Why did Sega never port Star Wars Trilogy Arcade?

[oldschoolplaya]

Really a shame.  My guess is Sega couldn't afford the licensing fee to bring it to the Saturn or Dreamcast because at that time they were losing millions. 

It is a great game and I recently played it on the supermodel emulator, which because of graphical glitches doesn't do the game justice.  Unfortunately, supermodel is on a permanent hiatus and I doubt it will ever get an update.


I still have hope one day MAME will support it - but I may be too old by then.

[DarthMarino]

I'm not sure how much mass appeal it would have had as a full priced console game.  It's 30 minutes long and you do nothing more than aim a cursor at the bad guys and press the shoot button.   Something like Crazy Taxi was a little more involved and they found a few ways to flesh out the game with the challenge mode.

[pbj]

I'm not sure how much mass appeal it would have had as a full priced console game.  It's 30 minutes long and you do nothing more than aim a cursor at the bad guys and press the shoot button. 

Didn't stop them for released 18 Wheeler Pro Trucker as a full priced console game.  We teased my friend for 10+ years for paying full price for that. 

Took him less than 20 minutes to beat it.

[Howard_Casto]

Yup.  The majority of Sega's titles throughout the years have been console ports of games that really don't make a lot of sense to port as they lose something due to lack of arcade controls.  (Afterburner, Outrun, ect).  In the early 2000's they finally started to wise up, or at least consumers did.... these arcade ports weren't selling well anymore. 

SWTA is quite impressive on the 55 inch screen that the arcade cabinet uses..... but on the 27 inch tvs that were the norm at the time... not so much.  Mind you I like it, but I'm not the target consumer. 

[oldschoolplaya]

Well they did port the original Star Wars Arcade to the lowly 32X, so that game had some potential on a home console.  It was probably the only system at the time that could handle the 3d polygons.  Saturn hadn't been released yet and the Genesis was too weak. 

SWTA would have been a perfect arcade translation on the Dreamcast.  Even the controls would of worked on the controllers analog joystick.

[oldschoolplaya]

I'm not sure how much mass appeal it would have had as a full priced console game.  It's 30 minutes long and you do nothing more than aim a cursor at the bad guys and press the shoot button. 

Didn't stop them for released 18 Wheeler Pro Trucker as a full priced console game.  We teased my friend for 10+ years for paying full price for that. 

Took him less than 20 minutes to beat it.

Or House of the Dead 2, which being a perfect arcade port is hard as hell using the Dreamcast controller.  It really needs to be played with a gun.

[Goz]

Sega Dreamcast games were virtually direct ports from the NAOMI 1 because the hardware was very close to being the same except for the amount of RAM and a couple of other very small differences.

I have a closet of NAOMI hardware, carts, and GDROMS and damned if the games aren't damn near exactly the same graphically and the same playable.

[Haze]

if the Dreamcast hadn't died maybe they would have done..

However one of the big reasons for the Dreamcast dying was games with 20 minutes of gameplay being sold for higher prices than anything else on the market at the time (lots of PSX games had weeks, maybe even months of gameplay at a lower price - DC games, with it being the new 'next generation' console were often 2-3 times the price)

As mentioned, 18 Wheeler was ported, and rightfully slammed by quite a few reviewers.  By the time the DC came out the world had very much moved on from direct arcade ports, expectations were a lot higher.

Things have changed a bit now, as companies have realised they can sell these things at budget prices, so gamers know what to expect from them.

[pbj]

Eh, if I recall correctly it was Sega that brought prices back down to $49.99 starting with the Saturn.  Sony and Nintendo had some pretty ridiculous pricing until then.

Dreamcast died so quick nobody can remember what those games cost at launch.  I thought the ports were cheaper, though...

[DarthMarino]

Eh, if I recall correctly it was Sega that brought prices back down to $49.99 starting with the Saturn.  Sony and Nintendo had some pretty ridiculous pricing until then.

Dreamcast died so quick nobody can remember what those games cost at launch.  I thought the ports were cheaper, though...

