As I write this, it's supposed to be E3 season, but while the industries leading Electronic Entertainment Expo has been cancelled, we do have, or have had depending when you are reading this, events from Sony and Microsoft.
We are also coming off the back of two high profile delays of Xbox games. Redfall and, perhaps more importantly Starfield, slipped into the 2023 release schedule.
Cue lots of fanboy bickering on social media, likely to increase as both industry giants show their hand over the coming weeks, about the quality and quantity of first party titles.
The view seems to be, as someone on Twitter said, that first party content is the industry's bread and butter.
But is that really true?
A while back, I argued that Sega were the greatest first party developer ever and I stand by that. In terms of volume and quality, I truly don’t see how that can be argued.
Nintendo come close, particularly in the post-Wii world where the their output is necessary, much like Sega’s was in its time, but that output is dwarfed in comparison to the era where Sega were fighting tooth and nail to get a foothold in a scene where Nintendo had tied up all the third parties to restrictive contracts.
But Sega were on a different level, not only going head to head with Nintendo on platformers, adventure games and sports titles, but they had scrolling beat em ups, racers of both the arcade and simulation variety, full on RPGs and entries in just about every genre imaginable all developed in house.
So what happened? Some of these games caught traction, Sonic the Hedgehog I'm particular became the first party title any platform holder would dream of. Not only was it a critical success on release, but Sonic himself, as we continue to see today, was supremely marketable.
Most first party efforts, however, didn’t catch on. For some it was due to a lesser quality, Space Harrier 2 and Super Thunder Blade spring to mind. But in most cases, the masses simply passed over them.
Master System ports of Hang On, Shinobi, Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone and the like were a cut above what the NES could produce graphically, and were astonishing games in their own right, but couldn’t shift the SMS in the US or Japan where the NES already had the market in a stranglehold.
The same could be said for Mega Drive with titles such as Golden Axe, Afterburner Burner 2, Shadow Dancer, Super Monaco GP and Phantasy Star 2. All great games, but largely overlooked in Japan and the US due to Nintendo market share.
Indeed, it took Sonic to break Nintendo’s grip on the market in the US. In Europe however it was a different story, where the SMS and NES had landed at around the same time and Sega was edging out Nintendo’s hardware.
So what does that tell us? First party games have an importance, both Mario and Sonic are evidence of that. But Sega having literally dozens more in-house developed titles (out of necessity rather than anything else) didn’t help their cause.
It was in most cases being first to market in these early days. The NES had won the war before Sega even launched any consoles in the US, while Sega’s European victory came down to them coming to market head to head against the mishandled PAL NES.
But there’s more to consider, as we move to the fifth generation of consoles.
The Saturn and PlayStation make an interesting case study for how much first party content actually matters.
The Saturn launched in Japan with Virtua Fighter, a first party arcade port that sold 1 to 1 with the System. It was, in fact, the reason why it lead the market in the country until 1997, which we will come to later. The PS1 meanwhile really had no in-house titles of note, Namco’s Ridge Racer doing the effort for them.
Come the Western launches, Sega’s portfolio had swollen on Saturn. All six US launch games were first party efforts, all decent in their own way, but Virtua Fighter, Clockwork Knight and Panzer Dragoon in particular were (and still are) fantastic. More first party games would materialise before the Playstation even made it to market.
The Playstation meanwhile launched with one notable first party effort, Wipeout, in Europe. From what I can discern, there was nothing at the US launch aside from the middling and oft-forgotten ESPN Extreme Games.
Things went even further when Sega released “The Big Three” in Christmas 1995, Virtua Cop, Sega Rally and Virtua Fighter 2 all being critical darlings that all equalled or bettered anything on the rival console, first or third party.
Yet, we all know what happened between those two consoles.
Despite Sega’s first party efforts, the Saturn got trounced by the PS1 in the West.
It was however leading the way in Japan by way of its Virtua Fighter series. Case in point that first party games are the lifeblood of a console?
Well, no. In 1997 Final Fantasy VII, a third party game, destroyed the Saturn’s lead overnight in Japan. Once again, first party content mattered little when it came to the Saturn.
In this case even launching first couldn't save it, Sega's mishandling of the consoles launch and bad reputation followimg the 32X were just two of the many factors brought on by the internal conflict between Sega’s of America and Japan that doomed the console before its rival would launch.
And what of the Dreamcast? Beloved by many, but bought by not enough. Once again Sega’s supreme first party efforts were largely ignored by the masses. Gamers love to reminisce about Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio and Shenmue, but in truth those internal critical smash hits didn’t shift the system, nor did the return of a mainline Sonic game which was also well regarded on release (irrespective of what revisionists would have you believe).
Instead most gamers eagerly awaited the release of the PlayStation 2. A console that would launch with just one first party effort on release: Fantavision, an abstract firework puzzle game. The lack of first party PS2 games was mentioned in a Digital Foundry episode almost two years ago.
The clip below is interesting for two reasons, firstly Richard Leadbetter highlighting it, and John Linneman's reaction, which we will come to later.
So what can we conclude? Are first party games the lifeblood of a console? The evidence says no, especially considering Sega’s first party prolific and high quality output at the time.
Are first party games important? In a way, they can be. Sonic and Super Mario Bros are evidence of this, but it's hard to draw a conclusion that they make or break a system.
This is further evidenced by the Xbox Series X and S. Microsofts latest consoles have precisely one next gen only first party exclusive, yet sales are outpacing even the Xbox 360 during a similar timeframe.
So what does sell a console? It’s not an easy answer, but it seems to me that the key driver is all about perception, marketing, optics. Games, especially first party games, are secondary when it comes to deciding the hot new item of the generation.
It's narratives that shape a consoles destiny, and if they can be amplified by marketing and social media, then that is how the console will be perceived and will perform. Interestingly, these become self-fulling prophecies, as the increased sales of hardware will result in more investment of first party games, and will attract more third party developers.
Coming back to the Digital Foundry clip, the perception point seems to be evidenced by John seemingly bemused by Richards assertion that the PS2 had no major first party games, and his reaction mirrored my own. I was similarly surprised to learn that when I first saw the video in 2020. My perception had been altered to the point where I questioned the validity of the claim that such an iconic console had no notable first party games.
That apparant Mandela effect is a result of great marketing from Sony, and the lack of first party classics didn't stop the PS2 from becoming a resounding success, and if that doesn't answer the question definitively, I dont know what will.
So no, unfortunately excellent first party games don't guarantee a consoles success and that is unfortunately why we aren't playing Sega consoles today.
But as Sega fans, despite the lack of commercial success outside of the Mega Drive years, we wouldn't have it any other way, those Sega games on Sega hardware were truly special, and the reason why we still love the company today.
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