Peep Show:Sega's Hidden Agenda

Welcome to the latest installment of VideoGameSpot contributor Jer Horwitz' serial on Sega's fourth-generation system. Yesterday, Horwitz explored Sega's history as a console maker, how the new system figures into the company's future, and the story behind the unit's Karate-inspired name. Today's report follows.

Sega has not released target or actual specifications for the Black Belt, nor has it defined what would make the Black Belt a clear and significant step beyond the Nintendo 64 - or what Sony would offer in a Super PlayStation console. Simply offering a machine with more polygons and anti-aliasing is not going to cut it. This machine is going to need to have bells and whistles that make teenagers say that only their younger siblings want to play with a 'toy' like the Nintendo 64, and it's going to have to convince programmers who already know and like the PC and PlayStation that they can feel comfortable on a new Sega system. Coding on the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn has been a nightmare for most people involved, and none of these systems has been powerful enough to justify the expense of putting a large company's top coders on a Sega project.

Microsoft needs to make the chips easy to program. The company's Black Belt OS is based on its Arcade Operating System, and Sega has been planning to use Microsoft for fourth-generation Sega OS development since before the Saturn launched in the United States, if not longer. The OS will give coders familiar with Microsoft PC development formats a leg up, though there's obviously a question as to what extent the Arcade OS will be used in arcades. If Sega uses the Black Belt board or Microsoft OS in future arcade applications, home translations will become easier, as code could either be ported almost directly (like current Sega Titan games, including Die Hard Arcade), or easily scaled down to deal with the restrictions of less powerful home 3-D graphics chips. In an unusual concern with strict project secrecy, Sega and SegaSoft have nestled away their Black Belt team in a secure building some 20 miles from SegaSoft headquarters. The companies are guarding not only the hardware, but also the actual engineers and Microsoft OS developers, all of whom are said to be bound by nondisclosure agreements, which would reportedly end careers if violated. But then, we've heard that before.

Our series continues Monday.