Beyond the Genesis-An Alternate Video Game History

[Nivek]

Well, the support was cut but not completely. It was just refocused. As for Sega and Bandai, I actually have plans for that already

The Virtual Boy will be brought up in the 1994 update and then it will likely be the last you ever hear of it.

Well, but again...Mega-CD problem was..too costly as add-on and without enough push as Standalone Console, i being sega would have made the CD add-on as the SEGA-32 arcade board and ask the rest of JAMMA pushing CD arcade port. but well....

Jejejej Sega-Bandai will have enough Muscle to resist Nintendo and a weaker Sony..would be nice to see.

That Yokoi suffer headache and cancelled the idea of 3D until the future?(THE 3DS is amazing, i think would have loved it)

 

[Confortius]

Sega came into 1994 strong with Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The third entry in the now iconic series was released for both the Sega Genesis and Sega CD. The Sega CD version included Knuckles the Echidna and exclusive tracks by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. They also released their first answer cartridge featuring the “Virtual Processor”, Virtua Racer and later in the year Sega would launch their port of Virtua Fighter.

Nintendo was not having a small year itself. They launched Super Metroid and the technically impressive Donkey Kong Country from up and comer, Rare for their SNES with a wide variety of third-party exclusives. Arguably the biggest exclusive was Final Fantasy VI. While the current generation was content packed, everyone was looking toward the new generation.

At CES 1994, 3DO revealed the designs that would be available in the coming year. The featured models were from Sony and Panasonic and both would be priced at $399 and launch in October. The biggest announcement was that over 30 games would be available on 3DO before the end of the year.

In May 1994, Sega held a press event titled “Beyond the Genesis”. The event began with Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske taking the stage and discussing the Genesis and its success, particularly in the western market. He then cut it short, switching over to talking about the Game Gear.

“The Game Gear is completely capable of competing in the handheld market, but we did notice some areas where the Game Gear could use some work, such as battery life.” – Tom Kalinske, Beyond the Genesis Event, 1994

Kalinske revealed the new, slimmer, battery efficient Game Gear redesign, Game Gear X. The Game Gear X release was set for August and would sell for $129. Not only would the Game Gear X be a redesign, but the start of a complete re-launch for the Game Gear. Sega confirmed that an exclusive Sonic the Hedgehog title at launch as well as ports of hit games and a line-up of third-party support.

Next, he spoke of the Sega CD and how more people were interested than ever in CD-ROM based content, leading to the announcement of a Genesis CD hybrid console that would sell for $219.

“And now that we have taken the first steps into the future of gaming, let’s step into the next level. Let’s Evolve.” Tom Kalinske

SEGA EVOLUTION REVEALED
The successor to the Sega Genesis, the Sega Evolution was revealed at Sega’s “Beyond the Genesis” event. It would be available in the fall 1995 and will feature a 64-bit processor at a whopping 95 MHz. The Evolution will also feature a 2x CD-ROM drive.

NINTENDO'S ULTRA ATTACK
One month after Sega’s Beyond the Genesis Event, Nintendo held a conference of their own. They came right out and wasted no time in showing their new console, the Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System. The UNES, like Sega’s Evolution was confirmed to be a 64-bit console as well, featuring a CPU from MIPS clocking in at 100 MHz. Interestingly, the Ultra Nintendo’s controller featured an analog stick for full 3D movement and four controller ports for multiplayer. However, unlike its competitor, the UNES would continue to use cartridges for games and not CDs.

“I was very passionate about bringing my vision of a virtual reality console to market, but the proper technology needed was not available at the time. The screens were red and all the games would only be in red. My vision was hurting my vision.” –Gunpei Yokoi, Next Generation Magazine, September 2000

ATARI AND KATZ
Following the disappointing sales of the Atari Panther and all of the huge console announcements, Atari announced it was bringing back Michael Katz as the head of Atari Games. After this Atari immediately ordered a price-cut in anticipation for the upcoming 3DO. In September 1994, Panther was dropped to $149. They also hyped Aliens versus Predator and Arena Football for the Holiday Season.

3DO LAUNCHES
3DO launched their new game console in partnership with Sony and Panasonic. Over 15 games were available on day one, including Gex, Crash n’ Burn, Alone in the Dark 2, Road Rash, Way of the Warrior, Zhadnost, The Need for Speed, and John Madden Football. It is one of the hottest items of 1994.

“We had the hardware people wanted and most importantly, the software. That’s what made us so successful.” –Trip Hawkins

 

[Nivek]

Sega came into 1994 strong with Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The third entry in the now iconic series was released for both the Sega Genesis and Sega CD. The Sega CD version included Knuckles the Echidna and exclusive tracks by the King of Pop, Michael Jackson. They also released their first answer cartridge featuring the “Virtual Processor”, Virtua Racer and later in the year Sega would launch their port of Virtua Fighter.