Eighteen Wheeler was $45.99 list price on Dreamcast.  When they later did the Gamecube port it was $9.99 list.

[Haze]

Eh, if I recall correctly it was Sega that brought prices back down to $49.99 starting with the Saturn.  Sony and Nintendo had some pretty ridiculous pricing until then.

Dreamcast died so quick nobody can remember what those games cost at launch.  I thought the ports were cheaper, though...

Eighteen Wheeler was $45.99 list price on Dreamcast.  When they later did the Gamecube port it was $9.99 list.

yep, and it was competing against a PSX library that had been years in the making, with a huge number of classics available at bargain bin prices, a PSX library that had pretty much already redefined what people expected from a game.

some early PSX titles got away with being direct arcade ports because it was a different point in time, it was suddenly possible to do things that really were completely impractical in previous generations, but by the time the DC came out things had changed dramatically.

[pbj]

$9.99?  Sure it wasn't at least $20?  Hard to believe we rode my friend's ass so long and hard over $10.


Oh well.  Still worth it.

[DarthMarino]

$9.99?  Sure it wasn't at least $20?  Hard to believe we rode my friend's ass so long and hard over $10.


Oh well.  Still worth it.

All the information I see on the Gamecube version says $9.99.  I bought it for 5 bucks used at some point well before Wii was out.  Are you sure your friend didn't have the Dreamcast version?

[pbj]

Nah, 100% positive it was Gamecube.  Fired up the group text and all I got were "tree fiddy" jokes in response so who knows.

[oldschoolplaya]

if the Dreamcast hadn't died maybe they would have done..

However one of the big reasons for the Dreamcast dying was games with 20 minutes of gameplay being sold for higher prices than anything else on the market at the time (lots of PSX games had weeks, maybe even months of gameplay at a lower price - DC games, with it being the new 'next generation' console were often 2-3 times the price)

As mentioned, 18 Wheeler was ported, and rightfully slammed by quite a few reviewers.  By the time the DC came out the world had very much moved on from direct arcade ports, expectations were a lot higher.

Things have changed a bit now, as companies have realised they can sell these things at budget prices, so gamers know what to expect from them.

You could argue many reasons why the Dreamcast died.  But growing up as a Sega freak, I have spent the last 15 years thinking about it.  I do not think arcade games with 20 minutes of game play had much to do with it.  There were a plethora of other rich immersive games to make up for that.  It died because of two reasons IMO: 

1) It did not come with a DVD player.  This was a HUGE selling point for the PS2 and if Sega could of included it, I think we'd be playing the Dreamcast 4 right now.  Damn Sega, you really f'd up that one.  DVD players first hit the stores in 1997 and the Japanese dreamcast was launched in 1998 so they should have had the vision to include it in the hardware.

2)Sega did not have adequate money to invest into it.  They sold it at a loss with the hope that at some point the revenue made on the software would make up for the deficit, much like Microsoft took a huge hit with the xbox.   Unfortunately, they couldn't support the system long enough to see the break even point.  I won't go into why they didn't have funds, that is way beyond the scope of this thread.

[Haze]

Well, I can only share the experience I had here..

Had both systems.

Friends would could over, they'd be impressed by the Dreamcast for a short period, usually with a a resounding 'is that it?' after playing the games for a while, they lacked depth, nobody really CARED about high scores, quickest times etc. on the platform (which was mostly offline, so no leaderboards like we have today)  Few were impressed enough by any of the games they played here to go out and buy them, it soon became apparent that most of them were more suited to renting.

So inevitably the Playstation came back out, occupied more of the TV time, had games with enough depth that friends got a taste of while here, but then really wanted to go and buy their own copies.  For this type of game rentals gave you a preview of the game, but buying was the way to go.

