Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from How Stuff workstot coming. Hello again everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pouelette and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor and sitting in front of me as
Speaker 1: usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Gee, I'm really sorry
Speaker 1: your mom blew up, Ricky. I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting
Speaker 1: that one. That was That one has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with what we're talking about. Awesome. Yeah, it's a great movie,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Yes, if you have not seen that movie,
Speaker 1: then you need to find out what that quote is
Speaker 1: from and then go see that movie. He likes corn.
Speaker 1: We could just quote that movie over this podcast, but
Speaker 1: that would be finept it wouldn't cover the topic that
Speaker 1: the title says true and it is one of our
Speaker 1: favorite gaming companies that we're talking about the history of today. Sega. Yes. Yes,
Speaker 1: Chris was the one who came up with the brilliant title,
Speaker 1: the Sega Saga. Yes, it's an epic Sega saga, so
Speaker 1: and and and it has nothing to do with Iceland, right,
Speaker 1: completely different saga. No, No, there's no Bayowolf in the well,
Speaker 1: they might have made a Baowolf game. I didn't go
Speaker 1: through their entire arcade library anyway, and then it was
Speaker 1: disgrendled anyway. Oh man, we're you can tell we've already
Speaker 1: done one podcast this morning because we're really warmed up
Speaker 1: with Lupi. Um. So, the funny thing is the Sega
Speaker 1: still exists, so we are we are not burying a
Speaker 1: company as we did with Midway so much, but it
Speaker 1: exists in a radically different form than it did many
Speaker 1: years ago. And uh, many people and I had no
Speaker 1: idea when I started the research for this, but many
Speaker 1: people think of Sega as another one of those Japanese
Speaker 1: arcade game companies. Are game companies like Nintendo or Tito
Speaker 1: or Sony and some of the others not so much. Well,
Speaker 1: it is, but it began as an American company, Yes,
Speaker 1: in Honolulu, Hawaii, which I guess technically in Honolulu still
Speaker 1: was not in an American It was an American territory,
Speaker 1: wasn't a statement. I think you'd probably still call it
Speaker 1: an American company. And its name comes from Standard Games.
Speaker 1: Actually it comes from the second name. Standard Games was
Speaker 1: their original name. Yes, but they then changed the Service
Speaker 1: games because they took they took the SE from service
Speaker 1: and the g A from games and became Sega. Now
Speaker 1: why was it called service Games because early on in
Speaker 1: its history the company made coin operated amusements. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: so these are the kind of the old style penny
Speaker 1: arcade type games and they made them specifically, they would
Speaker 1: they were making them for a very niche market, niche
Speaker 1: military basis. Yes, And that's where you got the name
Speaker 1: Service Games because they were in the service exactly. And
Speaker 1: they the company had been around for a few years
Speaker 1: when um, they kind of got this idea of relocating
Speaker 1: to Japan. Yes, the company, originally as Standard Games, was
Speaker 1: founded by Martin Bromily, Irvan Bromberg, and James Humpert. And
Speaker 1: they started in um I, you know, oddly enough, right
Speaker 1: before the United States entered World War two. Um with Japan.
Speaker 1: Of course, um event that happened in Hawaii, yes, um,
Speaker 1: but in one Bromiley was the one that said let's
Speaker 1: move to Tokyo. And that actually, uh, you might say,
Speaker 1: why did you bring that up right after the war thing?
Speaker 1: It actually had a lot to do with the war,
Speaker 1: not just because they were originally creating games for service locations,
Speaker 1: but also because you know, Japan had been damaged pretty
Speaker 1: heavily in the last days of the war, pretty heavily,
Speaker 1: very heavily, and um the country. The country was rebuilding,
Speaker 1: and they saw an opportunity to get in on the
Speaker 1: ground floor of and and create an industry that that
Speaker 1: really didn't exist in Japan like it did in the
Speaker 1: United States. And the United States they had competition from
Speaker 1: other game manufacturers, where in Japan they would have a
Speaker 1: much more open market. Yeah, this was really amazing foresight, right,
Speaker 1: because you have to remember at this time in history,
Speaker 1: no one was really looking to Japan to become a
Speaker 1: leader in electronics or or any any of those kind
Speaker 1: of industries. I mean, Japan was a country that had
Speaker 1: been devastated by war, and UM and the United States
Speaker 1: of course invested quite heavily in in rebuilding Japan, as
Speaker 1: did other nations, and Japan, for its part, didn't just
Speaker 1: accept money and you know and coast the Japanese people,
Speaker 1: the Japanese government really dedicated themselves to building a new Japan.
Speaker 1: And and boy did they The electronics industry alone became
Speaker 1: so important to Japan and they became so innovative that
Speaker 1: it in Japan, you could argue, became the leader in
Speaker 1: several electronics sub categories, to the point where you had
Speaker 1: countries like America say, wow, what happened? We were we
Speaker 1: were away in the lead there. What how did that happen?
Speaker 1: And the reason that happened was companies like Sega really
Speaker 1: saw the opportunity and seized it. Um. Yeah, So in
Speaker 1: Sega merged with another company, rosen Enterprises, again founded by
Speaker 1: an American, David rosen In, and they that company had
Speaker 1: been working on an instant photo booths and mechanical arcade games. Um.
