Namco and Sega

[Scourge]

Originally posted by diffusionx
There's one flaw in your theory, and its big enough to undermine it completely: arcade games. Sega's arcade games were consistently the MOST POPULAR in Japan, and in fact it was pretty much 100% because of arcade ports that kept the Saturn afloat over there. And while calling something the most popular in arcades is like damning with faint praise here in the USA, arcades still have life in Japan, and definitely did way back in 1996. So, really, the Sega name did have some worth behind it, once upon a time.

True enough. That doesn't change the fact that SEGA has been in a freefall financially for more than half a decade. Plus, arcade ports may have kept the Saturn afloat over there, but SEGA was still in the red, so it wasn't much of a life raft. Plus, the arcade business has been heading down the shitter in Japan for the past 5 or 6 years, certainly taking a turn for the worse in the past 3 to 4.

SEGA is an institution in Japanese arcades, yes, so they do have some brand name heft there, but it doesn't really translate to the home market for them, not in the numbers they need. If they stuck to only arcade ports for home systems, they'd probably make their bottom line if they got rid of the devs for everything else and cut their company down to one or two dev houses, but their output would be real slim and their company would be tiny, so it wouldn't exactly equal the SEGA we think of.

--Scourge .

[Kinopio]

I don't think the SEGA name hurts them, atleast from my experience(which limits me to the US). Sports is different, because it is more of a loyalty to EA than it is a grudge against SEGA. Even with that loyalty, NBA2k and NFL2k sold great on the dreamcast, and so did a couple other games like Crazy Taxi. Blaming the SEGA name is a poor excuse. I think it has more to do with making games with mass-appeal and backing that up with solid advertisements. They rarely do either.

[Frogacuda]

***]Originally posted by Jeremy *****]
I think Sega's prime was during 93-94 when they had the VF games and Daytona tearing up arcades.

Sega absolutely owned the arcades uncontested from 1985 until 1995. They were always 2 steps ahead in technology, and had the addictive gameplay and stylish presentation to bring in the quarters.

[Tracer]

Besides sports games, Sega's name isn't that tainted. Just in the way of hardware they are. Sonic will still sell more than Tekken on a system with a signifigantly smaller installed base. PD Orta jumped into #14 on the NPD top 20 on its debut. A shooter entering in the top 20 is phenominal and I attribute it to being A: Very pretty and B: GREAT TV marketing. On that note: I think Sega is doing perfectly fine on marketing (now) and in running thier business in general EXCEPT: thier opperating cost is likely way too high. A merger doesn't fix that and there is no really good way to market something like JSRF I suppose.

[Jeremy]

Sega owning them consistently from 85 to 95? I don't think so... Street Fighter II definitely took a nice chunk out of their arcade business, but yes, technology wise, they were always ahead of the pack.

[xS]

1985= Choplifter, Hangon, Sega Ninja, Space Harrier
1986= Enduro Racer, Fantasy Zone, Outrun, Quartet 1 and 2
1987= After burner 1 and 2, Alien Syndrome, wonderboy in monsterland, Thunder blade
1988= Wonderboy 3, Gang Hunter, Turbo Outrun, Gain Ground
1989- E Swat, Golden Axe, Shadow Dancer, Bay route, Galaxy force 2
1990= alien storm, columnns 1 and 2, moonwalker(the shooter), Rad Mobile, Aurail, GP Rider,
1991= Rad Rally, Riot City, f1 exhaust note
1992= Golden axe: 2(arcade), outrunners, Super Hang On, Puyo Puyo, Virtua Racer,
1993= Alien 3, Virtua cop
1994= puyo puyo 2, Jurassic park, stack columns,Torymun, Daytona USA, Cool Riders, Virtua cop 2
1995= Virtua fighter 2, Indy 500, Fighting Vipers, VF Kids, Sega Rally, Virtual On, Virtua Striker, Baku Baku Animal

Atari and Midway also rocked the arcades. And so did Capcom Taito, and Atlus. Konami and Nintendo have always been good in the home market.

Namco is decent... I like their Tales of ___ games and Ridge Racer, and Time Crisis rock.... but seriously.... Tekken 4 and D2R were awful. And Soul Calibur 2 is badly fractured from what we hear.

[ChaoofNee]

Hmm...
Either way, this'll be very interesting. I don't care what happens, I just don't want my Sega to die...

...and I think N'Segamco would be a kick ass company-name.

[NeoZeedeater]

I wouldn't count Gang Hunter(Dead Angle) as a Sega game unless you count the SMS port.

Did Rescue Mission and Penguin Land have arcade versions? Or were you listing home games in there as well?

[xS]

I just listed em. I just compiled a list of what I could remember. I'll remove them anyways.

[NeoZeedeater]

Ah okay. If we were including home games, 8-bit and 16-bit, Namco would look even worse compared to Sega. Namco's best NES/TG-16/Genesis/SNES games are not in the same league as Sega's best games from back then.