No 32x Would mean that Virtual Processor will be more useful, well those game would run a little in genesis(almost breaking the machine) but they would be pretty tecnhical impresive, thus having a good virtual figther will allow the sequel shine even more into the Evolution

At CES 1994, 3DO revealed the designs that would be available in the coming year. The featured models were from Sony and Panasonic and both would be priced at $399 and launch in October. The biggest announcement was that over 30 games would be available on 3DO before the end of the year.

Properly Prized 3DO, that would to wonder(advantage of Sony having CD rights) and will be interesitng how that unfold.

In May 1994, Sega held a press event titled “Beyond the Genesis”. The event began with Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske taking the stage and discussing the Genesis and its success, particularly in the western market. He then cut it short, switching over to talking about the Game Gear.

“The Game Gear is completely capable of competing in the handheld market, but we did notice some areas where the Game Gear could use some work, such as battery life.” – Tom Kalinske, Beyond the Genesis Event, 1994

Kalinske revealed the new, slimmer, battery efficient Game Gear redesign, Game Gear X. The Game Gear X release was set for August and would sell for $129. Not only would the Game Gear X be a redesign, but the start of a complete re-launch for the Game Gear. Sega confirmed that an exclusive Sonic the Hedgehog title at launch as well as ports of hit games and a line-up of third-party support.

Next, he spoke of the Sega CD and how more people were interested than ever in CD-ROM based content, leading to the announcement of a Genesis CD hybrid console that would sell for $219.

“And now that we have taken the first steps into the future of gaming, let’s step into the next level. Let’s Evolve.” Tom Kalinske

SEGA EVOLUTION REVEALED
The successor to the Sega Genesis, the Sega Evolution was revealed at Sega’s “Beyond the Genesis” event. It would be available in the fall 1995 and will feature a 64-bit processor at a whopping 95 MHz. The Evolution will also feature a 2x CD-ROM drive.

Very Nice Title drop and that event would have been amazing, a new and improved game gear(and not make obsolete the previous one).

That Hybrid genesis was a OTL missed oportunity, both genesis and mega-cd owner would feel a little cheated but if keep support of CD games would be the best for both.

That evolution is pretty good, much like OTL N64 was, waiting how this unfold.

NINTENDO'S ULTRA ATTACK
One month after Sega’s Beyond the Genesis Event, Nintendo held a conference of their own. They came right out and wasted no time in showing their new console, the Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System. The UNES, like Sega’s Evolution was confirmed to be a 64-bit console as well, featuring a CPU from MIPS clocking in at 100 MHz. Interestingly, the Ultra Nintendo’s controller featured an analog stick for full 3D movement and four controller ports for multiplayer. However, unlike its competitor, the UNES would continue to use cartridges for games and not CDs.

Heck that is trully an impresive machine, with more horsepower that OTL N64, and cartidge will avoid piracy(who was pretty low with n64). Umm, those will be the N64DD cartidge, those badboy will allow big games and with that powerful CPU, prederended game be compressed pretty easy(RESIDENT EVIL 2 64 PROVED THAT N64 WAS FAR CAPABLE PS1).

“I was very passionate about bringing my vision of a virtual reality console to market, but the proper technology needed was not available at the time. The screens were red and all the games would only be in red. My vision was hurting my vision.” –Gunpei Yokoi, Next Generation Magazine, September 2000

Jejeje, so Mr Yokoi you play the Virtual boy for more that one hour without acess to aspirin, that badboy was simple too early, i think Yokoi-Sama would have love OTL 3DS because have both 3D and proto virtual reality and augement reality.

ATARI AND KATZ
Following the disappointing sales of the Atari Panther and all of the huge console announcements, Atari announced it was bringing back Michael Katz as the head of Atari Games. After this Atari immediately ordered a price-cut in anticipation for the upcoming 3DO. In September 1994, Panther was dropped to $149. They also hyped Aliens versus Predator and Arena Football for the Holiday Season.

Ummm will that be enough, they will endure a lot or crash and burn(but not as worse) as OTL.

3DO LAUNCHES
3DO launched their new game console in partnership with Sony and Panasonic. Over 15 games were available on day one, including Gex, Crash n’ Burn, Alone in the Dark 2, Road Rash, Way of the Warrior, Zhadnost, The Need for Speed, and John Madden Football. It is one of the hottest items of 1994.