Speaker 1: I think of that being sort of like pinball machines
Speaker 1: and those things with the cranes that never seem to work, yes,
Speaker 1: or the games where you get the coins that are
Speaker 1: right there on the edge and all it's gonna take
Speaker 1: is one more coin and it'll knock all those coins
Speaker 1: and you'll be rich. But somehow, despite the laws of
Speaker 1: gravity and the conservation of energy, it just doesn't work,
Speaker 1: which shows you that science is a lie. Okay, that
Speaker 1: last part was a joke. I'm going to send in
Speaker 1: the stuff to blow your mind staff and they can
Speaker 1: they can have a talk with you about that. Explain
Speaker 1: how this is scientifically possible, I dare you. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't long after that that Sega released its first major hit,
Speaker 1: at least that I saw a reference, and that's called Periscope.
Speaker 1: It's a sub submarine simulator again with the war theme.
Speaker 1: UM and UH in giving you the concise history here
Speaker 1: and which is the one that's on the same A website.
Speaker 1: In sixty nine, Sega, Rosenan and the other people who
Speaker 1: were shareholders in Sega decided to sell out to Gulf
Speaker 1: and Western, which, according to Britannica, was founded in ninety
Speaker 1: eight uh and just became a It was a huge
Speaker 1: conglomerate company. UM. It owned Paramount Pictures UM and then
Speaker 1: it changed its name Gulf and Western. I remember seeing
Speaker 1: that on the Paramount logo and wondering what the connection was. Well,
Speaker 1: it changed its name to Paramount Communications UH in nine
Speaker 1: and then Viacom gobbled it up in UM. But that
Speaker 1: that's uh, you know, sort of sort of how it
Speaker 1: became a worldwide entity, because first it had to hit
Speaker 1: with with Periscope, and then it was you know, became
Speaker 1: part of a very large media distribution company, right and UH,
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that just this's just kind
Speaker 1: of an aside that I don't really have a whole
Speaker 1: lot of de tail about this. But then in the seventies,
Speaker 1: Sega really kind of tried to branch out beyond just
Speaker 1: doing the amusements and the games and created its own
Speaker 1: Sega branded television screen TV. Yeah. I didn't see that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's one of those just odd things. Obviously it was
Speaker 1: not not the it what ended up not being the
Speaker 1: direction the company moved in, but it was something that
Speaker 1: they were, you know, they were trying out different things,
Speaker 1: and UH, as the arcade game began to evolve, you know,
Speaker 1: late seventies, that's when we started seeing arcade games up here.
Speaker 1: As I began to involve, Sega got involved in that
Speaker 1: because you know, that was sort of Sega's thing was
Speaker 1: they were they were all about coin operated amusements. And
Speaker 1: then after the coin operated UH games started to really
Speaker 1: take off, that's when you started to see companies developed
Speaker 1: the home game consoles. Now, um, I have to say
Speaker 1: that as I was doing research for this, I started
Speaker 1: of course with Sega, but ended up on a really
Speaker 1: awesome lengthy history of Sega at I g N, done
Speaker 1: by Travis Foss f h s and Uh. He really
Speaker 1: gets into a lot of depth about the company UM.
Speaker 1: According to his article, UM, it was Space Invaders release
Speaker 1: in by Tito UM causing a coin shortage in Japan.
Speaker 1: Uh that helped spur the industry, the video game industry
Speaker 1: in in Japan and UM. Sega at that point picked
Speaker 1: up an American company called Gremlin Industries to come up
Speaker 1: with ideas for arcade games. Did they feed them after midnight?
Speaker 1: It's always midnight somewhere, well, not always, but at the
Speaker 1: top of the hour, um, and head On was the
Speaker 1: result of that. Applied directly to forehead it was Amazed game. UM.
Speaker 1: Amazing No uh not not completely dissimilar to another famous
Speaker 1: May's game not created by Sega. Yes, UM. But I
Speaker 1: remember some of the games that Mr Foss mentions in
Speaker 1: his article, including Zaxon, which was a three D space
Speaker 1: shooter that was a great game. I loved Zaxon, fantastic game. Um.
Speaker 1: And he also mentioned Buck Rogers Planet of Zoom, which
Speaker 1: I can't remember if it was in the corner of
Speaker 1: Pizza Place where I used to spend all my parents quarters.
Speaker 1: For me, it was skate country, but was the name
Speaker 1: of the skating rink at my hometown. This was that's
Speaker 1: a pizza. There's some free plugs for businesses that no
Speaker 1: longer exist. Yeah, but as Jonathan mentioned, uh, they started
Speaker 1: getting into home games with some They started out with
Speaker 1: a very very very ugly console named SG one thousand. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now this was marketed only in Japan. Yes, it did
Speaker 1: not get worldwide distribution, and it's probably a good thing.
Speaker 1: It came out around and it was a card cartridge
Speaker 1: based system, right, Yeah, that was That was during the
Speaker 1: game crash that we talked about in an earlier podcast,
Speaker 1: which is interesting because it came out. I would say
Speaker 1: that was the second wave of home big wave of
Speaker 1: home consoles and Sega. Sega had some amazing timing with
Speaker 1: its console releases, of the first being that releasing a
Speaker 1: console shortly after the massive home gaming crash that happened
Speaker 1: if you remember from our podcast about that that that crash.
