Talk:Sega/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Indrian (talk · contribs) 22:09, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

• I've been bad recently about wrapping up GAs in a timely manner, but this one is too important to pass up. I will probably do this in chunks to keep it moving. Indrian (talk) 22:09, 24 October 2018 (UTC)
  • Well, I'm glad to see that you didn't die of dysentery, at least. I'm glad to see you took this one; I could think of no one better if Sega is to be the best article it can be. On that note, a couple of things you should know before you start:
    • I'm totally okay with this one going in chunks. I'm around to stay this time, and I think given the large amount of subject matter that chunks will result in a more robust review.
    • I also started a new article, History of Sega, last week as a WP:SUMMARY split after discussion with the Video games WikiProject to try and cover the history in detail, due to issues with page size. I literally was crashing the VisualEditor trying to work with it. I had a hard time trying to sort out what should go where after doing this separation, so one thing I would like for us to discuss is what facts should go where, what should stay and what should only be on the spinout article for this one to be appropriate size. History of Sega still has room for expansion in my eyes and I will be trying to fill in the gaps there even as this GA review goes on.
    • It is my full intention to take this and History of Sega to FAC after GA reviews and more work to make these articles the best they can be. In many ways, I like to think of this article as the culmination of our work together, as well as TheTimesAreAChanging and all the other editors who have pitched in.
    • After this GA review, I wanted to see if you wanted to collaborate on an effort to make this and the spinout featured articles, if time allows you. I firmly believe you deserve a lot of credit for the success of the subject of Sega on Wikipedia and would love to share it with you for these articles.
  • I look forward to your comments. This article has been a long time coming to make it here. Let's see how good we can make it. Red Phoenix ^talk 00:00, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

@Indrian: No rush here, but I wanted to notify you that History of Sega is now also at GAN after I've worked on expanding and polishing up that article. Because of how closely related that article is to this one as a spinout article, I thought this might interest you and see if you would consider reviewing both together to help get the correct amount of content with total accuracy into both articles. I am okay with the review taking all the time you need; my goal is to make these two the highest quality and most accurate articles I have written on Wikipedia. Red Phoenix ^talk 21:53, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Another heads-up: if you see little tags in the prose popping up, I've asked Popcornduff to do a full copyedit to help speed things along. He creates tags for me to address as he works on the prose. There won't be a need to quick-fail the article for the presence of these tags, as I will be addressing them as I pop up, as my time allows. Looking forward to a great review. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:10, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. Should be starting this week. Indrian (talk) 01:16, 19 December 2018 (UTC)

It's still the week of December 19th, right? No? Well, anyway, time to get this monster started:

Lead

• "In 1960, Nihon Goraku Bussan was founded to take over the distribution activities of Service Games of Japan" - From a reader's perspective, this comes out of nowhere as they were just reading an article about Sega and are now suddenly reading about some weird thing called Nihon Goraku Bussan. The opening sentence of the paragraph should link these companies in some way.
  • Still working on this one. Trying to figure out how to word it.
    • I gave this a try. Let me know if it works or not.
• "Sega began developing coin-operated games with Periscope, an arcade game" - In this case, coin-operated game and arcade game are redundant, I would ditch "an arcade game" and link "coin-operated games" to the arcade game article.
  • Addressed.
• "Although it initially struggled in the U.S. and was a distant third in Japan, the Genesis found major success after the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 and briefly outsold its main competitor, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, in the U.S." - Mentioning the U.S. twice here is probably not necessary. I would change it to something like "Although a distant third in Japan, the Genesis found major success in the U.S. after initially struggling with the release of Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991."
  • It looks like this has already been done.
• The lead basically stops in 2004, so I don't think it fully summarizes the contents of the article.
  • I've added a sentence here. I found this a bit difficult, as there is far less coverage of Sega post-2004 than before it. If you disagree with what I've added, let me know and I will work on it further.

Origins and Arcade Success

• "pinball and gun games by Midway Games" - Two things: Midway did not make pinball machines, and it was Midway Manufacturing, not Midway Games.
  • Okay. This may have been some ambiguity in the translation by Shmuplations, or maybe I just misread it. I reviewed the text and saw how it could be a bit ambiguous. Corrected.
• "originally released by Namco and licensed to Sega for worldwide release in the late 1960s" - This is not known to be true and is, in fact, probably not true. The Horowitz book does not actually state that Namco licensed the game to Sega, but states it as one of several possibilities. All we know for certain is that Namco claims to have released a Periscope game in 1965 and Sega claims to have released theirs in 1966 and the two games look nearly identical in pictures.
  • Removed. Wikipedia's article says it is a Namco release, too. That being said, that might be an interesting article to research in the future and get the story straight there too, especially if it's as impactful on the arcade market as reading the sources suggests it was. Perhaps a future project -- but I guess that's irrelevant for the moment.
• "Following financial struggles and rampant piracy, in 1969, Sega was sold to American conglomerate Gulf and Western Industries" - This sentence conflates a couple of things and does not actually follow the source accurately. Sega halted exports to the US due to rampant piracy, but the company was not struggling financially. They sold to G&W because they wanted to become a public company, but were unable to do so in Japan and therefore needed a foreign backer.
  • I'll admit I found this confusing and tough to keep straight as I read my source. I'll go back and reread it and see if I can get it fixed.
    • I think I've got a good understanding of it now. Fixed here, and I think I'll actually want to expand into detail on this in the History of Sega article later on.