“We had the hardware people wanted and most importantly, the software. That’s what made us so successful.” –Trip Hawkins

So Trip finally lear something thanks to butterflies, let's hope the console is not a fiasco for his own arse safety.

Excellent update, you answer all our doubts and leave us wanting more(in fact was simple amazing buddy)

So tell us when come the next.

Some details of the future? the next generation will be simple brutal.

 

[Confortius]

1995 was one of the biggest and most transformative years in gaming. It would be the year that mega gaming event, E3 would begin and all of the big companies would bring out the big guns to prove that their product is worth buying over the competitor. While Nintendo and Sega were still duking it out with their 16-bit consoles, Atari would be hitting their second year of selling Panther and 3DO still in its debut and it was confirmed that all of these companies would appear at E3.

E3 1995

ATARI
Atari started the first E3 with a press briefing about the Panther and how the sales increased by 300% since the price was cut to $149. They noted the success of Aliens versus Predator, Doom, Iron Soldier and Tempest 2000 and made it clear that 1995 was the year to “Pounce.”. They showed new and exclusive titles for the Panther Atari Kartz, Arena Football ’96, Worms, and Rayman. During the briefing, Michael Katz addressed that their competitors were using CD-ROM and that it is “a big part of the future of gaming.” So Katz introduced the Panther CD, a CD add-on drive for the Panther that would also include additional processing power and sell for $149 in September, bundled with Cybermorph 2.


Cybermorph 2, Panther CD Launch Title

3DO
For 3DO’s briefing, CEO Trip Hawkins took to the stage announcing that 3DO had sold half a million units since launch. The screen behind him read “The Road to A Million”. Hawkins outlined the first and third-party titles that would be available on 3DO in 1995. The software list included Crash n’ Burn 2, Destruction Derby, 3D Lemmings, Policenauts, Tekken, and Ridge Racer.


Sony's PlaySystem 3DO Model

NINTENDO
Nintendo decided to mostly stick with their current generation offerings, showing off upcoming SNES and Game Boy titles, while also announcing price cuts for the machines. However, toward the end of the event, they showed a teaser trailer featuring a 3D Mario model running in pitch black darkness and hitting a block. When he hit the block, the darkness fell around him like an opening box, revealing a 3D world and a castle. It then ended with an Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System logo, under it reading “Summer 1996”.



SEGA
Sega started their event with a light show and flashy montage showing Genesis and Game Gear games available and coming soon. Tom Kalinske came out to introduce everyone to the show and promised that there is a lot in store. First, Kalinske started with the Genesis, going over how it is the leading console in North America and went over some of the games coming out on Genesis that year. He then moved on to Game Gear, specifically the Game Gear X.

“We decided to re-launch the Game Gear, to make it more competitive and it worked. Sales have increased greatly for the Game Gear and developer support is picking up rapidly.” –Tom Kalinske


Sega Evolution Console

Kalinske then walked over to a covered station, lifting the cover, revealing the final design for the Sega Evolution, along with the controller. Kalinske then started to talk about arcade games and fighting games, discussing the hit arcade ports to Genesis. He then noted that the Evolution’s controller is perfect for all types of games, including fighting games, before bringing Yu Suzuki to the stage, challenging him to a match of Virtua Fighter 2 on stage. After the match, they confirmed Virtua Fighter 2 would be an Evolution launch title and that developers who had the Evolution devkit would have access to Sega’s Virtua Fighter and Daytona USA engines. Sega also announced that they were not the only ones porting arcade titles to the Evolution, but third-party publishers would be porting titles as well. A montage of arcade games coming to Evolution was shown, including Virtua Fighter 2, Ridge Racer, Tekken, Virtua Cop, and Daytona USA.


Sega Evolution Controller

Sega then moved on to titles built for the Evolution. Revealing Panzer Dragoon, a dragon-riding on-rails shooter confirmed for launch. The launch for the Sega Evolution was confirmed to be in November and it would retail for $349 US Dollars. Sega ended their conference by teasing Sonic Evolution, a full 3D Sonic the Hedgehog title. The teaser ended with “Coming in 1996”.


Sonic Evolution. Coming in 1996.

 

[Confortius]

Thanks for the comments and compliments, Nivek. New update is up.

 

[Nivek]

Thanks for the comments and compliments, Nivek. New update is up.

Nice that was a pleasure.

Excellent Update as show, heck Even Atari Show some momentum(comparing to OTL anything is good thing but when both conosles landed, the panther will looks with issues)

The 3D0 is like a hybrid of OTL 3DO and PS1 pre 1996 performance, pretty weak but steady, at least the price tag is not that big, some game are interesting, more with policenauts being localize unlike OTL.