Speaker 1: What happened was that the market became glutted with various
Speaker 1: consoles and games, many of which were of a poor quality,
Speaker 1: and so the home market enthusiasts became disenchanted with video
Speaker 1: games in general, and a lot of people were making
Speaker 1: the move towards looking at personal computers, which really had
Speaker 1: not hit big time yet, but we're starting to gain
Speaker 1: a lot of traction. So home consoles were hurting at
Speaker 1: this time now. And the the this console that Sega released,
Speaker 1: the s G one thousand, it had some problems. Uh,
Speaker 1: it only had RF connection, so if you were to
Speaker 1: buy one today, you would actually have to probably find
Speaker 1: an adapter in order to play it. I have one
Speaker 1: and r F adapter, yeah, yeah, somewhere, and you haven't. No,
Speaker 1: I don't have an S one. You know, they were
Speaker 1: pretty affordable. They only cost fifteen thousand yen, which you
Speaker 1: know was about hundred thirty dollars according to I haven't.
Speaker 1: I didn't need the pricing for today. I can look
Speaker 1: it up on That's all right. I didn't do I
Speaker 1: got I got messages last time. How irritating it was
Speaker 1: do the full conversion. But it did launch on July
Speaker 1: fifte at the same day as you know the fan Colm, Yes,
Speaker 1: the famicom, which was known to those of us in
Speaker 1: the United States as entertainment system. So yes, right out
Speaker 1: of the gate, Sega released this on the same day
Speaker 1: as a an icon in the video game industry. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, then Nintendo Entertainment System would make its way
Speaker 1: to the United States a little later, yes, but the
Speaker 1: does not. And let me tell a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a little more detail about this this console. Uh.
Speaker 1: It also had a hardwired, permanently attached joystick, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't a joystick that you would unplug and pack up,
Speaker 1: and the reason for that was that it made it
Speaker 1: less expensive to produce. But apparently the joystick had problems.
Speaker 1: It was had poor response time. You had to really
Speaker 1: press on it to get things done. And it was rectangular,
Speaker 1: kind of like the shape of a remote control, with
Speaker 1: a joystick towards the top end in the center and
Speaker 1: buttons on either side. Not the most comfortable thing in
Speaker 1: the world to hold. Actually, read an article in Wired
Speaker 1: where one of the Wired writers found one while attending
Speaker 1: a game conference in Japan and purchased it for about
Speaker 1: fifty eight dollars to bring it back and try it out,
Speaker 1: because hardly anyone bought this thing. That then Tendo beat
Speaker 1: the pants off of it in Japan, and of course
Speaker 1: never saw worldwide distribution. Yes, so his review was that
Speaker 1: you could see why never saw worldwide distribution the games.
Speaker 1: He said, we're pretty much not that great, and the
Speaker 1: controls were really difficult, and the Nintendo was just a
Speaker 1: superior system. Yep, yep, and in fact, it scared away
Speaker 1: the corporate parent. Now, lest you have paused the podcast
Speaker 1: and corrected me on Viacom owning Sega, UM Golf and
Speaker 1: Western before Paramount even entered the picture, before they changed
Speaker 1: their name, they said okay, no, Mr Rosen, you want
Speaker 1: your company back. Um. And they were asking thirty eight
Speaker 1: million dollars for Sega, which you know I would have
Speaker 1: considered a bargain in today's terms, probably right. Um. So basically, uh,
Speaker 1: David Rosen found some other willing partners and uh uh
Speaker 1: including a company named c s K Holdings UM, a
Speaker 1: Japanese company. UM. And basically they bought it back from
Speaker 1: Gulf and Western headquartered in Japan, and uh Rosen stayed
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California to manage the United States operation. UM. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the ST one thousand not a hit, and Gulf and
Speaker 1: Western says, no, no, no, you go ahead, you can
Speaker 1: have it back. And a couple of years later, Sega
Speaker 1: launches a new console, the Sega Master System. So we're
Speaker 1: skipping the SG one two. Yeah, I'm skipping all the twos.
Speaker 1: Most of the several of the consoles will be talking
Speaker 1: about had follow up consoles and Sega Mark three, let's
Speaker 1: let's just talk about the ones that are important. It's
Speaker 1: funny if you if you go back to the if
Speaker 1: you go back to the um list of if you
Speaker 1: go find this article and find these boxes, they are
Speaker 1: the most depressing looking beige chunks of plastic kind of
Speaker 1: kind of reflects their their their eventual fate, yes, however,
Speaker 1: but not their eventual successes, which looked far cooler. So
Speaker 1: the Master System, the Sega Master System you have thought,
Speaker 1: it came out in Japan around and then it got
Speaker 1: worldwide release the next year, and that was another eight
Speaker 1: bit based video game console system. So this is the
Speaker 1: same same general processing level as the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Speaker 1: It was a thirty two color system as opposed to
Speaker 1: the sixteen from the previous UH console, and again cartridge based,
Speaker 1: but it also had a slot for a card system.
Speaker 1: The cards would actually hold games that were not as complicated,
Speaker 1: that didn't need the full capacity that a cartridge could hold.
Speaker 1: But you could like walk around with the whole pocket
Speaker 1: full of games and and trade them with your friends. Right,
Speaker 1: these would be the it's like pog now, these were them.
