Masakuni

The little blue dragon!

  • he/him

(34/M) Little blue dragon whelp, wearer of many hats, enjoyer of things including but not limited to video games, goth music, sports, art, adorable things, cartoons and anime and other shows, etc.


zlchxo
@zlchxo

i was about to say that if i did a third video game alt history post, it would probably be about how sega could have saved the saturn (it's remarkably simple), but then i realized if i'm posting about sega making way smarter business decisions (such as kicking out tom kalinske- fellas, if you were part of the majority that bought into his version of events i have a contrarian take for you), i should probably roll up the sega-bandai merger idea in here too, as well as an snk acquisition or partnership. in either the atari-3do timeline or one closer to ours, i actually think it's possible for sega to knock playstation to about 2nd place thereabouts (sony has a lot going for it regardless of how well everyone else plays their cards, such as the ability to charge absurdly low prices, easier development due to better support for C programming and a much simpler architecture than saturn, and triangle-based 3d architecture- though the 3do was almost as easy to develop for, and would have the advantage of being familiar to atari amiga programmers). this one will probably be my last one in the video game niche. probably don't expect it in the next week or so as my hyperfixation seems to have faded lol.

i do think it's funny though that when sega doesn't hand control of their online services over to microsoft, (assuming this is also the atari-3do timeline,) microsoft very likely tries to become a fifth player in the market. between a competing platform offering $0 royalties and one offering robust online services that they helped build, i think the only route to viability is for microsoft to go with an open platform. the xbox had a clear graphical advantage over the gamecube, the second most powerful console (or possibly the third depending on what the 3DO MX looks like and when it's released), but game developers (especially multiplat developers) for the most part hadn't really caught up yet, and they look on par most of the time until you get into display options that the gamecube couldn't support (and most games couldn't either). for this reason i think having the best graphics wouldn't have been nearly enough- plus, the sixth generation saw a vicious price war leaving little room for microsoft to undercut on price. but if they gave the steam machine or windows media center or original/OTL 3DO concept a shot with different partner manufacturers, they could have some staying power in the background. i'm thinking basically exactly the DISCover system for pc games, which actually was released and saw limited use.


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