Re: Question for ESPN Football Fans....
 

Also, I gotta say something about this belief that Sega is so broke that they can't do any type of decent advertising. It's simply not true. The cost of commercial advertising has plummeted considerably over the past couple of years. I'm friends with several Executives at major commercial production companies out in California. These companies can produce and secure key airspots for FAR less than you would imagine it to cost. FAR less. You would be wildly surprised.

What drives up the cost of commercial advertising are things like huge Special Effects and Superstar acting talent and/or endorsements. Sega will not need to use any of those things for their commercials since all they will be doing is showing the game. And oh by the way, Warren Sapp was signed for cheap, so that does'nt effect anything either.

I think the fact that there have been so many rumors of Sega merging or VC merging with EA, or Sega folding, etc. this has shaped public opinion about what type of money Sega has and what they are capable of doing, but that public opinion is shaped by nothing more than a rumor. These claims have never been confirmed.

History tells us that Sega has ALWAYS advertised poorly, (though the Dreamcast launch was probably their best effort to date). In the 8-Bit era, for every 20 Nintendo commercials that aired, you probably seen maybe 1 Sega Master System commercial and that's if you stayed up late and just happened to be "lucky" enough to catch it. Sega has always been thrifty, it's how they have always done business. It does'nt mean that somehow they are broke and can't put together a National Ad campaign. If that were the case, I sincerely doubt that ESPN would have gone into business with them, especially after learning from the Konami disaster.

Re: Question for ESPN Football Fans....
 

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What you have to remember when talking about Konami's ESPN game is that there was virtually no adverstising. Poor marketing campaigns will surely spell disaster for any product. People have to know that your product exists and then they have to be made excited about it by having a good commercial. Konami failed to observe those facts and so the product failed.

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You just proved my point right there. That poor advertising does'nt see copies. And all I was saying is that ESPN needs mega advertising if they wanna do well.

And if my memory is correct, I did remember seeing commercials for konami's games on ESPN, just not alot. And if they pushed the game down our throats then they would have sold big time.

ESPN network is'nt gonna do nothing to help Sega is the money aint right. Proff being Madden bought them out on Draft day. And if Madden shows ESPN network the money then they certainly will have more advertising regardless if thier name is on another game or not. Its all about the benjemins baby.

Re: Question for ESPN Football Fans....
 

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
History tells us that Sega has ALWAYS advertised poorly, (though the Dreamcast launch was probably their best effort to date). In the 8-Bit era, for every 20 Nintendo commercials that aired, you probably seen maybe 1 Sega Master System commercial and that's if you stayed up late and just happened to be "lucky" enough to catch it. Sega has always been thrifty, it's how they have always done business. It does'nt mean that somehow they are broke and can't put together a National Ad campaign. If that were the case, I sincerely doubt that ESPN would have gone into business with them, especially after learning from the Konami disaster.

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If thats the case then whoever runs the show at Sega needs to be fired and beaten with billy clubs. So in other words you're saying thier to cheap to pull a major ad campaign. See, thats what I dont understand about Sega, are they tryna win this battle with Madden or are they tryna meet thier sell expectations.

Re: Question for ESPN Football Fans....
 

better game. company sales means jack for me as a gamer.

Re: Question for ESPN Football Fans....
 

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Graphik said:
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />
History tells us that Sega has ALWAYS advertised poorly, (though the Dreamcast launch was probably their best effort to date). In the 8-Bit era, for every 20 Nintendo commercials that aired, you probably seen maybe 1 Sega Master System commercial and that's if you stayed up late and just happened to be "lucky" enough to catch it. Sega has always been thrifty, it's how they have always done business. It does'nt mean that somehow they are broke and can't put together a National Ad campaign. If that were the case, I sincerely doubt that ESPN would have gone into business with them, especially after learning from the Konami disaster.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">


If thats the case then whoever runs the show at Sega needs to be fired and beaten with billy clubs. So in other words you're saying thier to cheap to pull a major ad campaign. See, thats what I dont understand about Sega, are they tryna win this battle with Madden or are they tryna meet thier sell expectations.

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Ya know, after so many years of watching Sega and how they choose to advertise, it's so difficult to figure out what their braintrust is actually intending to do sometimes.
It's really ridiculous how they run things sometimes.

It's obvious to us and to anyone else who understands business/marketing that they want to outsell their competition. Going back to what I touched on earlier, a Nat'l ad Campaign will not burn a hole in Sega's pocket in the least bit.... Yet, everytime they have a new product they choose to be thrifty to a fault like they have with the 2K series. Then going back to Dreamcast, they advertised well until after launch and then it was just plain pathetic. Competition did'nt kill Sega, incompetence and penny-pinching killed Sega on many occassions.

This time around, Sega has every tool that a commercial product outfit could ever ask for. They need to show that they have not completely lost their minds and make use of what they have this year. They've got the money, they've got the support, but do they have the people in place to make sure this game is promoted respectably this year? That's the $64,000 dollar question.

Come January, especially after the Holiday season, we will know if Sega decided to cast a line in the Ocean or just go balls out.

I can't wait to see THIS result.

Re: Question for ESPN Football Fans....
 

That is a double-edge sword Super Star. Of course everyone wants the best, most entertaining, NFL game they can possibly have for any given year. But if Sega is not able to sell more games, not necessarily more than Madden, but just increase its own sales so they start seeing profit, the game that we all know is the best out there will eventually become extinct. We can all prevent this from happening by purchasing a brand new copy of the game the first week it is introduced. Don't wait until the standard 3-month $10 price drop in December, buy it for the full $50 the week it is released. If we all do that, we will be rewarded with an even better NFL2k5 next fall. Instead of being forced to plummet into the Maddenite rank &amp; file.