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[Geometric-Crusher]

Let me be clear, Microsoft is a colossus, a trillion-dollar company, but the Xbox division is a grain of sand, yes, a giant grain of sand. But let's be fair, the division is in decline, closing studios, lack of perspective, in other words, they have exhausted themselves after 20 years of being smoked by Playstation.

Sega on the other hand is on the rise, Sonic is popular again, the purchase of Atlus gave Sega the powerful Persona franchise, Like a Dragon (formerly Yakuza) is a franchise that has reached the West. We cannot forget the reboots that Sega is making to launch on an unspecified platform.

Xbox has Game Pass as its strong point (but GP is stagnant) otherwise it's a bad Playstation imo.

For a company to be competitive in the gaming market it needs to have franchises that sell at least 5 million units, we know that Halo 5 sold 5 million but Microsoft didn't feel confident in selling Halo Infinite.

With this information in mind, I ask Can Sega compete better than the Xbox division against Sony Playstation in the next generation?

Microsoft itself helped create this new phase of the industry where all consoles are multiplatform, very different from that time when only the Playstation had GTA, FF and Tekken. I believe Sega has the potential to surpass the Sega Genesis if they decide to return.

 

[Ozzie666]

No, the Sega dream is dead. They failed more than they succeeded at the hardware game. They do not have the money to compete in the current industry as a console manufacturer.
Sega Genesis was not the success you seem to think it was and post 1993 it ended up killing them. All the unsold stock, returned consoles. It was all a mirage.

 

[ManaByte]

This was SOJ:

 

[Moridianae]

Okay, so Xbox is going to deviate into more of a multi-platform situation.

Why is the narrative shifting to Sony is evil because they're the top console?

Microsoft made a lot of mistakes that led them down this road, some particularly severe like the Xbox One reveal in 2013, which was really rough, or going with two systems of varying power, tying developers to make games for a "weak link" and causing issues.

Not altogether dissimilar from Sega themselves with the 32X and Sega Saturn.

 

[feynoob]

 

[Hero_Select]

I think you're vastly overinflating Sega. They're better than they used t be for sure but there's a number of Publishers that are way ahead of them in terms of output.

So. No.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

Sega and Microsoft are similarly incompetent, but Microsoft is incompetent and rich.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

They do not have the money to compete in the current industry as a console manufacturer.

prejudice . How much do you think it costs to do the research and development of a next gen console, put it on the market, marketing budget and supply it with four triple-A games annually? My answer depends on the scope of the project.
I think Sega's biggest advantage compared to the Xbox division is the prospect of something new.

 

[bitbydeath]

From a purely gaming perspective I prefer Sega’s IP over Microsofts. Sega has similar worldwide appeal as both Sony and Nintendo do.

They could have sold a lot better than Xbox due to this had they the funds to keep going.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

From a purely gaming perspective I prefer Sega’s IP over Microsofts. Sega has similar worldwide appeal as both Sony and Nintendo do.

They could have sold a lot better than Xbox due to this had they the funds to keep going.

not so much, only now does Sega have franchises capable of sustaining a platform. It's the first time since the Sega Genesis days
but I think Sega just needs a franchise like Halo or Gears, a franchise that has fans, to be honest it's better than trying to create a franchise from the ground but I know it's very expensive so the best option is to let third party offer this type of game.
I think it's very difficult for them to do worse than what Microsoft currently does.

 

[EDMIX]

I have a wild take on this and sorry for the baby forest I'm about to write. so...TLDR warning.

no...

 

[nial]

SEGA has a varied output for sure, but they just literally can't produce a new console with all the money and expertise required to do so. I'll tell you; it's a pretty insane amount.
Could they do a Wii U-like strategy and release a cheap console with PS5 power in 2027 or so to entice kids with a Sonic exclusive? Maybe, not sure if it's worth the almost guaranteed disaster, though.

 

[lh032]

No of course.

No one can defeat greatness.

 

[ReBurn]

Sure, why not? Someone has to pull for the underdog.