Nice Using OTL image of peach castle as Beta, some idea, with that powerful processor(100mhz is nothing to envy), you should use Images of SM64 DX without the touch screen, that would be comparable even with compresion.

Nice for Sega, with more focus and action the next gen will be big, some other thing to consider..which did you take that Sonic image? looks pretty nice.

Excellent Update, was direct to the point, waiting for more buddy.

 

[Confortius]

Nice that was a pleasure.

Excellent Update as show, heck Even Atari Show some momentum(comparing to OTL anything is good thing but when both conosles landed, the panther will looks with issues)

The 3D0 is like a hybrid of OTL 3DO and PS1 pre 1996 performance, pretty weak but steady, at least the price tag is not that big, some game are interesting, more with policenauts being localize unlike OTL.

Nice Using OTL image of peach castle as Beta, some idea, with that powerful processor(100mhz is nothing to envy), you should use Images of SM64 DX without the touch screen, that would be comparable even with compresion.

Nice for Sega, with more focus and action the next gen will be big, some other thing to consider..which did you take that Sonic image? looks pretty nice.

Excellent Update, was direct to the point, waiting for more buddy.

Yeah, the console war is much closer in this timeline. I used the original Mario 64 image because it would still be amazing at that time and I have plans for a possible sequel on the UNES. As for the Sonic image, I used an image from a canceled Sonic game that was going to be released on the Saturn in OTL.

Feel free to ask any other questions about things that have happened in my timeline that may have not been covered in the updates. Thanks for staying tuned. I will try to update more regularly.

 

[Nivek]

Yeah, the console war is much closer in this timeline. I used the original Mario 64 image because it would still be amazing at that time and I have plans for a possible sequel on the UNES. As for the Sonic image, I used an image from a canceled Sonic game that was going to be released on the Saturn in OTL.

Feel free to ask any other questions about things that have happened in my timeline that may have not been covered in the updates. Thanks for staying tuned. I will try to update more regularly.

Wow pretty nice and Nintendo plans looks pretty interesting in this timeline, so whihc game was that image? that one looks pretty nice, tell me.

Umm i've a few more, in more general level:

1)Did Nintendo is recruiting the Dream Team as OTL, maybe adding some more japanese support(Square, Atlus, etc?)

2) How trully is the 3d0 perfoming, did is profitable for the companies, are both sony and panasonic happy with the performance?

3)Did Nintendo will acelerate the plans for a gameboy color or jump to advance? well pokemon will delayed those plans and sega have not ways to counter pokemon.

4) Will Western DESIGN fare better TTL and maybe more japanese games will be localize?

In general nice timeline,keep going buddy

 

[Confortius]

1)Did Nintendo is recruiting the Dream Team as OTL, maybe adding some more japanese support(Square, Atlus, etc?)

Nintendo is still recruiting the Dream Team in this timeline. There will definitely be some more Japanese support. I plan to reveal some Dream Team details in 1996. The lack of CD-ROM might have them lose some support on big JRPG projects to Sega. However, it won't be as bad as OTL however because there will be bigger cartridge memory and Sega is a little more western focused so they miss out on a few opportunities.

2) How trully is the 3d0 perfoming, did is profitable for the companies, are both sony and panasonic happy with the performance?

The 3DO is performing well enough. Sony and Panasonic are happy with their involvement, 3DO has a good deal with them. Between the two 3DO models available, over 4 million units are expected to be sold by the end of 1995.

3)Did Nintendo will acelerate the plans for a gameboy color or jump to advance? well pokemon will delayed those plans and sega have not ways to counter pokemon.

Nintendo definitely feels the pressure from Game Gear X. It will warrant a "colorful" response in the coming year. Pokemon will be featured alongside that response.

4) Will Western DESIGN fare better TTL and maybe more japanese games will be localize?

Yes, in this timeline more companies are focused on the western market earlier on and therefore very focused on bringing great Japanese experiences to that market as well.

 

[Nivek]

Thanks for the answer and give some advice:

1)otl FFVII of all games started production into n64dd but because nintendo delayed it, Square accepted the proposal of sony of a undisclosed sum for become a second party and moving FFVII in that regard. With the cartidge being early the game would never abadon or become multiplatform since the begin.

2) Nice for both Companies, so the 3DO will not crash and burn as OTL, so keep going what is happening

3) umm that is a big point and interesting, moving pokemon to a early GBC would do wonder for both the console and games(specially if keep backward compatibility like OTL gold and silver)

4)umm that is nice, that would means Atlus will export their game early, that would be nice, specially if bernie stolar is not the dick as OTL.

other question:

What will be of atari? they're the weakest link...

will be original games or some will be butterfly away?

