01/12/2020
SEGA's latest history lesson attempts to provide some disambiguation for the whole DURAL, GUPPY, BLACKBELT & KATANA situation... Check out the transcript below...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqdN_L4YaDE
15:46
This is the Dreamcast.
15:50
Starting with the Dreamcast, SEGA used a new codename
15:54
not based on planets.
15:58
It had the unique name of KATANA.
16:05
Here is recordable media used for development.
16:08
It’s a KATANA-only GD-ROM.
16:11
KATANA is printed on the disc.
16:13
Let’s look at the final question.
16:14
While you could say that all these answers are correct,
16:20
if we were to narrow it down to one, it would be this.
16:27
I vividly remember that time,
16:31
I organized the launching of the Dreamcast project,
16:34
And for about a year and a half I would preside over and take the minutes of
16:39
the weekly and general meetings
16:42
attended by everyone involved with the Dreamcast,
16:45
I happened to unearth the minutes from those meetings.
16:48
So, what circumstances led
16:51
to us wanting to make the project name KATANA
16:53
and not that of some planet?
16:57
Originally, the machine to follow the Saturn,
17:04
this project,
17:07
was called “DURAL.”
17:09
That name might not be familiar to some of you,
17:11
but that was the name of the final boss in the Virtua Fighter series.
17:13
However, for this project
17:15
Japan and the US were independently researching their own hardware.
17:19
Japan’s was called “GUPPY”
17:26
and the US hardware was called “BLACKBELT.”
17:31
After a lot of back and forth Japan’s “GUPPY,”
17:35
which used Hitachi CPUs and NEC video processors, was ultimately chosen.
17:44
The project started off as “DURAL,” and then we had “GUPPY” and “BLACKBELT,” and it was all really confusing.
17:49
So, when it was said that Japan and the US would work as one company on the project
17:55
and a new codename would be given to represent a fresh start,
17:58
discussions about what codename to give the project resulted in KATANA.
18:04
It’s likely that when suggestions for the codename were made,
18:08
these other three also came up.
18:10
Some liked KATANA because it sounded like the Japanese for “katana akan (we must win).”
18:16
Others, when they heard “KATANA” suggested,
18:20
thought it symbolized the “GUPPY” slicing the “BLACKBELT” in half.
18:25
Before the project was named “KATANA,” the development library was called “NINJA,”
18:32
and some thought that with its Japanese flavor it fit well.
18:37
However, the reason KATANA was ultimately decided on
18:45
was this.
18:46
The machine codenamed “Saturn”
18:51
was sold as the Sega Saturn.
18:53
That’s how this started.
18:55
The reason it became the Sega Saturn
18:57
was because the codename
19:00
had been used for a long time by everyone in software development, hardware, sales, and marketing.
19:05
And what happens in a case like this? People start saying things like:
19:09
“Let’s just call it Saturn.”
19:11
“There’s nothing we can call it besides Saturn.”
19:13
Codenames are…
19:15
Normally, when choosing a product name for hardware you should think about things like what would be popular marketing-wise with users,
19:22
the sort of message you want to communicate with the hardware,
19:25
and what you want to do about the logo,
19:27
and then decide on the name.
19:31
But the idea to sell a console using its codename
19:36
because the codename sounded fine was an unusual thing to do.
19:38
That is why KATANA was intentionally chosen from several candidates
19:44
that seemed unlikely to be used as a product name
19:46
However, human beings are strange creatures.
19:50
The Dreamcast was to be released in 1998,
19:55
I think around the New Year’s season in Japan,
19:58
and someone suddenly says, “don’t you think KATANA is a good name?”
20:03
While that wasn’t the name used in the end,
20:07
it was a close call.
20:09
So, if you ever have to decide on the name of project,
20:13
you need to be careful of this aspect of humans.
20:15
Just thought I’d stick an important lesson in there.