Speaker 1: You could play Pog with the cards if you really
Speaker 1: wanted to. Now that the cards were for the games
Speaker 1: that were much less complicated, So you might have uh,
Speaker 1: you know, You're You're a title games. Those would all
Speaker 1: be on cartridges because they needed that space. But then
Speaker 1: you would have these very simple games that were not
Speaker 1: that uh demanding as far as um storage space goes,
Speaker 1: and so those would be used on the cards. The
Speaker 1: card thing did not last very long. The later versions
Speaker 1: of the Sega Master System just did away with it
Speaker 1: because hardly anyone was purchasing these card games, and then
Speaker 1: they would just they would release like batches of these
Speaker 1: card games all contained to one cartridge instead. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of like if you've ever played a more modern
Speaker 1: console where they release the classic games, where you'll get
Speaker 1: like maybe thirty or forty classic games on one desk.
Speaker 1: It was kind of the equivalent to that, uh and
Speaker 1: that one was around two hundred dollars when it launched.
Speaker 1: Now at this point, UH I believe a man named
Speaker 1: Hayao naka Yama was in charge of Sega in in
Speaker 1: Japan and Rosen was handling things here in the United States.
Speaker 1: They didn't always so much get along. Um. And that
Speaker 1: that's important because that story is going on behind the
Speaker 1: scenes here. We don't really see that. Those of us
Speaker 1: who are are Sega fans, Um, we don't really see
Speaker 1: all that stuff because you know, this is not the
Speaker 1: kind of thing where you know, you would typically know
Speaker 1: about that. What you're looking at is you know whether
Speaker 1: or not uh, Space Harrier and out Run and Zaxon
Speaker 1: are coming into your house. Um. But the thing is
Speaker 1: that the decisions made by Sega in Japan and Sega
Speaker 1: in America had a great deal to do with the
Speaker 1: successes and failures of the companies we're gonna see coming
Speaker 1: up shortly because at this point, this is when uh,
Speaker 1: Nintendo was launching Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, around that time,
Speaker 1: the Sega Master System was seeing some success in Europe.
Speaker 1: They were they were actually selling fairly well in Europe,
Speaker 1: but in the United States and Japan they were trailing
Speaker 1: sales of the in s and uh. Really the Sega's
Speaker 1: strong suit at this point was their intellectual property for
Speaker 1: their arcade games, like you were saying, right, and they
Speaker 1: had that leverage, and Nintendo had Mario. Right, Nintendo had
Speaker 1: an identifiable mascot, yes, right, and and Sega needed something
Speaker 1: like that because I mean you could say that Atari
Speaker 1: had pac Man. True, yeah, Atari had licensed pac Man
Speaker 1: from Namco for you or for worse that that was
Speaker 1: another podcast. Um, but yeah, it's uh um. They were
Speaker 1: really looking for some character that they could use, they
Speaker 1: could leverage, and I know who you're thinking of, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't him yet. It was Alex Kidd that they
Speaker 1: settled on. If you haven't heard of him, that shows
Speaker 1: that it was not a huge success, right. Um. No,
Speaker 1: They tried to make him into a franchiseable character that
Speaker 1: they could parlay at home, but he just didn't. Alex
Speaker 1: Kidd in Miracle World just didn't take off like they
Speaker 1: hoped it would. Well, who would have thought that jump
Speaker 1: Man would eventually become an iconic character. I mean, a
Speaker 1: shortish plumber and overalls Mario started off as jump Man.
Speaker 1: No one would have thought this guy is going to
Speaker 1: become the icon for a company. Yeah, and he did
Speaker 1: showed us. So at this time, we're getting into the
Speaker 1: late eighties, Saga starts to plan its next big console.
Speaker 1: How do you follow up? Name the mass your system,
Speaker 1: especially one that didn't do so well in the United States.
Speaker 1: In Japan, well, you could call it the Mega Drive
Speaker 1: if you want to do, but why would you do that.
Speaker 1: Well it did do that for some countries, but in
Speaker 1: the United States it was called Genesis. Yes, not that Genesis.
Speaker 1: What it was This thing didn't like make dead planets
Speaker 1: turn alive. This is I never bought one. Then the
Speaker 1: Master system was was had changed from that really boring
Speaker 1: beige color to black, but it still looked like a
Speaker 1: box with ports on it. The Genesis was black and
Speaker 1: shiny and round, round dish, It had curves, and it
Speaker 1: was a lot cooler looking than it's previous. Not that
Speaker 1: that sells, however, altered beast being packaged with the system
Speaker 1: that helps. And I'll keep in mind the Sega Genesis
Speaker 1: was still a cartridge based system. We haven't moved away
Speaker 1: from cartridges yet, but it was superior to the NES.
