On Fri, 15 Mar 1996 KenP7672_at_aol.com wrote:
> This is to all concerned -
>
> SEGA has a very strong vested interest in the little blue critter. The
> problem is maintaining fan support among the GAMING SYSTEMS, from what I can
> tell. Let's put it this way. There was Atari, then the Commodore, then the
> Amiga, then finally Nintendo unleashed the Super Mario Bros. and became a
> monster. SEGA struck back with SONIC on the GENESIS SYSTEM and defeated
> Mario. They countered with GAME GEAR which was superior to Game Boy. They
> came out with the CD SYSTEM while Nintendo was reeling with the Super NES.
> But then came the 3DO and SONY PLAYSTATION and other CD format systems,
> creating confusion in the market place. Instead of getting the SATURN out to
> counter these other systems, SEGA made a Nintendo-like mistake by coming out
> with the 32-X.
SOA still have loads of support on all their platforms (except the 32X).
But like I keep saying, both Sega companies have decided to push Sonic
onto the back burner to let their new "heroes" pave the way. To quote the
head of SOJ, "We don't want Sonic running the Saturn the same way he ran
the MegaDrive..."
If you look at the Saturn, people are buying it for Sega Rally
Championship and Virtua Fighter 2, they aren't buying it in hopes of
playing V Sonic or Fighting Sonic. And as for Fighting Sonic, SOA have
said outright that they won't release the game in the states. Perhaps a
ton of mail to them may change this.
As for confusion, there is some, but not as much as you think. There is
an old saying in gamer's circles, "Buy a system for it's games, not for
it's specs."
> Right now, there's a shake-up going on in the marketplace. Only so much
> product can receive public support before the public says enough and clamors
> for sanity. The public right now wants to feel they aren't buying a system
> that'll be out of date by next year. So far, the best compromise seems to be
> buying games you can play on your PC, instead of messingaround trying to
> figure out which is the best system to get.
Actually, videogame systems are much more stable than PC's. A videogame
system takes on average 5 years to become phased out, a new PC does this
in about 6 months. Not to mention that a computer is a serious investment
for some people, if all they want to do is play games, what can beat
paying $90 for a system and then around $50 for games, not to mention
that a videogame system is much easier to use and doesn't require its
user to understand OS's.
> People like me are frustrated because while I like SEGA gaming systems and
> SONIC THE HEDGEHOG games as well as a variety of others, right now games are
> going exclusively with certain systems instead of being available for every
> platform like they used to be. For instance, I'm looking forward to playing
> the new GOLDENEYE game, but it's ONLY going to be made available for the
> latest Nintendo system. And you're going to see more and more of this sort of
> thing as companies fight for a bigger piece of the market share.
Well, unless I was mistaken, Sonic is Sega's mascot, and will only ever
be available on Sega based systems, and perhaps PC's (with the correct
liscencing agreements), but you won't ever see Sonic on the Playstation
or on the U64. Cross-liscencing only occurs when the 3rd part company
finds that all the 1st party companies will support it.
> SEGA will support SONIC because of his acceptance in the marketplace. They
> just may tend to downplay him because they may feel he only attracts a
> certain segment of the market, and they want to reach a broader audience.
> Only if the fan base makes its support of SONIC known to SEGA will the
> corporate suits be able to determine the breadth and depth of that support.
Yes they will, but I always hear talk about this "market segment".
Perhaps you hadn't figured it out by now, but the white-coats working at
SOA have absolutely NO idea what we want. This has been proven time and
time again. And a broader audience? The average age of a US Genesis
owner is 18, and the average age of a US Sega CD owner is 21, basically
college students like myself. Those with lots of money to burn. But
again, its SOA's white-coats who think we want games like Corpse Killer,
instead of our "childish" Sonic games. This is where the problem comes in.
> SONIC isn't dead. Not by a long shot.
Sonic will never die so long as there are fans like us to keep him alive.
Kiken signing off.
ASOBIWA...OWARIDA!
Sayonara.
This message from the Baltimore Ronin,
homepage at:
http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~cmugg1
Ikuze!
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Received on Fri Mar 15 1996 - 13:54:06 PST