 

[Confortius]

1) The 64DD held 64 MB of memory on it but CDs hold about 737 MB. Final Fantasy VII was on 3 CDs when released. I don't think the N64 can fit Final Fantasy VII.

2) Yes and 3DO will expand their partnerships. Also in this timeline, since Sony did not do the PlayStation, they still have Sony Imagesoft Publishing and obviously that will give 3DO some more exclusives or timed exclusives because pushing the 3DO works in Sony's favor.

3) That's the plan.

4) Bernie Stolar is not going anywhere near this industry. He has been butterflied away from here.

There are some big things coming for Atari in the coming year. They actually won't do terribly. They have some plans for the Panther. Especially because in this timeline they have locked down exclusivity for titles such as Rayman and Worms.

 

[Confortius]

TECMO CLOSES
August 5, 1995
Japanese company Tecmo has closed. They will be holding an auction to sell off remaining assets later this year. Rumor has it that Sega is already hiring some lost talent.


ULTRA NINTENDO PLAYABLE AT SPACE WORLD 1995
November 24, 1995
Nintendo held their seventh annual Space World event in Japan where they had a full reveal of the teased Mario game for the Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was given a name, Super Mario 3D Adventure and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated it live in playable form. At the end of the demonstration, a trailer was shown teasing a new Legend of Zelda.


SEGA’S EVOLUTION BEGINS
The Sega Evolution launched in November of 1995, selling an outstanding 400,000 consoles by the end of the year. The launch titles were well received and the software had a high attach rate with the Evolution. Virtua Fighter 2 was estimated to have been purchased by more than half of the Evolution buyers and Panzer Dragoon was receiving high scores in most major magazines. The launch of Evolution started out as a huge success.


Sega Evolution Launch Titles
Battle Arena Toshinden (Tomy)
Bug! (Sega)
Clockwork Knight (Sega)
Daytona USA (Sega)
Destruction Derby (Psygnosis)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (Acclaim)
Panzer Dragoon (Sega)
Ridge Racer (Namco)
Suikoden (Konami)
Tekken (Namco)
Twisted Metal (Sony Imagesoft)
Virtua Cop (Sega)
Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega)
WipeOut (Psygnosis)

Total Consoles Sold Worldwide by the end of 1995
SNES: 44 Million
Sega Genesis: 30 Million
Atari Panther: 8.3 Million
3DO: 4.5 Million
Sega Evolution: 400,000

Game Boy: 86 Million
Game Gear: 33 Million

10 Top Selling Games in 1995
1. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
2. Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)
3. Mortal Kombat 3 (GEN)
4. Mortal Kombat 3 (AP)
5. Mortal Kombat 3 (3DO)
6. Rayman (AP)
7. Tekken (3DO)
8. Twisted Metal (3DO)
9. Destruction Derby (3DO)
10. Virtua Fighter 2 (EVO)

 

[Nivek]

1) The 64DD held 64 MB of memory on it but CDs hold about 737 MB. Final Fantasy VII was on 3 CDs when released. I don't think the N64 can fit Final Fantasy VII.

2) Yes and 3DO will expand their partnerships. Also in this timeline, since Sony did not do the PlayStation, they still have Sony Imagesoft Publishing and obviously that will give 3DO some more exclusives or timed exclusives because pushing the 3DO works in Sony's favor.

3) That's the plan.

4) Bernie Stolar is not going anywhere near this industry. He has been butterflied away from here.

There are some big things coming for Atari in the coming year. They actually won't do terribly. They have some plans for the Panther. Especially because in this timeline they have locked down exclusivity for titles such as Rayman and Worms.

1)Resident Evil 2 was two CD with FMV in PS1 but was properly ported(even high polygon model for characther and enemies) to the N64 for something called: JPEG Pre-renderd Background Real-Time Decompression. How that work?

OTL PS1 computer was a weak 21mhz agaisnt 66MHZ of OTL N64, meaning the images should be bigger size to avoid overheat the PC, N64 being three time stronger allow to that thus allow Resident Evil 2(a 1GB game against 732 MB of FFVII) to be played in a 32MB cartidge of all thing.

http://josepjroca.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/ahora-que-ya-hace-15-anos/ (here is more info in spanish, sorry so much techical to translated)
Thus easily with a 64MB to be maded, heck anygame pre-rendered can be ported as long is compressed.(Nintendo can do thing with that too and Zelda will not be so delayed)

2) But again Sony publish game even in Sega consoled, should change that, rememeber Exclusives matter

3) jejeje those plans are nice

4)That is something for the better. both kalinske and hawking were far better CEO That him

TECMO CLOSES
August 5, 1995
Japanese company Tecmo has closed. They will be holding an auction to sell off remaining assets later this year. Rumor has it that Sega is already hiring some lost talent.

