Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

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scotland
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Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby scotland » July 14th, 2017, 8:45 am

https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/7/10/15923640/why-former-sega-president-bernie-stolar-is-still-proud-of-the-dreamcast

Bernie Stolar talks about his view of software over hardware, Atari, Playstation and of course, the late lamented Sega Dreamcast.

Sut
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby Sut » July 15th, 2017, 3:59 am

This guy is an incompetent prat. He blames everyone but himself. He never seems to mention he killed the Saturn off just how good his Dreamcast launch was.

Also his laughable decision to not allow many 2D games to be released for the Saturn was at best idiotic. You have the best 2D console probably ever, but your only letting 3D games pass through despite the Saturn's 3D being the weakest of the 3 main consoles of the fifth gen.

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MoarRipter
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby MoarRipter » July 17th, 2017, 3:54 pm

Stolar was a fool. To publicly say the Saturn is not SEGA's future two years before a replacement console was available, that was a stupid thing to tell the world at E3 when the Saturn was only midway through its lifecycle.

Bernie Stolar was probably the wise guy who thought it would be a good idea to have the Dreamcast's cable come out of the bottom of the controller. :roll:

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Mario500
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby Mario500 » July 19th, 2017, 8:16 am

I wonder how the authors of the last two messages would feel if some folks were to post messages insulting them in a discussion like this?

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scotland
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby scotland » July 19th, 2017, 10:28 am

Mario500 wrote:I wonder how the authors of the last two messages would feel if some folks were to post messages insulting them in a discussion like this?


First, these are offhand comments made in a discussion board. We are having a discussion. Please join in if you have anything on point to say about Bernie Stolar's career or comments. The Sega Saturn, Dreamcast and Sega's departure from the hardware biz are fun, and sometimes emotional, conversations to have. Do you have any insights on those topics?

Secondly, no one is insulting Bernie Stolar by calling anything profane, and neither is anyone insulting him at all to his face. Yes, we could be always be a bit more sensitive and say "I think Bernie Stolar was foolish in doing X,Y and Z" instead of "Bernie Stolar was a fool for doing X,Y and Z" but its just a discussion board and not Thanksgiving dinner. If Bernie Stolar were to come onto these boards, it would be a great opportunity to ask questions and I don't think anyone here would be calling him an incompetent fool - well, at least not until after he left again.

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pacman000
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby pacman000 » July 19th, 2017, 12:46 pm

Stolar does come off as someone playing "the blame game," but his assessment of Atari and Sega sound correct; Traimel didn't want to spend money to develop software; Sega developed the wrong kind of software.

Traimel came from a computer hardware background. He was used to making money off hardware. Get the right specs at the right price and people would buy it. (64k RAM! Only $599! 64 bits! Only $299!) Once the hardware was popular other companies would develop software for it. For some reason it works in the computer market, but not in the game system market. Perhaps there's always a computer hobbyist who wants the newest, most powerful thing, while game systems are a more general consumer product; general consumers need a system to do something before they'll buy it.

The Dreamcast was still focused on the arcade-at-home idea when consumers were beginning to think of games as experiences. Consumers in general wanted more than a high-score. (Not an original thought; others have more-or-less said the same thing. I like the arcade-at-home idea.)

I should note that both Atari and Sega weren't in the greatest financial shape; I blame events prior to Stolar for the companies' downfalls.

I must give Stolar this: He didn't take credit for the PS1's success.

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MoarRipter
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby MoarRipter » July 19th, 2017, 1:23 pm

Mario500 wrote:I wonder how the authors of the last two messages would feel if some folks were to post messages insulting them in a discussion like this?


Be my guest, go right ahead.

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Stalvern
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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby Stalvern » July 19th, 2017, 8:02 pm

Mario500 wrote:I wonder how the authors of the last two messages would feel if some folks were to post messages insulting them in a discussion like this?

You know that Bernie Stolar is a public figure, right?

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Re: Bernie Stolar talks Dreamcast

Postby ThePixelatedGenocide » July 20th, 2017, 5:02 am

The Saturn was the weakest at 3d?

Maybe if you count transparencies, or don't know how to combine the cores - and to be fair, most people didn't. Someone correct me if I'm misinformed, but with only 4kb of memory cache per cpu to work with, lazy 3rd party ports were always going to be the rule, not the exception.

With that said, it's quads featured less texture warping than the PS1, and there's no way Sony's grey slab was running Virtua Fighter 2 in high resolution. (For the time.)

Unfortunately, Sega couldn't have competed with Sony and Nintendo purely on the strength of the Saturn's 2d. It was a time when people cared way more about Tekken than Street Fighter, and even the likes of Toshinden destroyed The King of Fighters.

Besides, the biggest 2d game of that generation was Symphony of the Night. Of all the games to be handicapped by a lazy 3rd party port...

No matter who ran Sega's American division at that time, they all would have been dealt the same bad hand. Not to mention the lack of a real Sonic game, and the damage to Sega's brand caused by the surprise launch.

There's no scenario where Sega wins, unless you create an alternate universe where the Japanese headquarters isn't its own worst enemy.


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