 

[polybius80]

they will require a cheap but capable console and only if suddenly they develop/get something like 20 exclusive games per year all of them hits, all their games are exclusive to their console from now on and somehow get all ip's konami has, that is to establish themselves as platform quickly, then we will have to see how much third party and indie support they get

given how good steamdeck was received I dont think its too crazy idea, also it will give them more sales if the system is open maybe linux based but all that is to compete against nintendo segment so a portable system seems more viable and interesting

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

they will require a cheap but capable console

I agree, I think that betting on a gpu 65% of the xbox next gen but with a more powerful cpu, could give them 60 frames as a selling point, this would justify the worse quality in multiplats, but in their exclusive games no one would realize it was a lower console.

and only if suddenly they develop something like 20 games themselves per year all of them hits

Every console has its destiny in the first and second generation of games, Ideally, Sonic Frontiers 2 or similar games need to go viral.
I don't think they would go in alone. Capcom and Ubisoft support any product and use it as a laboratory for new franchises, some indie companies would also enter too.

given how good steamdeck was received I dont think its too crazy idea

SteamDeck is an excellent example, Valve makes little profit from the hardware but it makes a profit, this console must not have cost a billion dollars. The downside is not having exclusives (something that in theory Sega would have) and almost zero marketing budget, Steamdeck sells based on word of mouth. SteamDeck sells 1 million a year, a Sega system can't sell less than 6 million a year, that's what a healthy return demands.

 

[Little Chicken]

No, they can barely make a decent Sonic game.

 

[TheTony316]

Okay, so Xbox is going to deviate into more of a multi-platform situation.

Why is the narrative shifting to Sony is evil because they're the top console?

Microsoft made a lot of mistakes that led them down this road--not altogether dissimilar from Sega themselves with the 32X and Sega Saturn.

People need a scapegoat.

 

[{insert code here}]

As someone who prefers Eastern games/media.. having Sega back in the console race would be tits. They're more Japan-centric than Sony and I would be there day-fucking one. There's an audience for it but it's never gonna happen.

 

[EDMIX]

As someone who prefers Eastern games/media.. having Sega back in the console race would be tits. They're more Japan-centric than Sony and I would be there day-fucking one. There's an audience for it but it's never gonna happen.

The deep lolz.

One of them lost the console market, the other is the leader.

SEGA can be more Japan centric, it works for them, but even if they did make a system, to survive, they would clearly need to branch out and make sure their audience was world wide, not merely just "japan" as to why Sony is the market leader...

So because Sony already has the content from Sega, Square, Capcom etc, they can focus on making content for other markets to make sure Playstation is successful around the world and not merely just Japan. So Sega as just a publisher can focus on Japan and do just fine, Sony as a console maker very much can't do that and survive.

So I agree an audience exist, but not enough to hold up an entire platform. None of those games are moving Horizon, Last Of Us, God Of War or Spiderman numbers or something. So I live SEGA, I love em enough to ever want to see them making a system putting them at risk to close down forever or something.

They are fine as publishers right now, maybe even in a better place as a publisher then console maker imho.

 

[nush]

Sonic is popular again

The volume of Sonic fan art created does not indicate real life popularity.

 

[Scotty W]

Sega has not been able to make a single great 3d Sonic game in 30 years, or make any relevant advances on the core gameplay of the 2d games since 94. It cannot be said enough, Sega is a stupid broken company that occasionally makes great games.

 

[Kamina]

If only sega were to release a new console called Sega Uranus

 

[intheinbetween]

Sega is overrated nowadays, nostalgia plays a big role in that premise OP. They are failing to deliver a decent Sonic title, which was the last good Sonic entry? Sonic Adventures 2? Then they fail to deliver a new Virtua Fighter and have forgotten great IPs such as JSR, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis, among many others.

 

[SkylineRKR]

First of all MS is going (partially) multiplatform for a reason.

Sega isn't moving numbers big enough to sustain hardware. Atlus is nice and all, but Persona is a success if it sells about 3-4 million. The same would go for Like a Dragon. And this is on multiple platforms. Sonic has the potential, his popularity seems to be at its height even. I see Sonic everywhere nowadays, I see kids in Sonic garb, I see merch. The movies make like half a billion a piece too. He seems to be an even bigger deal than on the Genesis today. But the games are still lacking in quality. Sega hasn't figured out how to make a Sonic game that lights everything up and carries them through a generation. While I think the Sonic brand itself has the potential to do so. It requires a game that puts people on notice, like Nintendo managed to do most of the times with Mario and Zelda. Even Zelda nowadays dwarfs Sonic in sales. And they do it at a continous full price. These kind of successes can sell systems.

What Sega misses otherwise, is this IP everyone wants. On top of that, many of their legacy IP were never big sellers. I doubt those remakes will make a dent.

 

[ahtlas7]

The answer to your question came in 2001.

 

[Barakov]

No. As much as I would love a Dreamcast 2, this would be a good move for Sega. Sony would have to make a policy so draconian for 3rd parties fore Sega to even think about re-entering the console space.

Yes, Sega has some well known characters but nothing on Sony's level. Sonic is super well known but the brand isn't what it once was. Even Sonic at his height was still dwarfed by Mario. You need more than money to make it in this industry and Sony has proven this again and again. That's why Xbox is in it's current position. Sega could've recovered but bad management was one of the reasons for them going 3rd party. Sega and Xbox are similar in that regard.