How? well OTL DoA saved tecmo, here looks that not come at time, well, a Itagaki made Shinobi for Sega maybe will be the most brutal action game ever..bring it on.

ULTRA NINTENDO PLAYABLE AT SPACE WORLD 1995
November 24, 1995
Nintendo held their seventh annual Space World event in Japan where they had a full reveal of the teased Mario game for the Ultra Nintendo Entertainment System. The game was given a name, Super Mario 3D Adventure and Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated it live in playable form. At the end of the demonstration, a trailer was shown teasing a new Legend of Zelda.

At The Spaceworld, even if Nintendo Direct remplaced it, nobody urpass the old hype for the event, nice to see thing going well with UNES-Ufamicom (hug his OTL N64)

SEGA’S EVOLUTION BEGINS
The Sega Evolution launched in November of 1995, selling an outstanding 400,000 consoles by the end of the year. The launch titles were well received and the software had a high attach rate with the Evolution. Virtua Fighter 2 was estimated to have been purchased by more than half of the Evolution buyers and Panzer Dragoon was receiving high scores in most major magazines. The launch of Evolution started out as a huge success.


Sega Evolution Launch Titles
Battle Arena Toshinden (Tomy)
Bug! (Sega)
Clockwork Knight (Sega)
Daytona USA (Sega)
Destruction Derby (Psygnosis)
NBA Jam Tournament Edition (Acclaim)
Panzer Dragoon (Sega)
Ridge Racer (Namco)
Suikoden (Konami)
Tekken (Namco)
Twisted Metal (Sony Imagesoft)
Virtua Cop (Sega)
Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega)
WipeOut (Psygnosis)

Excellent to Sega, OTL saturn barely reach that number before climbing to irrelevance, and the list is nice, pretty good game, but with more thing to come.

Total Consoles Sold Worldwide by the end of 1995
SNES: 44 Million
Sega Genesis: 30 Million
Atari Panther: 8.3 Million
3DO: 4.5 Million
Sega Evolution: 400,000

Game Boy: 86 Million
Game Gear: 33 Million

10 Top Selling Games in 1995
1. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island (SNES)
2. Mortal Kombat 3 (SNES)
3. Mortal Kombat 3 (GEN)
4. Mortal Kombat 3 (AP)
5. Mortal Kombat 3 (3DO)
6. Rayman (AP)
7. Tekken (3DO)
8. Twisted Metal (3DO)
9. Destruction Derby (3DO)
10. Virtua Fighter 2 (EVO)

How the Game Gear sold that much? OTL sales were like 10 millon in lifetime, should be like 20 or 22 to be more reasonable..and old venerable Gameboy is doing well, waiting for Pokemon.

Amazing Update, come pretty fast and was full of info, plus nice details, 1996 will be a big year and with more thing to come soon.

 

[Confortius]

1)Resident Evil 2 was two CD with FMV in PS1 but was properly ported(even high polygon model for characther and enemies) to the N64 for something called: JPEG Pre-renderd Background Real-Time Decompression. How that work?

OTL PS1 computer was a weak 21mhz agaisnt 66MHZ of OTL N64, meaning the images should be bigger size to avoid overheat the PC, N64 being three time stronger allow to that thus allow Resident Evil 2(a 1GB game against 732 MB of FFVII) to be played in a 32MB cartidge of all thing.

http://josepjroca.wordpress.com/2011/10/01/ahora-que-ya-hace-15-anos/ (here is more info in spanish, sorry so much techical to translated)
Thus easily with a 64MB to be maded, heck anygame pre-rendered can be ported as long is compressed.(Nintendo can do thing with that too and Zelda will not be so delayed)

You make a good point there. Thanks for the link and info, helps a lot with some things I was trying to figure out. Very interesting stuff.

How? well OTL DoA saved tecmo, here looks that not come at time, well, a Itagaki made Shinobi for Sega maybe will be the most brutal action game ever..bring it on.

Tecmo pulled the plug before Dead or Alive in this timeline. However, Itagaki will show what they have worked on thus far and Sega is impressed. As for Shinobi by Itagaki, you're definitely good at picking up where I'm headed.

How the Game Gear sold that much? OTL sales were like 10 millon in lifetime, should be like 20 or 22 to be more reasonable..and old venerable Gameboy is doing well, waiting for Pokemon.

The Game Gear X really helped to revitalized sales along with the stronger support for the handheld. So while it sold probably the highest possible amount of units that it could, it still cannot touch the Game Boy. However, Nintendo sees it as enough of a threat to respond.

