Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sega/archive3

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 24 May 2020 [1].

Sega

Nominator(s): Red Phoenix talk 16:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sonic the Hedgehog. The world's most prolific producer of arcade games. A rise that at one point had them thinking about taking shots at Disney. This is Sega, the Japanese company whose stories are among the most interesting in video games. This article has taken years of work, starting a spinout from scratch as it got too big, and work on various articles of Sega's games, hardware, and development studios to get the whole story. It's a fantastic, well-researched and highly refined article.

My goal is to have this article on the main page for Sega's 60th anniversary on June 3, 2020. It has gone through two FACs, both of which crashed solely on the basis of a lack of feedback. This will be my last attempt to make this goal. Personally, this article reflects years of efforts on Wikipedia, as it is the main article of 80-90% of my editing focus. I would like to see it proudly featured among Wikipedia's best. Red Phoenix talk 16:43, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging the following commenters from previous FACs to give more feedback: @Ritchie333:, @SnowFire:, @Megaman en m:, @Lee Vilenski:. I will also leave messages asking for feedback at WT:VG and WT:SEGA. Red Phoenix talk 16:46, 3 April 2020 (UTC). Additional:Because he has a notice on his talk page that he is willing to review FACs, I have left a message inviting The Rambling Man to this FAC. Red Phoenix talk 17:00, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOTPRICE (policy): "Sales catalogues. An article should not include product pricing or availability information unless there is an independent source and a justified reason for the mention. Encyclopedic significance may be indicated if mainstream media sources (not just product reviews) provide commentary on these details instead of just passing mention. Prices and product availability can vary widely from place to place and over time. Wikipedia is not a price comparison service to compare the prices of competing products, or the prices and availability of a single product from different vendors or retailers." There are many places in the article where the prices are policy-compliant, but a few that use only product reviews and a justified reason for including the price is not apparent. Wikipedia is not a sales catalog. Please review throughout for NOT policy compliance. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

All prices removed. I am well aware of the policy. No price listed have applied for years anyway, but I struck them all and reworded appropriately to be extra triple sure. Red Phoenix talk 19:38, 3 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • Finances chart should be scaled up
  • Suggest adding alt text. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:31, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Nikkimaria: can you provide a suggestion of how to scale up the chart without messing up other users' screens? I thought I was told to always leave it at the default and that messing with it might mess it up for other users. Also, where am I missing alt text? I checked all of my images; they all have alt text. Thank you. Red Phoenix talk 01:26, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Using |upright= scales the image relative to user preferences - if I've got my default set to 300 and you've got yours set to 220, |upright=1.2 will produce an image that appears at 360px for me and 264px for you. Alt text appears to have been my error. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:31, 6 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from theJoebro64

I'm gonna take a step into the House that Sonic Built later this week. JOEBRO64 19:48, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Red Phoenix: just wanted to let you know that I haven't forgotten about this and will start reviewing soon. I just have to finish reviewing a GAN right now. JOEBRO64 17:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Joebro. I understand, we're all a little busy right now :) . Red Phoenix talk 17:38, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, here's a start:

  • "Sega developed its first coin-operated game, with Periscope, in the late 1960s."
  • Should Standard/Service Games be mentioned in the lede?
  • "In more recent years, it has been criticized for misguided business decisions and lack of creativity." A slight NPOV issue. I think this might need some rewriting so it doesn't seem as if we're directly saying their business decisions were poor or their games weren't creative, as that's how it comes across.

More to come. JOEBRO64 22:06, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

    • @TheJoebro64: I used your phrasing for the first point, gave a brief namecheck to Service Games of Japan (I didn't really mention Standard Games because it's a much smaller part of the story and ended 15 years before Sega began), and tried to lighten up the POV on the last sentence. I'll be waiting for more. Red Phoenix talk 00:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've done some more reading of the article and don't really have anything significant to say. The only thing that really stood out to me was that there is a bit of inconsistency if we're referring to Sega as "it/its" versus "them/their", but that's a minor quibble that can be quickly fixed. Consider this my declaration of support. JOEBRO64 15:01, 23 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Zwerg Nase

  • Lead: Any particular reason why Irvine is wikilinked and London isn't?
  • References: There are a couple with ALLCAPS titles, which should be changed.
  • Genesis, Sonic the Hedgehog, and mainstream success (1989–1994): "Genesis was launched in New York City and Los Angeles" - shouldn't it be "The Genesis..."?
  • Shift to third-party software development (2001–2003): "This was followed by further reductions clear the remaining inventory." - there's a word missing here.
  • No mention is made of SEGA's role in the 1993 congressional hearings on video games and the subsequent creation of the ESRB. Maybe include some information on that in the article? Zwerg Nase (talk) 09:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Zwerg Nase, and thank you for reviewing this article. To answer your comments:

