It was totally Sega and Atari's own fault that both consoles failed though. The many reasons why not many retailers accept Sega Saturn in NA was because Sega choose to surprise everyone and only told a select few retailers about the early launch, most stores still think the Saturn was going to launch on Saturn Day which is September 1995. When the actual launch happened, a lot of those retailers that were not chosen were angry and choose to completely banned selling Sega products altogether. As for Atari they just suck at marketing and this result in them not getting the same treatment as other bigger brand like Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. Also Sega was no underdog, they were a small company just like Nintendo and they made a lot of games just like Nintendo. Only thing they did wrong was that they invested a lot of money to make games (Altered Beast, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, NiGHTS, etc.) and hardware (Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Nomad, Sega Saturn, etc.) that gets them nowhere. A majority of those would had gotten them somewhere if they only just know how to market it and support it for the long run. It's totally their own fault. Also those were not minor mistakes, making your own employees (like Tom Kalinske), audience, developers, partners, and retailers stopped supporting your product are not minor mistakes, they are major mistakes that should had been fix immediately and they were all ignored. In the end they did it to themselves, Nintendo and Sony did not had these issues cause they knew what they were doing in the industry. It looks like you're trying to push the blames of these two losers to the actual winners of that era or you put the blames on the victims like those retail stores that refuse to carry Sega and Atari product when before they did carry them. Put yourself in their shoes, if Sega made you their trusted partner in the early 90s and let you sell their Genesis games, consoles, and products then all of a sudden they flip flop and launch the Saturn early but instead of letting you get first dipped on their consoles and titles to sell they instead choose your competitors to get the first dipped, would you be happy about that too? You were more loyal to them and actually pay license to get those to sell for your store whereas your competitors are smaller than you and now they got first dipped. That means that they get more sales out the door first and you get nothing in the beginning. Yes you will eventually get the support later on but by that time people would already gotten use to your competitors selling Sega stuff that they ignore your stores completely. That's why Sega and Atari are at fault, that's why stores like yours won't trust them anymore and why they failed because of stores like you and decisions like them. It's like Tom Kalinske saids, had Sega listen to his decisions from the very beginning they would had easily own the market yet Sega ignored. The only time Sega listen to Tom was when they bundle Sonic with the Sega Genesis and that's it and even so from the very beginning Sega still didn't trust Tom with that decision either despite letting him go on with it. Even after that successful run, Sega still had doubt that Tom's decision was the right decision despite all the proof of success looming. As for Atari, they failed every gen after the Atari 2600, there's nothing they could do that would ever save them, the company kept getting sold and eventually they waste a lot of money on hardware and games that also gets them nowhere with terrible marketing and bad games.
Sega didn't want to sell the saturn to every major retailer... because they already had a full stock of other systems and games in their warehouse.. which put them in debt... which is the stores fault. If they choose to sell the saturn everywhere, then they would be in even more debt. They prob. didn't sell the saturn to the same stores that already had tons of genesis, game gear, 32x, sega cd, nomad, and pico... because on top of all the regulations and strict, unfair business practices that were there demands to other game companies that weren't nintendo... and eventually sony. sega wanted there monoploy... many systems, at the same time... thinking of everything... It worked wonders at first... but it hurt them badly after a couple of years because of the demands of the stores. Nintendo got to have many systems during the same era... nes, snes, gameboy, virtual boy... but it's ok for them to do that... because it's nintendo. The stores were not used to this new video game revolution that was happening... and there minds were still stuck in the "it's a nintendo toy thing, 80's". The kids and parents drove the stores crazy with asking for new games and consoles from nintendo for years... and then sega comes along and wants the same thing... but they got pissed off at the stress of handling nintendo products... so they pretty much chose to screw sega over... because they didn't wanna handle all the demands of the costumers... and yes the launch of the saturn was rushed... that was sega of japan's demand... which was a mistake... because there should've been more games... and better games... but sega still could've sold WAYYYY more saturn consoles if the stores weren't unreasonable to them. I guess if I owned a store I'd be a little annoyed that sega told my competitors about the saturn then my store. But then again, was I one of those stores that forced sega to keep endless piles of hardware and games in there warehouse... probably... even still, this whole idea that everyone buy's the new console right away and in a month or two... wayyy less people wanna buy it or be less interested... is absurd. that's just the overexaggerated fear that store owners have... which is overthinking shit... if anything... game consoles sell even more... over time... because more people learn about it... the console and games become