(long post) Sega and Nintendo, team up!!

[Bilbo]

I have an idea, which is quite crazy, and prone to some heavy debate, but
which I think is quite good.

Nintendo should scrap the whole Dolphin project, and team up with Sega!!

So you thing, for Nintendo and Sega, what may the advantages be?

Consider this:

Sony has already a massive share of the console market with the Playstation,
and the Playstation 2 will surely follow the same path (specially considering
the success it amassed when they released the new machine in Japan).

The Dreamcast is indeed a very good machine, but which is going to get
technically overrun by both the Playstation 2, and the upcoming
(gasp!) Microsoft X-box. A recent article on IGNdc has already
dealed with the fact that several developers are leaving Dreamcast,
and jumping on the Playstation 2 bandwagon.

Furthermore, the Microsoft entrance to the console wars is a great
disadvantage for Sega, as Microsoft owns the Windows CE operating
system on which Dreamcast runs. Microsoft has been known to exploit
that kind of advantages rather dishonestly before (3Com Ethernet/Novell,
Mac Look & Feel, anyone?).

Meanwhile, back at the Nintendo camp, things are not looking too bright
either. The Dolphin project is heavily delayed, and will enter the console
wars too late, as the other players by that time will have grabbed most
of the marketshare. The ever-important third party developer support, will
surely be quite shallow.

As I see it, joining together is a win-win situation for both Sega and Nintendo.

Sega will be more strongely positioned, being backed up by a company like
Nintendo, and could have the added the strong benefit of having access to all
the Nintendo experience (Shigeru, the god!!) and games library
(the Pokemon, Mario, Donkey Kong and Zelda franchise, for one thing).
Furthermore, they could participate more actively in the hand-held area,
in which the upcoming Nintendo Game Boy Advance will surely dominate, and
in which Sega has no market share at all (I do not consider the
Dreamcast VMU a serious contender). The life expectancy of the Dreamcast
would surely increase at least by two years if a Nintendo-Sega merger
should happen.

Nintendo will have a platform on which to develop their games right
now (the Dreamcast), without having the cost of developing a machine of
their own, as well as all the Sega Dreamcast infrastructure (factories,
resellers, distribution and such).
They only drawback will be the loss of possible earnings by the sales of a
console of their own, but if they get access to a large share of Sega
stocks, they could get they earnings from the Dreamcast sales.
Nintendo could also gain access to the arcade machines market, in which
Sega is a strong player.

Then, there are some other similarities and gains to consider.
Both are japanese companies and have a large tradition and experience in
specially focusing on the gaming market (for example, neither the Dreamcast
or the upcoming Dolphin will have a DVD player, while the Playstation 2 has,
and the X-Box will).

Furthermore, both Nintendo and Sega could benefit from the differencies in
the company policies/culture. Sega could really learn to develop better
high-quality games (for example, it is wide known that the Nintendo
64 game library is quite small, but with several high quality games),
and Nintendo could learn to gain more third-party support (Sega has
a lot of third-party developers making games for the Dreamcast, while
Nintendo missed that opportunity big-time with the Nintendo 64 cartridge
format, and the delays in both that machine and the upcoming Dolphin).

The merging itself could be accomplished in several ways, by one
company buying out a slice of the other, or by both swapping stock
bonds, or whatever. I do not want to focus on that part in this mail,
but being crudely simplistic, Sega and Nintendo could possibly
merge by exchanging Dreamcast shares for Gameboy shares with each other.
As simply as that.

Having said all that, it is plain simple common sense to state that
teaming together, Nintendo and Sega could be a winning combination
in the crowded console wars.

Both consumers and the third party game developers will gain more
confidence in having two of the mayor players consolidated,
which might stop the impending "rats, abandon the sinking ship"-escape to
Playstation (and upcoming X-Box) land.

Last of all, as a console owner and avid player, I would gain
Nirvana being able to play Mario, Zelda, Sonic, House of the Dead,
Sega Rally,Pokemon, Shinobi, and all the other third party-games
(Soul Reaver and Tomb Raider for instance), all in the same console.
I think most console owners/game players would agree.

