[HN Gopher] Kenji Tosaki Talks Saturn/Dreamcast Peripheral Desig...
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Kenji Tosaki Talks Saturn/Dreamcast Peripheral Design, Reveals
"Virtua Visor"
Author : zdw
Score : 86 points
Date : 2022-06-11 15:58 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.segasaturnshiro.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.segasaturnshiro.com)
| fartcannon wrote:
| It's likely my age, but articles like this are inspirational to
| me. Look at all that beautiful design. Sega really knew what they
| were doing. I'm sad they were pushed out by stuffy Microsoft and
| Sony.
| warning26 wrote:
| It's really too bad that SEGA completely hemorrhaged talent
| after dropping their hardware business -- nothing they've made
| since then has come close to what they used to release.
| causi wrote:
| To me the Dreamcast controller was by far the best-feeling
| controller of that generation. It's a terrible shame they
| didn't have the vision to embrace dual-analog and game-agnostic
| online voice chat.
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| If Sega had a true Steve Jobs like visionary they could have
| become the Apple of console gaming. Alas, their time has
| passed.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Yeah they were definitely out marketed. A Steve Jobs like
| marketing force but hopefully not the utilitarian design of
| Apples products. Barf!
| mafuyu wrote:
| As someone who does firmware for consumer electronics, I feel
| like having such ardent fans interview you years after the fact
| must be a great honor. Hopefully, someday I can be involved in
| something that's just as exciting to me and others.
|
| As a side note on the Saturn analog stick section, there's
| actually an open source Gamecube controller project called
| PhobGCC,that's using a similar technique for the analog stick. I
| believe it uses hall-effect sensors to magnetically detect the
| stick position, with some fancy algorithmic filtering (Kalman
| filters, etc.)
| CarVac wrote:
| I'm on the PhobGCC project (I wrote the snapback filter), it's
| pretty exciting where things are going.
|
| Finally people are going to have controllers that will last.
| metadat wrote:
| (For the uninitiated)
|
| PhobGCC is a project to create a teensy based gamecube
| controller with hall effect sensors, snapback filtering, and
| notch calibration
|
| https://github.com/PhobGCC
| CarVac wrote:
| We've moved to https://github.com/PhobGCC now.
| metadat wrote:
| Link updated, thanks.
| [deleted]
| mafuyu wrote:
| Oh hey CarVac! Yeah, PhobGCC was sorely needed and I'm
| excited to see where it goes. :)
|
| I'm already on the Frame1 train, but I may end up building
| one soon just to check it out.
| CarVac wrote:
| I had built a homemade rectangle last year and switched
| fully, but the Phob has me back on the sticks, especially
| now that I got the opportunity to try it (I wrote the
| filter without having any controllers on hand).
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| Sega was so far ahead on console tech while also completely
| unable to manage a business. They basically released the Wii in
| 1999 with their bass pro fishing controller for Dreamcast that
| could also play games like Virtua Tennis. They just decided not
| to tell anyone lol. Baffling but impressive. The Dreamcast was
| such a fun console.
|
| Another fun Sega-ism is that the Genesis/Megadrive could play
| games online in 1994, although I think only in Japan.
| shaunxcode wrote:
| including meganet only games like "phantasy star text
| adventure"!
| setgree wrote:
| It's fun to see the author describe himself as a"massive Saturn
| fan since Christmas '96."
|
| I turned 8 right around then, and my parents agreed to buy either
| a Sega Saturn or the N64. I don't think I cared which, but the
| first toy store we drove to had sold out of Saturns, so we got
| the N64 and Super Mario 64, and from that day on, I've been a
| Nintendo fan.
|
| If they'd had Saturns in stock, maybe today I too would call
| myself a "massive Saturn fan."
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I was also a Nintendo fan growing up, but we bought a Dreamcast
| on the cheap around the turn of the millennium when Sega was
| going through financial troubles and loved it. I also tracked
| down a Sega Saturn many years later.
|
| One thing I will give Sega credit for is that it really feels
| like they "took care" of their user-base. And by that I mean
| that there was enough variation in their first-party titles
| that for pretty much any kind of gamer, Sega made a game for
| you. Action, platformer, RPG, fighting game, racing game,
| sports: there was at least one of everything. This is in
| contrast to Nintendo, whose N64 and Gamecube libraries often
| had huge gaps around certain genres. Nintendo's mindset felt
| more like, "We're going to make the games we want to make, and
| for anything else you can find a third party." But of course
| third-party support fell off a cliff during the N64 and GCN
| days, so if wanted something Nintendo didn't offer: good luck!
|
| Just an observation in hindsight. I still hold both companies
| very fondly (well, at least before the Sega/Sammy merger),
| because both Sega and Nintendo seemed like the last companies
| that wanted to make _games_ , rather than the all-in-one
| entertainment centers of the Sony and Microsoft consoles.
| Lammy wrote:
| > TOSAKI: There was only one problem with the development of the
| Virtua Gun... Virtua Cop was so good that SEGA was flooded with
| Virtua Gun orders.
|
| They knew it was so good that they even went through the trouble
| of remodeling the in-game gun to exactly match the look of the
| controller. The arcade gun is the same mold as the Virtua Gun but
| looks more generic in the game :)
|
| Compare the attract loops:
|
| - Arcade: https://youtu.be/bE1I6riA-NU?t=70
|
| - Saturn: https://youtu.be/rcfzFFpOtuY?t=90
| trafficante wrote:
| In recent years, the rise of the "gaming history" genre has
| exposed me to many Western-centric Sega post mortems that
| essentially blame the fall of Sega on conflicts between Sega of
| America (and SoE) and the Sega of Japan mother company - with the
| vast majority of the blame being placed on SoJ for being
| ridiculously overly secretive.
|
| Very interesting to hear the other side of the argument in this
| article. Paraphrased: SoA was a marketing division that kept
| biting off more than it could chew and was negatively impacted by
| proximity to SV and the "move fast and break things" ethos.
|
| The prototypes shown in the article demonstrate that SoJ clearly
| had no lack of creativity or desire to experiment with unique
| hardware concepts - but they were extremely cautious not to
| release anything half-baked. Meanwhile, SoA kept announcing (and
| sometimes even releasing) hardware that was inferior to similar
| concepts under development in Japan.
|
| The SoA "Sega VR" vs the SoJ "Virtua Visor", the SoA 32X vs the
| SoJ Saturn, etc.
|
| SoJ still likely deserves much of the blame since they repeatedly
| refused to share information on internal prototypes to SoA, but
| the issue is clearly more nuanced than the "stodgy Japanese vs
| dynamic Americans" explanation I kept getting fed.
| gryson wrote:
| I have translated countless interviews and articles from
| Japanese sources over the past few years on Sega's history, and
| yes, the whole issue is full of ridiculously inaccurate
| information.
|
| Here's a thread of some recent info I uncovered about the 32X,
| for example:
|
| https://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?35945-Japan-exe...
|
| I'm also not sure what you are talking about when you say Japan
| refused to share information on internal prototypes. Is there
| actual evidence of this refusal?
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