Namco and Sega coming together probably would've been a dream come true growing up as a kid because I enjoyed both of those games massively and I can only imagine the companies would be doing better today if they had gotten together.
Ridge Racer and Tekken were the first 2 games i got for the ps1 and i was blown away by the graphics. Tekken was very close to the arcade while RR was a bit further away. Sadly the success of the Sony consoles in the 90s probably killed the arcades
I think it's fascinating how Namco and Sega's rivalry carried over in spirit with Somy vs Microsoft. I've seen Taiko (the drum game) cabinets that run on a modified PS3 and it's cool that Namco has been rolling with Sony hardware for a while, with Sega using Xbox architecture as mentioned with the Chihiro.
@@drunkenmolesterpaul3569 the transition from 2d to 3d (especially at the arcades but consoles as well) was truly mind blowing. Also your TH-cam name is hilarious😂😂
The deluxe cabinet wars between Namco and Sega made the arcades really great. For a buck you could be part of something monolithic for 5-10 minutes. Midway's V Unit was another tool against Sega's dominance, proving that titles like Cruis'n USA could be graphically inferior but still overtake hits like Daytona. It makes you wonder what was going on at Sega. On the one hand they needed to furnish their home consoles with arcade ports, but on the other they had some kind of need to maintain the lead position at the arcade. Was this ego? Or good business?
Your right the arcade home ports were the natural path for their home market place and you sound like you would have liked more home ports. The reason i bought a mega cd was to see souped up versions of the arcade games at home but never materialised. They lost me after that😢
Great video idea! I so miss the days of Sega and Namco one upping each other in the arcade tech arms race. When Soul Calibur was announced for Dreamcast I cried tears of joy and it did not disappoint. These were the days...
Soul Calibur was the most alpha thing Namco ever did, one-upping Sega on their own platform with a 10/10 game that blew Virtua Fighter 3 out of the water.
Virtua fighter was one of my favorite games and one of my favorite memories Virtua fighter 2 improved on the original don't speak for everyone for sega when it comes to Virtua fighter it was one of my favorite series of all time
@@the.internet LOL. Actually the 3DO is quite capable, it's just let down by a slowass CPU. Try the 4DO emulator. Once you boost the CPU from the default 12.5Mhz to 20-25Mhz, 3D games are MUCH better!
LightBlue2222 Yeah. Technically it is impressive, but it only came out 4 months before Ridge Racer on PS1. The quality difference isn’t huge, but the framerate gulf is significant. On a side note, Need for Speed on 3DO isn’t much of a game at all. You can complete all 3 tracks without braking once. It’s a technical showpiece IMO.
@@alritedave Kind of makes you wonder why none of the manufacturers ever did that upgrade when there were so many? Yeah 4DO is as close as we got to that M2 backwards compatibility that never happened. :(
Time Crisis 2 is probably my favorite Namco arcade. It’s one of the 3-5 games I was able to play through on a single credit in the arcade, or single life without dying.
Ridge Racer on PS, Soul Calibur on DC & Tekken in the arcades are the finest Namco moments in my opinion. But I also love their more "low profile" titles such as Mr. Driller and Alpine Racer 2.
Loving your content! It's an amazing trip down memory lane. Tekken, Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshinden sold me on the Playstation back in 1995. I loved Sega and Virtua Fighter but the graphics of those 2 other fighting games was superior. Also, made the purchase of the ps1 better for my brother and mom as it was $299 vs $499. Video gaming will never be the same or as exciting as it was during the 16 bit and 32bit/64 bit era. I still love gaming very much and have for 35 years but nothing compares to the console wars of 1990-2000
Crazy to think Namco and Sega almost merged. They had such a bitter rivalry with Virtua Fighter and Tekken. I’d like to think there’s a parallel universe where a Virtua Fighter vs Tekken game exists.
One of the best home ports of an arcade series I know about. Had tonnes of fun back in the day and you've reminded me to fire these old games up again soon.
@@SomeOrangeCat if it wasn't for namco providing some really strong titles for the PS1 (especially in the early days of the system), it wouldn't of sold anywhere near as well as it did. Namco is definitely the first 3rd party developer that comes to mind whenever someone mentions the PS1...
@@dantesilvermine5160 Namco was cranking out the hits from Day One on the PlayStation. Squaresoft didn't do jack shit until 1997, when the console was already a success thanks to Namco.
If I could just get R4 and its accompanying demo disc's version of Ridge Racer, paired up with a US version of Ridge Racer 2 for PSP [we didn't get that one here], I would be happy. I'll accept a remaster, but no remakes, thanks...
90's Namco is one of my favorite video game companies of all time. Them and Sega trying to one up each other gave us a lot of excellent games. I miss that.
As someone who loves Tekken and the Tales series (even though I've only played Symphonia and Vesperia) I'd never thought about how little I know about Namco. The fact that Sega and Namco almost merged makes for an interesting "what if". Could've potentially had Virtua Fighter characters in Tekken.
Nice video. I've always felt that Namco doesn't get enough credit for its arcade innovations. It's famous for early games like Pac-Man & Galaga, but it beat Sega to a lot of 3d stuff, Winning Run (which was years pre-Virtua Racing), Ridge Racer, Galaxian 3, StarBlade, Solvalou etc etc. I have great memories of being completely blown away by those in the arcade. It's a great shame Namco never made their own home console, they would have been a big player in that market, maybe the biggest? But maybe that was a wise decision in the end? we'll never know. I have read that they did have some home machine plans in the 80s which never happened.