    • London is not linked because of MOS:OVERLINK. Large cities which most readers would be familiar are generally not linked.
    • All of the ALLCAPS titles are fixed.
    • I honestly don't see much a difference in including "The", but I've done so anyway at your request.
    • Replaced the missing "to" in the sentence.
    • That mention I had in History of Sega, a spinout article I put together because of how large the history section of this article was getting. I've adapted that section into a paragraph and brought it over here, since it is important.

@Zwerg Nase: All comments have been addressed. Thank you for reviewing! Red Phoenix talk 11:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Red Phoenix: Thank you for the quick responses! The ESRB section looks good, I think it is warranted to include it here as well, considering Sega basically established the predecessor. Overall, very good work, I am impressed with this article and support elevating it to FA status. Zwerg Nase (talk) 11:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Indrian

I did not participate in the first two FACs, but I will go ahead and throw some comments out on this one.

  • "After the war, the founders sold Standard Games and established Service Games, named for the military focus." - This is not quite accurate. Standard Games was wrapped up shortly before the end of the war in August 1945, while Service Games was not established until over a year later in September 1946. In between, the Brombergs were operating all sorts of other businesses in Hawaii, including a new game operator called California Games. As with all things early Sega, it gets convoluted, but see here for the basics.
    • I have never seen that book before. I've added a cite though the preview provided doesn't have a page number, so I used the chapter title for the time being. It looks like a good read, though I don't have $67 to purchase it at the moment. Red Phoenix talk 20:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • " in its territories in 1951, Bromley sent employees Richard Stewart and Ray LeMaire to Tokyo to establish Service Games of Japan to provide coin-operated slot machines to U.S. bases in Japan. A year later, all five men established Service Games Panama to control the various entities of Service Games worldwide." As written, this implies Sega of Japan was established in 1951 and Sega Games Panama was established in 1952 because 1951 is the only year mentioned. The companies were, of course, established in 1952 and 1953 respectively.
    • So, it turns out one of the sources used was wrong and said 1951 - ergo, the error. The bad source was removed and this was fixed. That source wasn't really useful for much anyway. Red Phoenix talk 20:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • David Rosen comes out of nowhere in the middle of the section. Some kind of transition is necessary even if its just a single word like "meanwhile."
  • "Because Sega imported second-hand machines that required frequent maintenance, it began constructing replacement guns and flippers for its imported games. This began the company's transition from importer to manufacturer." - This somewhat distorts the early manufacturing history of the company, which was really focused on slot machines far more than games. The early Sega manufactured output was in knockoffs of Mills Bell-O-Matic slot machines, which they were straight up counterfitting. Bell-O-Matic Corporation went so far as to take out ads in the trades stating that Service Games and Firm Westlee (Service Games Panama's West Germany subsidiary) Mills machines were not genuine. Not all of that detail needs to go in the top level article, but implying that game parts drove the company into the manufacturing business rather than slot machine parts is not quite right.
  • "and Esco Boueki, a coin-op distributor founded and owned by Hayao Nakayama. Nakayama was placed in charge of Sega's Japanese operations." - This is also not quite accurate. Nakayama was named co-EVP of Sega Enterprises alongside an American executive, Dane Blough. Blough ran finance and administration, while Nakayama ran basically everything else. Nakayama was not named president of Sega Enterprises Ltd. until 1982, when Dane Blough moved back to the States to serve as vice chairman of Sega-Gremlin. Again, not all that detail needs to be in the top level article, but what is here should be clarified. Once again see here for some of the detail.
    • The link was not available in my "preview" view. So for now, I adapted the quote from the source I do have, which stated that as of the acquisition Nakayama was placed in a management role. Not inaccurate, although not necessarily quite so precise, either. Red Phoenix talk 20:52, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • We lost a CEO transition in here somewhere. David Rosen retired and was replaced as CEO of Sega Enterprises, Inc. by former Mattel Electronics president Jeff Rochlis.