Speaker 1: It was a sixteen bit system, yes it was. The
Speaker 1: NES was an eight bit system, and when it came
Speaker 1: out in Japan that was before the Supernintendo. Yes, not
Speaker 1: a whole lot longer before the Supernintendo, but but long
Speaker 1: enough so that Sega had a jump on the sixteen
Speaker 1: bit market. Yes. Now, the the I g N article
Speaker 1: points out that it didn't take off right out of
Speaker 1: the gate in Japan, maybe partially due to and I
Speaker 1: didn't know this either, that Super Mario Brothers three had
Speaker 1: been released the week before, great timing Sega, so everybody
Speaker 1: was still kind of invested in Well, yeah, Nintendo had
Speaker 1: an amazing market penetration to so you get to some
Speaker 1: point it's just like, you know, the to to jump
Speaker 1: over to another company for a second PlayStation had such
Speaker 1: a great depth of games that the the original PlayStation
Speaker 1: was going strong well after the PlayStation two came out,
Speaker 1: and then when the play stay and three came out,
Speaker 1: the PlayStation two did the same thing. In fact, they
Speaker 1: were still making PlayStation two games long after the PS
Speaker 1: three came out, So there's a there's a level of
Speaker 1: loyalty among gamers. Also. I mean, let's face it, it
Speaker 1: costs a lot of money to upgrade from one system
Speaker 1: to another. So if you are a gamer and you
Speaker 1: have a console and they're still getting new games coming
Speaker 1: out for that console, there's not a whole lot of
Speaker 1: reason for you to jump ship to another system unless
Speaker 1: the games are just phenomenally better. Now, you could argue
Speaker 1: that the Genesis games were at least phenomenally better from
Speaker 1: a graphical standpoint or or even sound effects standpoint. The
Speaker 1: specs on the Genesis were superior to the nes. But again,
Speaker 1: the market penetration that Nintendo had, particularly in Japan, was
Speaker 1: hard to to to just dismiss. Yeah, the Genesis only
Speaker 1: sold four hundred thousand units in its first year, which
Speaker 1: is not I mean, especially by today's standard, where gaming
Speaker 1: is far more um entrenched in the market than it
Speaker 1: used to be. That's that's nothing. But in the United
Speaker 1: States they got a guy named Michael Kat's to take
Speaker 1: over UM and um. Basically, they named Hi president of
Speaker 1: Sega of America one month after the Genesis launched. And uh,
Speaker 1: the company was really trying to push selling a million systems,
Speaker 1: which again in today's standards, seems tiny. Um. But Nintendo
Speaker 1: had the licensees locked up as well, um to use uh,
Speaker 1: to use reference and uh yeah, I mean they had
Speaker 1: contracts with them, they were binding that said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you developed for other systems, you can, And because
Speaker 1: Nintendo had such a huge customer base, everyone wanted to
Speaker 1: develop for Nintendo. Now, for some of you this might
Speaker 1: sound familiar because we're seeing similar things in today's market,
Speaker 1: not necessarily with the video game consoles, but let's talk
Speaker 1: about developing apps for various platforms. This might sound very
Speaker 1: familiar to you. Yes, so that's not an old idea
Speaker 1: or am I Rather, it is an old idea, it's
Speaker 1: not a new idea. So this was around the time
Speaker 1: where Sega finally did come up with a mascot that
Speaker 1: actually stuck. Yes, is in that we saw a certain
Speaker 1: blue rodent that can move really really fast. Actually, I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that they're rodents, but um, I
Speaker 1: think they are, but but I can look. Uh. Foss
Speaker 1: actually pointed out that this was the point at which
Speaker 1: Sega got into the sports genre pretty heavily. Um, they
Speaker 1: got people like Tommy Lasorda, Evander Holyfield, Joe Montana, and
Speaker 1: a non you'll probably WinCE when I mentioned this, and
Speaker 1: non sports person but was big on the Genesis, Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: I would just like to point out that none of
Speaker 1: those are the blue I had mentioned, No exactly, but no.
Speaker 1: I just the reason the reason I remember this is
Speaker 1: because all my friends who had Genesis is is the
Speaker 1: geneses liked the sports games they were big on the shore. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they really had gotten that, and they helped
Speaker 1: out a then struggling company named you probably never heard
Speaker 1: this company, Electronic Arts, helped them what were the e something, Yes, well,
Speaker 1: they had the Madden franchise. That was one of the
Speaker 1: Madden franchise was just starting. But they developed the Joe
Speaker 1: Joe Montana football game for Sega as well. And then
Speaker 1: on top of it, you're right that that blue Hedgehog
Speaker 1: Sonic finally showed up and he was. This really went
Speaker 1: into their marketing thing because Sonic was a sassy little guy,
Speaker 1: sort of like Mickey Mouse when he made his debut
Speaker 1: on the scene before he got kind of watered down
Speaker 1: a little bit. Yeah, so Sonic was, you know, right
Speaker 1: there he was. He had in your face. It was
Speaker 1: the Pucci of video game system Um. But his the
Speaker 1: gameplay really started to sell these consoles because people were
Speaker 1: looking at how fast Sonic the Hedgehog played and the
Speaker 1: the graphic quality, the fact that you could have these
Speaker 1: fast moving, clean graphics with vibrant colors that really began
Speaker 1: to catch the attention of the public, and the Genesis
Speaker 1: started to actually make better sales. Unfortunately, right around the
Speaker 1: same time the Jestice was starting to to UH to
Speaker 1: pick up some steam, the Nintendo company came out with
Speaker 1: the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. So once again Justice Genesis
Speaker 1: is catching a lucky break. Nintendo comes out and fires
Speaker 1: a massive cannon across the bowl. Well, it probably didn't
Speaker 1: help that at that time, the graphics capabilities of the
Speaker 1: Genesis led them to market their their marketing slogan genis
Speaker 1: just does what an intended don't write. Um. We should
Speaker 1: also point out that Sega had a bright idea to
Speaker 1: make the Genesis backwards compatible. Yes, now, this was something
Speaker 1: that becomes very important in consoles later down the line,
Speaker 1: and some companies, mainly Nintendo, didn't really take it to
Speaker 1: heart for a really long time. The idea that you
Speaker 1: would be able to play your old games on your
Speaker 1: new system now within the case of the Genesis. In
Speaker 1: order to do it, you had to have an adapter
Speaker 1: because the cartridges for the Sega Genesis were a different
Speaker 1: size than the cartridges for the UH for the Sega
Speaker 1: master System. So but you could get an adapter for
Speaker 1: your Sega Genesis and then you could play all your
Speaker 1: old Sega Mastery games on your Genesis now. Granted, that's
Speaker 1: not gonna mean that they're gonna look better or play
Speaker 1: better than they did on the older system, but it
Speaker 1: means you'll have access to them. Yep, yep, and um uh.