cheaper, etc... but the stores never thought that thru... because game consoles were still in the early years... of what to expect from costumers BUT.... a little faith... would be nice. I also don't feel that costumers will ignore other stores... if they get used to buying sega stuff from one usual place... people like to experiment and look at all the options of the every store... I feel that sega were underdogs because unlike nintendo... they had to fight back against strict and unfair business practices... from the stores and nintendo.......nintendo forcing third party companies to only make games for there systems, which was the case during the nes era. that's why the master system struggled so badly... most games for the master system were made by sega themselves... only when the genesis started becoming popular.... then the third party companies started playing hardball... and making games for the genesis too... being sick of nintendo's bs. When it comes to atari, we don't know for sure if they had the same warehouse issue's sega had... but it was probably a similar tale... because most of the stores were just used to nintendo... and maybe sega genesis... any other company that wanted to make and sell a console... was looked at as a nuisance to toy stores... because most adults in the 1990's... still viewed video games as a fad... the stores weren't unfair, they weren't open minded, they were stuck in there ways and sega and atari and turbo graphix... payed the ultimate price... and we as video game fans are just supposed to except that it was all the fault of the game companies themselves?... they were just game companies that wanted to do the same thing as nintendo... but because nintendo happened to get there first with the nes and called it a toy to stores... that means all other companies must be punsihed and treated differently... the same thing I said about sony and ps1... is the same for Microsoft and the xbox... Microsoft was known for selling computers... the stores were used to them selling electronics already... so they looked the other way...
@@thepatrickl.peckshow8317 I wonder who took the hit on the failed xbox 360''s that was about a 50% failure rate on launch? The og xbox lost around $5bill. MS just took huge hits and one day they will be in profit. Sony are pretty much the same. They probably have enormous revenues with like 5% profit. For the record, the Master System had plenty of great games. Sega made a butt tonne, but only about 10% of the games of about 400. To get an NES in your store meant you weren't allowed to stock the SMS. So nobody really saw an SMS. Therefore didn't buy one.
Yes. Thank you for that. It cheered me up. The way I see it now, Kalinski was really Nakayama's yes man. N told K to do an "agressive ad campaign" and that was it. My mistake. It was Michela Katz who N told to do that in fact. Katz was the first SoA CEO. He came from an Atari exec position and did a great job setting up a network of developers and licensed celebs for sports games and got the machine off the ground with home grown titles to suit US taste. Meanwhile, Nintendo were porting Japanese and EU Amiga games exclusively. So Katz is the real unsung hero of the Genesis. He was replaced for selling only 500k in 1 year, half what he was expected to. At least that is the official line. My suspicion is N felt threatened and put Kalinski in place. Putting the best game ever made up to that point was rash. But N let it slide because it ensured console sales. Sonic ignited a fire under console games as a whole in fact, boosting SNES sales. But K suffered from the surplus stock rules but just as much from very generous returns policies, with people trying it out for 3 or so months then changing their minds. SoA grew to 1500 staff but I get the impression thet failed to make much or even any money at all in the end. They kept releasing product that were sound from a hardware department but not making many. People think the NOMAD and CDX were flops but no. They sold out completely and not at a discount either. Very popular in fact. But the mess from the Genesis, in that the Sega CD and 32X weren't supported with proper games and SoA couldn't find or make a game to save their lives, missed a big chance to make the tower of power a not joke real thing. The CDX is so neat it's not even funny. They should have shifted them by the ton. The Genesis still had legs in 95 even. Virtua Racing was only stupid because they made it identical to the arcade, ergo almost impossible and only 3 tracks. No championship mode at all. 5 laps maximum. Anyway. Nintendo had a trick I meant to mention. They would withhold stock if retailers didn't comply. Deliveries would be late and such. Then they would intimate that if they signed the contract they drew up, they would probably find the deliveries would find their way to them more regularly. So they operated out of a place of determination and shrewd planning that Kalinski should have been doing if he knew the first thing about business. When Katz got fired, they lost someone with a bit more clout that would have taken profit margins a bit more seriously and had some words for the retailers. Or maybe some ideas about how to negotiate something reasonable for his company. Atari didn't cause the crash by the way. None of the companies knew how many carts to make. So they ended up selling them off really slowly over a long period of time and game production slowed to a crawl to wait for the backlog to dissipate. Kalinksi fumbled the Saturn launch by pushing it forward 3 months more than the 3 month early requested release date so I hear. For no real reason I can see. Then apparently the retailers threw a tantrum like a 2 year old and refused to even do business with Tom! For the record, the Master System suffered a similar fate of being elbowed out the nest by the NES because as a retailer, Nintendo would not allow the SMS to be sold in the same store as an NES.