  • "Following a downturn in the arcade business starting in 1982, Gulf and Western sold its North American arcade game manufacturing organization and the licensing rights for its arcade games to Bally Manufacturing." - As above, by only including the 1982 date here, the article implies that is the year these operations were sold rather than 1983.
    • Ah, not something I caught. Found a source, added the date, and cited it.
  • "However, by 1984 the Famicom began to outpace the SG-1000. " - Sega sold 160,000 units in 1983, while Nintendo sold 500,000 units even with its recall problems. To say that the Famicom only started to outpace the SG-1000 in 1984 is not accurate.
  • Its continuing success since its release in the region in September 1989 makes the Master System the longest-lived console in history." - I would be careful of making this claim. The "Master System" units available in Brazil for well over a decade have been emulated systems that lack a cartridge slot and only allow the playing of built in games. How is that any different from an Atari Flashback or an NES Mini?
  • " In 1986, Sega of America was established to manage the company's consumer products in North America." - If I am reading this article without knowing much about the topic, I am wondering why if there is a Sega of America in 1986 then the Master System is being marketed by Tonka. I know you are trying to streamline the top-level article, but inconsistencies like this should be handled even if only briefly.
  • " Artist Naoto Ohshima proposed a hedgehog with red shoes he called "Mr. Needlemouse". This character was renamed Sonic the Hedgehog, and went on to feature in one of the best-selling video game franchises in history." - Again, I know we want to keep this brief, but this is a distortion of the Sonic creation. Oshima created a rabbit character that was later modified into a hedgehog because Naka and Yasuhara wanted a character that could roll into a ball to emphasize the speed of the game (an armadillo was also considered). When the team decided on a hedgehog character, Oshima pulled out an old drawing that included a hedgehog named "Mr. Harinezumi." Harinezumi is the Japanese word for hedgehog, but the kanji could be translated literally as "spikey rodent." Someone in the US office apparently did such a literal translation and incorrectly called the character "Mr. Needlemouse." Oshima never did. While Mr. Harinezumi was used as the basis for Sonic, this was not the original mascot character chosen for the game in the company-wide competition.
  • "By January 1992, Sega controlled 65 percent of the 16-bit console market, making it the first time Nintendo was not the console leader since 1985." - This statement is not accurate. While Sega probably did have around 65% of the 16-bit market (Nintendo disputed this, of course, which is always how it goes), 16-bit systems were not the entire video game market. When 8-bit sales are factored in, Nintendo was thought to still have over 70% of the video game market. They were still the console leader, so this statement needs to be qualified.
  • In tandem with the above, the article somehow leaves out when Sega actually did trounce Nintendo in the United States, which was 1993. As written, the article appears to state Sega was in decline by then due to its peripheral madness, but this was its best period in the home. I know there is a mention of the four straight years of Christmas victories, but the implication in the article now is that Sega blew Nintendo away in 1991 and never looked back. In fact Nintendo bounced back very well in 1992 with a price cut and key exclusives, but then blew 1993 due in large part to censoring Mortal Kombat.
  • "The Model 2 was equipped with better hardware than any home video game consoles at the time." - New arcade hardware has always been better than contemporaneous console hardware because coin-op games sell for thousands of dollars instead of hundreds of dollars. Not sure why this is being singled out here.
  • "With lifetime sales of 9.26 million units, the Saturn is considered a commercial failure, although its 5.75 million units sold in Japan surpassed the Nintendo 64's 5.54 million." - This is a highly POV statement trying to soft pedal the Saturn's failure through a comparison that is not apt. Globally, the Saturn was a disaster and greatly outsold by the N64, which had a much stronger showing in the United States and Europe than Saturn did. Also, Sega sold many of those Japanese systems early, before the N64 was even on the market. By March 1996, Sega had already sold 2.5 million of those Japanese Saturns, while the N64 would not be out for another three months. Clearly, the head-to-head figures for the two systems are not going to look very flattering for Sega. And Sony PlayStation sales are not mentioned at all, which of course obliterated both the Sega and Nintendo systems.
  • "During 2003, Sega had plans of partnering with John Woo on development of video games by his Tiger Hill Entertainment studio, but plans fell through." - Is this really an important company milestone?

