating, “Video Game’s Are Dead!”, one has to set back and chuckle a bit. I was a young kid during this time and yes I must admit we owned a Commodore 64, but I never thought, “Hey, I’m not going to play video games again.” Or “Who needs an Atari when you have a home computer.” I was just waiting for the next big thing. Luckily, Nintendo came knocking at my door.

Failures and the Corrected Changes of the Video Game Industry

Failures and the Corrected Changes of the Video Game Industry

The beginning of the video game industry, which started with the early days of mechanical machines and slowly progressed into the Atari phenomena had several set backs or failures. Reading through the first 10 chapters of Steven L. Kent’s novel The Ultimate History of Gaming I cannot help but notice two key failures that hindered the industry, but later was corrected and capitalized upon.

Key failure number one is marketing. When you think of the word marketing a plethora of images appear running through your mind rampant, but in the early days of gaming marketing seemingly played a small role or performed incorrectly. Case in point was the Magnavox Odyssey, the first installment of the many home consoles to appear in our living rooms through the years. Ralph Baer, the father of the Magnavox Odyssey was quoted saying this, “Magnavox did a really lousy engineering job-Magnavox over-engineered the machine. Then they upped the price phenomenally so that the damn thing sold for $100. Then in their advertising they showed it hooked up to Magnavox TV sets and gave everyone the impression that this thing only worked on Magnavox TV sets.” Though over engineering the product was a huge failure in its own right, the mistake was marketing the Odyssey alongside of their companies TV sets in an attempt to not only sell the console but the TV sets as well. If Magnavox would have advertised the Odyssey in its purest form as a Home Console, and nothing else the sales of the product would have been substantial instead of minimal in the beginning. Consumers felt like they needed to not only buy the console but the TV sets as well, which in all reality the console would have worked on their home TV as well.

Key factor number two is originality. In today’s environment of video games we have several titles coming out vying for the title of being the most original. In the beginning of the industry we has several companies taking an idea like Ping Pong, changing the name and premise of the game then releasing the title as their own. Downward spirals ensued as Ping Pong morphed into Atari’s Pong. Space Wars, Steve Russell’s original attempt into video games on a monitor was morphed so many times that I’ve lost count. Now I know there have been countless numbers of games that you can easily say that the game is just a morph of this game or that game ripped off elements of this game, but what it all boils down to is having an originality factor that can keep the consumer or gamer interested.

Based upon today’s video game industry we can successfully deduct that companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and game developer’s like Infinity Ward have researched their history and learned upon the failures that Magnavox and Atari made. I mentioned Infinity Ward because I feel they’ve taken Video Game Marketing to whole new level with the release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Though I do not necessary agree with some of their viral marketing, but one must not forget the buzz created around the No More Russians level in COD MW2. The leaked footage created such a buzz that the game was banned in Australia and created such a heightened awareness of the game that record sales ensued that I am sure will take years to match or break.

Game developers such as Media Molecule have taken originality to a whole new level as well, with the development of Little Big Planet. www.littlebigplanet.com states,“ Little Big Planet is a unique platform adventure game with a huge social community, which enables players to, play, create and share with others.” Little Big Planet is not only original but re-play factor is extremely high due to the fact that the player can create his or her own levels to play and share them with their friends to play and critique.

The video game industry started out as a twinkle in the eyes’ of such god’s as Ralph Baer and Nolan Bushnell, but due to their accomplishments and failures we have a multi-billion dollar industry that we all love and will never go away.

Jimi Hendrix to get his own Rock Band Game

Jimi Hendrix to get his own Rock Band Game

For all you Rock Band Fanatics and Jimi Hendrix Folllowers this could be your year according to the legendary rock stars stepsister. Janie Hendrix revealed in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that by the end of the year we could see Hendrix: Rock Band on the shelves.

Though Hendrix is one of the best guitarists of all time and viable candidate for his own Rock Band, I find it difficult to believe that Harmonix and EA would release two full-blown , single-artist rhythm based games in the same year-Green Day: Rock Band being the other. Oh, and lets not forget that Janie Hendrix may be Jimis’ stepsister but her connection into the gaming world is null in void, so let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.

Assassin's Creed II DLC Coming on Thursday

Assassin’s Creed II DLC Coming on Thursday

If you are an Assassin Creed Fan then this week is sure to bring new and unexplored euphoria as the second wave of downloadable content is scheduled to drop on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network on Thursday, the publisher announced today.

PR Manager Christophe Grandjean of Ubisoft Montreal released two new screenshots of the “Bonfire of the Vanities” DLC on the social networking site Twitter to get Assassin Creed Fans psyched to eliminate Florence of some haneous dudes who’s main purpose is to rid the world of all things cool.

The DLC will consist of 10 missions sprawled out across Florence, including new unexplored areas of the city as well. Ezio will also be procuring a new move called the “Spring Jump” which should prove to be useful in eliminating some evil dudes and make for a more pleasurable gameplay

Retailers Loosing Faith in PC Gaming

Retailers Loosing Faith in PC Gaming

According to Imagine Publishing, publishers of Total PC Gaming magazine, revealed that the magazine has seen a major decline in sales, apparently due to the coinciding decline in retailer interest in PC Gaming.

“I’m looking at Total PC Gaming at the moment, because although it’s a profitable magazine for Imagine, it’s future potential is limited because retailers and magazine stockists have lost faith with the PC games sector entirely,” said Managing Publisher Damian Butt.

Damian Butt continued in saying, “We have had fantastic support from our advertisers on Total PC Gaming, and outperformed our expectations, but I would much rather have a talented team working on a magazine where there is a greater future upside, such as our new launch How it Works, because it takes as much effort to make a magazine that generates a good profit as one that makes very little.”

Though this news points to PC gamers being a dying breed, however I would venture to say that the decline in magazine sells can be directly attributed by the plethora of gaming news available on the net.

RedOctane Axed by Activison

RedOctane Axed by Activision

Activision recently announced that they would be making some cuts, and as it turns out, among these cuts will be the creators of the popular rhythm based game Guitar Hero, namely RedOctane.

RedOctane is best known for being the publisher of Guitar Hero 1 and 2, and was acquired by Activision in the first quarter of 2006. Though this is just another blow to the gaming community handed down by our economic woes, only 30-40 RedOctane Employees will loose their job, those who worked specifically to design the iconic plastic guitar hardware will keep their jobs.

In Activision’s fourth quarter results conference call a couple of days ago, they announced that the company plans on drastically reducing the number of Guitar Hero SKUs by 15 in 2010. That, meshed with the staff cuts over at Neversoft might have hinted at these horrible events.