The key issue here is market monopolies and fare competition laws which were drawn up after Nintendo were found guilty of anti-competitive industry practises around 1995. Rather than suffer a fine or any other penalty, they were ruled to send out gift vouchers to customers to be exchanged for more games and peripherals, which would ultimately still result in a net profit for Nintendo regardless. The American's must have kind of respected Nintendo in some way. Or they are somehow influential within the judicial system, somehow.
My source: czcams.com/video/WuE0jFWluNs/video.htmlsi=L5TtT1cMWuB6eZ1O&t=221 "...in 1991. Around the same time, the Federal Trade Commission successfully made the case that Nintendo did in fact leverage it's connections and successes to shut other companies out of retail in the US." Just wanted that on the record. The FTC's failure to properly apply it's weight to the ruling probably caused the failure of Atari and Sega in the hardware business in the following years.
In actual fact, the above law was really in relation to pricing and control of it. In terms of leveraging their influence in terms of negotiating favourable agreements with retailers in relation to rival products; I have no idea if that has even been addressed in court.
I am glad that stores are dead. I haven't been to the grocery stores for 4 years now, order everything from the internet. But I miss the arcades of the 880's-90's.
The release of the 32x a few montha before the Saturn did them no favors as well as holding a lot of gsmes back from the western market. The Saturn was much bigger in Japan. We did have exclusive game stores Electronics Boutique which became Gamestop
Fully agree about the game shops being assholes then you had the employees discouraging any attempt to even show the slightest interest in the Jaguar, they would tell you to wait for the PSX. But Atari had one of the worst console launches ever. Outside of the chips being bugged, Crescent Galaxy and Checkered Flag were total dog shit games: This coming from a diehard hardcore Jag fanatic. Cheap bastards, they really took this beautiful high end architecture and just completely crippled it of the gates. Original design spec of 68030 with 4MB of RAM, and had they put it off 3 months to actually release a kickass system, it would have made a nice start but the initial games were abysmal piles of shit. LOVE Tempest 2000, Doom, Iron Soldier and of course AvP!
checkered flag's controlls were bad, but the graphics were cool. I can actually drive pretty well in that game... I manage... but It's an uphill battle the whole time I'm controlling the car... insane. I think it should've had a better name... that title is dull and generic as hell... the box art is also pretty terrible as well... you gotta be kidding me... and I do feel that trevor mcfur is a "DECENT" game... and that's being very generous. I feel that I must... because the character is cool and the worlds are pretty interesting and the boss battles have pretty awesome designs... the bosses are the highlight of the game. the story is also really good as well...
These stores basically blacklisted Sega mid 90s.