Namco's assertion that home ports deserved a f#ck tonne of extra content over their arcade counterparts was something Sega never really adopted. As a rule I preferred Sega's franchises but there were far too many bare bones ports to the Saturn & Dreamcast PS That Tekken 2 (psx) intro still gives me chills!
namco and sega had some rivalry in the 90s sega came out with house of the dead, daytona usa, virtua racer and virtua fighter. Namco came out with time crisis, ridge racer, ace driver and tekken. I remember reading somewhere that some of sega's technicians went over to Namco
Fun fact: Despite Namco's turbulent relationship they've had with Nintendo during the 5th generation of gaming, they supported the N64 more than the Saturn. In fact, not a single Namco game ever made it the Saturn; despite having I think a game called "Cybersled"(if I'm not mistaken) in development for the Saturn, but never saw release! Because if there was one thing Nintendo was not involved with at that time, it was the arcade scene like Sega; thus giving Namco a bit of a thrust to put some of their games on the N64 over Saturn since Nintendo wasn't involved on the arcade scene like Sega was when they were a home console manufacturer! In other words, while Namco's relationship with Nintendo was turbulent for other reasons, Their relationship with Sega(even at that time) was even worse; especially during that generation!
Yes, now we have all this Last Of Us 2 BS .....we don't want bad generic movies pretending to be games, just make good GAMES, its not fucking rocket science
@@PutlerHuyIo Yeah this video was like a reminder of why I am so bored with games these days. Games used to be so exciting and to the point, it was all about the experience of playing them.
Another wonderful video. I remember how many Namco PS1 games I had, they had an amazing advertising campaign and their games were, for the most part, groundbreaking in the PS1 era.
Dude, I’ve been watching for years and I just found this one, this is my favorite of all of your videos. I have to give you a lot of respect here. This is really good. Namco is the shit.
Thanks a lot for this video, Namco got a special place into my heart and in my opinion it was the main reason to get a PS1 due the game exclusives. I still play those games released during that period of time.
As soon as I hit the 90's I was like "Yup! Played that! Played that! Played that!" haha! Although there were a number of Namco 80's arcade games I have very fond memories of. In terms of tech, I agree that Namco were up there with Sega, but in terms of overall quality arcade games, Sega still destroys them, but you're right, that era would not have been the same without Namco and Sega going at each other and in many many ways, they changed the industry both in the arcades and at home. Great video, quite a few things I didn't know here.
What’s weirder is that these were moves motivated by their arcade divisions. Sega and Namco’s US arcade divisions are a hop and a skip away from each other (and Taito and Konami’s entire US division at one point). Chicagoland was arcade central for a while thanks to Stern/Midway/Williams/Bally and the lineage of it being pinball central and Cherry and Happ and etcera were all around here. Sammy settled in California along with much of the second wave of Japanese game companies to establish shop in the USA.
Namco over Sega any day for me, I've always preferred the likes of Ridge Racer, Tekken, Time Crisis etc over stuff like Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop and so on. Every single one of them played better in my opinion, and as someone that's ALWAYS been into cars for as long as I can remember, the first time I walked into the arcades at Blackpool and found Ridge Racer Full-scale was epic. I still play all the great Namco games, can't think of any Sega arcade derived games that I still play, other than Outrun 2 and maybe Scud Race.
Your experience sounds like mine down south mate. The day I rolled into the Namco arcade on a day visit to London and saw a god damn bright red Mazda MX-5 of all things sitting there inviting me in was a day that went down in my personal history. Cars and games were two of my biggest things as a kid and seeing that set up blew my mind!
Can you imagine what a Namco/Sega merger would have looked like?! My God, they would be unstoppable. Unlike Sega, Namco has no problems opening up their vault of old games. We would have witnessed insane Sega compilations had that happened across the board everywhere. Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken could have happened and it would be a match made in heaven. I could even see each company doing their own version of it much like SNK vs. Street Fighter. If you prefer Virtua Fighter buy Sega's version. However, if you're a Tekken fiend snag Namco's vision.
Air/Ace Combat on the PlayStation is one my favs. The first game has some BRUTAL missions, specially one in the desert but I've beat it around 5-8 times.
When i seen Namco fighter next to VF1 i knew that was the future. I seen it at Great America in the Chicago area and i was totally amazed. It was not long until i learned that the PS1 was based on the same tech that was used in the Namco Arcades and I knew Sega was in trouble. The PS1 was very well designed and Sega and Nintendo Knew it!!! Anyways nice video and keep them coming.
Namco did make a couple of boneheaded moves with some of their franchises (Soul Calibur V, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon) that nearly killed those same franchises and killed one of them (Ridge Racer: Vita, Ridge Racer: Unbounded). Thankfully two of those franchises went through a redemption arc (Soul Calibur VI, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown) and were met with high praise.
I remember being so blown away by the new polygon/3D games on the arcades and OG PS as a kid, and my fave fighting game franchise comes from Namco(Tekken)
This was my favourite arcade era, every time I’d go to the arcades there would be some new hardware that had made a new quantum leap in graphics technology. My absolute favourites are Time Crisis, Daytona, Sega Rally and Ridge Racer. The port of Time Crisis to the PS1 was really good too IMHO. While it was running at half the resolution and frame rate of the mighty Super System 22 I’m pretty certain it was using the actual arcade models and textures so it looked extremely accurate. In fact it was such a good port that it was perfect to practice on so you’d look good when playing it in the arcade. 😉
I get most video game content creators are nintendo kids and mostly know of the history of Sonic being created to combat Mario's success in the 16bit home console era, but I find it interesting to learn Sega's biggest rivals in the 90's ended up being Namco and Sony on 2 different fronts. Not that Nintendo beef was nonexistent obviously, but it's eye opening seeing different perspectives of what was going down beyond "Mario vs Sonic, Genesis does, etc etc" lol
Sitting in that Mazda MX-5 arcade 'cabinet' in the Namco arcade in London (right on the Thames) was such an awesome experience for me as a child. I barely remember the gameplay as much as I did the actual experience because I was obsessed with cars at the time. Watching this video very much ties up with what I remember back then. Great company, great games. Quality upload as always Mr. X.
yes, Namco arcades. During my years with Outrunners arcade. My cousin showed his Playstation and 1st time played this awesome 3D game by Namco and you guess it, it was Tekken. Later in 1997, i was usually the kid in the arcade to start with Virtual Cop and Daytona and then Time Crisis which was something different, press to make ur character attack while releasing it to block bullets. Also that year i was introduced to the most awesome game by Namco, it was so awesome that i remembered how beautiful it was even today, it is called Soul Edge or Soul Blade in the US. 1998 when Sega arcades opened one of their big entertainment centre (2nd one in my country) , the game which i enjoyed the most was Tokyo Wars. Could say b4 i go home, i will play Tokyo Wars as my last game b4 going home. Again if you ask me the best arcade Namco game i have played, was this game last played in 1997. I would waste lots and lots of quarters for it. It was GALAXIAN 3: ATTACK OF THE ZOLGEAR. A 4 shooter arcade cabinet, with amazing graphics and sound. Why they dont make that anymore or even have it.... i went to Japan expecting it see one and play again. That game was superb if you ask me...
