A timeline the place Sega beat Nintendo would’ve been so a lot better

As Sega tries to revive its traditional franchises, a reader imagines a world the place the Dreamcast was not a flop and the Mega Drive beat the SNES.

With Xbox going multiformat and PlayStation additionally starting to dabble, it actually does seem to be the period of console wars is coming to an finish. There are a lot of wise causes to assume this can be a dangerous factor, together with the shortage of competitors to drive innovation, and the decline of format exclusives – that are additionally used to push the consoles and the artform past the traditional limits.

People celebrating the loss of life of exclusives will stay to remorse it, I really feel, when Xbox and PlayStation not have any purpose to push the envelope, to point out off, and we find yourself with much less attention-grabbing video games in consequence.

But the true purpose I might not wish to see them finish is that console wars are enjoyable. As lengthy as you’re not an fool about it, arguing about which is the perfect console and video games may be very entertaining. And that was by no means more true then with the best of all console wars: Mega Drive vs. SNES.

As you’ve in all probability already guessed, I had a Mega Drive and was a significant Sega fanboy throughout the 90s. At first it appeared as if Sega may do nothing fallacious. They have been the cool ones, and Nintendo was the outdated fuddy duddy that had inexperienced blood and made video games for infants. Mega Drive house owners simply outnumbered SNES at my college and as I perceive it that was true all throughout the UK.

But, as we all know, Nintendo received the conflict total – even when it was fairly shut. It was stated that the discharge of Donkey Kong Country is what pushed them over the sting, however I feel it’d be extra sincere to say that Sega destroyed themselves. By the top of the Mega Drive period they have been knocking tons of pointless and costly add-ons, they usually had no clear plan with the subsequent technology, which is what bought us the bodge job that was the Saturn.

I’ve very fond recollections of the Dreamcast however by that time it was too late and never solely was Sega’s identify mud, however they have been broke too. So they went third get together and have principally been a joke ever since. They’ve been speaking a couple of comeback these days, with a lot of new entries in traditional franchises. however I don’t assume Shinboi: Art Of Vengeance has been an excellent begin to that and I wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of the others flop. It’s simply been too lengthy for anybody to actually care any extra.

But think about if the state of affairs was reversed! What if the Nintendo PlayStation went forward and it was them that bought obsessive about costly add-ons no one needed after which bought caught out with the brand new technology. Imagine if Sega realised early on that the Saturn wanted to be a 3D beast, not a 2D machine, they usually made one thing nearer to the Dreamcast, that might deal with ports of all their arcade video games.

For me, the lack of Sega’s arcade enterprise was what actually killed them. All their technical innovation got here from the arcades and with out that and the Dreamcast, effectively… we’ve seen what they’ve been just like the final couple of many years. Obviously, arcades have been going to die out in some unspecified time in the future anyway, however Sega may’ve slowly migrated their huge arcade franchises to consoles and their technical experience on the identical time.

Imagine a world the place the perfect 3D graphics are all in Sega video games. Sounds absurd? At the time of Daytona USA that was precisely the state of affairs, and but Sega let all of it slip from their fingers in simply a few years. Nintendo was comparable – the N64 was far more highly effective than the PS1 – however Nintendo simply misplaced curiosity in being leading edge they usually’ve by no means actually gone again.

They’d positively made loads of nice video games since then but when Sega had thrived, as a substitute of dying with the Dreamcast… we’d be on a Dreamcast 4 by now. It’d be a leading edge machine, all of its traditional franchises would nonetheless be going, and also you’d have each nice graphics and nice gameplay, as a substitute of only one with Nintendo.

Sega wasn’t afraid of getting extra mature themes or violence of their video games both, with their role-players and issues like Streets Of Rage. I really feel {that a} dominant Sega would’ve allowed different publishers to make no matter they need, and they might’ve had essentially the most highly effective console, which is the other of Nintendo.

It’s attention-grabbing to consider however in fact none of this occurred and there’s no manner that Sega can flip the clocks again. The greatest they will do is try to make one thing different than simply Sonic and PC technique video games, however I’m doubtful they will even try this effectively. Not on this timeline anyway.

By reader BobbyD

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