 

[starwarsfan]

So Atari surviving some very interesting

Maybe Atari being bought by Microsoft?

 

[othyrsyde]

I'll give this a read.

 

[Confortius]

1996 was the year that all of the next-generation systems were finally out to go head-to-head. It was also a year of mergers and acquisitions as a result of the new generation.

SQUARESOFT GAINS RIGHTS TO NINJA GAIDEN, RYGAR IPS
As a result of the Tecmo auction held at the end of last year, it has been confirmed that publisher Square has acquired the Ninja Gaiden and Rygar IPs. It was also mentioned that Sega had picked up an unannounced fighting game, along with the team working on it.

SIERRA’S DEAL WITH CUC INTERNATIONAL FALLS THROUGH
Conglomerate CUC International had plans to buy video game company Sierra. According to close sources, the deal had fallen through and Sierra will remain an independent company.

SEGA GOES FOR THE GOLD
Sega purchased CentreGold, also giving them U.S. Gold and developer Core Design. Core Design is working on the highly anticipated Tomb Raider, an action adventure game featuring strong female adventurer, Lara Croft. It is expected to now launch as an exclusive for the Sega Evolution.

ATARI ACQUIRES TEAM17 AND UBISOFT
In order to build up their first-party effort against their competitors, Atari made two strategic acquisitions in 1996. The first acquisition was Team17, the guys behind the Alien Breed games and most recently the Panther-exclusive, Worms. The second acquisition was Ubisoft, the developer that brought the top-selling Rayman to the Panther, meaning Atari now had a much needed mascot to compete with Mario and Sonic. Atari’s Vice President, Phil Harrison commented:
“Our partnerships with these studios have been tremendous and to now bring them into the Atari brand is a huge leap for Atari and these fantastic developers. We plan to be in this business for a long time and I firmly believe these studios will deliver in that plan.”

 

[Confortius]

Sega Restructures

A once doubtful Sega of Japan was now very satisfied with their decision to go with Sega of America’s console plan. Their system had sold over 400,000 units in its first month and a half alone and was clearly going to be a multimillion seller by the end of ’96. Despite being a western developed console, Japanese developers still had tremendous support for the Evolution and it did not bring down the industry as some thought it would. However, it was true that most of those sales were in North America and Europe. Despite the support from Japanese developers, Japanese gamers did not seem to support the Evolution as warmly. Even the 3DO had made its mark in Japan. Sega needed to make a mark of its own.

Further investigation into the issue, showed that Sega of Japan had many internal issues and their marketing plan was lackluster. It was clear that Sega needed a restructure and so they began one. The restructure began with the firing of Sega of Japan’s marketing team and forming a global marketing team in conjunction with the other Sega regional divisions. The second move was the restructuring of Sega’s internal studios. Sega merged their AM1, AM2, AM3, and AM4 development studios into one brand called Virtua Studios, headed by Yu Suzuki, who would appoint heads of teams to make games within Virtua Studios and approve pitches to begin development within that branch. They also merged AM5 and AM6 into Andromeda Studios which would have Yuko Futatsugi heading it. Sonic Team remained mostly untouched and Sega opened a new studio headed by Tomonobu Itagaki called Ninja Team, comprised of former Tecmo developers.

The next step was the expansion of western studios. Isao Okawa briefed the heads of the American and European Sega branches about how they needed to start investing even more in the successful regions and ordered them to start looking into talented western studios that they could acquire and bring into the Sega family. With this, both divisions figured out something that they could both benefit off of, the acquisition of CentreGold LLC. CentreGold was based in the UK, but they also held U.S. Gold. The biggest attraction was their internal studio, Core Design. Core Design had brought many successful titles throughout the years, but there was one in development that would blow people away. It was called Tomb Raider. Okawa approved the acquisition of CentreGold and with that Core Design became an internal studio of Sega.

There was already a lot of restructuring going on at Sega, but more big news came as Sega of America Chairman David Rosen announced that he was ready to retire. One of the founders was leaving and Sega needed to find a replacement quickly. They knew of one man who had proven himself in that division and that man was Tom Kalinske. Tom Kalinske became Sega of America’s new Chairman and a man by the name of Steve Race became the new SOA President.

 

[Nivek]

Let's make a roundup of both updates, first the merger news and later the rest.

1996 was the year that all of the next-generation systems were finally out to go head-to-head. It was also a year of mergers and acquisitions as a result of the new generation.

SQUARESOFT GAINS RIGHTS TO NINJA GAIDEN, RYGAR IPS

Interesting for square, that will diverisy their portfolio and later give nice action games into the future,more if manage to savage some teams.