I had no idea Namco at one point considered merging with Sega, and now I really wonder how the gameindustry would turn out if THEY had merged. It feels like Sammy didn't do much for Sega whereas Namco has become known as the defacto anime-game developers due to access to Bandai's licenses. A world where Sega and Namco unite their IP's though... well. It may be a sign of my limited imagination, but I can definitely imagine Tekken cameos in "Yakuza". Provided the development team that made Yakuza would have come into existence in the first place...
I simply don’t understand people that give videos like this a thumbs down. This video was obviously very well researched and wonderfully put together, and your voice works well for this sort of thing. Either they hate video games, which makes you wonder why they even clicked the link. Or maybe they hate classic games... again why click the link. Anyway, as usual Sega Lord X, great job!
Funny how on the home gaming scene Namco was a valuable third party asset to the library of Sega's consoles but on the arcade front they were the most ruthless competitor.
Awesome history video, I enjoy these alot. The Ace Combat series is my favorite series from Namco though I know that came later on and wasn't an arcade franchise. But I do also really like the Tekken, Soul and Ridge Racer series.
Great discussion- I always sort of wondered why Starblade and Ridge Racer looked better than their Tekken and Soul Blade games. I didn't know if the resolution had anything to do with it. But it's because the older highly customized hardware was way faster than the custom-PS1 hardware that was cut in.
I've got the 20th anniversary re-release of the Ridge Racer Type 4 soundtrack on my wall inside a shadowbox frame. The tracks are great but they're mastered WAY too loud with often way too much bass, even with the EQ flat on the playback system.
@@maegnificant The original sounds fine. Stick with that for listening, although there's a bonus CD on the re-release, but with loud mastering, like on the original OST remastered disc. The good news is the case and artwork is nice on the re-release, so get it for that if you'd like to put it on display. Otherwise, I'd pass on it and stick to the original release.
Namco was a BIG part of my childhood and I have to say that it was their polygon fighting games that made a massive impression on me. Though I saw Virtua Fighter 1 first, Tekken 1's home port was so accessible and very pick up and play. This was especially the case for Tekken 3. Nowadays, I'm in love with Fighters Megamix and VFs (eventhough VF2 is hard as fuck), and PS2's Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is in my top ten favorite fighting games of all time, so the tables have turned. The only Namco game on that list would have to be Soul Calibur 2. Great vid man. Once again, you go the juice, and you're still hitting homeruns here. Never realized Namco was so flexible during the 90s, so thanks for the great info. That reminds me, since you love Splatterhouse (a Namco classic), would you EVER do a review about your love for the game?
Ridge Racer was life changer for me. It came out just before I got my drivers license and I would play it nonstop before I bought my first car. Once I bought a car, that CD was ALWAYS playing in my car to the amazing soundtracks. My first car was an 86 Toyota Supra...fun racing days.
Your content is consistently produced, narrated and presented to such a high standard. I can always count on your videos to entertain and be informative at the same time. Keep it up brother, long live SEGA Lord X
Great video Sega Lord. Learned a lot about Namco with this video. I've been familiar with more of their home games, not so much their arcade titles. Pretty impressive what they were able to achieve during the late 80's and throughout the 90's with their arcade titles.
Its not like Sega & Namco ever stopped competing in the arcades. Initial D vs Wangan Midnight still carry that classic Daytona vs Ridge Racer rivalry alive.
Yeah, but with the great disappearance of the arcades, it's not like many even see the modern games anymore. Where I live, you have a few hours drive to get anywhere near an Initial D or WM arcade cab.
Now I know the name of the racing game I played in arcades when young and really impressed-me in 90, it was Winning Run. The different look (due to flat poligons instead of at the time ubiquitous sprites) and moving cabinet amazed an 8 years old me, not used to see such different thing in Brazil.
i always considered namco to be the yin of sega's yang i appreciate you extent your quality researching content beyond sega. as much as i love sega, there are a lot of companies worth of mentioning for their work back in the 90's.
Even though I've always been a Nintendo fan first and foremost (and by extension rare, Konami, Capcom, even some decent acclaim games!) I've always had mad respect for Sega, Atari (despite being mostly shit post 1982) and above all, Namco. They were one of the only significant Japanese devs to stand up to Nintendo and their autocratic approach to developers and restrictive licensing agreements.
Namco & Sega = Kings of the arcade. Namco had the highest grossing individual arcade machines. Sega AM2 raked in 5 billion in sales in 1 year alone on multiple arcade machines.
Great job on the research with this one. I lived through all this and have certainly read up on it, but you dug out plenty of details even I didn't know. It's funny, I came to gaming after the golden age, and as a kid Pac Man was always associated in my head with Atari or Bally Midway - whatever that was - so during the 8 & 16-bit days I never thought of Namco as anything more than a B or C tier developer, if I thought about them at all. Probably the most exciting thing they did back then for me was letting an NES kid play Sega games through their anti-Nintendo temper tantrum Tengen label, which of course I doubt I knew was them at the time. But Ridge Racer was the title that taught me to love racing games, and Cyber Sled was low key one of my favourite PS1 launch titles. Looking at that Tekken footage now it's amazing to see how rough it looks. Back in the day I wouldn't have seen it as lesser technology than VF2 had, a testament to Namco's superior art design. Ironically it was that art design that made me a Sega fan; I remember vividly loving R4 to death, but being frustrated at how compromised its artwork was by the low res PlayStation graphics. I decided it was time for an upgrade, and R4 had hit North America in late spring 1999 - exactly the moment Sega appeared on the horizon with great looking shots of their upcoming Dreamcast in magazines. I decided to finally give a Sega system a shot, absolutely fell in love with it, and I've been a serious fan ever since.