The above is a start on some of the factual issues in the article, but honestly I think there is still a lot more work to be done here. Trying to encapsulate the entirety of a long-running multinational corporation in the space of a single wikipedia article is an immense challenge, which I imagine is why FAs on such topics are exceedingly rare. The huge amount of work done here is truly both remarkable and commendable, but a lot of the article is still essentially just names and dates that could have been taken from press releases, which brings into question its comprehensiveness. I think a little more of the "how and why" of Sega still needs to be included to complement the "who, when, and where." We'll see how this develops. Indrian (talk) 21:50, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I've addressed your comments so far. A fair bit of these issues have to do as it usually does with what we call "reliable sources" and what's accurate in them and what isn't. Some of it is a lack of clarity in their wording, and a bit of it is my error, naturally. That being said, you and I don't disagree often, but I do respectfully disagree that there is a lack of comprehensiveness here. I'm going to try to give you the best argument I can, and I apologize if it's not concise and I also assure we will still be good colleagues no matter the result--unlike the Sega Saturn GA fiasco, which I have long regretted.
There are only six company FAs, and none have passed since 2012. While I did look at all of them to get ideas on how to write this article, not all of them are FA-standard anymore, and Sega has a more comprehensive history section than all of them. To get a better idea of a structure for a multinational company, I looked at Walmart. At present, Sega, the article, is 165kB. Per WP:SIZERULE, it's actually pretty big as it is, and it contains 293 citations. The idea for History of Sega came from me seeing History of Walmart and History of Nintendo. In History of Sega, I have tried to incorporate more interviews and commentary to accommodate more of the how and the why. Much as I'd love to put all of this together, History of Sega has an additional 121 citations compared to Sega's history section (368, vs 247 through "History" in the Sega article), and it's 214kB. Therefore, being concise is critical because of the size we're working with already.
If I had the sources, I would love to keep expanding on the subject and include more of the how and the why. However, History of Sega is the place to do that, and expanding it any further will probably result in another article split - which I'm certainly not against if it does get bigger. The history has to be somewhat concise here to combine with the other sections and present the highest quality summary of Sega that can be covered from reliable sources, both past and present, and how the company is viewed in the industry. This isn't meant to be a cop-out for this article, and I hope one can see that in History of Sega as well, which I do feel includes more how and why and I've continued to attempt to expand and try to add detail. Unfortunately, we don't consider articles in tandem at FAC even for spinouts, as far as I'm aware.
I hope you will consider my words about being concise and expanding that material elsewhere carefully, and I will listen carefully to a counterargument. I also look forward to more comments. Red Phoenix talk 23:53, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Sjones23

Hey there. I'm the one who reviewed and promoted Sega to GA, so I'll try to review most of it sometime this week. Meanwhile, we should change the # symbol to No. as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Number signs and all dead citations should be archived (the live links should also be archived as well to avoid potential link rot). Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:25, 15 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sjones23; I changed the # symbol and re-archived the sources. I don't see any more that are unarchived. Looking forward to more comments. Red Phoenix talk 01:57, 16 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Sjones23: I apologize if I'm bothering you, but I look forward to your review and feedback. Thank you. Red Phoenix talk 15:25, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@TheJoebro64, Indrian, and Sjones23: I am looking forward to more comments. As an FYI to all, I should be able to respond quicker, as I'm now on quarantine for two weeks. Red Phoenix talk 12:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Red Phoenix: Sorry for the late reply. I ran the article through the copyvio bot and it reported a 36.3% ("violation unlikely"). Otherwise, this article looks good. Hope this helps. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 03:20, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Sjones23:. Thank you; I appreciate your return to look at this article one more time. To answer any concern you may have on the copyvio bot, I ran it myself before I nominated this article at FAC. There is an article I ran it on that says 92.8% on a WordPress site, but this takes blatantly from my previous work at Dreamcast - noting the WordPress site says on it it was this person's idea in 2016, while I worked extensively on Dreamcast and had it promoted to GA in 2014, that prose has changed little in the years since, and I did use a fair bit of it for one of the sections in this article (and did attribute in the edit summary for respective edits). On the remaining articles in the list with a higher rate (36%, and going down), all of them are sources for this article and all of the highlighted "violations" are actually used in direct quotes attributed to people at Sega who said them or opinions of the authors who wrote them, and of course, properly attributed in the article. Red Phoenix talk 09:26, 13 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Red Phoenix: That works for me. Lord Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 02:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Support from SnowFire

I reviewed this during its first FAC and supported then. Looking at a diff since the second FAC, just some minor quibbles...