Bilbo

[DJ_MiND]

I don't like that idea. I think NINTENDO
and the new console are going to kick some ass. I bet that Miyamoto got is hands on a new multiplayer ZELDA to play over the internet http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Besides, i HATE sega and the DC sucks big time and i hate PSX too and PSX2 is the worst pile of garbage on the face of the earth. If some day (read NEVER) Nintendo teams up whit sega them Nintendo is probaly dead. If you see the charts in Japan you will see that Nintendo sales are still very good, despite the (cooff) PSX2 is already on the market. And the Xbox........ the wonderful blue screem of death rings a bell?? http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/eek.gif

NOBODY does it better than NINTENDO.


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DJ_MiND :cool:
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[Da Ranxta]

It would be nice but it ain't happening. Do you think either company, both of whom have a solid reputation, history, and very healthy profits, will be willing to share their money with their main rival of the last ten years. It might make sense, and Sega may be desperate enough, but the chances of Yamauchi agreeing to that equal 0

[SJoS]

Heavy delays? From the reading I've done, it sounds like N still isn't sure what they're doing. Over at IGN64 they had an interview with 2 N reps who basically didn't say anything except "You'll be amazed when it happens", which says to me that they'll be amazed when they find out too. The comment that "we dont want to tip our hand" seemingly says, "we don't know what were doing with that - yet".

I really hope that things are moving along quickly with Dolphin development, but until I hear something positive, and not this "It's gonna be big" crap, I'll just continue to look forward to the great games that are slated for the 64.

[wicket64]

PSX2 - DVD Player? You can hardly call it that considering how shit it has turned out. A DVD movie playing Dolphin will be released in Japan and if it does well, then the rest of the world aswell. As for X-Box, Microsoft still can't write a piece of software properly what makes you think they know anything about hardware? Dolphin will kill everything. 400Mhz RISC CPU, GB Advance link, no more cart size limit to worry about!

[sean]

Uhm, MS don't need to know anything about hardware. Isn't most (all?) of the hardware for xbox being developed outside of MS? (intel/nvidia).

As for the whole "PSX! SUCKS DREAMCAST SUX!" stuff, what the hell? I have never, and will never get this whole system loyalty business. Especially when people are saying these things about unreleased systems!

These companies don't care about you, why the hell should you care about them? It's an industry (a fairly ruthless one), not the bloody olympics.

Personally I own a DC a PSX and an N64, IMO they're all very cool and I play them all pretty much equally (less so the N64 now with the lack of releases).

As for this whole sega/nintendo team up idea, I think everyone knows that there's no way it's going to happen. In the interests of competition, would it even be a good thing if it did happen?

Nintendo have the handheld market pretty much sealed up, the gameboy hasn't advanced much at all considering the number of years it's been around. The only competition it's seen is the gamegear the lynx and more recently NGP. Even factoring in the nature of the hardware and price, a comparison of the development of handheld systems to the development of home systems shows home systems advancing much quicker due to competition.

Sorry, rant over http://www.dextrose.com/ubb/wink.gif

[CrowTRobo]

Let me get this straight, you want Nintendo to drop Dolphin and develop for a technically inferior system compared to all the other upcoming consoles? You got that totally backwards. If Sega & Nintendo ever joined up (which will probably never happen), Sega would (and should) drop the DC and develop for the Dolphin.

I've said this after the failure of the Saturn and I still think it would be a good idea: Sega should drop it's hardware department and concentrate only on software. It would mean a lot more money for Sega having their games on various systems, instead of just on their own.

And the argument of Dolphin's lateness being the cause of it's failure is getting really old.

CrowTRobo

[racerx]

well actually, if they ever were to join up it would be quite the opposite. Rambus is now sueing sega because of a copyright infringement in the dc's memory. If they win, it will become illegal to import the dc in its current state forcing sega to go thru expensive redevelopement or join another company. Seeing as how nintendo already joined up with rambus, i i don't think they'll have a problem. Also, the dolphin is slated to come out 1st quarter 2001, while the x-box comes out 2nd or 3rd 2001. I will of course by all of them. X-Box, Dolphin, DC (I already have one), PSX 2 and maybe a nuon. G

[sean]

Another point to remember is that Sega do very well out of hardware, namely coin-op's.

[CrowTRobo]

Yeah, I should rephrase my statement. I meant Sega should drop their console hardware department, not their arcade division.

CrowTRobo