| Hawkeyejonjon said: Heck no. That would be stupid. Did Sega do that with Dreamcast? Announce it and release it the next day? |
No, but they did it with the Saturn. Sega had original set the release date in the fall, but in responce to Sony's anouncement of their plans for the Playstation Sega made a surprise anouncement at E3 that it would go on sale the following "Saturn-day ". Retailers got pissed because they didn't get the stock they were promised, KB Toys dropped Sega all together and publishers were pissed because they didn't have their games ready for the launch. The Saturn ended up with only a few games on launch. The Incredible Panzer Dragoon went completely under the radar and the rushed ports of Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA were so bad Sega sent out free fixed Virtua Fighter discs and remade Daytona USA with the Sega Rally engine and released it with the subtitle Championship Curcuit Edition.
Sega of America was the worst thing to happen to Sega. Bernie Stolar was the president of Sega of America during the Saturn's rise and fall, he ruined the company. He originaly worked for Sony and Working Designs hated the guy so much that they chose the Saturn over the Playstation. But then he left Sony and switched over to Sega. Working Designs finished up their last game for the Saturn which turned out to be the last US Saturn release and switched over to Playstation just to get away from Bernie Stolar.
Bernie Stolar was fired the day after the Dreamcast launched after pissing off Sega of Japan for setting the Dreamcast's starting price so low $199.99. But the damage was done and even though the Dreamcast did everything right and still stands as one of the greatest video game consoles of all time, Sega was forced to leave the hardware market.