BOTH systems suffered from high levels of piracy (and yes, the DC could do it out the box, but not everybody had a CD drive that could burn DC discs, so the playing field wasn't THAT uneven)

Again the major difference I saw is that when somebody pirated a PSX game they often enjoyed it enough to consider buying it, because they wanted the original package, the games were games they knew they'd want to come back to later.  When somebody pirated a DC game the usual response was 'well that was fun for 5 minutes, thank **** I didn't buy it'  It actually got to the point where people were weary to even waste a blank disc on some DC games because they knew they'd get so little entertainment out of them, that tells you a lot about their perceived value.

As already mentioned, for a fair number of the Sega arcade games a lot of the appeal was in the cabinets too, big moving units, force feedback etc. rather than the actual game, all of that was lost in conversion.

So I honestly think you're underestimating the influence it had, the games were weak.  If you loved arcade games, sure, amazing system, but you've only got to look at how much the arcade market had declined by then to see how much people actually loved arcades by that point.  Most of the games of that era were already coin eaters, designed more around taking as much money as they could while offering as little gameplay in return as possible, people had soured to them, and they were never designed to be deep or interesting games to begin with.

Sega I would say did their homework, worked out what had made the PSX a success when the PSX had been released, but completely failed to see how market conditions had changed since then.

Star Wars Trilogy wouldn't have saved the DC, just like Star Wars Arcade couldn't save the 32X from it's weak hardware and terrible library either.

[oldschoolplaya]

Without getting into specific games, I wonder if you were showing your friends games with little depth like the arcade conversions already mentioned in this thread? 

What about Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, Grandia 2, Soul Calibur, Phantasy Star online, Sonic Adventure, etc?  Games that had very deep depth. 

Those types of games blew anything the PS2 had at launch out of the water.  Like stated before, a lack of DVD player made people who were looking to upgrade from a PS1 take a wait and see approach.

[pbj]

Gentlemen, this is akin to arguing over the number of angels dancing on a pin. 

Besides, Saturn burned most so badly nobody would risk the Dreamcast.  Case closed.

[Xiaou2]

Without getting into specific games, I wonder if you were showing your friends games with little depth like the arcade conversions already mentioned in this thread? 

What about Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, Grandia 2, Soul Calibur, Phantasy Star online, Sonic Adventure, etc?  Games that had very deep depth. 

Those types of games blew anything the PS2 had at launch out of the water.  Like stated before, a lack of DVD player made people who were looking to upgrade from a PS1 take a wait and see approach.

lol.   Sonic is deep gameplay?!   Ummm.. No.    Super Mario's beat sonic into oblivion any day of the week... even the NES version.

 Ridge Racer for PS1 beats all of those titles.

 I loved the older Sega arcade machines... but as said, the sims were best in moving cabinets... and over the years, Sega couldnt even make a decent Shinobi.

 
 As far as I could tell, Trilogy was a quarter munching rail shooter.  No real depth. The original Starwars vector game plays better.

[oldschoolplaya]

Have you even played Sonic Adventure 2?  That does have real depth.  Took me and my son two months to finish with very challenging and fun levels.

Ridge Racer - how can you compare a racing game to RPGs and action titles I've listed?  Compare apples to apples.  Your argument is illogical.  I'm done with this thread.

[Haze]

Have you even played Sonic Adventure 2?  That does have real depth.  Took me and my son two months to finish with very challenging and fun levels.

Ridge Racer - how can you compare a racing game to RPGs and action titles I've listed?  Compare apples to apples.  Your argument is illogical.  I'm done with this thread.

I didn't really feel than Sonic transitioned well from 2D to 3D, and am in the camp feeling it still hasn't recovered, I wasn't even convinced by the later (non MD) 2D games if I'm honest.

Mario worked better as a 3D game because it required more calculated movements, Sonic's appeal was more 'speed' and in 3D there's just too much to take in if you try and do things fast, OR you end up turning half of the gameplay into 'set plays' rather than things you can play (loops that you have no real control over etc.)  Sonic Adventure 2 I seem to remember is the one that felt more like Pokemon at times?

Shenmue was a fine technical achievement, visually mindblowing, but as a game, boring, stiff, difficult to relate to, held together with unwanted (at least for me QTE sequences) and what really amounted to a lot of dull mini-games.  That said I think it was probably the closest the system came to a real killer title, it was more in the template of things to come, but maybe the theme / setting / pace of it limited the audience.

