Is SEGA underrated as a gaming company?

They own Atlus which means they own some of the best JRPG's out there including Persona franchise. They also publish and develop Yakuza, which has become popular in the West. They published the original Bayonetta and Vanquish, which shows they have great taste in action games. They're also releasing Valkyria Chronicles 4 this year along with Yakuza 6. Even though they're not behind Shenmue 3, I'm almost certain that Shenmue 1 & 2 HD is on its way. Besides, don't they still own the IP? And then there's the Total War series, Alien games, and Football Manager for those people who care. I think overall SEGA is killing it with quality games. Sonic Mania was also a great idea that they let happen. Nintendo had a great year, but I think SEGA definitely deserves some credit too.

Do you agree, SW? Or do you think they already get the recognition they deserve?

Alien isolation is also a fantastic game

Sega is properly rated. They are a 50/50 company. Half the stuff is good, the other half meh/garbage.

Not underrated at all.

Nope, they're rated just right, as encapsulated by their 2017 releases. For every Sonic Mania, there's a Sonic Forces. For every Total War: Warhammer II, there's a Dawn of War III.

Yes and no.

Many Americans haven't played The Master System or it's game titles, or likewise the Gear Gear which had great games as well as a few ground breaking ones e.g. Phantasy Star...

And then we had the Dreamcast which was very much a sinking ship firing all cannons before it went under.

Sonic The Hedgehog and it's marketing around the Genisis was nothing short of genius.

Today they put still put out some great games, alot of them Published PC titles like Championship Manager and Total War.

--

And the negative...

If you ask a kid about Space Harrier, Shinobi, Alex The Kidd, Phantasy Star, Shining Force, Streets Of Rage or any number of games, they probably won't know what they are.

A whole catalog dead and thrown into the realm of irrelevancy. All the while spamming Sonic, after Sonic game, something arguably now almost entirely synonymous with mediocrity taking whatever good will they had, shitting on it over and over for that sweet sweet profit.

Even going back in time, the internal workings of the company itself around the time the 32X/Sega-CD/Saturn, which was a mess of communication, arrogance and xenophobia.

---

So as far as recognition, Master System/GameGear/Saturn/Dreamcast, certainly, these are underdogs through and through.

They are fine. Lots of the games mentioned are highly rated, and they have plenty of stinkers too. But overall they keeping failing at releasing a single highly acclaimed 3D Sonic certainly hurts their image.

Also I want a new souls like Golden Axe!

I'm really glad SEGA isn't a console company anymore and is now a publisher (Sorry, sonic !)

They bought up some major PC franchises and developers and I'm happy guys like CA and Relic are in their hands.

They're absolutely underrated. Most of their innovative stuff is still arcade only, and their non Sonic IP's, like Yakuza, typically put out numbers between 50,000-200,000.

Then when you talk about the past, most of what they did is forgotten. Today's gamers don't have a clue how much Yu Suzuki and AM2 evolved gaming , let alone know who or what they are.

No, i’d say that they are probably rated about right. To be honest I always felt that they are sometimes overrated, mainly some of their older franchises.

Nope.

They are a middle of the road developer

No. Not by a long shot.

Yes. For developing good games, they hardly get the recognition they deserve. Back in the day, they absolutely crushed the competition in the arcades, and they still maintain a dominant position today (sega cabs are the norm for even non sega boards).

In the console space, they've similarly made underappreciated contributions.

In short, yes they are underrated.

They own some of the best PC focused developers going so they're alright in my book.

Baby gamer confirmed :(

Sega was awesome in the 90's. I still have and love my Game Gear, Genesis and Dreamcast. Then Sega shot themselves in the foot somehow and became a severely crappy developer.

The good recent releases and upcoming releases aren't even Sega but others using their licenses. Christian Whitehead made the popular Sonic Mania which was great. Ys Net are making Shenmue 3. Atlus is part of Sega but aren't actually Sega. They merged a while back but if you're old enough, you still count them as separate.

Point being is that while Sega is on a roll again... It's not really their doing.

@i_p_daily: why, because I'm not talking about the Sega of 25 years ago? Lol

25yrs ago? like I said baby gamer. Sega don't make great video games anymore, they buy game devs and they make the games, so calling them a great "gaming" company is far fetched and used by only baby gamers who don't know what they're talking about, which describes you in a nutshell.

Next thing you will say is that Sony/Microsoft are great gaming companies LOL.

I see Sega as a "parent company" more these days.

As much of a Sega fanboy as I am, I can say that the only one that comes close to a gaming company these days is Nintendo (damn that was hard to say) and even then you could make an argument in some cases that they aren't also.

