History of Sega in the United States of America

Outlines

• Roughly, start with American beginnings in HI, and most importantly the reasons behind the company's formation and existence.
• Examples of the types of industries they were in, with a few examples (and one of their early non-game machines, like a dispenser or something, as an inline image.)
• Transition to background for their eventual exposure to Japan, and then figure out how youre going to split both US Sega and JP Sega in the same section while keeping both in rough chronological order: probably just two sections, US Sega then JP Sega, with the latter section's introduction advising that we're stepping back in time a little. Or figure something else out, but that split needs to be clear.
• Also, each section needs motivations and reasonings behind their products and actions as a company, and how much of those actions are still seen/felt today.
• Also also, the above section, as well as every other section, needs to have its relevance tied to something either modern or historically-notable. Which every section has, obviously, but it needs to be written clearly and carried through the entire section's writing.

Summary

Needs to hit the following points:

• One intro paragraph summarizing US beginnings and motivations, and quickly transitioning to JP contact and expansion (to about the end of the coin-op era)
• Second paragraph about home consoles: first half about Tonka/SMS, then very quickly transition to Genesis, console wars, vs NES, and absolutely ensure to include their style of marketing in there too (and that the style was more or less necessary to shock people out of the Nintendo monopoly, or so thought by SoA - they weren't too wrong, but that detail's for another time). Unsure if this section should include Saturn/DC... right now I'm feeling it should focus on the MD-ish era and just its marketing, but either way, this is the marketing-focused paragraph, and the one focused on their successes. ALSO, for the later non-summary section on marketing, make sure to include that analogy from Console Wars (SoA's marketing philosophies of "get it out and sold now, and worry about the quality/etc later" allowing them to be flashy and grab that NES market share, but also its double-edged sword of slowly eroding consumer loyalty. And that NoA heavily marketed mostly quality games while SoA heavily marketed anything (again more or less, speaking broadly here)
• Third paragraph about notable missteps and eventually leaving the hardware market. Get either a dedicated section or a substantial paragraph written about misconceptions for SoA's failures: Basically, no the 32X didn't kill Sega, but with more detail and the reasoning behind that misconception, but for all their missteps, including certain aspects of the Sega CD (timing? unnecessary? price?). And on the 32X example, that while it definitely didn't "kill Sega", it was arguably their largest loss of consumer confidence (and if that means much of anything in the long run.)
• Fourth paragraph about some final etcetera things? The third one will mostly wrap up history, but if it looks like we'll need a fourth one, this can be focused on less history and more their current right-now activities, businesses, and philosophies (but ensuring to contextualize those with relevant themes and ideas from the previous three paragraphs.)

Tonka

• Talk about their beginnings as a toy company, and why they were the best fit for SoA's needs at the time (they had a lot of toy industry experience, and were one of the few companies which both had the resources needed to truly launch a competitor to the NES, and ALSO one of the few companies who was willing to do so - few large companies wanted to risk getting on the huge, popular NoA's bad side at the time.)
• Absolutely write something clarifying and correcting the current slant Tonka has in game history. Unintentionally of course, and its a larger issue with hyperbole and game history (especially with "negative" history), but no. Tonka did not do poorly with the Master System. They were actually quite successful most of the time, and only in retrospect and looking at the much larger picture do we come to the conclusion that it "went well but couldve been more successful." Also SoA was happy enough with their work, and let them go more because they just wanted a hands-on approach and to handle things internally.
• Something about the above, why the misconception exists (the box arts being stodgy giving off a low-effort vibe? that it's a toy truck company marketing a video game? because the name Tonka's not relevant anymore and mostly associated with very small children?).
• The grid paper design, reasonings behind it, divisiveness (its bold and "artsy" in some respects, but can also easily appear low budget. would have been fine with just the background, but the arguably low-effort art they put on it reeaaalllyy made it seem cheap, when that was obviously not the intention) and then transition into the box artwork being boldly bad most of the time. And why they did that: they wanted a clean on the shelf look. NES boxes were AAAALLLLL over the place in design, and Tonka wanted something cleaner and newer, all organized. LOVE the idea, but the implementation looks like crap, esp with again that plain ugly redrawn box artwork against those relatively-slick grids.
• Legacy! and mostly (below)
• Sponsorships! One of Sega's biggest Western associations has and always will be licensed sports titles, and this was Tonka baby.

CartridgeCulture (talk) 03:00, 6 November 2021 (EDT)