It’s kind of funny how the market for old-school game systems crammed with games has picked up as of late. Most of the charge came from Nintendo themselves, with its NES Classic System selling quite well, despite its short time on the market – and that success is likely to continue with the SNES Classic, which is set to release in just a couple of months, and will likely be just as hard to find.
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That said, AtGames has been trying to capitalize on this market, with the release of classic game systems based on the Atari 2600 and the Sega Genesis. It’s mastered the Atari market pretty well, emulating the games to perfection and packing an extraordinary amount of value into its Atari-shaped systems.
But not so much with Sega. Its latest model of the Sega Genesis system has been nothing short of a failure, due to a lackluster collection of games, lack of cartridge compatibility, and poor, poor sound quality. (How bad? Sonic the Hedgehog‘s theme sounds like something out of a nightmare.) And if you were expecting the Sega Genesis Flashback to fare much better, well, we’ve got some bad news.
And it got us thinking – why would Sega license out its technology to a third-party company instead of producing a model themselves? Surely, Sega hasn’t forgotten how to make a peripheral, as it spent many years designing its own advanced hardware, from the Sega Saturn to the Nomad to the underappreciated Dreamcast. So it got us to thinking as to what reasons Sega would have for not doing this themselves. We’ve got a few ideas, but, seriously, Sega, if there was ever a time to take back your Genesis, it’s now.
Sega Is Too Busy With Their Games
Sega is keeping quite busy on the software front, there’s no denying that. Sonic Mania is due out in a couple of weeks; Sonic Forces isn’t too far behind; and it’s working on a number of other titles, including new entries in the Sega Forever catalog. With that, it’s probably way too busy at the moment to produce a piece of hardware with games included in it – although, if it did avoid the middle-man, we’d lose a lot of the flaws that the Sega Genesis systems from AtGames possesses. No more weird games we’ve never heard of; better quality as Sega has come to expect from its games; and, most importantly, controllers that actually perform worth a damn.
Sega Would Rather Capitalize On Its Classics A Different Way
Sega does have a fond appreciation for its classic games, and we’ve seen as such with a number of releases on the mobile front. But perhaps it may be thinking that, if it made its own game system, it would pretty much create its own rival, with the ability to play games on a classic system instead of downloading them on a mobile device.
But let’s put that theory to rest right now. People can still enjoy Sega games both ways. In fact, it actually helps to have a secondary way to enjoy the classics, because not everyone is crazy about playing the likes of, say, The Revenge of Shinobi on a touch-screen. A 16-bit Sega controller – preferably the 6-button model – would be the way to go.
And, for that matter, why not revitalize the Sega classics for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One? If we can’t get a new piece of hardware, then at the very least, we can get the games on systems that already have a large user base, right?
The Manufacturing Process Is Probably Easier Through A Third Party
With everything that’s on Sega’s plate right now, the company probably thinks it’s much easier having a third-party company dole out hardware to celebrate the classics, rather than Sega themselves. But there’s a problem – AtGames isn’t really the best partner.
That’s not to say the company doesn’t know how to make all-in-one game systems – it does – but the Genesis models have always faltered in one way or another. I mean, why cram the system with 40+ useless games we won’t even touch when you can just as easily encode ten additional classics instead, like Toejam and Earl and Gunstar Heroes? And for that matter, why not get people that are experienced in emulation? The older Genesis model had horrible sound; and even though the new model fixed that, it runs like crap with consistent slowdown.
And the controllers. Can we get anything right on the controllers? What’s wrong with going with a wired model? Besides the short cord, obviously. We’d rather have that than something that runs on wireless, and in a very cruddy manner. (Plus, AtGames’ controllers have a tendency of breaking very easily.)
Sega’s got the right idea licensing out technology, but it wouldn’t hurt to get a partner that knows more about the appreciation going into games. Just look at how well Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection worked, and tell me that can’t be done on hardware. It can.
In case you’re curious, the Sega Genesis Flashback arrives on September 22nd for $79.99. Make sure you check the reviews first, though. Just to be sure.
