Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board: SpeedStarTMQ - Viewing Profile - Sonic and Sega Retro Message Board

Really taken aback at the statement made. I was ranting on about SEGA recently, so maybe someone up there heard me.

If they can really focus on quality and not "schedules" then I think they might start to regain our trust. Now they've said this though, it really is make or break for them. They've been forgiven too many times for utter shit, and they need to really start building back up their quality brand.

Damn, this just re-sparked my interest in the stale fangame community.

The problem is that they're not going to break the cycle until they release something worthwhile, like they did with Sonic Generations in 2012.

I look forward to seeing what they've got under their sleeve for the main series.

Utter bastards! I would kill for the Mega Drive theme.

Jen, on 10 June 2015 - 03:19 PM, said:

It's not being a Sonic fan that's the problem, it's the way SEGA go about doing business and making games nowadays. It's not even just Sonic, it's just the company as a whole. They don't have a clear direction to head in, so they just do whatever they fancy at the time. Everything is a massive experiment to them. There's no real acknowledgement of heritage, and it's not patriotic.

Whilst they do release retro titles now and then, they're completely disparate from the modern SEGA. Even their UK website has NO acknowledgement of SEGA's history as a company, or the brands they own the rights to. All they have is acrappy little section titled "Brands", which list the following:

1) Sonic The Hedgehog
2) Total War
3) Football Manager
4) Aliens
5) Company of Heroes

I mean, what the fuck? Where's the history of SEGA in the 80's and information on their arcade divisions and titles? Where's the information on their Home Consoles of old during the late 80's and 90's, which they heavily live off today through various ports and emulated Plug 'N' Play consoles? Where's the information on other more recent titles like Crazy Taxi, Super Monkey Ball, Bayonetta, Phantasy Star Online?

I actually hate SEGA of today. They're a bland, boring company, who I imagine employ people who sit around empty, boring boardrooms in black suits with no idea of their past, clinging to the more recent series they have purely because they literally don't have any staff left who know much about anything else.

They could do great things. They have acquired excellent outside help recently via the community, like RubyEclipse, Stealth and Taxman, and they have a following of extremely talented fans, some of whom should really be head hunted to help produce new ideas and projects. Pelikan13 is a prime example. How his 90's Arcade Racer hasn't been picked up by a large company is beyond me.

They could axe the crappy clones and release a fully functioning, high quality Plug 'N' Play Mega Drive at little cost and live off the vast library of excellent retro titles they have. They could do what other premium brands do and make their history interesting and novel. People buy in to brands - look at Apple. Hell, there's even high-quality fan books out there about SEGA, and officially endorsed items such as the Mega Drive Collected Works - people are looking for interesting stuff about the brand, but get little from SEGA themselves.

They could release an up-to-date multi-platform compilation of updated and enhanced older titles to play 2P over the internet. I've wanted to do this for a while but don't have Xbox Live.

I could list a hundred things SEGA could do to make their brand stand out and make it viable and interesting for consumers nowadays, but I think I've got my point across.

Sonic is just a metaphor for SEGA nowadays. Trying to be hip and interesting, whilst doing the minimum to achieve the results.