Sega Power
…and the rise and fall of Sega in the 90s
Newsagents in the early 90s were a magical place. Dozens of gaming magazines vying for your attention. Many exclamation marks. A technicolor burst of hyperbole and animal mascots.
Before the internet was a thing, these magazines were a monthly snapshot of the industry. They were also a license to print money. So the arrival of the 16bit era saw a new generation of titles appear on shelves. If you were a Sega fan that meant magazines like MEGA, Sega Pro, Mean Machines Sega, MegaTech and a bunch of others.
But what happens when the money slows, consoles start to lose momentum, and you’re left with 100 pages of content to fill every month? How do you get excited about the 32X or the Mega CD when you’re privy to the grim sales forecasts and dwindling ad revenue.
As a staff writer and later editor for Sega Power in the 90s, Dean Mortlock had front row seats to Sega’s rise and fall. This is his story from Mega Drive to Saturn - and the struggle to fill those pages every month.
To be this good takes AGES
“I started on Sega Power in around July of 1992,” begins Dean. “Sonic 2 was on the horizon and the Mega Drive was starting to explode in popularity. Basically, it was a very good time to be working on a console magazine. I stayed with the magazine until it finally closed in 1998.”
Sega Power was one of several Sega focused magazines launched in the early 90s. These were the halcyon days, and it says a lot about the state of the UK video game industry that all these magazines found an audience and managed to turn a profit. Even more surprisingly, they managed to keep their rivalries (relatively) friendly.
“There was a bit of banter in the magazines but it was all pretty harmless,” explains Dean. “We would bump into EMAP staff at events and there was never any friction. At the end of the day we were all in the same boat. And it was a rather lovely boat, too. Personally I was a big fan of the EMAP titles. Mean Machines, in particular, was an excellent magazine.”
93 ‘til infinity
If the Sega Mega Drive had captured the public’s imagination, it had also accelerated the rush of new platforms coming to market (and hoping to steal away some of those customers).
By 1993 we were seeing a raft of new challengers entering the fray. The Amiga CD32 was launched in September, the Panasonic 3DO in October, the Atari Jaguar in November. By 1994 they were joined by the Japanese releases of the Neo Geo CD, Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation.
Meanwhile, the Mega Drive, originally released in Japan in 1988, was starting to look a little long in the tooth. But that was okay, because Sega had the Mega CD ready to go. The next evolution of the platform, and the extra processing power needed to extend the Mega Drive’s lifespan until the next console proper.
Well, that was the plan, but not everyone was convinced. As Dean explains, “I think we all viewed the Mega CD as more of a novelty than a system that would actually extend the lifespan of the Mega Drive. The Mode 7 style graphics mode and FMV video was okay, but there were only really a few games that stood out.”
Whatever the personal views of Dean and the editorial staff, their job was to sell magazines. That meant getting the audience excited about upcoming releases and hardware. Going into 1993 that meant one-thing, the Mega CD.
The system arrived on European shores in April and was priced at GB£270 ($350 USD). Which is about GB£585 ($760 USD) in today’s money. That price point was an issue, obviously, but the bigger hurdle was the lack of must-have software. Simply stated, there wasn’t any.
Oh, and none of this was helped by an announcement from Sega Japan that a new (cheaper) version of the Mega CD was in the works. So “huzzah!” for corporate sabotage…
These issues were highlighted in Sega Power’s December 1993 editorial. Taking a glass half-full approach, they wrote; “This month sees the release of two very important titles - Thunderhawk and Silpheed. Until now there’s been little to encourage Mega Drive owners to move up to the CD. But these games indicate that all is about to change. We could be at the beginning of something very exciting…”
Things fall apart
If there were doubts about the Mega CD, the announcement of the Sega 32X set-off alarm bells within those same publications.
Released in 1994, just one year after the Mega CD’s western debut, the Sega 32X was a solution looking for a problem. Another add-on for the Mega Drive, it crystalised the dysfunction at Sega, and the competing interests of the Japanese and US offices.
Ostensibly, it was meant to be a stop-gap solution ahead of the Sega Saturn. But it simply confused the market, and diverted resources from both the existing platforms and the upcoming Sega Saturn.
It also sold very poorly. When the dust had settled, the Mega Drive had total worldwide sales of approximately 31 million. The Mega CD sold 2.2 million and the 32X just 800,000.
In the meantime, the numerous Sega magazines in newsagents still had to cover all this and put a positive slant on the news. As Dean explains, “By the time we got to the 32X I think we were all starting to get worried. The feeling was that SEGA was spending too much time trying to bolster its existing hardware and not nearly enough on its future one. Sony was new to the market and very keen to dominate. SEGA completely underestimated the PlayStation.”
A new hope
With Sega’s market share in freefall, the Saturn was supposed to offer a clean slate and a proper next generation leap. Released in Japan in 1994, the console had a disastrous US launch in 1995. That particular story has been well documented elsewhere.
In the meantime, Sega Power still had a magazine to produce, a highly fragmented market to contend with, and a readership that was still primarily centered on the Mega Drive, a console that was now pushing eight year old technology.
“The Saturn was doing extremely well in Japan,” says Dean, “so the hope was that some of that success would translate around the world. I remember there was the one particular Christmas when Sega released Virtua Cop, Virtua Fighter and Sega Rally, and we thought this could really be a boost for the Saturn in Europe and the US, but sadly it didn’t make much of an impact.
Second toughest in the infants
While the Saturn was struggling internationally, it would go on to be Sega’s most successful console in Japan, selling almost 6 million units. That’s double what the Mega Drive did, and more than the Nintendo 64 ever sold in Japan.
While that scenario has made the Sega Saturn an import favourite, it wasn’t much comfort to Dean and the staff at Sega Power, whose jobs were dependent on the fate of a struggling console. As he explains, “SEGA completely underestimated the PlayStation and so the Saturn got absolutely battered in two of the main territories.”
“We relaunched Sega Power as Saturn Power in 1997,” continues Dean, “and the plan was to release a demo CD every month. We had provisional bookings for discs for every issue in the first year. Then, within a couple of months, practically every Saturn third-party release was canceled. So we knew it was only a matter of time before SEGA stopped production of the Saturn itself…”
Epilogue
Saturn Power released its final issue in February 1998. The console was discontinued soon after.
That paved the way for Sega’s final gaming console, the Dreamcast. Released in Japan in November 1998, it would go on to sell around 9 million units worldwide before Sega officially exited the home console market in 2001.
But if we’ve learned anything over the subsequent decades, it’s that Sega fans are a dedicated lot. So when Dean and a team of gaming journalists announced a Kickstarter to launch a new magazine titled Sega Powered it met its goal in 4 days.
The debut issue is in the wild and Dean promises a monthly releases schedule (just like the old days) going forward. “We’re a small team of very passionate gamers that want to make the very best magazine we possibly can,” says Dean. “We welcome any feedback at all, so drop us a line if you’ve got a strong opinion either way on the magazine, want to contribute or have a cracking idea for a feature. We really would love to hear from you.”
Visit www.segapowered.com for more info.
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