This was the best video you've done for ages dude! I love it when you into the history of the machines, and it's great to see you covering new ground again! More please?
Sega and Namco were just killin it back in the 90's, Sega had such a great arcade gaming variety of their own that eventually trickled down to the Dreamcast and Namco had everything to do with the PS1's success in my eyes. Games were also so satisfying, innovative, and to the point back then, they were easy to get into and tough to master. It's no wonder I am so disappointed with the industry of today when I look back at how it used to be.
Nothing beat walking into an arcade back in the day and seeing "next gen" games like when Virtua Fighter came out after all the SF2's. Even better was when you walked in and see a sequel for the first time like Tekken 2, or Daytona USA after playing hours or Virtua Racing with friends.
Another great episode. Well done. The gameplay that you capture for each video is done very well in my opinion. To be honest, I haven't seen any other channel that I can watch without getting just a little bored.
Well done and an interesting topic. Nice to get the history of Namco here as well. I didn't cross paths with a lot of Namco games in the late 1980s and 1990s. I avoided them in the 32-bit era considering them an enemy of Sega, but also because something about their 3D games didn't appeal to me. In recent years, I've come to enjoy a lot of their 2D output. In fact, while they weren't as well known for their late-80s shooters, I really like the Namco style in games like Phelios and Dragon Saber. Rolling Thunder has become a favorite series of mine. I still don't love their 3D style as much of what I've played. I never liked the handling in Ridge Racer. But that's just it, all a matter of style. And as much as I prefer Sega's 3D games, I've admitted that Namco's approach of switching from expensive custom hardware to the simpler Playstation-based boards was very smart, as was their alliance with Sony. Tekken 3 was graphically able to compete with Sega's Model 2 Virtua Fighter 2, despite it being PS1-based hardware.
![งมหอย จับปลา มือเปล่า หาอยู่หากินแบบวีถีอีสานกับแก๊งเซียนหรั่ง ม่วนคัก! [ขอนแก่น] @Sianstudio](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/JEJZg6N-AbU/mqdefault.jpg)
Namco, Taito, Sega, Konami, Capcom: The epitome of arcade badassery!!!
Please add Toaplan to that list. The best shmups :D
Yes! Toaplan, Seibu & Midway for the hits.
Data East had some arcade heat too
Amazing games!
Makes me wish I could go back in time.
Namco and Sega coming together probably would've been a dream come true growing up as a kid because I enjoyed both of those games massively and I can only imagine the companies would be doing better today if they had gotten together.
Namco was a beast in the 90's. I was a huge fan of Ridge Racer and Tekken, and to this day I'll still pop into an arcade to play some Tekken 7.
Ridge Racer and Tekken were the first 2 games i got for the ps1 and i was blown away by the graphics. Tekken was very close to the arcade while RR was a bit further away. Sadly the success of the Sony consoles in the 90s probably killed the arcades
I think it's fascinating how Namco and Sega's rivalry carried over in spirit with Somy vs Microsoft. I've seen Taiko (the drum game) cabinets that run on a modified PS3 and it's cool that Namco has been rolling with Sony hardware for a while, with Sega using Xbox architecture as mentioned with the Chihiro.
That transition period going from 2d to 3d was so exciting and those early polygonal games will always be special to me. Great stuff man
I agree. That decade of the 1990's was truly filled with innovation.
First time I saw Tekken, Virtual Fighter, and Daytona back in the 90’s in an arcade in Vegas I was blown away
@@drunkenmolesterpaul3569 the transition from 2d to 3d (especially at the arcades but consoles as well) was truly mind blowing. Also your TH-cam name is hilarious😂😂
The deluxe cabinet wars between Namco and Sega made the arcades really great. For a buck you could be part of something monolithic for 5-10 minutes. Midway's V Unit was another tool against Sega's dominance, proving that titles like Cruis'n USA could be graphically inferior but still overtake hits like Daytona. It makes you wonder what was going on at Sega. On the one hand they needed to furnish their home consoles with arcade ports, but on the other they had some kind of need to maintain the lead position at the arcade. Was this ego? Or good business?
Your right the arcade home ports were the natural path for their home market place and you sound like you would have liked more home ports. The reason i bought a mega cd was to see souped up versions of the arcade games at home but never materialised. They lost me after that😢
If only Namco sega console can release, 40 years of 2d and 3d gems 💎 to play ;) they 2 companies made èach other better
Great video idea! I so miss the days of Sega and Namco one upping each other in the arcade tech arms race. When Soul Calibur was announced for Dreamcast I cried tears of joy and it did not disappoint. These were the days...
Soul Calibur was the most alpha thing Namco ever did, one-upping Sega on their own platform with a 10/10 game that blew Virtua Fighter 3 out of the water.
Still sad to see Virtual Fighter dead in the water while Tekken gets sequel after sequel. Bring it back Sega!
You can only blame Sega for that
Because nobody outside of Japan liked VF. Tekken drew more crowds.
Virtua fighter was one of my favorite games and one of my favorite memories Virtua fighter 2 improved on the original
don't speak for everyone for sega when it comes to Virtua fighter it was one of my favorite series of all time
Virtua fighter 1 and 2 cult games in some part of worlds.Thay were relased also on PC.
I dont like Tekken 7,and new charcters they added in part 5,6.
Your wish has been granted
Oh, and allegedly Namco tried to get Ridge Racer running on the 3DO, and got like 10FPS... :(
Granted, you'd have a better chance porting most games to a calculator than a 3DO.
@@the.internet LOL.
Actually the 3DO is quite capable, it's just let down by a slowass CPU. Try the 4DO emulator. Once you boost the CPU from the default 12.5Mhz to 20-25Mhz, 3D games are MUCH better!
