Questions for Tom Kalinske – president and CEO of Sega of America fr

We could ask for possible confirmation/denial that the game gear was ever known as project mercury.

 

Any info on the Jupiter would be welcome too (Any leftovers from aborted Jupiter making it into Titan ST-V?)

Ever any considerations of following the SNK MVS/AES route? It seems like it would have suited both sega's arcade and home divisions to have a high-end (ie expensive) system for the home identical to say a Model 2?

 

I'd argue that's what the st-v was. the st-v is just a saturn that uses carts instead of cds.

the project birthed a number of great saturn games, too, like die hard arcade, radiant silvergun, and cotton 2.

 

I agree, but it's difficult to know for certain as it could be argued that it's more of a continuation of the saturn project, rather than the independently developed Jupiter.

I'd love to ask questions about segs's catalogue numbering system too, but I don't think they translated to the US, did they?

EDIT: Also, it would have been nice if the ST-V carts were compatible with the Saturn cart slot Someone didn't think that through properly.

 

us saturn cases have catalog numbers on the spine at the bottom.

I think playing STV carts would have been a bit weird, because who would willingly buy a much more expensive cart copy over a disc copy? Aside from weirdos like you and I that collect arcade parts, I mean.

 

Having more info on the catalog system Sega used would be cool but I don't think that that's a detail the CEO would be paying special attention to.
The US boxes all had simplified catalogs on them (and earlier titles had none at all), I have a feeling this was done so they are not confused for telephone numbers, as they looked pretty similar.

But while we are on the topic, an interesting thing to know would be WHY they decided to give the Sega CD and Saturn those terrible, prone to damage and hard to replace large jewel cases? They are some of the most fragile cases in videogame history.

STV functioned literally the same way as the MVS. Same multi-cart motherboards, and you could even switch games from what I recall.

edit: I double checked and it seems that multi cabinets weren't released, only single ones... The function for switching games is definitely there in the BIOS however, but no board ever used it?

 

I guess I meant more that they should have released an AES equivalent of the ST-V for the home (no jamma harnesses and external power supplies) that also ran the same ST-V cartridges.

 

Here's one - back in 1990, so the year Tom first joined Sega, I wrote in asking for help with Wonderboy III, to the address on the back of the Sega Master System boxes. They sent me back a hand written guide, with hand-drawn maps and everything. Sadly, I have since lost this, but reading on the internet, this wasn't uncommon for people who actually wrote to sega at the time. Totally unadvertised. The guide I got was signed by "The Sega Pros" which was in line with how they labeled cheat codes in Master System game manuals (I.e. the space harrier manual lists the code for continues, claiming the "Sega pros" came up with it).

Who wrote these small guides? Was this standard policy or just some kind hearted employee acting on his behalf?

 

Didn't occur to until right now, but do you think he may have any interesting stories about Tectoy?

 

There might be something there as certain Tectoy hardware was based on USA machines, but it could be that they just got them from Sega directly.

 

IIRC the Tectoy situation was dictated by tax - I.e. manufacturing within Brazil worked out cheaper than importing. I'm sure I read that somewhere, although much came from the US anyway.

 

I've heard this exact line of reasoning to explain why Samsung made the Gam*Boy and Super Gam*Boy, so I'd bet there is validity in it.

 

So I just finished reading Console Wars. And nothing about Sonic CD was ever said. So one more question if you can...

Ask him ANYTHING about America + Sonic CD. :v:/>/>

EDIT: Knuckles Chaotix too I guess.

 

Ask him what happened to the tech for Sega VR, too. Among VR enthusiasts, the tech that went into several announced commercial headsets that never came out can still be tracked. For example, the Jaguar VR headset eventually found a real, retail release as the Philips Scuba and Takara Dynovisor.

Yet, because of the closed nature of Sega, and because VR was being developed in-house rather than by a partner like at atari, knowledge on Sega's VR work is like a blackhole in the community. Nobody saw it working, it was only really seen at CES 94, and the tech never resurfaced, with Sega's reason for cancellation being "It was too realistic (LOL, the real reason being that manufacture of screens that small was prohibitively expensive)"

If we knew even who sega brought on board to work on Sega VR, we'd have so much more info.

 

That is exactly the case. All my Tectoy products from the Mega Drive era are embossed with the labeled "Made in Manaus" on the consoles' backs, on the cartridge shells and on the game corvers. Pretty much everything that is manufactured in Brazil are made in Manauls because it is a duty-free zone, and companies don't have to pay taxes for manufacturing and exporting, nationally or internationally. The Brazilian version of all games published by Microsoft, Konami and Warner Bros. are also manufactured in Manaus. There was even an incident in 2011 when a Brazilian got his hands on a copy of Mortal Kombat 9 way earlier from the release date... because he just happened to live a few minutes from the factory! :specialed:

The games definitely come from the US, as they are always the NSTC-US version, with the occasional Brazilain Portuguese localization (occasional because not all games were translated, as is the case with the rare, rare translated version of Shinning Force II). The covers and manuals were always 100% translated, however, but they were always the US versions as well.

As far as hardware, it was all over the place; different consoles (from the same family, even!) had different hardware architetures, and the problem that not every console was compatible with 32X and or SEGA CD (and I was lucky enough to have a Mega Drive III—known as model 2 in the US—that was compatible with both, minus the Master System Adapter). With that in mind, it seems like the hardware architetures came from all over the world.

 

Barry, ask Tom Kalinske about Garfield specifically.

From GamePro #77 (December 1995):

 

I think the South Korean story is a bit different - something about Koreans having an animosity towards Japanese products and services, which is why Samsung were slapping their name all over Sega products and Hyundai over Nintendo ones. Though I've always had my doubts about that story - seems more to do with marketing than the manufacturing of products.