<story><title>Mid-1990s Sega document leak shows how it lost the second console war to Sony</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/07/mid-1990s-sega-document-leak-shows-how-it-lost-the-second-console-war-to-sony/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mkjonesuk</author><text>I was in my mid-teens and a big gamer when Sony entered the ring with the PlayStation and I still cannot to this day get over the fact that they actually did it and became the dominant force in gaming.&lt;p&gt;I remember thinking it was just another fad like the Minidisc and because they had no clear mascot like Mario or Sonic it was bound to fail.&lt;p&gt;Next thing I knew the Saturn was a joke and everyone I knew had a PlayStation. The ads were EVERYWHERE and people I knew who had never even owned a games console were buying the PS1.&lt;p&gt;When the PS2 was announced I was also blindly convinced the Dreamcast would compete but the PS2 just DOMINATED. Literally everyone I knew had one (not me sadly) it was a stunning thing to behold. When games like GTA3 hit I knew Sega were done for.&lt;p&gt;I personally only connected with the Sony handheld unit owning a PSP and I also eventually got a Vita. Other than UMD they were (still are) awesome little devices to play with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mdasen</author><text>I can believe Sony did it. The PlayStation hit a lot of the right buttons at the right time.&lt;p&gt;Sega was dead by the time the Saturn landed. Sega burnt too many fans when they launched the Sega CD and 32X just to abandon them nearly immediately. Parents didn&amp;#x27;t want to hear that Sega was launching yet another system. Sega launched 3 consoles in 2.5 years in North America. Sega burnt all their goodwill.&lt;p&gt;Video games can be an industry of momentum and trust. If you keep launching and abandoning products, you lost the trust and momentum. Developers don&amp;#x27;t want to commit to a system you&amp;#x27;ll abandon. Gamers don&amp;#x27;t want to buy a system you&amp;#x27;re going to abandon. Sega had shown that it would abandon systems at the first hiccup - and try to get you to buy junk.&lt;p&gt;Sega&amp;#x27;s Saturn was also a weird system. It decided to use quadrilaterals instead of triangles and was complex which makes it harder to use effectively.&lt;p&gt;Nintendo&amp;#x27;s N64 would be launching a year after the PlayStation. While the N64 might have had more 3D capabilities, many of the games on the system didn&amp;#x27;t look as good and the 3D gameplay wasn&amp;#x27;t as compelling as the PlayStation&amp;#x27;s.&lt;p&gt;Not only that, PlayStation games were so much cheaper! At $50&amp;#x2F;game, it was just a ton more affordable than the $70 that N64 games were going for. By the time that the N64 came out, the PlayStation had a huge library of excellent games that were cheap. You even started to see older games for $25.&lt;p&gt;Sony&amp;#x27;s brand at the time was like gold. Everyone wanted anything with the Sony label on it. It can be hard to remember what a dominant force Sony was in consumer electronics. They were like Apple back then. When people heard that Sony was coming out with a video game system, everyone would think that it would be the best just based on the brand. Parents would hear the Sony name and think quality and reliability. Especially if they had been burned by Sega, the PlayStation from Sony seemed like buying the best product that would last.&lt;p&gt;Nintendo still did well. They have their niche. Sega had destroyed their reputation while Sony was the most admired electronics company out there. The PlayStation offered people a non-Nintendo system that they didn&amp;#x27;t feel would be abandoned and by the time the N64 came out it was established with an amazing game library that the N64 couldn&amp;#x27;t match.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mid-1990s Sega document leak shows how it lost the second console war to Sony</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2023/07/mid-1990s-sega-document-leak-shows-how-it-lost-the-second-console-war-to-sony/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mkjonesuk</author><text>I was in my mid-teens and a big gamer when Sony entered the ring with the PlayStation and I still cannot to this day get over the fact that they actually did it and became the dominant force in gaming.&lt;p&gt;I remember thinking it was just another fad like the Minidisc and because they had no clear mascot like Mario or Sonic it was bound to fail.&lt;p&gt;Next thing I knew the Saturn was a joke and everyone I knew had a PlayStation. The ads were EVERYWHERE and people I knew who had never even owned a games console were buying the PS1.&lt;p&gt;When the PS2 was announced I was also blindly convinced the Dreamcast would compete but the PS2 just DOMINATED. Literally everyone I knew had one (not me sadly) it was a stunning thing to behold. When games like GTA3 hit I knew Sega were done for.&lt;p&gt;I personally only connected with the Sony handheld unit owning a PSP and I also eventually got a Vita. Other than UMD they were (still are) awesome little devices to play with.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grepfru_it</author><text>The load times bro, I could not get on the CD based bandwagon.  I played Sewer Shark on the Sega CD and the load times where miserable. I even thought the resolution was abysmal (compared to my PC at the time). No way it would win, I thought.  By christmas of 97 I had a PS1 and spent all day playing Tomb Raider.  The hardware was beyond any other console and the design was slick and new. And while Sony won, and my Saturn sat in the corner collecting dust, the N64 was the only system that came out when my friends came over.  Nothing could compete with 4 player mario kart or starfox. Sega was dead before the dreamcast even came out.</text></comment>