Nice. It did Need For Speed well, granted it plays slower than PS1/Saturn but it was built that way so I hear it actually feels best on 3DO.
LightBlue2222 Yeah. Technically it is impressive, but it only came out 4 months before Ridge Racer on PS1. The quality difference isn’t huge, but the framerate gulf is significant.
On a side note, Need for Speed on 3DO isn’t much of a game at all. You can complete all 3 tracks without braking once. It’s a technical showpiece IMO.
@@alritedave Kind of makes you wonder why none of the manufacturers ever did that upgrade when there were so many? Yeah 4DO is as close as we got to that M2 backwards compatibility that never happened. :(
Time Crisis 2 is probably my favorite Namco arcade. It’s one of the 3-5 games I was able to play through on a single credit in the arcade, or single life without dying.
Ridge Racer on PS, Soul Calibur on DC & Tekken in the arcades are the finest Namco moments in my opinion.
But I also love their more "low profile" titles such as Mr. Driller and Alpine Racer 2.
I have always loved Mr Driller for some reason.
Loving your content! It's an amazing trip down memory lane. Tekken, Ridge Racer and Battle Arena Toshinden sold me on the Playstation back in 1995. I loved Sega and Virtua Fighter but the graphics of those 2 other fighting games was superior. Also, made the purchase of the ps1 better for my brother and mom as it was $299 vs $499. Video gaming will never be the same or as exciting as it was during the 16 bit and 32bit/64 bit era. I still love gaming very much and have for 35 years but nothing compares to the console wars of 1990-2000
Hearing that Ridge Racer Type 4 music in the background made me so nostalgic.
Crazy to think Namco and Sega almost merged. They had such a bitter rivalry with Virtua Fighter and Tekken. I’d like to think there’s a parallel universe where a Virtua Fighter vs Tekken game exists.
I sometimes feel things would have been better had Namco and Sega joined forces. I'm not sure things have been the best for Sega under Sammy's reign.
Sega Lord X Agreed. They sort of “joined forces” when ex Virtua Fighter devs left Sega to work on Tekken. :D
8:45 "Up to 1 can race simultaneously!" MIND BLOWING.
I still play "Rage Racer" from time to time on my PS1.
One of the best home ports of an arcade series I know about. Had tonnes of fun back in the day and you've reminded me to fire these old games up again soon.
Class game 👍🏼
I still play Tekken 3 & Ace Combat 2 on my PS1 from time to time.
We still need a Ridge Racer 8! It's times like these where Namco needs to break up with Bandai!
I remember a magazine cover in 1996: "Is the Playstation powered by Namco ?"
Well, in a sense it kind of was. Many of the Playstation's early gains were very much powered by Namco's amazing arcade ports.
@@SomeOrangeCat if it wasn't for namco providing some really strong titles for the PS1 (especially in the early days of the system), it wouldn't of sold anywhere near as well as it did. Namco is definitely the first 3rd party developer that comes to mind whenever someone mentions the PS1...
@@LouisTheSEGANerd it really is, I always associate PS1 to Namco.
@@LouisTheSEGANerd think squaresoft would disagree
@@dantesilvermine5160 Namco was cranking out the hits from Day One on the PlayStation. Squaresoft didn't do jack shit until 1997, when the console was already a success thanks to Namco.
We need a Ridge Racer collection on consoles.
Very much so.
If I could just get R4 and its accompanying demo disc's version of Ridge Racer, paired up with a US version of Ridge Racer 2 for PSP [we didn't get that one here], I would be happy. I'll accept a remaster, but no remakes, thanks...
@@SegaLordX Sega Lord X, Namco have a rich quality bunch of games. Do you think Super Monaco GP (arcade 1989) was inspired by Winning Run (1988)?
how hard can it be? easy money
@@hadamana totally forgot about the badass 60fps version of RR1 that came with 4.
90's Namco is one of my favorite video game companies of all time. Them and Sega trying to one up each other gave us a lot of excellent games. I miss that.
I really miss the style of games we got with them.
Namco was one of those rare companies where every single game they made was memorable, whether you liked them or not.
As someone who loves Tekken and the Tales series (even though I've only played Symphonia and Vesperia) I'd never thought about how little I know about Namco. The fact that Sega and Namco almost merged makes for an interesting "what if". Could've potentially had Virtua Fighter characters in Tekken.
I often wonder would Sega have been better off with Namco.
Nice video. I've always felt that Namco doesn't get enough credit for its arcade innovations. It's famous for early games like Pac-Man & Galaga, but it beat Sega to a lot of 3d stuff, Winning Run (which was years pre-Virtua Racing), Ridge Racer, Galaxian 3, StarBlade, Solvalou etc etc. I have great memories of being completely blown away by those in the arcade. It's a great shame Namco never made their own home console, they would have been a big player in that market, maybe the biggest? But maybe that was a wise decision in the end? we'll never know. I have read that they did have some home machine plans in the 80s which never happened.
Tekken, Soul Calibur, Time Crisis & Ace Combat as console exclusives.
And thanks to success of the Tekken Series Harada has become one of the big guys in the company.
Namco's assertion that home ports deserved a f#ck tonne of extra content over their arcade counterparts was something Sega never really adopted. As a rule I preferred Sega's franchises but there were far too many bare bones ports to the Saturn & Dreamcast
PS That Tekken 2 (psx) intro still gives me chills!
namco and sega had some rivalry in the 90s sega came out with house of the dead, daytona usa, virtua racer and virtua fighter. Namco came out with time crisis, ridge racer, ace driver and tekken. I remember reading somewhere that some of sega's technicians went over to Namco
Fun fact: Despite Namco's turbulent relationship they've had with Nintendo during the 5th generation of gaming, they supported the N64 more than the Saturn. In fact, not a single Namco game ever made it the Saturn; despite having I think a game called "Cybersled"(if I'm not mistaken) in development for the Saturn, but never saw release! Because if there was one thing Nintendo was not involved with at that time, it was the arcade scene like Sega; thus giving Namco a bit of a thrust to put some of their games on the N64 over Saturn since Nintendo wasn't involved on the arcade scene like Sega was when they were a home console manufacturer!
