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.