It was totally Sega and Atari's own fault that both consoles failed though. The many reasons why not many retailers accept Sega Saturn in NA was because Sega choose to surprise everyone and only told a select few retailers about the early launch, most stores still think the Saturn was going to launch on Saturn Day which is September 1995. When the actual launch happened, a lot of those retailers that were not chosen were angry and choose to completely banned selling Sega products altogether. As for Atari they just suck at marketing and this result in them not getting the same treatment as other bigger brand like Sony, Nintendo, and Sega. Also Sega was no underdog, they were a small company just like Nintendo and they made a lot of games just like Nintendo.
Only thing they did wrong was that they invested a lot of money to make games (Altered Beast, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, NiGHTS, etc.) and hardware (Sega CD, Sega 32X, Sega Nomad, Sega Saturn, etc.) that gets them nowhere. A majority of those would had gotten them somewhere if they only just know how to market it and support it for the long run. It's totally their own fault. Also those were not minor mistakes, making your own employees (like Tom Kalinske), audience, developers, partners, and retailers stopped supporting your product are not minor mistakes, they are major mistakes that should had been fix immediately and they were all ignored. In the end they did it to themselves, Nintendo and Sony did not had these issues cause they knew what they were doing in the industry.
It looks like you're trying to push the blames of these two losers to the actual winners of that era or you put the blames on the victims like those retail stores that refuse to carry Sega and Atari product when before they did carry them. Put yourself in their shoes, if Sega made you their trusted partner in the early 90s and let you sell their Genesis games, consoles, and products then all of a sudden they flip flop and launch the Saturn early but instead of letting you get first dipped on their consoles and titles to sell they instead choose your competitors to get the first dipped, would you be happy about that too? You were more loyal to them and actually pay license to get those to sell for your store whereas your competitors are smaller than you and now they got first dipped. That means that they get more sales out the door first and you get nothing in the beginning. Yes you will eventually get the support later on but by that time people would already gotten use to your competitors selling Sega stuff that they ignore your stores completely. That's why Sega and Atari are at fault, that's why stores like yours won't trust them anymore and why they failed because of stores like you and decisions like them.
It's like Tom Kalinske saids, had Sega listen to his decisions from the very beginning they would had easily own the market yet Sega ignored. The only time Sega listen to Tom was when they bundle Sonic with the Sega Genesis and that's it and even so from the very beginning Sega still didn't trust Tom with that decision either despite letting him go on with it. Even after that successful run, Sega still had doubt that Tom's decision was the right decision despite all the proof of success looming. As for Atari, they failed every gen after the Atari 2600, there's nothing they could do that would ever save them, the company kept getting sold and eventually they waste a lot of money on hardware and games that also gets them nowhere with terrible marketing and bad games.
Sega didn't want to sell the saturn to every major retailer... because they already had a full stock of other systems and games in their warehouse.. which put them in debt... which is the stores fault. If they choose to sell the saturn everywhere, then they would be in even more debt. They prob. didn't sell the saturn to the same stores that already had tons of genesis, game gear, 32x, sega cd, nomad, and pico... because on top of all the regulations and strict, unfair business practices that were there demands to other game companies that weren't nintendo... and eventually sony. sega wanted there monoploy... many systems, at the same time... thinking of everything... It worked wonders at first... but it hurt them badly after a couple of years because of the demands of the stores. Nintendo got to have many systems during the same era... nes, snes, gameboy, virtual boy... but it's ok for them to do that... because it's nintendo.
The stores were not used to this new video game revolution that was happening... and there minds were still stuck in the "it's a nintendo toy thing, 80's". The kids and parents drove the stores crazy with asking for new games and consoles from nintendo for years... and then sega comes along and wants the same thing... but they got pissed off at the stress of handling nintendo products... so they pretty much chose to screw sega over... because they didn't wanna handle all the demands of the costumers... and yes the launch of the saturn was rushed... that was sega of japan's demand... which was a mistake... because there should've been more games... and better games... but sega still could've sold WAYYYY more saturn consoles if the stores weren't unreasonable to them. I guess if I owned a store I'd be a little annoyed that sega told my competitors about the saturn then my store. But then again, was I one of those stores that forced sega to keep endless piles of hardware and games in there warehouse... probably... even still, this whole idea that everyone buy's the new console right away and in a month or two... wayyy less people wanna buy it or be less interested... is absurd. that's just the overexaggerated fear that store owners have... which is overthinking shit... if anything... game consoles sell even more... over time... because more people learn about it... the console and games become cheaper, etc... but the stores never thought that thru... because game consoles were still in the early years... of what to expect from costumers BUT.... a little faith... would be nice.