In other words, while Namco's relationship with Nintendo was turbulent for other reasons, Their relationship with Sega(even at that time) was even worse; especially during that generation!
back when games where just games... ugh I miss those days...
Yes, now we have all this Last Of Us 2 BS .....we don't want bad generic movies pretending to be games, just make good GAMES, its not fucking rocket science
nowadays we get glorified garbage movies like Uncharted, Death Stranding, God of War.
I feel you on this, this makes me feel old too 😅
@@PutlerHuyIo Yeah this video was like a reminder of why I am so bored with games these days. Games used to be so exciting and to the point, it was all about the experience of playing them.
It’s tempting to think that, but there’s just too much amazing stuff coming out all the time for me waste time hand-wringing. 👍
Another wonderful video. I remember how many Namco PS1 games I had, they had an amazing advertising campaign and their games were, for the most part, groundbreaking in the PS1 era.
Dude, I’ve been watching for years and I just found this one, this is my favorite of all of your videos. I have to give you a lot of respect here. This is really good. Namco is the shit.
Thanks a lot for this video, Namco got a special place into my heart and in my opinion it was the main reason to get a PS1 due the game exclusives. I still play those games released during that period of time.
Great video. I couldn't agree more with the statement that Namco and Sega made each other better with their rivalry in the 90's.
As soon as I hit the 90's I was like "Yup! Played that! Played that! Played that!" haha! Although there were a number of Namco 80's arcade games I have very fond memories of.
In terms of tech, I agree that Namco were up there with Sega, but in terms of overall quality arcade games, Sega still destroys them, but you're right, that era would not have been the same without Namco and Sega going at each other and in many many ways, they changed the industry both in the arcades and at home. Great video, quite a few things I didn't know here.
Noticed the Ridge racer revolution sound track on this vid. I have a copy of the ps1 version in my car purely for the tunage!
This is the kind of recognition a brand like Namco deserves, great video dude!
I've always appreciated Namco's work, just a classic developer
You’re my go to channel, best by far
Sega denied Namco for Sammy? One could imagine how massively different things would've been if it was Namco Sega and not Sega Sammy...
What’s weirder is that these were moves motivated by their arcade divisions. Sega and Namco’s US arcade divisions are a hop and a skip away from each other (and Taito and Konami’s entire US division at one point). Chicagoland was arcade central for a while thanks to Stern/Midway/Williams/Bally and the lineage of it being pinball central and Cherry and Happ and etcera were all around here. Sammy settled in California along with much of the second wave of Japanese game companies to establish shop in the USA.
Nice choice of Ridge Racer Type 4 music throughout, can't go wrong with RRT4's soundtrack
Namco over Sega any day for me, I've always preferred the likes of Ridge Racer, Tekken, Time Crisis etc over stuff like Daytona USA, Virtua Fighter, Virtua Cop and so on. Every single one of them played better in my opinion, and as someone that's ALWAYS been into cars for as long as I can remember, the first time I walked into the arcades at Blackpool and found Ridge Racer Full-scale was epic. I still play all the great Namco games, can't think of any Sega arcade derived games that I still play, other than Outrun 2 and maybe Scud Race.
Your experience sounds like mine down south mate. The day I rolled into the Namco arcade on a day visit to London and saw a god damn bright red Mazda MX-5 of all things sitting there inviting me in was a day that went down in my personal history. Cars and games were two of my biggest things as a kid and seeing that set up blew my mind!
Great video. Namco has made so many games I've loved over the years. I even remember playing Namco Museum on the PS One
Can you imagine what a Namco/Sega merger would have looked like?! My God, they would be unstoppable. Unlike Sega, Namco has no problems opening up their vault of old games. We would have witnessed insane Sega compilations had that happened across the board everywhere. Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken could have happened and it would be a match made in heaven. I could even see each company doing their own version of it much like SNK vs. Street Fighter. If you prefer Virtua Fighter buy Sega's version. However, if you're a Tekken fiend snag Namco's vision.
My best memories growing up were of Namco arcade games: Air Combat, Tekken, Ridge Racer, Soul Edge, Cyber Sled...just to name a few.
They really made some of the best arcades ever. They blew my mind when I was 10 years old.
It's honestly nice to see that Namco as a whole can still stand up even without Nakamura san.
Air/Ace Combat on the PlayStation is one my favs. The first game has some BRUTAL missions, specially one in the desert but I've beat it around 5-8 times.
Man you gotta play the sequels especially the ones on Ps2 if you haven't yet, don't know what you're missing
And it is still going strong alongside tekken.
When i seen Namco fighter next to VF1 i knew that was the future. I seen it at Great America in the Chicago area and i was totally amazed. It was not long until i learned that the PS1 was based on the same tech that was used in the Namco Arcades and I knew Sega was in trouble. The PS1 was very well designed and Sega and Nintendo Knew it!!! Anyways nice video and keep them coming.
Awesome video! So many memories. Bandai Namco also has had huge success with publishing Fromsoft games like the Dark Souls series.
Including the wildly popular Elden Ring!
Namco did make a couple of boneheaded moves with some of their franchises (Soul Calibur V, Ace Combat: Assault Horizon) that nearly killed those same franchises and killed one of them (Ridge Racer: Vita, Ridge Racer: Unbounded). Thankfully two of those franchises went through a redemption arc (Soul Calibur VI, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown) and were met with high praise.
Great video. Would love to see more of these history videos on arcade games and companies.
I remember being so blown away by the new polygon/3D games on the arcades and OG PS as a kid, and my fave fighting game franchise comes from Namco(Tekken)
Cool video. I learned quite a bit about Namco’s early beginnings. Neat
This was my favourite arcade era, every time I’d go to the arcades there would be some new hardware that had made a new quantum leap in graphics technology. My absolute favourites are Time Crisis, Daytona, Sega Rally and Ridge Racer.