 

[cireza]

For starters, I don't understand why Sony is the competition here. Honestly, with how development has been evolving recently, it almost feels like they are going to implode themselves without needing help from anyone. This race for the most powerful console, and then having to justify the power through games that require endless money and time, is actually destroying the companies taking part in it. Infinite growth does not exist, this absurd race cannot continue.

Nintendo are the ones currently ruling the market. If anything, a new competitor should go and grab a part of this market. Nintendo are the sole company releasing proper handhelds consoles adapted for kids, nobody is even trying to compete. As a home console, the Switch sucks for sure, but Nintendo are making money on it and games don't require as much time and resources to create.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

No. As much as I would love a Dreamcast 2, this would be a good move for Sega. Sony would have to make a policy so draconian for 3rd parties fore Sega to even think about re-entering the console space.

you were very smart and happy in that observation, I mean even though Sony seems like a less cruel company these days, they would undoubtedly try to crush Sega as quickly as possible.
GTA has no chance of appearing on a Sega console (even in this multiverse thread) perhaps vultures like EA or companies like FromSoftware would also deny support.
Therefore, the most important part of any return attempt is to save money to carry out marketing capable of resisting attacks that would be made to disqualify Sega, etc.

In the Dreamcast era, Sega invested a lot of money in marketing but Sony invested 50% more just as counter marketing. This makes me think that maybe the competition may not be direct. A handheld just to make a quick buck before releasing a console could be a good idea or... a new 32X.

 

[DavJay]

If they could they would still be here. Sega couldn’t even last 10 years against PlayStation.

 

[Chukhopops]

I mean, Sony would treat a Sega competitor the same way they treat any competitor: they would abuse their dominant position by starving out the competition with cheaper third party deals, massively invest in marketing and rely on their franchises and existing user base for the rest.

Sega would be even worse equipped to deal with that since they have fewer first party studios and less financial backing. So they’d die even quicker.

On the other hand it’s shocking to see how people disrespect Sonic Frontiers. It’s not just a good Sonic game, it’s one of the best 3D platformers in years. I doubt many people played it though.

 

[Tarin02543]

If Sega was still a king then their Swap would be twice as expensive as the Switch and drain its battery within the hour.

 

[plip.plop]

I think SEGA is perfectly fine being 3rd party and not worrying about creating a console anymore.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

I think in the present market there's no place for two consoles that target the same demographics with the same types of games.

Nintendo found its spot while Sony and MS fought for the other one.

 

[Badlucktroll]

If they came up with something like the Switch with a big company backing it up for them (nvidia, amd, samsung) ect, they might be able to re-enter the market

 

[chromatic9]

Nintendo's Switch 2 will be Sony's biggest threat, it will be powerful enough to where it's supported by the so called high end games from SE and Capcom. Pushing for more tech and dev time and higher costs is not the way unless AI can do most of the work which I wouldn't rule out at some point but I think Nintendo is about to take up some of the market Sony/MS are in.

 

[PeteBull]

Segas's problem back in dreamcast days were low sales/no trust from customers, and it didnt come without reason, they quickly abandoned sega cd, 32x and saturn, so even tho dreamcast was amazing console with great amount of high quality of games ppl simply didnt feel secure in their purchase, and rightfully so, as future proved.

Personally i owned their 16-bit system, sega megadrive, and already in 1995 could sniff out how terrible saturn gonna get outperformed by playstation, so went with sony's product w/o any hesitation.

If we could suddenly launch sega's mashine like dreamcast now, which was weaker from ps2 but still had buch of high quality amazing games- it would easily place itself closly behind current ps5 and beat series x/s without breaking a sweat.
Dreamcast had that amazing "arcade in ur house" feeling, it was weaker from ps2 but it launched roughly 1,5years earlier(worldwide launch wasnt a thing back then, so hard to compare) too so it was understandable.

 

[jufonuk]

Do you think MS can compete against MS ? No. They can’t.

 

[BlackTron]

It takes a lot more than a bunch of solid IPs to run a console business.

The second they put out this console, they need to make all their IP exclusive to it to entice you to buy it, putting a halt to their software sales.

First they need to invest to design and manufacture the console, along with its whole backend infrastructure/ecosystem, and hope the entire investment ends up panning out to help them make more money than being a third party publisher: that's a lot of systems to make up an install base, and third parties coming to the console.

If it doesn't work, they just put all their IP through hell and pissed off all their partners for nothing.

This is all been there, done that for Sega. It's over.

