[Interesting] Start-up melody FDS vs. Menu melody NGC

[SignOfZeta]

A damaged reputation is not always the death nail of a company, but it can be especially if there are other factors involved. Certainly Exxon is an example of what you're saying, though I'm not sure how you can put Microsoft up there with Exxon. I'm not even sure that Microsoft has a bad reputation. Sure, some people might have bought into that "I'm a Mac" schlock, but you could say that marketing campaign has pretty much become ubiquitous and a sign of all things pretentious. In fact, Harris polls show that Microsoft's reputation is actually ranked pretty high in relation to other companies, including Apple. I'm not in any way trying to say that Microsoft's reputation is spotless and that it didn't take hits with Vista, but comparing Windows Vista to the Exxon Valdez oil spill might be overstating things a bit.

Maybe you haven't noticed, or maybe you live in Redmond, but people complain A LOT about MS. They've been sued for billions of dollars by several major world governments. It has nothing at all to do with stupid Apple ads. WTF.

My point was rep does not=money. I hate KBR, as do a lot of people, but I help make them one of the richest companies in the world just by paying my taxes. If I don't pay my taxes I go to jail, so its irrelevant how much I hate them. I hate MS, but while I have a personal boycott against their gaming/music stuff, I can't really do much without using Windows...so they got my $35 for Win7 as well as licenses for all the computers where I work. I hate Exxon, but what am I going to do, use gasoline from a less evil oil company? There's no such thing.

[DragonmasterDan]

Maybe you haven't noticed, or maybe you live in Redmond, but people complain A LOT about MS. They've been sued for billions of dollars by several major world governments. It has nothing at all to do with stupid Apple ads. WTF.

My point was rep does not=money. I hate KBR, as do a lot of people, but I help make them one of the richest companies in the world just by paying my taxes. If I don't pay my taxes I go to jail, so its irrelevant how much I hate them. I hate MS, but while I have a personal boycott against their gaming/music stuff, I can't really do much without using Windows...so they got my $35 for Win7 as well as licenses for all the computers where I work. I hate Exxon, but what am I going to do, use gasoline from a less evil oil company? There's no such thing.

Right, but you're comparing monopolies (Microsoft, a vendor with 90% of the desktop OS market) and oil companies, to Sega. A company who produced a non-vital entertainment product.

I agree reputation does not equal money, but it weighs against the success of a product when your reputation is that you don't support it.

[nat]

I don't use when the first and last licensed games on a console released as the lifespan, primarily because as shown with the Dreamcast, Atari 2600 or the Neo-Geo games come out long after the systems mainstream viability is gone.

Also, you're looking at Japan and not the North American market. I think the last NA releases for Dreamcast were in 2002. Based on that I see the Dreamcast as an inbetweener.

Of course I'm looking at the Japanese market... This is the market by which all video generations should be judged.

Added in edit: As a good example with the PC engine, Dead of the Brain came out in 1999, I don't consider that the end of the PC Engine's lifespan. It happened much earlier and the game being released in 1999 was an anomaly. Fire Emblem Thracia 776 came out in 1999 as well, despite that I think the Super Famicom was dead maybe 2 years earlier.

The difference here is that the PC Engine hadn't seen releases for a number of years before Dead of the Brain I and II. Yeah, it was an anomaly. The Dreamcast, on the other hand, had a steady (albeit slow) stream of games coming out right until the end (2007).

The reason that licensed releases came out for the Dreamcast long after hardware production ceased is the same as for the Neo-Geo, due to a nearly identical arcade board (yes, Naomi hardware could have more RAM and such than the Dreamcast, but it was the same platform and not identical like the Neo-Geo), it was very easy to port over arcade releases with little extra work to be done to generate a little extra revenue. 

That's fine, but SEGA wouldn't have done it if people weren't buying. As a matter of fact, each release sold out quickly and a lot of the later titles are now pretty expensive.

[ceti alpha]

A damaged reputation is not always the death nail of a company, but it can be especially if there are other factors involved. Certainly Exxon is an example of what you're saying, though I'm not sure how you can put Microsoft up there with Exxon. I'm not even sure that Microsoft has a bad reputation. Sure, some people might have bought into that "I'm a Mac" schlock, but you could say that marketing campaign has pretty much become ubiquitous and a sign of all things pretentious. In fact, Harris polls show that Microsoft's reputation is actually ranked pretty high in relation to other companies, including Apple. I'm not in any way trying to say that Microsoft's reputation is spotless and that it didn't take hits with Vista, but comparing Windows Vista to the Exxon Valdez oil spill might be overstating things a bit.

Maybe you haven't noticed, or maybe you live in Redmond, but people complain A LOT about MS. They've been sued for billions of dollars by several major world governments. It has nothing at all to do with stupid Apple ads. WTF.

My point was rep does not=money. I hate KBR, as do a lot of people, but I help make them one of the richest companies in the world just by paying my taxes. If I don't pay my taxes I go to jail, so its irrelevant how much I hate them. I hate MS, but while I have a personal boycott against their gaming/music stuff, I can't really do much without using Windows...so they got my $35 for Win7 as well as licenses for all the computers where I work. I hate Exxon, but what am I going to do, use gasoline from a less evil oil company? There's no such thing.

hahaha. Had to look up Redmond on the map.

Sure, MS does have a lot of haters, but I'm not sure what major corporation doesn't? That goes with the gig, I would think. I personally have no particular love, or hate, for MS. I just prefer Windows to anything else out there. If Google or anyone else brings out something better I'll jump on board. Just curious: Why the major hate-on for MS?