Critical Gamer's Stephen K writes: Sixteen years is a long time.1994 to 2010; that’s the kind of break we’re talking about with the original Sonic the Hedgehog series. In the realm of videogames, that’s long enough to go from Doom to Black Ops. The first three games (and echidna-powered expansion pack) were a distant memory at this point, but some held on to a simple truth: To be this good it takes AGES; to be this good it takes SEGA. Their good faith was finally returned with Sonic the Hedgehog 4, a series of episodic downloadable games backed by delays and a future of vague hand-waving. Good news for sure, but muddled. Is this a single, complete product or a mini-saga of separate games? Why choose such an unconventional method of distribution? Is it even worth chasing memories of peeling cartridge labels covered in dust? The question must be asked:
“What on Mobius is up with Sonic 4?”
Today, Sega announced its financial results for the full fiscal year that started in April 2024 and ended in March 2025.
I like what's on their legacy IP list, but there are still many more franchises they could revive. Shining Force and Chakan come to mind.
"That’s not how you launch a system".
I wish we lived in the Alternate Timeline where Sega was still a dominant force in the console space and it hadn't been Microsoft.
Saturn was a fantastic piece of kit... they just went a little too ambitious with its dual CPU setup. which turned a lot of developers off (at the time). The homebrew community have done some amazing work many years later, thanks to multichip experience. It is still the best platform for arcade fighters and shmups of all time. Dreamcast is a close 2nd though.
Yeah it was a interesting decision especially when looking at how dual CPU is considered a root cause of why the Jaguar was a failure.
Also the hardware rendered four sided polygons where the standard was three if they kept with triangle polygons I feel the systems development would have been easier to work with and we would have seen more third party ports in the west.
I think it was a victim of its time more than anything it saw huge success in Japan but the leadership and internal turmoil in the west meant games were not getting localised along with a focus on arcade like games were the PlayStation and later the N64 were pushing more in depth experiences over coin munching high score driven games.
I still enjoy my Saturn it was the first console I mowed lawns for and saved up for to purchase. I went so far as to purchase a used Saturn to run off an SD card. I even have a second Dreamcast modded to run off an SD card as well.
Certain video games firsts have become common knowledge over the years, while some incredible feats have fallen into the dustbin of time - TechStomper has dug up five of those forgotten firsts.