 

[Physiognomonics]

Maybe they could in the future do what Capcom is doing right now but they need bigger releases than Yakuza and Sonic.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

I think in the present market there's no place for two consoles that target the same demographics with the same types of games.

Nintendo found its spot while Sony and MS fought for the other one.

rethink what you wrote, in practice you are against competition and market disputes, I hate cartels.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

rethink what you wrote, in practice you are against competition and market disputes, I hate cartels.

it's not my stance but how I see the market (profitability) for the console makers. As costs have increased dramatically, either they reduce them or reach a larger audience. That audience has a limited number of individuals so constant growth is impossible. That's the wrong assumption MS made with Gamepass, thinking they would bring hundreds of millions of players that actually don't exist.

Even if MS and Sony merged, they wouldn't sell 200M consoles.

 

[Astral Dog]

Why would they compete against Sony? You mean releasing their own console? this isn't 2001 anymore SEGA has been third party for many years that they bought a developer, finally figured out how to make Sonic relevant again and are doing well doesn't mean they are going to release the Dreamcast 2

 

[Walter Matthau]

The industry is changing and I wouldn't waste resources trying to compete in the console space.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

Sega's problem back in dreamcast days were low sales/no trust from customers, and it didnt come without reason, they quickly abandoned sega cd, 32x and saturn, so even tho dreamcast was amazing console with great amount of high quality of games ppl simply didnt feel secure in their purchase, and rightfully so, as future proved.

Personally i owned their 16-bit system, sega megadrive, and already in 1995 could sniff out how terrible saturn gonna get outperformed by playstation, so went with sony's product w/o any hesitation.

you touched on an important point.
The trust, even though 20 years have passed, we are still here - fortunately - so we know what happened to the 32x, Sega Channel, Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, short-lived, this means that Sega in a comeback would need to give guarantees of support to consumers for 5 years, you know I don't want to buy a console today that will be discontinued tomorrow.

The Dreamcast failed because it was unable to reach the target of 3 million units in North America before the PS2 was released, that means 13 months (September 99 to October 2000)

In the current market, the Wii U showed that, it is necessary to sell at least 8 million in the first year (wii u sold 5.86) so if Sega wants to have any chance it would need to set a target of 10 million, unfortunately this would require the search for the casual gamer , for me to buy a Sega console it just needs to exist so there is a Gordian knot here, how can it be casual and at the same time next gen? arcade based might be the best answer.

If we could suddenly launch sega's machine like dreamcast now, which was weaker from ps2 but still had buch of high quality amazing games- it would easily place itself closly behind current ps5 and beat series x/s without breaking a sweat.

Low-cost hardware like Dreamcast can be made easily, the problem to selling it, some things only work with Nintendo, including outdated hardware. A Sega console may be weaker than the PS6 and Xbox 3DO but never weaker than, for example, the PS5 Pro. The only path in theory is to plan a console for games with a restricted scope, that is, the console would be seen as powerful as long as it doesn't receive a single multiplatform game.

 

[Team Andromeda]

No one can compete with SEGA. SEGA Japan are the best

 

[NahaNago]

Maybe Capcom could but not Sega. A Sega console would only sell to the hard-core otakus and sonic fans.

 

[FinalBossWithTheMostPower]

The only reason we have a three console industry is because MS isn't a gaming company.

If they were, the XBOX brand would've died after their first generation.

There's few companies in the world that could continue to pump massive amounts of money into a underperforming brand or product like MS has.

Google is one of them and they failed.

Sega is not.

Despite Sega having some good studio outputs, right now, MS has a better stable of IP under their belt and they can't even beat the competition.

Games alone won't cut it, it's a matter of logistics and manufacturing, and operational efficiency that Sega is no longer capable of.

 

[deriks]

Yes

Microsoft will buy Sega, but instead making a new Xbox, they will make the Dreamcast 2 and it will launch with Sonic Adventure 3, Crazy Taxi 1 + 2, Power Stone 1 + 2, a full house made House of the Dead 1 + 2 (plus Zombie Revenge), Daytona USA, and for the final trailer is REmake: Code Veronica with the original CGI video of Claire full remade with the new models but same as the old one to the frame

 

[BlackTron]

Yes

Microsoft will buy Sega, but instead making a new Xbox, they will make the Dreamcast 2 and it will launch with Sonic Adventure 3, Crazy Taxi 1 + 2, Power Stone 1 + 2, a full house made House of the Dead 1 + 2 (plus Zombie Revenge), Daytona USA, and for the final trailer is REmake: Code Veronica with the original CGI video of Claire full remade with the new models but same as the old one to the frame

Wednesday isn't for another few days pal