I also don't feel that costumers will ignore other stores... if they get used to buying sega stuff from one usual place... people like to experiment and look at all the options of the every store... I feel that sega were underdogs because unlike nintendo... they had to fight back against strict and unfair business practices... from the stores and nintendo.......nintendo forcing third party companies to only make games for there systems, which was the case during the nes era. that's why the master system struggled so badly... most games for the master system were made by sega themselves... only when the genesis started becoming popular.... then the third party companies started playing hardball... and making games for the genesis too... being sick of nintendo's bs.
When it comes to atari, we don't know for sure if they had the same warehouse issue's sega had... but it was probably a similar tale... because most of the stores were just used to nintendo... and maybe sega genesis... any other company that wanted to make and sell a console... was looked at as a nuisance to toy stores... because most adults in the 1990's... still viewed video games as a fad... the stores weren't unfair, they weren't open minded, they were stuck in there ways and sega and atari and turbo graphix... payed the ultimate price... and we as video game fans are just supposed to except that it was all the fault of the game companies themselves?... they were just game companies that wanted to do the same thing as nintendo... but because nintendo happened to get there first with the nes and called it a toy to stores... that means all other companies must be punsihed and treated differently... the same thing I said about sony and ps1... is the same for Microsoft and the xbox... Microsoft was known for selling computers... the stores were used to them selling electronics already... so they looked the other way...
@@thepatrickl.peckshow8317 I wonder who took the hit on the failed xbox 360''s that was about a 50% failure rate on launch? The og xbox lost around $5bill. MS just took huge hits and one day they will be in profit. Sony are pretty much the same. They probably have enormous revenues with like 5% profit.
For the record, the Master System had plenty of great games. Sega made a butt tonne, but only about 10% of the games of about 400. To get an NES in your store meant you weren't allowed to stock the SMS. So nobody really saw an SMS. Therefore didn't buy one.
@@iwanttocomplain I agree about the master system library
@@thepatrickl.peckshow8317 the only really salient point here is the inaccessibility of the SMS to customers.
Another thing that did in Atari was, the Tramiel family owned them & we all know that whole family was a bunch of assholes.
An interesting POV indeed
Yes. Thank you for that. It cheered me up. The way I see it now, Kalinski was really Nakayama's yes man. N told K to do an "agressive ad campaign" and that was it. My mistake. It was Michela Katz who N told to do that in fact. Katz was the first SoA CEO. He came from an Atari exec position and did a great job setting up a network of developers and licensed celebs for sports games and got the machine off the ground with home grown titles to suit US taste. Meanwhile, Nintendo were porting Japanese and EU Amiga games exclusively.
So Katz is the real unsung hero of the Genesis. He was replaced for selling only 500k in 1 year, half what he was expected to. At least that is the official line. My suspicion is N felt threatened and put Kalinski in place. Putting the best game ever made up to that point was rash. But N let it slide because it ensured console sales. Sonic ignited a fire under console games as a whole in fact, boosting SNES sales. But K suffered from the surplus stock rules but just as much from very generous returns policies, with people trying it out for 3 or so months then changing their minds. SoA grew to 1500 staff but I get the impression thet failed to make much or even any money at all in the end. They kept releasing product that were sound from a hardware department but not making many. People think the NOMAD and CDX were flops but no. They sold out completely and not at a discount either. Very popular in fact.
But the mess from the Genesis, in that the Sega CD and 32X weren't supported with proper games and SoA couldn't find or make a game to save their lives, missed a big chance to make the tower of power a not joke real thing. The CDX is so neat it's not even funny. They should have shifted them by the ton.
