Hello again!

Today I want to focus on the story of Sega post Sega Saturn age particularly because the story just isn't really well known to the American audience--to my knowledge (and I'm sorry I don't really have websites as references), Saturn was simply DOMINATING the market in Japan against PSX...hard to believe right? First, you have to understand a bit about the Japanese culture

In Japan, Anime (which is basically their version of cartoon...things like Dragonball, Pokemon and Digimon are Anime because they originated from Japan...Simpsons, Futurama and South Park would be cartoons since they originated from U.S.) has been around for as long as I can remember. You might have heard of it because its popularity has been increasing at an exponential rate recently. To show how they're different, here are few screenshots from some Anime series








And here are some of screenshots from American cartoons







(I'm sorry if the photo sizes are all different...I don't know how to change them without affecting the quality of the photos)

There are numerous types of Anime--comedy, romance, action, horror, thriller, etc. What Sega did is offer many Anime-esque games...

Credit to MedionSF


Credits to tapamn


They offered a really unique gaming experience--so unique, in fact, that Sega of America judged that the American market was not ready for these anime-esque games (which is really what made Saturn so popular...I've played some of these great games since I was still living in Korea) and decided to publish more Arcade-based games, like Virtual Cop...Sega Rally Game...etc. Fortunately for Sony, Final Fantasy VII was a global success, which established PSX as THE system for RPG (and other blockbuster) games and Sega started to trail behind. Rest is history--Dreamcast came out...did OK until PS2 came out...Sega ended up leaving game hardware market.

I still remember when I returned to America, I immediately bought a Sega Saturn because the system had many great games...however, I found out that none of them left Japan (and since I was 9 years old back then, I didn't fully understand why). I ended up buying PSX because of FFVII and other great RPGs that followed afterwards (most of which weren't for Sega Saturn); I also bought Sega Dreamcast on its debut day because I still had faith in Sega, but Sega was basically dying by that point and Sony was the game console leader.

IF the Anime industry was as well established back then as it is today, and IF Sega of America brought all of its successful (which were all anime-esque games), then I truly believe that Sega would have beaten Sony in game console market...however, Saturn simply was not ready for the American market and Sony was fortuitous to have FFVII in its lineup

From next blog post, I'll briefly cover PS2 and finally move on to World of Warcraft--what the hell is it? Why is it so popular? Etc etc.

EDIT:
I forgot to mention...
Also, Genesis (and as matter of fact SNES) also had these anime-esque games--again, from what I heard from my cousins, Genesis was also doing better than SNES in Japan. Sega had a dedicated fanbase prior to Saturn's release, which just contributed to its dominance in Japan

I came across a youtube video, showcasing some of unreleased SNES (which is known as Super Famicon in Japan) games, just to give a flavor of what the American market missed out
Credit to Gaian000

Note: the FIRST game that's shown on the video is based off an Anime "Yu Yu Hakusho"

My-interesting-exit-link-of-the-post:
Gamer's Haven
It's arguably THE BEST RESOURCE SITE for all your console gaming needs...basically all the guides and reviews they have are written and updated BY gamers FOR gamers

I remember when Nintendo first came out with its first console system--the NES...although I was ~5 years old back then, I still remember watching my older cousins play Mario...Zelda... and some other games I can't remember well...since I was living with my relatives in Korea back then, all of the games were in Japanese.

Small random fact: Game translation industry was basically non-existent back then in Korea (and to my knowledge, it still doesn't really exist even today)...what ended up happening was players had to refer to gaming magazines or websites for translations...why? I don't really know the reasoning behind it, but geographically, Korea is adjacent to Japan, so all the newest games out of Japan was available in Korea almost immediately (although they were at exorbitant prices; each game was ~$150...considering that standard of living and average salary in Korea was much less than of U.S.'s, games really were outside of many young gamers' reach)...so what ended up happening was that bootleg versions of games were sold widely in stores so that you can buy PSX/Sega Saturn games for ~$5 rather than ~$150. I don't really remember how much NES/SNES/Genesis game packs ran for since I was still ~7 years old and didn't care much about pricing or marketing...my cousins were trading games amongst themselves so that they didn't have to buy all the games they wanted to play


Of course, because I was ~5 years old, my cousin forbade me from touching and playing his precious NES since I'd potentially do something stupid and possibly ruin the system...all I got to do was get some Q-tip and clean game cartridges because dust usually accumulated in the cartridge. I grew up by watching my cousins play games (which wasn't really a bad thing--I like watching people play games)--they were huge fans of RPG games since RPG games arguably offered the most bang-for-the-buck (each game would take anywhere from 30 to 70+ hours to complete...not to mention you can always replay the games). Back in the days, RPG games required a lot of level grinding, so the chore of level grinding was given to me (woopydoo) and they would reap the benefits by progressing through the game. This trend basically continued to the days of SNES/Genesis, until I returned to U.S.


Since the game industry was still just a fledging back then, the games were pretty rudimentary (at least in comparison to modern games).
The following video, by laffer35, is a nice montage of all genres of NES games--sports, multiplayer shoot-em-up, RPG (Role Playing Games), etc



And just to inject something more interesting into this entry, here's a video of what's called a "speedrun"--basically, you try to beat the game as fast as possible

NES Mario Speedrun by joshyleearm:


Few years later, Super Nintendo (nicknamed SNES) and Sega Genesis entered the market. Suddenly the graphics were much better! These much more capable systems enabled game producers to produce much more quality games--more content, better graphics, better music...just better everything.

The biggest appeal for me were still RPG games--they offered solid storyline and long playtimes, not to mention they were extremely fun. I grew up playing/watching Final Fintasy...Dragon Quest...Chrono Trigger...Secret of Mana...etc

Again, here's another montage showing SNES games (again thanks to laffer35)


Now here's an interesting question for you gamers...do you remember Sega Saturn? If answer is yes...why did it fail so miserably in U.S. when PSX was dominating the competition? I'll answer this question for the next blog entry :)

Before I exit, here's food for thought--did you know that avg. age of gamers is 33 years old?
Here's a fun site you can visit to digest more gamer statistics

Gamer Statistics

The beginning

Hello

My name's Kay and I'm currently studying Business Administration at University of Southern California. In this blog I want to incorporate what I learned from USC (regarding business related topics, such as marketing) and my lifelong hobby of gaming. Specifically, I want to take a look at how games have evolved from the days of Nintendo to the world of Guitar Hero, World of Warcraft and Nintendo Wii that we see today.

Some of the subtopics that will pop up would include things like emerging online gaming lingo, social networks that have sprouted out, how game developers market, how console game trends are constantly changing, etc.

However, my blog will probably end up scrutinizing Blizzard & its games (Starcraft, Diablo and most significantly, World of Warcraft, which I will start referring to as WoW) in the weeks to come--I'll incorporate my personal experiences and then-emerging gaming trends

Wikipedia has a nice summary of WoW:

World of Warcraft by Wikipedia

I would just like to exit with a fanart of WoW to give flavor of the game...