It's not a company that you associate with quality. It's just a publisher. That's like saying is EA, Square, Activision, Take Two underrated? Nobody holds them to that pedestal because they are publishers. They all have their hit or miss. Now if they were a pure developer, that would be different. I mean as a developer they are mediocre.

It's usually kind of understated how important the Sega's 8 bit and 16 bit consoles were in Europe and Brazil. Games for the SMS were still being made in Brazil well into the late 90s, and neither the NES or the SNES were able to threaten the SMS and the Mega Drive in Europe. The SMS was a particularly remarkable system, because any kind of modest success it may have had was achieved almost exclusively thanks to first party games.

It's hard to understand why Sega chose to keep so many great franchises from that era hidden away in the closet. There's enough room for a new Shinning Force game. I refuse to believe that Fire Emblem and Disgaea have saturated the entire Tactical RPG market. Same thing goes for Phantasy Star, Shinobi and many other franchises.

@ConanTheStoner:

@i_p_daily:

You know that's actually a pic of your boy SecretPolice right?

@ConanTheStoner: Nah take a look at his (your) face, its the look of a stoner LOL.

@i_p_daily:

Won't lie, he does look baked lol.

But if I ever look like that, I'll be spending less time on games and more time at the gym and barber shop lol.

@ConanTheStoner: So you would keep the glasses :P

@i_p_daily:

Never needed glasses, but I'd take those over the mullet for sure.

Unfortunately, barking up the wrong tree though. I basically look like a generic game dude, buzz cut, stubble and all lol.

@i_p_daily said:

@ConanTheStoner:

Lol that's exactly how imagine most hermits.

Good point. In some cases they essentially made their own Zelda I and II as well Castevania.

Honestly, from playing them both, I prefer Master Of Darkness, it's better looking (especially the color pallet) and far less cheap than Castlevania, because it's not confined to a castle as well has more varied settings from level to level.

The fact games like this could run (albeitzoomed) 1/1 and in some cases improved over the MS was impressive stuff.

Sonic The Hedgehog (itself different from Genesis games) rather than a mere lazy port had gameplay as visual improvements.

@needhealing said:

@i_p_daily said:

@ConanTheStoner:

Lol that's exactly how imagine most hermits.

And like this lol

lol you make no sense

Nah. If anything , they're overrated. They were cool back in the arcade days but for the last couple of years they've been crap for the most part.

Sonic has been sh*t for years, the only recent good one had to be made by fans because Sonic team is straight out incompetent. Shenmue is a story QTE driven franchise whose ridiculous hype is mainly due to misguided nostalgia more than anything else. Was it released today and it would be competely destroyed by critics for its lack of gameplay. It was something new at the time but its concept quickly became outdated. They've bought Atlus but Atlus is still its own thing imo. Yakuza is the only good thing they've made recently (cant speak about VC because I havent played it). They had a good thing going with Platinum but then they decided to give Nintendo the rights to Bayonetta and didnt bet on the Vanquish franchise

so, yeah, SEGA has been more sh*t than good imo

I'm not sure who you think is underrating them. I was a sega player back in the day, and have a great affinity for them, but they are rated by those who like them, and not rated by those who don't. It's not rocket science.

They're an interesting company - but I don't think they're underrated as they have an uneven standard of quality.

Is this topic about classic Sega or modern Sega? Either way, both classic and modern Sega are underrated in their own ways.

Classic Sega shaped much of the video game industry for decades (whether in arcades, on consoles, or computers), yet often don't get the credit they deserve. And they've made a lot of great games, much of which have been forgotten over time. Much of the blame for classic Sega being underrated lies with modern Sega, which has killed away most of its classic IPs, rather than keeping them alive and relevant. So it's no surprise that Sega's legacy is slowly being forgotten.

As for modern Sega, they've been developing a lot of quality arcade games over the past decade, which most gamers are completely unaware of, due to Sega keeping their quality arcade games exclusive to Japanese arcades, rather than bringing them over to Western arcades, or porting them to PC or consoles. Outside of arcade gaming, Sega has some great first-party studios, e.g. Yakuza team, Valkyria team, Atlus, Creative Assembly, etc. Yet much of Sega's quality first-party output gets overlooked, with most people only knowing them for Sonic. Modern Sega has enough quality and talent, but lacks the marketing, brand image, and PR.

They might be underrated.

Yes they are. And this is not something new but it is what it is.

The same SEGA that pushed out the unfinished Alien game and total war 2 and completely fucked sonic.

Yeah great publisher...

Sonic All-Stars Racing was great. Best kart racer since Diddy Kong Racing. That's all I got though.