The port of Time Crisis to the PS1 was really good too IMHO. While it was running at half the resolution and frame rate of the mighty Super System 22 I’m pretty certain it was using the actual arcade models and textures so it looked extremely accurate. In fact it was such a good port that it was perfect to practice on so you’d look good when playing it in the arcade. 😉
I get most video game content creators are nintendo kids and mostly know of the history of Sonic being created to combat Mario's success in the 16bit home console era, but I find it interesting to learn Sega's biggest rivals in the 90's ended up being Namco and Sony on 2 different fronts. Not that Nintendo beef was nonexistent obviously, but it's eye opening seeing different perspectives of what was going down beyond "Mario vs Sonic, Genesis does, etc etc" lol
Sitting in that Mazda MX-5 arcade 'cabinet' in the Namco arcade in London (right on the Thames) was such an awesome experience for me as a child. I barely remember the gameplay as much as I did the actual experience because I was obsessed with cars at the time. Watching this video very much ties up with what I remember back then. Great company, great games. Quality upload as always Mr. X.
yes, Namco arcades. During my years with Outrunners arcade. My cousin showed his Playstation and 1st time played this awesome 3D game by Namco and you guess it, it was Tekken.
Later in 1997, i was usually the kid in the arcade to start with Virtual Cop and Daytona and then Time Crisis which was something different, press to make ur character attack while releasing it to block bullets. Also that year i was introduced to the most awesome game by Namco, it was so awesome that i remembered how beautiful it was even today, it is called Soul Edge or Soul Blade in the US.
1998 when Sega arcades opened one of their big entertainment centre (2nd one in my country) , the game which i enjoyed the most was Tokyo Wars. Could say b4 i go home, i will play Tokyo Wars as my last game b4 going home.
Again if you ask me the best arcade Namco game i have played, was this game last played in 1997. I would waste lots and lots of quarters for it. It was GALAXIAN 3: ATTACK OF THE ZOLGEAR. A 4 shooter arcade cabinet, with amazing graphics and sound. Why they dont make that anymore or even have it.... i went to Japan expecting it see one and play again. That game was superb if you ask me...
Great video!
Ridge Racer is fantastic and it's soundtrack is stellar. I'd love to see modern ports of some of these arcade games!
I had no idea Namco at one point considered merging with Sega, and now I really wonder how the gameindustry would turn out if THEY had merged. It feels like Sammy didn't do much for Sega whereas Namco has become known as the defacto anime-game developers due to access to Bandai's licenses. A world where Sega and Namco unite their IP's though... well. It may be a sign of my limited imagination, but I can definitely imagine Tekken cameos in "Yakuza". Provided the development team that made Yakuza would have come into existence in the first place...
You would have certainly seen a VF vs Tekken, or a Megamix including characters from Tekken and Soul Calibur.
@@lazarushernandez5827 in some alternate universe it's happened.
I simply don’t understand people that give videos like this a thumbs down. This video was obviously very well researched and wonderfully put together, and your voice works well for this sort of thing. Either they hate video games, which makes you wonder why they even clicked the link. Or maybe they hate classic games... again why click the link. Anyway, as usual Sega Lord X, great job!
Funny how on the home gaming scene Namco was a valuable third party asset to the library of Sega's consoles but on the arcade front they were the most ruthless competitor.
Awesome history video, I enjoy these alot. The Ace Combat series is my favorite series from Namco though I know that came later on and wasn't an arcade franchise. But I do also really like the Tekken, Soul and Ridge Racer series.
Great discussion- I always sort of wondered why Starblade and Ridge Racer looked better than their Tekken and Soul Blade games. I didn't know if the resolution had anything to do with it. But it's because the older highly customized hardware was way faster than the custom-PS1 hardware that was cut in.
Sega and Namco did have some of the best arcade experiences ever.
I've got the 20th anniversary re-release of the Ridge Racer Type 4 soundtrack on my wall inside a shadowbox frame. The tracks are great but they're mastered WAY too loud with often way too much bass, even with the EQ flat on the playback system.
Typical modern remastering :( sucks man
@@maegnificant The original sounds fine. Stick with that for listening, although there's a bonus CD on the re-release, but with loud mastering, like on the original OST remastered disc. The good news is the case and artwork is nice on the re-release, so get it for that if you'd like to put it on display. Otherwise, I'd pass on it and stick to the original release.
@@maegnificant Will sound great on your "Beats" headphones ;)
@@yellowblanka6058 It's got to be Sennheiser HD600 and Shure SRH-840 into Sonarworks Reference 3 headphone calibration software.
Always love your contents. keep up the the good work, man.
Namco was a BIG part of my childhood and I have to say that it was their polygon fighting games that made a massive impression on me. Though I saw Virtua Fighter 1 first, Tekken 1's home port was so accessible and very pick up and play. This was especially the case for Tekken 3.
Nowadays, I'm in love with Fighters Megamix and VFs (eventhough VF2 is hard as fuck), and PS2's Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution is in my top ten favorite fighting games of all time, so the tables have turned. The only Namco game on that list would have to be Soul Calibur 2. Great vid man. Once again, you go the juice, and you're still hitting homeruns here. Never realized Namco was so flexible during the 90s, so thanks for the great info.
That reminds me, since you love Splatterhouse (a Namco classic), would you EVER do a review about your love for the game?
Ridge Racer was life changer for me. It came out just before I got my drivers license and I would play it nonstop before I bought my first car. Once I bought a car, that CD was ALWAYS playing in my car to the amazing soundtracks. My first car was an 86 Toyota Supra...fun racing days.
Nostalgia hit me first, depression was second 😭
I love me some Namco arcade lol. Ridge Racer was my 1st PS1 game! :D
And Cyber Sled is pretty fun too.
Namco did some great 3D stuff, slowly discovering them via the playstation.
I'm really enjoying the historical information you're including in these episodes. I like the format. Great work, thanks.
Imagine if Sega and Namco had merged in the nineties...
