Stunned.
That is the look on Nintendo's face as they realize just what kind of dragon they have awoken.
Sega has come out to
play, and while early projections of the Sega Genesis hardware doesn't look so hot, the sales charts have been successful enough for Nintendo -and more importantly, Nintendo's third party partners - to take notice. While not all of them have elected to sign on as third parties to publish for Sega's console (Capcom in particular has committed to Nintendo at least until 1990), a number of American licensees and scorned rivals have thrown their lot in with Sega - notably, Tengen, the Atari Games vagabond publisher. While weighing options, Atari Games president Hideyuki Nakajima has decided that perhaps it is time to stand with the competition for a change, as Tengen becomes Sega's very first Third Party Licensee.
And they are not alone: Konami has elected to publish games for both consoles, using the Konami and Palcom branding for NES and Game Boy games, and Ultra Games for the Genesis. Electronic Arts has chosen to publish their famous PC and Apple games on Genesis. Irem, whom Sega had previous relationships with while publishing R-Type for the Sega Mater System, had promised their support and is developing the arcade sequel R-Type II for Genesis. Bally Midway and Williams Entertainment, two sides of a legendary Chicago-based arcade token, have both signed on for Licensing and plans to convert their games to Sega's hardware. While Capcom has committed to Nintendo at this time, they are allowing Sega to convert their games for Genesis hardware. Plans have been made to go the other way around, too; releasing games for their competition as new conversions in accordance with Nintendo's ruling that a third party game cannot be identical to the one on NES.
Talks with Square to publish games on the Genesis have been proceeding well, but considering Nintendo's plans to launch Final Fantasy in the US themselves, perhaps now is not the right time for Squaresoft on Sega... especially given a certain spacefaring adventure is already out in Japan.
As far as other releases, Gauntlet proved to be a massive hit for the Genesis, especially when bundled with the new Genesis 4-Play Adaptor (released as the Sega Tetra Adaptor in Japan and Europe); and as a thank you to the loyal Master System supporters who have come to play in the Next Generation, Sega has announced the release of the Power Base Converter, giving what the Master System's supporters all over the globe backwards compatibility. While it is not compatible with Sega MyCards as the tech is simply too strong, and certain peripherals will not function as advertised on the Power Base, the Sega Power Base Converter allows them to continue to support the aging hardware on the new hardware. There are also plans to integrate the Power Base and 4-Play Adaptor into future versions of the Genesis hardware, perhaps a Model 1.5?
All in all, a huge blow was dealt to Nintendo's dominance in the home, and Sega should be careful. NEC and Hudson Soft have their PC Engine already out in the wilds, and this month they released it in North America as the Turbographx-16... as well as announced plans to release the new CD-Rom attachment. Moreover, the NES still has a lot of releases still to go, with a trio of important American launches in the works... and a secret weapon poised to take the gaming world by storm.
Speaking of which, other releases include
NES
Barker Bill's Trick Shooting
Dick Tracy
Narc
Swords and Serpents
Total Recall
PC Engine
Maison Ikkoku
Power League II
Break In
F-1 Dream
Rock On
Alien Crush
Mashin Hero Wataru (localized as Keith Courage in North America, though Sega had expressed interest in the idea)
The Legendary Axe
Victory Run
Sega's own Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair under the Club Hudson label.
Game Boy
Nothing yet in any region. Next Release will be September.
Arcade and PC game releases are a little more difficult to look up accurate information on, however. Please understand.
Here's the Sega Sales chart for August 1989
Super Thunder Blade: 710,000
Tommy Lasorda: 660,000
Super Sloppy Double Dare: 430,000
Finders' Keepers: 460,000
Thunder Force II: 420,000
Gauntlet: 820,000
Shinobi: The Arcade Game: 690,000
Total Revenue: $209,500,000 USD
Genesis Launch: 1,180,000 Units
Total Revenue: $118,000,000 USD
Sega has knocked initial projections out of the park on their first month in America, partially thanks to Viacom's marketing strategy and the alluring promise of playing your favorite arcade games in the home. Sega president Hayao Nakamura set a goal for the end of 1990: "Hyakuman", or 1,000,000. Their first thought was maybe 200,000? 300,000? 750,000 at best, but thanks to the founder of Sega itself, David Rosen, offering a number of suggestions, including partnering with America media giant Viacom for commercials and advertising -leading to a huge upswing in outreach from parents seeing this new Genesis thing for the first time on places like CBS, MTV and Nickelodeon- was probably the best decision the guy had ever made. It helped that Viacom owned Sega's former parent company Paramount Pictures, which helped give them connections and in roads on what to do next.
The result astounded him, breaking one million in the first month. Shockwaves resounded throughout the gaming world, as Sega had announced, without question, they were here to stay. But will that success continue?
@Void Stalker has been kind enough to report a running tally of the development costs from the previous month, and if they are up to keep doing it so that I do not have to, that would be appreciated and help keep things moving along at a brisk pace. Here are their calculations
Current Funds: 94mil
Awareness: 12.5mil
Support: 5mil
Research: 5.4 mil
Development: 2 mil
Total: 22.9 mil
Net: 70.1 mil - development costs
+1 mil for 8 months
+.25 mil for 27 months
Monthly Revenue: $327,500,000
Upkeep: -$70,100,000
Net Profit: $257,400,000
Nice work. Now I need to eat something before I get to work on the threadmark for September.