Speaker 1: They recruited a guy named Tom Kalinski from Mattel who
Speaker 1: had overseen or worked with the the in television. Um,
Speaker 1: your favorite game system, and uh it's not. I had one,
Speaker 1: but it's not my favorite. They pushed him into the
Speaker 1: CEO of Sega of America Slide and he made a
Speaker 1: lot of important decisions. He decided that Sonic should be
Speaker 1: in the box and not altered Beast, So Genesis started
Speaker 1: shipping with UH with that and uh. Sega in Japan
Speaker 1: didn't like the idea. They thought it was a bad
Speaker 1: idea to include Sonic in the box. And Kolinsky, not
Speaker 1: for the last time, proved that he knew what was
Speaker 1: gonna work and what wasn't and lo and behold it's
Speaker 1: It sold a lot of units, so welcome to the
Speaker 1: next level. Yeah, let's talk about let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of the other stuff that Sega dead. They also began
Speaker 1: to introduce expansions from the Genesis, so not just the
Speaker 1: adapter that would allow you to play old games, but
Speaker 1: some expansions that unfortunately did not see a lot of success.
Speaker 1: One was the Mega c D, which was allowing you
Speaker 1: to play because here's the thing, compact us could hold
Speaker 1: a lot more information than a cartridge. So the idea was,
Speaker 1: how about for these games that are going to be
Speaker 1: really uh pushing the envelope as far as what the
Speaker 1: console can do. The consoles capable of doing more than
Speaker 1: what a cartridge based game can provide. So therefore we
Speaker 1: need to create a system that will allow a new
Speaker 1: media to be used, new form of media. In that case,
Speaker 1: it was the Compact disc. So the Mega cy D
Speaker 1: was produced and a few games came out, including a
Speaker 1: Sonic CD, and uh, they did all right, but they
Speaker 1: never really took off. No one really adapted to it.
Speaker 1: And then there was the thirty two X, which was
Speaker 1: another expansion for the Genesis. Originally it was going to
Speaker 1: be an update to the whole Genesis console, but there
Speaker 1: an argument was made that it should be instead an
Speaker 1: expansion pack rather than a brand new console. And the
Speaker 1: idea here was that was going to give you a
Speaker 1: jump on getting to the thirty two bit based game systems.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind the Genesis is a sixteen bit system, yes,
Speaker 1: and then Sega was already looking forward to the next system. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was planning on calling the Saturn. This was the
Speaker 1: big problem with the thirty two X because they come
Speaker 1: out with the expansion pack of the thirty two X,
Speaker 1: but they also say that they're working on the next
Speaker 1: generation console. Well, if you're a developer, a game developer,
Speaker 1: you might think, well, why should I develop for in
Speaker 1: a game system that's going to be obsolete in just
Speaker 1: two years? Why should I develop a game for that? Instead,
Speaker 1: I should be developing for the next generation of video
Speaker 1: game consoles. So not a lot of content was produced
Speaker 1: that could take advantage of the thirty two X. So
Speaker 1: that's why that was a failed adaptation. But the Saturn
Speaker 1: came out a little bit later and then hit the
Speaker 1: US and it started to have a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that you saw as expansion packs for the Genesis. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting story that apparently Sega had met with
Speaker 1: Silicon Graphics UM back in the day and had a
Speaker 1: meet a meeting with Jim Clark, who was the chairman
Speaker 1: of Silicon Graphics, and they were trying to sell Saga
Speaker 1: this new chip set that would allow them to run
Speaker 1: new high powered games and UH. Basically Sega in Japan
Speaker 1: was committed to going with the chip set that they
Speaker 1: had already picked out for it. So even though this
Speaker 1: UH system was going to be really, really cool, they
Speaker 1: had to say no. And they said, well, there's another
Speaker 1: company up in Seattle that might be interested in that,
Speaker 1: and so they took it to that company and it
Speaker 1: became the chip set for the Nintendo sixty four. Yeah. Painful. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the Saturn had three thirty two bit processors, but
Speaker 1: it came out and it had a CD ROM drive,
Speaker 1: it had to video processors. I mean, this was a
Speaker 1: machine that had some decent firepower for the time, right.