Or even in the early 00s when they talked about it, before Sonic 06 and the lost decade at Sega.
Had they actually merged, they would have absolutely dominated.
Your content is consistently produced, narrated and presented to such a high standard. I can always count on your videos to entertain and be informative at the same time. Keep it up brother, long live SEGA Lord X
You are making definitive videos for increasing number of subjects. Awesome
Had a tough day at work; This was nice to relax with.
Been watching you since your first channel, and I have to say that this is your best work yet. Very high quality episode! Thank you,
Great video Sega Lord. Learned a lot about Namco with this video. I've been familiar with more of their home games, not so much their arcade titles. Pretty impressive what they were able to achieve during the late 80's and throughout the 90's with their arcade titles.
Its not like Sega & Namco ever stopped competing in the arcades. Initial D vs Wangan Midnight still carry that classic Daytona vs Ridge Racer rivalry alive.
Yeah, but with the great disappearance of the arcades, it's not like many even see the modern games anymore. Where I live, you have a few hours drive to get anywhere near an Initial D or WM arcade cab.
Now I know the name of the racing game I played in arcades when young and really impressed-me in 90, it was Winning Run. The different look (due to flat poligons instead of at the time ubiquitous sprites) and moving cabinet amazed an 8 years old me, not used to see such different thing in Brazil.
Great video! I hadn’t seen some of the early Namco games that only came out in Japan, even more impressed with their body of work now.
i always considered namco to be the yin of sega's yang
i appreciate you extent your quality researching content beyond sega. as much as i love sega, there are a lot of companies worth of mentioning for their work back in the 90's.
It's really sad to me that nobody is working on emulation for the later Namco hardware.
Awesome video! My favourite TH-cam channel by far dude! Always love seeing a new SLX video!
Even though I've always been a Nintendo fan first and foremost (and by extension rare, Konami, Capcom, even some decent acclaim games!) I've always had mad respect for Sega, Atari (despite being mostly shit post 1982) and above all, Namco. They were one of the only significant Japanese devs to stand up to Nintendo and their autocratic approach to developers and restrictive licensing agreements.
Namco & Sega = Kings of the arcade. Namco had the highest grossing individual arcade machines. Sega AM2 raked in 5 billion in sales in 1 year alone on multiple arcade machines.
Another superb and informative production. Thank you Sega Lord X for your creativity.
Great content you're offering here, you are one of the true historians of videogames on TH-cam. Respect!
This is easily the best video game channel on TH-cam.
Great job on the research with this one. I lived through all this and have certainly read up on it, but you dug out plenty of details even I didn't know. It's funny, I came to gaming after the golden age, and as a kid Pac Man was always associated in my head with Atari or Bally Midway - whatever that was - so during the 8 & 16-bit days I never thought of Namco as anything more than a B or C tier developer, if I thought about them at all. Probably the most exciting thing they did back then for me was letting an NES kid play Sega games through their anti-Nintendo temper tantrum Tengen label, which of course I doubt I knew was them at the time.
But Ridge Racer was the title that taught me to love racing games, and Cyber Sled was low key one of my favourite PS1 launch titles. Looking at that Tekken footage now it's amazing to see how rough it looks. Back in the day I wouldn't have seen it as lesser technology than VF2 had, a testament to Namco's superior art design. Ironically it was that art design that made me a Sega fan; I remember vividly loving R4 to death, but being frustrated at how compromised its artwork was by the low res PlayStation graphics. I decided it was time for an upgrade, and R4 had hit North America in late spring 1999 - exactly the moment Sega appeared on the horizon with great looking shots of their upcoming Dreamcast in magazines. I decided to finally give a Sega system a shot, absolutely fell in love with it, and I've been a serious fan ever since.
Best video yet, you've fully moved from giving your opinion of games to becoming a gaming historian.
7:26 - lol, that voice actor sounds like he is announcing specials over the speakers at a grocery store, not outlining a military operation.
This was the best video you've done for ages dude! I love it when you into the history of the machines, and it's great to see you covering new ground again! More please?
I REALLY REALLY wanted Sega and Namco to merge. No two companies were a better fit in my opinion.
Sega and Namco were just killin it back in the 90's, Sega had such a great arcade gaming variety of their own that eventually trickled down to the Dreamcast and Namco had everything to do with the PS1's success in my eyes. Games were also so satisfying, innovative, and to the point back then, they were easy to get into and tough to master. It's no wonder I am so disappointed with the industry of today when I look back at how it used to be.
Nothing beat walking into an arcade back in the day and seeing "next gen" games like when Virtua Fighter came out after all the SF2's. Even better was when you walked in and see a sequel for the first time like Tekken 2, or Daytona USA after playing hours or Virtua Racing with friends.
I do not know why, but I LOVE THIS EARLY 3D MASCHINES!
Another great episode. Well done. The gameplay that you capture for each video is done very well in my opinion. To be honest, I haven't seen any other channel that I can watch without getting just a little bored.
Ridge Racer is one of my favorite Namco games. 👍👍👍
Well done and an interesting topic. Nice to get the history of Namco here as well. I didn't cross paths with a lot of Namco games in the late 1980s and 1990s. I avoided them in the 32-bit era considering them an enemy of Sega, but also because something about their 3D games didn't appeal to me. In recent years, I've come to enjoy a lot of their 2D output. In fact, while they weren't as well known for their late-80s shooters, I really like the Namco style in games like Phelios and Dragon Saber. Rolling Thunder has become a favorite series of mine. I still don't love their 3D style as much of what I've played. I never liked the handling in Ridge Racer. But that's just it, all a matter of style. And as much as I prefer Sega's 3D games, I've admitted that Namco's approach of switching from expensive custom hardware to the simpler Playstation-based boards was very smart, as was their alliance with Sony. Tekken 3 was graphically able to compete with Sega's Model 2 Virtua Fighter 2, despite it being PS1-based hardware.
I love these historical retrospective episodes!
Great video!! Didn't know the history of Namco until now!
I loved Gee Bee! Used to play it in an arcade in London back in about 1980...