SEGA SAMMY CONSUMER HARDWARE ROADMAP (WORLD EXCLUSIVE REPORT PART 1)
- 05/11/09
Today we would like to present to you part 1 of our world exclusive report in which we shed light on SEGA SAMMY's plan for a HD casual system in development since 2007 and scheduled for worldwide release for the holiday season of 2010.
History
At the end of 1999 SEGA held a press conference where they laid out their hardware ambitions and talked extensively about broadband and a whole host of future technologies. Shoichiro Irimajiri was stated here as saying that SEGA would strike back with a vengeance in the next millenium. By Spring 2000 Irimajiri-san was already tasked with heading the development of SEGA's next console, Irimajiri was stated as saying that it would be a joint venture with numerous companies because the future box would do more than just play videogames thus they had to partner with cable companies, telecommuncation companies and Hollywood conglomerates. The aim for the design was a single chip solution measuring in at 250 million transistors ready for a Q4 2004 worldwide release. What is not known by the mainstream is that SEGA at this time was also in early stages of development for a 3D handheld which was to be based on the chip that went on to be known as the MBX developed by Imagination Technologies PowerVR division. The PowerVR MBX hit silicon in 2002 about the time SEGA had initially planned on launching a new Game Gear. This device would have beaten the PSP to market by 2 years. All of these plans where scrapped however by Isao Okawa who foresaw a software future for the company, the rest of the company however where vehemently against the idea of software only.
Fast forward a few years to early 2003 when Hideki Sato and the rest of SEGA's high level executives were desperately in search for either a merger or even a sale of the company. The discussions where being held with Sammy, Namco, EA and Microsoft. Again what is not known to the general public is that the reason for SEGA's desperation was that at this very moment SEGA had yet another system in development which had a worldwide target ship date of Q4 2005. This system would have competed against what went on to be known as the XBOX360 and Sony's PS3. The system was designed around a PowerVR Series 5 GPU and an unknown CPU, using standard DVD it was to be a cost/performance solution targeting a $300 launch price tag whilst simultaneously incorporating equal 3D throughput as the higher priced offerings by the competition. SEGA and Imagination Technologies on the 18th of March 2004 released a press release regarding the development of the chip for arcade use. Come Jamma 2005 when the world was expecting SEGA to unveil it's PowerVR based arcade board everyone was shocked to learn of the LINDBERGH which was basically a PC tower with an nVidia 6800GT and a Intel Pentium 4 3GHz Prescott. Whatever happened to the PowerVR based integrated silicon arcade board? Simple, the console that was to be based on the arcade board was scrapped by the newly formed SEGA SAMMY. With no console counterpart for the arcade board it wasn't financially feasible to spend tens and indeed hundreds of millions of dollars on integrated silicon thus SEGA quietly without telling anyone just took a mother board and slotted in components from a mid range PC from 2004 and called it "LINDBERGH". The PowerVR Series 5 whose development SEGA funded lived on however as the PowerVR SGX series of mobile GPU's. The Series 5 architecture was designed to be highly scaleable, low end parts for mobile phones and high end parts for arcade boards and consoles, unfortunately the world never got to see the performance of the higher end variants.
So to recap -
There was a next gen system in development in 2000 which was scrapped by owner Isao Okawa and there was a next gen system in development in 2003/2004 which was scrapped by Isao Okawa's friend and new owner Hajime Satomi.
Present and Future
With the Nintendo Wii hitting retail and gaining worldwide superstardom of the likes never witnessed SEGA SAMMY once again immediately got to work on another system with orders from the boss himself Satomi-san. This system shall be a HD casual console and is designed to compete with the successor to the Wii. The design of the system FGN can officially confirm was finalised in late 2008, it's arcade variant goes by the name "RINGEDGE" the specifications of the system are as follows.
The chosen CPU is the Intel Pentium E2160 Allendale 1.8GHz Dual-Core Processor, the GPU of choice is the Shader Model 4.0 compliant 9600GSO with 384 MB GDDR3 RAM, System memory measuring 1GB DDR2-800. Other features include an onboard HD audio DSP, 32GB SSD, standard DVD, and WiFi connectivity. SEGA SAMMY plans on shipping the system with two controllers, a motion sensing remote and one which looks similar to the Saturn 3D controller. One for casual gaming the other for non-casual. To top this off SEGA SAMMY shall be using a stripped down version of Microsoft's Windows Embedded Standard 2009 for ease of development. This particular version differs from the standard version where only the DirectX functionality is included, the standard edition costs $90 per shipping device. As SEGA SAMMY's version doesn't include the non gaming features SEGA SAMMY has managed to get a hold of the OS for less than half of that cost.
SEGA SAMMY plans on launching the system in time for the holiday season of 2010 for no less than $200 and no more than $250. The company doesn't plan on publically acknowledging the project this year, thus an official announcement won't take place until 1H 2010.
Stay tuned for part 2 of our world exclusive where we shed light on SEGA SAMMY's consumer plans for the "RINGWIDE"
- Zach Morris
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