The Genesis still had legs in 95 even. Virtua Racing was only stupid because they made it identical to the arcade, ergo almost impossible and only 3 tracks. No championship mode at all. 5 laps maximum.
Anyway. Nintendo had a trick I meant to mention. They would withhold stock if retailers didn't comply. Deliveries would be late and such. Then they would intimate that if they signed the contract they drew up, they would probably find the deliveries would find their way to them more regularly. So they operated out of a place of determination and shrewd planning that Kalinski should have been doing if he knew the first thing about business.
When Katz got fired, they lost someone with a bit more clout that would have taken profit margins a bit more seriously and had some words for the retailers. Or maybe some ideas about how to negotiate something reasonable for his company.
Atari didn't cause the crash by the way. None of the companies knew how many carts to make. So they ended up selling them off really slowly over a long period of time and game production slowed to a crawl to wait for the backlog to dissipate.
Kalinksi fumbled the Saturn launch by pushing it forward 3 months more than the 3 month early requested release date so I hear. For no real reason I can see. Then apparently the retailers threw a tantrum like a 2 year old and refused to even do business with Tom!
For the record, the Master System suffered a similar fate of being elbowed out the nest by the NES because as a retailer, Nintendo would not allow the SMS to be sold in the same store as an NES.
The key issue here is market monopolies and fare competition laws which were drawn up after Nintendo were found guilty of anti-competitive industry practises around 1995. Rather than suffer a fine or any other penalty, they were ruled to send out gift vouchers to customers to be exchanged for more games and peripherals, which would ultimately still result in a net profit for Nintendo regardless. The American's must have kind of respected Nintendo in some way. Or they are somehow influential within the judicial system, somehow.
My source: czcams.com/video/WuE0jFWluNs/video.htmlsi=L5TtT1cMWuB6eZ1O&t=221
"...in 1991. Around the same time, the Federal Trade Commission successfully made the case that Nintendo did in fact leverage it's connections and successes to shut other companies out of retail in the US."
Just wanted that on the record. The FTC's failure to properly apply it's weight to the ruling probably caused the failure of Atari and Sega in the hardware business in the following years.
In actual fact, the above law was really in relation to pricing and control of it.
In terms of leveraging their influence in terms of negotiating favourable agreements with retailers in relation to rival products; I have no idea if that has even been addressed in court.
I am glad that stores are dead. I haven't been to the grocery stores for 4 years now, order everything from the internet. But I miss the arcades of the 880's-90's.
The release of the 32x a few montha before the Saturn did them no favors as well as holding a lot of gsmes back from the western market. The Saturn was much bigger in Japan. We did have exclusive game stores Electronics Boutique which became Gamestop
Fully agree about the game shops being assholes then you had the employees discouraging any attempt to even show the slightest interest in the Jaguar, they would tell you to wait for the PSX. But Atari had one of the worst console launches ever. Outside of the chips being bugged, Crescent Galaxy and Checkered Flag were total dog shit games: This coming from a diehard hardcore Jag fanatic. Cheap bastards, they really took this beautiful high end architecture and just completely crippled it of the gates. Original design spec of 68030 with 4MB of RAM, and had they put it off 3 months to actually release a kickass system, it would have made a nice start but the initial games were abysmal piles of shit. LOVE Tempest 2000, Doom, Iron Soldier and of course AvP!
checkered flag's controlls were bad, but the graphics were cool. I can actually drive pretty well in that game... I manage... but It's an uphill battle the whole time I'm controlling the car... insane. I think it should've had a better name... that title is dull and generic as hell... the box art is also pretty terrible as well... you gotta be kidding me... and I do feel that trevor mcfur is a "DECENT" game... and that's being very generous. I feel that I must... because the character is cool and the worlds are pretty interesting and the boss battles have pretty awesome designs... the bosses are the highlight of the game. the story is also really good as well...
Jaguar and Saturn didn't have exactly the same "failure"
I agree... but there stories are very similar though
I love the Saturn, but you lost me at "3DO sucks"