This Month in Sega History: Sega sells out
Posted by Chris. Filed under Chris.
It was officially one of the worst days in any Sega Nerds life. The day Sega declared they were leaving the hardware industry and would become a third-party developer.
That day was Jan. 30, 2001. It’s funny because it really doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that I was still reading the Official Dreamcast Magazine and eagerly awaiting the releases of Black and White and Half-Life. Well unfortunately, ODCM was trashed and Black and White and Half-Life never saw a commercial release. Although Half-Life on DC can still be played through “other” means.
According to Sega, “this new strategy combined with a rich arcade heritage and the world’s best developers put Sega in the unique position to be the world’s leading software publisher. By constantly striving to set the standard for interactive entertainment in and out of the home, Sega will continue to give consumers more ways to play the Sega games they have grown to love.”
Well Sega, it does look like the move was ultimately in the best interest of Sega, as they stopped losing money hand over fist and are now starting to actually make money. But whatever way we slice it, it was still a very dark day in Sega history.
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A sad day, indeed. The worst part of the whole mess was having to hear from people that didn’t understand how the gaming industry works that “Nintendo bought Sega.”
If you think about it, however, it wasn’t just in the best intrest of Sega but in the intrest of gamers as well. As much as I loved it (a lot), if Dreamcast hadn’t had the plug pulled on it, I still would have only given it the remainder of the year in America before it “died.”
Even if Sega had more money, by 2002 or 2003 the Dreamcast’s technology would have been so outdated that no one would bother to make new games for it. Sega would have either had to go ahead and make a new system or release add-on’s for Dreamcast that would have been laughed at because they we’re “too expensive.”
I would have rather Sega went third-party then spend the rest of their money manufaturing Dreamcast’s that weren’t selling while promoting and releasing new Dreamcast games that would have just went overlooked due to Playstation 2’s hype.
I’d rather Dreamcast be known as Sega’s last system then the last thing Sega ever did. As much as I’d love to buy a new system by Sega, you’d be suprised how many times you glance down at the controller or system while you’re playing Phantasy Star Universe…it’s not on a Sega system? Coulda’ fooled me.
Warren
Posted January 4th, 2007 at 10:07 pm.