Speaker 1: But here's another problem. It came out very close to
Speaker 1: the same time that another major play or in video
Speaker 1: game consoles came out, which was the debut of the
Speaker 1: Sony PlayStation. Yes, this is another missed opportunity on Sega's
Speaker 1: park because Sega had talked to Sony UM and Sony
Speaker 1: had talked to Nintendo, both of them about the possibility
Speaker 1: of doing some kind of partnership, and Sony basically and
Speaker 1: and Sega couldn't work out their differences. So the thing
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, Sony went out on their own
Speaker 1: and you know, delivered delivered a severe beating to both
Speaker 1: of them. Right. Yeah, So you've got You've got the
Speaker 1: Sony PlayStation, which was another CD based system. You also
Speaker 1: had the Nintendo sixty four. This at this point, Nintendo
Speaker 1: was still holding onto the cartridge based systems. Um. Although
Speaker 1: some of my favorite video games of all time were
Speaker 1: made for the Nintendo sixty four. Yes, Golden Eye Anyone,
Speaker 1: or WrestleMania two thousand or WWF no mercy, oh man,
Speaker 1: I love the wrestling games. Um. If you guys are
Speaker 1: fans of wrestling games, let me know, because I'm always
Speaker 1: on the lookout for really good wrestling games. So that, honestly,
Speaker 1: if you know of good ones, let me know. I
Speaker 1: love them. Anyway, back to the back to the matter
Speaker 1: at hand, So you've got the Saturn coming out. It
Speaker 1: is not it does not do well against the PlayStation.
Speaker 1: It doesn't even do well against the Nintendo sixty four.
Speaker 1: It is it's in third place. Sadly that that system,
Speaker 1: I think is is pretty widely considered a dog, which
Speaker 1: is it's had some interesting features and actually had had
Speaker 1: a slot, Yes, it had a slot for additional memory.
Speaker 1: So some of the games on the Saturn were so
Speaker 1: advanced that the system didn't have enough RAM to run
Speaker 1: the game. Well, okay, you know Saga developed, Um, we
Speaker 1: we skipped over it and I can just throw it
Speaker 1: in there real quick since we're running low on time. Uh.
Speaker 1: Saga developed active three D glasses years before this. Yes,
Speaker 1: and they didn't take off, and the consoles supported three
Speaker 1: D playback. So yeah, again easily they were really ahead
Speaker 1: of their time. And a lot of these these developments. Um,
Speaker 1: so here's another problem. Again they did not learn the
Speaker 1: lesson that they should have learned with the release of
Speaker 1: the thirty two X where they said, oh, by the way,
Speaker 1: we're also working on a thirty two bit system. Just
Speaker 1: two years after the Saturn debut, they talked about how
Speaker 1: they were working on the next generation of consoles. So
Speaker 1: again you had all these developers say, well, why should
Speaker 1: I develop for a console that has a two year
Speaker 1: shelf life left? Maybe um and you might be thinking, wow,
Speaker 1: this is really fast because of course, now right now
Speaker 1: we're with Xbox three, SIXDPS three and the Nintendo we
Speaker 1: none of which have been we haven't heard any announcements
Speaker 1: of any kind of successor to any of those three consoles,
Speaker 1: and they've been out for much longer than four years.
Speaker 1: So Kolinski got fed up and and bolted in, said
Speaker 1: he wasn't going to do it anymore. And they brought
Speaker 1: in a guy named Bernie Stoller Um and he was
Speaker 1: really apparently uh uh, you know, go get him kind
Speaker 1: of guy. He's just, you know, let's not even talk
Speaker 1: about it, let's just go do it, you know, really
Speaker 1: really active person um. But he he was really pushing
Speaker 1: for the you know, the success of the new system,
Speaker 1: which went down in game console history. Um. I would
Speaker 1: I would argue that it's probably Sega's best loved system,
Speaker 1: even more so than the Genesis. It didn't sell that
Speaker 1: well necessarily, yeah, but it's got a reputation. I own
Speaker 1: one and I still love the system. Originally called the Katana,
Speaker 1: it came out as the Sega Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was
Speaker 1: a uh I love this video game system. The controls
Speaker 1: were really responsive, the graphics were amazing, the sound was phenomenal.
Speaker 1: It had a great video game library. It hit the
Speaker 1: market in uh it had a D eight bit graphics.
Speaker 1: It was it was way ahead of its competitors as
Speaker 1: far again. I mean that was the story of Sega
Speaker 1: the whole time, right, Whenever the consoles came out, they
Speaker 1: tended to be ahead of whatever their competitors were offering
Speaker 1: on the market at the time. At sixteen megabytes of memory,
Speaker 1: which to us today sounds really tiny, but at the
Speaker 1: time was really significant and uh it was. It actually
Speaker 1: had a built in modem. It was the first video
Speaker 1: game console to have a built in modem fifty sits
Speaker 1: per second modem, but it was the first one to
Speaker 1: have one. So it was actually designed to allow you
Speaker 1: to have online capability and play online games they had,
Speaker 1: and have a web browser as well. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize they had a web browser. Ye, well it was
Speaker 1: what wasn't native, It wasn't hardwired into it. You had
Speaker 1: to have the disc. Oh, they did have developers, uh
Speaker 1: you know, they had Capcom, Midway, Namco that you know
Speaker 1: that the usual arcade suspects. They didn't have Electronic Arts,
Speaker 1: who I think got very frustrated with having to do that.
Speaker 1: They having to deal with Sony's up and now Sega's
Speaker 1: up and downs us mostly downs. Um, So they actually
Speaker 1: went out and purchased another company to develop sports games. Um.