Entry into the Home Console Market

• "who owned Esco Boueki (Esco Trading), acquired by Rosen in 1979" - This phrasing implies that Esco continued to exist after being purchased by Sega, but I do not believe that is the case.
  • I redid this by bumping this up into the previous section, since it did happen before 1982, and I would like to try and keep this chronological.
• ", Gulf and Western executives turned to Sega Enterprises, Ltd. president" - This is old phrasing we have used in several articles (in fact, I think I might have added the phrasing), but is, in fact, inaccurate. We now know G&W had no interest in getting into the console market and that Nakayama's decision to do so played a role in their eagerness to sell the business.
  • I think it was yours, but that's a good catch. I'm sure just a fact we've had more resources on in the last five years to clarify. I fixed it here, and I'm going to have to go around and fix it elsewhere. As I'm limited on time at the moment, that may have to happen in the next week or two.
• "This led to Sega's first home video game system, the SG-1000, in Japan" - Again, its incredible how much we know now that was still a mystery just five years ago. Its now known that the SC-3000 home computer was Sega's first system and that they only adapted it into the SG-1000 due to the announcement of the Famicom.
  • Yeah, it is pretty amazing. I remember doing the SC-1000 article five years ago and it had to be very bare-bones, and in the five years since then a bunch of resources have come up. Corrected here.

32X, Saturn, and Falling Sales

• "As a result of the company's deteriorating financial situation, Nakayama resigned as president of Sega in January 1998 in favor of Irimajiri" - I mean, yes that is the big picture, but the direct cause of Nakayama's departure was a failed merger with Bandai. Management of both companies completed a deal and then the shareholders revolted, which is probably more unusual in Japan than even in the United States, where its not exactly common. The heads of Bandai and Sega both stepped down over that mess.
  • I will have to look for a source for that. I had not seen that at all, though I had heard about the failed Bandai merger. I'll take the lead and run with it when I can find time soon.
    • @Indrian: Can you help me line up these dates so I can get this right? I have a slight date discrepancy here: I found this, and one dated to when it happened in May 1997. According to the sources, Bandai's head stepped down basically right afterward, but my source on Nakayama's resignation dates him stepping down to January 1998, nearly eight months afterward. That's quite a while. I did find this that suggests speculation that that was responsible, though the date on the article is clearly wrong (perhaps an import from a site move or something). Does this still sound right to you, and is there anything more concrete that that's why, or just best to say it's speculated that was the cause given what I could find in sources? Red Phoenix ^talk 19:45, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
      • I've given this a try in the meantime, hoping it's accurate. I also expanded even further on History of Sega about the situation, because I realized how important it was and I somehow skipped over it. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:09, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

That will do for a first round, which is mostly focused on making sure the material in the article is accurate. I am not nearly done with this review. Its a big article, and I am still grappling with what material is essential and how the material should be organized. There are very few GAs on corporations, so they do not provide a lot of guidance in this area. I am confident this article can reach GA status, I just want to take great care in making sure we organize and summarize in the best possible manner. I look forward to continuing this review with you in the coming days. I am going to put this review  On hold just so people realize we are actively working on things, but have no plans to actually reevaluate and pass/fail within 7 days. Indrian (talk) 17:04, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

• That sounds fair enough to me - I knew this was going to be massive and a time-consuming review process, especially with History of Sega going in tandem with this. I'll get to addressing points in the coming days; real life hit me with a couple of issues to deal with, but I'll get on this within the week. Red Phoenix ^talk 17:18, 10 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I have addressed all of your first-round concerns so far. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:09, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
    • @Indrian: Any idea when I might get the next wave of comments? Red Phoenix ^talk 13:48, 19 February 2019 (UTC)
      • Should be this week. Indrian (talk) 01:27, 26 February 2019 (UTC)
        • I really thought it would be last week, but I am 90% certain I will have comments in the next couple of days. Indrian (talk) 04:07, 8 March 2019 (UTC)
          • All right. For your convenience, I have made sure that anything I do here also holds true at History of Sega as well, so you won't have to do double-work. I will continue to do so with the additional comments. Red Phoenix ^talk 21:09, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

@Indrian: It's been a while, any word yet? While I have been very patient, I do also have some time goals I want to hit with this article; namely, I'd like it to be through an FA review in time to be on the Main Page for June 3, 2020 (which will be Sega's 60th anniversary). That's a long process too, and I'm not holding my breath given simply the amount of material here that it will necessarily pass a first review there. I don't mean to be pushy, but if I don't have the review completed before too long, I will likely need to seek outside assistance to finish reviewing this article for GA status so that I can ensure it will make it to that goal. I'm also planning on a DYK submission after this article does get to GA status to give it a smaller main page mention. If I don't hear back from you by April 15, I will seek a second opinion. Red Phoenix ^talk 19:29, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

I hate to do this, but at this point I am going to seek a second opinion. I haven't heard back in a while. Indrian, your feedback is still welcome, of course, and I will consider it carefully, but now over six months in, I need to ensure this is seen through. Red Phoenix ^talk 20:37, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, if you give a deadline, you should really not pull it up prematurely, but I wholeheartedly agree it's time for someone else to take this on. As it stands, I am currently under a major publishing deadline. When I took this on, I had hoped to have most of it done before my deadline got close, but that obviously did not happen, and I have had no time to give these large articles the close attention they deserve. I will be happy to provide feedback as appropriate and will certainly give this a review when it goes to FA. My apologies that I was not able to see this through to the end. I blame life. Good luck! Indrian (talk) 00:54, 12 April 2019 (UTC)