It's especially a shame because the DC didn't really fail per say, it had enough of a market share to sustain itself and keep sega afloat. The problem was that it was the first hardware success sega had in the console market since the Genesis, and they had lost so much money on the SegaCD, 32X, Saturn, and whatever else they were flooding the market with that they were so far in the red they couldn't survive. I remember reading an interview with someone from Sega saying that in order to make up for their past mistakes they'd have to pretty much have one if every household. Obviously, they weren't going to do that. Looking back on it, you have to wonder if they just knew that there was no way they couldn't do it, but it was a way of buying time or something. Or perhaps they would have been happy to go to the line and risk going down completely with the hardware business until they merged with Sammy.
In either case, it's a bit of a shame. When you think about SEGA, they really did provide something for the market that no one else did, and it just isn't the same anymore. They countered Nintendo quite nicely, and were polar opposites in many ways, it just didn't work out. Nintendo does so well by playing it safe. You know for every console there pretty much will be a Mario game, a zelda game, and maybe a metroid game that may be worth the price. Nintendo keeps going back to these franchises because they know they'll sell software and hardware, and knowing that they can dedicate the time and resources necessary to make every one great. Sega, on the other hand, was completely different. They had a solid stable of franchises, but rather then relying upon them they'd rather take risks and release something new, possibly artistic, and probably critically acclaimed but lacking mainstream appeal. IT was very hit or miss, and by the time they had to start making money on EVERY game they released it was a bit too late. They couldn't throw the money into the classic franchises in order to ensure that they'd be top tier, and a lot of them suffered.
I guess now that they're pure software they're starting to do it a bit more, but because they aren't looking at selling hardware and because they have different priorities it looks like a lot of these franchises are going to suffer. We've all played recent Sonic games, and we've all probably been letdown. You could probably just brush it off because Sonic is certainly one of those 2d platformers that you could tell wouldn't make the transition to modern 3d well, much like Castlevania, but it's the other franchises that are really dying.
For years people wanted a new Shining Force game or a remake of SF3. When they released SF for the GBA people were pumped about what could be coming, and then they announced a return of the franchise. Except it wasn't the same game at all. Hell, it wasn't even in the same genre. The Shining franchise had always been a bit all over the map. Dungeon Crawlers, action rpgs, and the main Shining Force SRPG series. If there was 'force' in the title, it was an SRPG. Not anymore. I think in the last three years or so there has been like 6 shining games, three of which were Force games. Every one of them a sub-par action rpg. It doesn't even really make sense.
Now they're bringing back NiGHTS. I've always thought it was a pretty wicked game, but don't hold the same level of revere as some do for it. It's perfect for what it is, but the subculture around it is fucking ridiculous. I imagine NiGHTS 2 to be a failure in some way or another. It could be great, but the fans of the original will hate it just because they don't want to accept that things have changed in the last 10 years. It might be bad all around, or it could fall somewhere in between. Either way, it will be interesting to see where it goes.
And on that note, it seems that Sega is finally re-releasing the original NiGHTS, but for the PS2. I think it will be bundled with Xmas NiGHTS as well, but that's all that's really known so far. I hope it gets released here, because the game is a major headache to play without hardware acceleration for the graphics.
But, back to the topic a bit more - JGR looks great rendered in a higher res with full AA. I guess it held up so well because of the style, but I'm pretty impressed.