SIERRA’S DEAL WITH CUC INTERNATIONAL FALLS THROUGH

So Sierra will not fall into oblivion like otl? keeping some adventure games and later RPG would save the company, nice in that.

SEGA GOES FOR THE GOLD

Yeah Nice for that, why Sony never pressure to adquire Tomb Raider when they have it was alien to me(and you stole one my ideas,xd) and that will help with sega otl achiles heel when they close all their wester studios(here butterlfy away)

ATARI ACQUIRES TEAM17 AND UBISOFT

[/QUOTE]
As Say, ubisoft is pretty small and would appreciated if extra income come and Rayman can become more popular over time(rather crash and burn in OTL)
but team17 looks pretty out of field as pc based developer but well something can be made

Sega Restructures

Further investigation into the issue, showed that Sega of Japan had many internal issues and their marketing plan was lackluster. It was clear that Sega needed a restructure and so they began one. The restructure began with the firing of Sega of Japan’s marketing team and forming a global marketing team in conjunction with the other Sega regional divisions. The second move was the restructuring of Sega’s internal studios. Sega merged their AM1, AM2, AM3, and AM4 development studios into one brand called Virtua Studios, headed by Yu Suzuki, who would appoint heads of teams to make games within Virtua Studios and approve pitches to begin development within that branch.

That one was a hell of restructuring, almost all secondary console and Arcade team were unify, well Suzuki is a excellent manager and will make good sinergy and what happened to rieko kodama? maybe made Phantasy Star V here before Skies of Arcadia

They also merged AM5 and AM6 into Andromeda Studios which would have Yuko Futatsugi heading it. Sonic Team remained mostly untouched and Sega opened a new studio headed by Tomonobu Itagaki called Ninja Team, comprised of former Tecmo developers.

Well Panzer Dragoon team is safe and Sonic Team better being fast unlike OTL, Itakagi team is interesting, so sega will have other 3d figther(Dead or Alive) plus a more amazing rebooted shinobi.

The next step was the expansion of western studios. Isao Okawa briefed the heads of the American and European Sega branches about how they needed to start investing even more in the successful regions and ordered them to start looking into talented western studios that they could acquire and bring into the Sega family. With this, both divisions figured out something that they could both benefit off of, the acquisition of CentreGold LLC. CentreGold was based in the UK, but they also held U.S. Gold. The biggest attraction was their internal studio, Core Design. Core Design had brought many successful titles throughout the years, but there was one in development that would blow people away. It was called Tomb Raider. Okawa approved the acquisition of CentreGold and with that Core Design became an internal studio of Sega.

As say before this one will be nice, specially if sega keep OTL STI and other american subsidiaries, those european will be a nice toy to Sega of Europe to play and will help with more over all games

There was already a lot of restructuring going on at Sega, but more big news came as Sega of America Chairman David Rosen announced that he was ready to retire. One of the founders was leaving and Sega needed to find a replacement quickly. They knew of one man who had proven himself in that division and that man was Tom Kalinske. Tom Kalinske became Sega of America’s new Chairman and a man by the name of Steve Race became the new SOA President.

Excelllent News for Kalinke, he was Sega Howard Lincoln and he deserved it the charge, that wil make thing interesting in long term, and will looks about Steve Race(and nobody can worse that stolar and moore)


And More Important, what is About Nintendo? Not major changes from OTL? Nintedo OTL make the dream team in this time(DMA design, now rockstar north, Angel studios now Rockstar Sandiego, Factor 5 and others), will nintendk keep it and maybe internalize at long term? heck even DMA design, daddy of GTA, were making a Kid Kirby game under Iwata supervision, that one wil be interesting.

 

[Confortius]

That one was a hell of restructuring, almost all secondary console and Arcade team were unify, well Suzuki is a excellent manager and will make good sinergy and what happened to rieko kodama? maybe made Phantasy Star V here before Skies of Arcadia

Oh I just realized I forgot to mention AM7 in the update. I will update that later but AM7 is still in tact and still headed by Noriyoshi Oba and Reiko Kodama is still working there. There is definitely a chance of Phantasy Star V before Skies, especially with a successful Sega console this generation.

And More Important, what is About Nintendo? Not major changes from OTL? Nintedo OTL make the dream team in this time(DMA design, now rockstar north, Angel studios now Rockstar Sandiego, Factor 5 and others), will nintendk keep it and maybe internalize at long term? heck even DMA design, daddy of GTA, were making a Kid Kirby game under Iwata supervision, that one wil be interesting.

Nintendo will have the dream team and it will be better than OTL. They have a few things to announce at E3 and they might even acquire some of those studios.