Speaker 1: And from what I understand, Virtual Concepts, which was the
Speaker 1: name of the company, did pretty well with sports and
Speaker 1: Church with Tennis was amazing. That was one of the
Speaker 1: games I owned, and it is still own. I still
Speaker 1: have this console. It was also kind of neat because
Speaker 1: you could want. One of the ways you could hook
Speaker 1: up the console to your system was through co x
Speaker 1: cable cable, so you would actually use you know, co
Speaker 1: x cable into the the Dreamcast and co x cable
Speaker 1: out from the Dreamcast to your television. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: using like the the composite cables that a lot of
Speaker 1: other systems were using. Uh. And it also meant that
Speaker 1: I could hook up more video game systems to my
Speaker 1: television because it was one less port that would be
Speaker 1: taken up by the machine. Now I understand too that
Speaker 1: this was a very, um a very productive time in
Speaker 1: the company's history for coming up with new franchises. UM.
Speaker 1: I believe sol Caliber is about the time another great game.
Speaker 1: Oh I've got that one too, crazy taxi game exactly.
Speaker 1: And And the thing is though that you know, even
Speaker 1: after the nine debut and the you know, the big
Speaker 1: launch in the Great Games, um, it just it just
Speaker 1: didn't it just didn't go. Um, and I'm not sure why.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the marketing strategy of the company. They Sega,
Speaker 1: see I keep doing that game. Companies that start with
Speaker 1: US for two, Sega of Japan and Sega of America
Speaker 1: did not necessarily agree on marketing strategy or how to
Speaker 1: bundle things, or the kinds of chips should be in
Speaker 1: the machines. They had to compete against PlayStation coming out
Speaker 1: with the PS two and Microsoft making the debut with
Speaker 1: the Xbox. And Microsoft did approached Sega as well with
Speaker 1: the idea of including Windows see E on the Dreamcast,
Speaker 1: and they said no. But why were they so interested
Speaker 1: in the game? Mark ye kind of shots off in
Speaker 1: the foot on that one. The and and let me
Speaker 1: let me close off. Let me talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about something else that you could tell where other companies
Speaker 1: took some inspiration from Sega. If you look at the
Speaker 1: old Dreamcast controller there's it bears a resemblance to the
Speaker 1: modern Xbox controllers and had the triggers. Um, it had
Speaker 1: a pretty wide uh controller form factor. Um, there was
Speaker 1: an analog joystick on there. Um. It also had a
Speaker 1: slot for memory cards. In fact, the memory cards had
Speaker 1: little screens on them, and you could actually have many
Speaker 1: games that would have pop up on the screen on
Speaker 1: your card that would be part of the bigger video
Speaker 1: game you're playing on the screen. And each game would
Speaker 1: have its own little individual special graphics that would pop
Speaker 1: up on your memory card. I love that. It was
Speaker 1: just such a neat thing, was added value for your games. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it uh it. Ultimately, this system also did
Speaker 1: not last the test of time, and in two thousand
Speaker 1: one January two thousand one, Sega made the decision to
Speaker 1: get out of the console market entirely and just concentrate
Speaker 1: on game development. Ye have stopped stopped actually producing Dreamcast
Speaker 1: in March of that year, and um, you know they've
Speaker 1: they've done pretty well releasing some games since then. U
Speaker 1: super Monkey Ball Anyone. Um, yeah, it's a great game. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's made its way to mobile
Speaker 1: gaming devices. Uh. You know, we didn't even talk about
Speaker 1: Sega's mobile gaming devices at all, but um, you know
Speaker 1: they it's available for mobile phones and other uh other
Speaker 1: things and uh platforms, I should say. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean they're known now as as a software developer. There
Speaker 1: they re emerged all their developing strategies into one unit.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a much leaner company than it was before. Um,
Speaker 1: a lot of the Sonic games, you know, even uh
Speaker 1: Sega's biggest star. I've heard mixed reviews on the Sega
Speaker 1: Sonic games that have come out in the last few years.
Speaker 1: So it's just um sort of it sort of reminds
Speaker 1: us of Sega's glory days without giving us the great
Speaker 1: uh speed and action that we've all come to know
Speaker 1: and love. So if you guys have any Sega stories
Speaker 1: you want to share, or perhaps there's another game company
Speaker 1: you would like us to cover. You know, we've talked
Speaker 1: about Atari, we talked about Sega. We have a couple
Speaker 1: of others on the list already. But yeah, we plan
Speaker 1: we'll probably have we'll have to do an episode about Sony.
Speaker 1: We'll have to do an episode. We have to do
Speaker 1: one on Nintendo. We might have to do one on
Speaker 1: the Dreamcast itself, because we kind of got that short. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's this podcast has gone really long, but um,
Speaker 1: the Dreamcast was a pretty phenomenal system. If you ever
Speaker 1: do have a chance to maybe pick one up at
Speaker 1: a used game store and you know what's gonna work.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and give it a try. It's a I
Speaker 1: was really impressed with it that The graphics, of course
Speaker 1: don't hold up to PS three or or Xbox three
Speaker 1: six quality, but they're they're pretty impressive even when you
Speaker 1: consider what their big competitors were. So anyway, you can
Speaker 1: let us know on Facebook or Twitter are handled. There
Speaker 1: is tech Stuff hs W, or you can shoot us email.
Speaker 1: That address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot
Speaker 1: com and Chris and I will talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. To learn more about
Speaker 1: the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the upper
Speaker 1: right corner of our homepage. The house Stuff Works iPhone
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