Between Sega and Atari which company made more mistakes?

[Cyberman]

Both companies have made some pretty bad decisions over the years. Look at Atari for example, they almost killed the video game industry back in the 80's. They were a big part of the Video Game Crash of 1983. The Atari 5200 had some of the worst controllers ever. Sega was just as bad. Releasing the unnecessary add ons for the Sega Genesis, the Sega CD and 32X for example.

 

[xatruio]

Never understood the revisionist hate for SegaCD. Sold decent and was a good add on with some great games. 32x was the clusterfuck.

But I'd say Atari.

 

[Mittens2317]

I’d say there’s a sizeable difference between suicide and genocide. Defo Atari.

 

[9dragons]

I know more about Sega than Atari, so I cannot make a Statement yet. Although it is true Sega did some stupid Things most of their Things still made sense back then.


Sega had good ideas but they tend to execute them in a way to extreme way. As I said the initial idea of the Sega CD was not that bad, but they killed the idea with the 32x . The 32x was too much. They just alienated their fans with that. Too many ad ons is bad. But dropping a console to early (the Saturn ) was also not very smart. They should have pushed the Saturn even if the Dreamcast was incoming already.Killing off the Saturn destroyed the trust of many people in the company.

 

[Truck_1_0_1_]

Never understood the revisionist hate for SegaCD. Sold decent and was a good add on with some great games. 32x was the clusterfuck.

But I'd say Atari.

It was a SUPERB add-on, with many of the best 16-bit games ever made.

The only true negative, was the price point and even the limited colour palette didn't stop the games from looking awesome.

Could've been marketed better, but it sold quite a bit.

32X... yeah.

I know more about Sega than Atari, so I cannot make a Statement yet. Although it is true Sega did some stupid Things most of their Things still made sense back then.


Sega had good ideas but they tend to execute them in a way to extreme way. As I said the initial idea of the Sega CD was not that bad, but they killed the idea with the 32x . The 32x was too much. They just alienated their fans with that. Too many ad ons is bad. Bat dropping a console to early (the Saturn ) was also not very smart. They should have pushed the Saturn even if the Dreamcast was incoming already.Killing off the Saturn destroyed the trust of many people in the company.

Not Sega's fault they killed it in the west, Stolar's fault; that guy just gutted SOA.

That isn't to say that SOJ dropped the ball in releasing the Saturn when they did in the first place, but it burned even quicker, due to Stolar. Ahole. For everyone that hates Peter Moore, they should direct their hate to this guy instead.

But yeah, Atari had the significantly worse business practices, had much shitter quality products and didn't know how to sit at the top; when Sega was at the top, they tried to take well-executed chances, but executive meddling screwed things up. Atari just squandered everything because they were clueless.

 

[xatruio]

Stolar was an asshole ot the Saturn, but also on the flip side, a huge catlyst for Dreamcast, so I'm torn on his legacy. Although Japan was already developing Dreamcast anyway, so if it had more time to cook, but still beat PS2 to market by only a little less time, perhaps might've faired better in Japan, giving Saturn extra to be the success in Japan and even a bit more as well in west. US was weary and burnt out by Sega for the 32x, Japan had a similar feeling toward Dreamcast because they loved Saturn so much.

 

[Nigel]

To my mind, it may help to distinguish mistakes by quantity and quality. Come the 1990s (and leaving aside the earlier crash), I think Atari made qualitatively worse decisions. The Jaguar was touted as a 64-bit console; though not entirely untrue, they know how misleading they were being. Atari crashed and burned, rushing out whatever they could to save face.

I think Sega made less dramatic errors, but there were more errors that people didn't forget. As others have mentioned, the add-on approach wasn't prudent: even if there were decent CD/32x games, what stands out in the minds of most consumers is that you had to fork over all of that cash for games that likely weren't worth the cost. E.g., Stellar Assault is a fine game, but not for the cost. Though anecdotal, I recall my parents having the family sit out the fifth generation for that reason: "and you'll be asking me for a second Saturn next Christmas, right?" Fair skepticism.

Another important element to Sega's situation was the clash between Sega of America and Sega of Japan (I'm unaware of how Sega of Europe played into it). I get the impression that Sega really didn't know what to do after the Genesis (after all, they were the first to truly challenge Nintendo: where does one go next?) Some wanted to hold onto the Genesis, others wanted to move onto the Saturn. A house divided doesn't well stand, especially when Bernie Stolar is your new landlord. The Saturn was a glorified RPG powerhouse, but the West wanted 3D; we know who won that battle.
That said, it's probably for the best that we didn't get Sonic X-Treme: that could've wounded Sega far worse than '06 (at least they were done with consoles then).

The last comparison is how Sega handled the Dreamcast: I think they were capable of pulling it all together for a decent final fight, and it shows that they had some competence all along: online play, inventive IPs and, most importantly, a far more unified marketing approach come to mind. They could have been solid in the mid-'90s, but little skirmishes got in the way. A fine example of this was EA choosing not to publish for the console. It led to fine sports games, but at a cost. So too, GTA III was in development for the Dreamcast, but pulled when Sega said sayonara. What could've been...
Sega pulled the parachute chord a little too late; Atari just let the diver fall.

 

[ShinChuck]

Let's also not forget that Atari had the chance to publish the NES outside of Japan and simply mismanaged the whole agreement to where it fell through. How different things could have been for Atari, and gaming, if we grew up with the Atari Entertainment System!

 

[Jigen]

Even in modern terms still Atari, Bushnell should have never sold.

 

[高野和泉]

Sega is still a software powerhouse.

Atari is just a name and a publisher(once in a bluemoon).

def atari.