PSO was online, the only people online had dialup, there weren't many of them, it was too ahead of it's time, which was just as bad as being behind the times.

The other RPGs, while competent games are both a bit too cutsey Japanese.

Soul Calibur, yeah, good game, still an arcade port tho, and fighting games always have quite a specific audience, even people who like fighting games tend to be picky over which ones, and for anybody else it's just button mashing and therefore doesn't feel deep at all (you could complete the single player game by doing nothing but that)

Sony by that point had MGS, I don't think the DC had a real answer to that.

Sony also had Fifa and Pro Evolution Soccer, the 2 'big name' football games, those, at least in the UK market, are enough to make or break a system on their own, the football games the DC had were again shallow arcade ports (Virtua Soccer) or also-ran games which really didn't play well (UEFA titles etc.)  That was probably the #1 reason the Playstation came back out at first.

The Playstation also had other solid 'mascots' such as Spyro, Crash etc. while Sega were still struggling for one, as they were on the Saturn. 

The market was flooded with arcade ports, if anything it reminded me of all the stories about how the market crashed in the 80s because the software quality wasn't good enough, people spending a lot of money on a disappointing product.  Mr Driller was often touted as a really good game, but, the original ran on Playstation hardware in the arcades, it's a 2D game, the DC version didn't really bring anything more.. Mars Matrix, a 16-bit arcade title, sold as a full price new game...

There was a single DC game I remember kept people hooked, Metropolis Street Racer, and even then the game was ridiculously buggy.

All SWT would have done is further add to the flood of arcade ports, and while I'm not denying that there were DC games with depth there were an awful lot without (and then you had the ones that SEEMED to have depth, but were really just novelty items that grew stale quickly too, Seaman for example)

[Ian]

I thought it died because it was super easy to copy games for the system. It didn't take much to rent and burn games and get them to play on the dreamcast. I loved that system. Skies of Arcadia was an obsession.

[pbj]

I thought it died because it was super easy to copy games for the system. It didn't take much to rent and burn games and get them to play on the dreamcast. I loved that system. Skies of Arcadia was an obsession.

System was already dead when the hacks came out.

[vwalbridge]

I thought it died because it was super easy to copy games for the system. It didn't take much to rent and burn games and get them to play on the dreamcast. I loved that system. Skies of Arcadia was an obsession.

System was already dead when the hacks came out.

System was already dead before the system came out.

Sega was losing money already and was forced into selling the system at a loss. So they were actually losing money on top of losing money. Kinda like being married AND having kids.

[Haze]

I thought it died because it was super easy to copy games for the system. It didn't take much to rent and burn games and get them to play on the dreamcast. I loved that system. Skies of Arcadia was an obsession.

System was already dead when the hacks came out.

pretty much, they even had the second wave of machines that closed the hack, the problems ran a lot deeper.

btw don't get me wrong, I love a lot of these arcade games, they're not meant to be deep, they're meant to be a short blast of fun, but the price point has to be right, it wasn't, and the system needed other games and support that simply wasn't there.

also say what you will, I'm 99% certain the DC wouldn't have been able to pull off the 3D GTA games and other titles that eventually became iconic with the PS2.  It was good at certain things, but ridiculously weak at others. (a mistake Sega made with the Saturn too)

with the current generation of systems you're seeing what happens if you sell these games at a reasonable price point, they become immensely popular once again.

[Ginsu Victim]

I'm not sure how much mass appeal it would have had as a full priced console game.  It's 30 minutes long and you do nothing more than aim a cursor at the bad guys and press the shoot button. 

Didn't stop them for released 18 Wheeler Pro Trucker as a full priced console game.  We teased my friend for 10+ years for paying full price for that. 

Took him less than 20 minutes to beat it.

Or House of the Dead 2, which being a perfect arcade port is hard as hell using the Dreamcast controller.  It really needs to be played with a gun.

I still play it on Dreamcast and Xbox with a gun.