All old time gamers surely know that Sega was once a very different company: back in the 80s and 90s they were the only company which could rival with Nintendo on the console market. However things have started going bad due to some poor business decisions and after two unsuccessful consoles, the Saturn and the Dreamcast, the Japanese company decided to turn to development only, becoming a multi platform publisher, not without another good share of problems.
During the previous generation, sometime before Microsoft had decided to enter the Console Market, the company wanted to buy Sega since company’s boss Bill Gates was sure that Sega lacked the “muscles” to be able to compete against Sony and Nintendo, as a former Microsoft exec told IGN.
There already were some forms of cooperation between the two companies: the Dreamcast was running on a Windows CE custom version. But it wasn’t enough to make the console compete with Sony: Microsoft would have liked to buy Sega and give them the muscle they needed in the competition.
There are a few reasons as to why this never happened: Sega was having its own share of financial troubles and even Nintendo was struggling to keep up with Sony. After the Ps2 launch, it was evident how something else was needed to compete with the second Playstation console.
This news comes after another Microsoft exec said some time ago that Microsoft entered the market to stop Sony from dominating the market itself and it looks like they were willing to go to some extra lenghts even 10 years ago. Console War is truly a bloody business!
Source: IGN