  • "In 1986, Sega of America was established to manage the company's consumer products in North America, though Sega's partnership with Tonka caused most of Sega of America's infrastructure to be shut down during that period." - Bit of a mood whiplash here, with the "though." Did the source really say that Sega of America was established, ramped up, hired a bunch of people, then laid everybody off after it turned out Tonka would handle the Master System? Just say that more explicitly then. If what this really means is "Sega of America was established in 1986, but was small and tiny and Tonka handled most everything around then" write something like that rather than the current sentence.
    • The second is mostly right, but not quite - according to Playing at the Next Level (the source used), it's a little complex and I'll admit I was trying not to be too wordy here. Essentially, a lot of the marketing and game adaptation for the North American market that Sega of America had done was shut down so Tonka could do the marketing and distribution. Nothing in the source indicates layoffs, but that they did customer support and a little localization. I rephrased to try and explain this better; it did result in having to add more to explain it. Red Phoenix talk 01:22, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • " Kalinske revealed the release price and revealed that Sega had shipped 30,000 Saturns to Toys "R" Us, Babbage's, Electronics Boutique, and Software Etc. for immediate release" - I realize that SandyGeorgia brought up WP:NOTPRICE above, but removing the price renders that sentence weird with a double revelation. "Kalinske announced that Sega had shipped..." and then include another sentence later that mentions the Saturn's high price point as a barrier to adoption for the console with quoting the actual price optional.
    • I'll do you one better - I added in a bit more about why the Saturn struggled, including the price being high. Had to track down a new magazine source for it, but it works. Even the Sega Saturn article was not quite so explicit on this. I do understand not all reviewers have time, but I kinda wish SandyGeorgia would have had time to tell me which ones she felt violated policy and which ones didn't instead of just quoting the policy - we wouldn't have had this issue in that case.
  • Related to the above, but if the references support it, the Dreamcast price cut appears quite significant - it went to 2/3 the launch price in less than a year, it seems! The magnitude of the slash from 30K yen to 20K yen certainly reads as significant enough to be mentioned to me, if the sources support it. (Again, even if you don't want to mention the prices outright, surely something exists to suggest the magnitude of the change - there's a big difference between a 5% price cut and a 33% price cut.)
    • I added "in Japan by JP¥9100". The source has both prices right next to each other in the same sentence. Anyone who reads that and can do math isn't going to challenge it, and it's technically not a price, it's a difference with context.
  • " In December 2000, The New York Times reported that Nintendo and Sega were holding discussions regarding a potential US$2 billion buyout" - well this obviously didn't happen. What's the relevance here? There's lots of things that didn't happen that could be mentioned. Was this a relevant rumor? Do the references think Sega was lying to save face and the NYT was right, say? I see above that Indrian talked about the seeming lack of high relevance for the John Woo studio deal, but at least that actually happened and was then abandoned. It's not clear if the Nintendo-Sega deal negotiations was a thing that happened at all currently. (If they did, then say so - "Sega and Nintendo denied it, but according to historian John Doe, everyone knew they were just saving Sega the humiliation.")
    • Just responding to this as the person who added this, but I think it's worth mentioning because (A) the Times is a highly regarded publication and wouldn't just make this up and (B) Nintendo is a significant company which makes the fact it nearly happened notable. Reuters also reported on the discussions (though the link to the Reuters article is dead, it's mentioned in this Geek.com article) so it's more likely than not that the discussions did actually happen and just fell apart. JOEBRO64 00:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • An article written by a young Andrew Ross Sorkin no less, before he was famous. The Geek.com article is just citing the NYT article so isn't independent confirmation. Did any later scholars or book authors come back to this? "Negotiations collapse after stock market hit to Nintendo" would be relevant to mention, sure, but "journalist writes inaccurate article about Sega, causes brief stock price shift" is not really important. And the article itself notes that everybody denied this was even happening at all on the record. It'd be nice if this was sourced to a non-contemporary source, if possible... SnowFire (talk) 01:56, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re some of the above concerns - I think it's important not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good here. A large corporation with a long history will inherently have some matters of style & taste for what to include. I'm satisfied with the current balance of comprehensiveness vs. WP:SIZE, as well as the facets chosen to focus on. SnowFire (talk) 00:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@SnowFire: Thank you for commenting! I've addressed your comments. I like what you said about not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good - I struggled with that mightily in putting this and many other articles together, I feel. I think I'll be taking that advice with me in my future editing (situationally, of course). Red Phoenix talk 02:29, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me. Support. SnowFire (talk) 03:16, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Indrian and Sjones23: I'm sorry to trouble you again, but I'm running out of time if I'm going to get this on the main page on June 3. Is there any chance you can finish your reviews soon? Thank you, Red Phoenix talk 21:42, 12 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Nikkimaria

Source review - spotchecks not done

  • Some of the details in the infobox don't appear to be sourced anywhere - for example the president of Sega Europe
    • Inserted, actually put a sentence about Dale taking the job in as well. Red Phoenix talk 01:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • As a further aside, everything in the infobox should be traceable to a source. The only other questionable one was the name of the tower where their headquarters is, but I don't even really see how that's necessary - and another editor sent me a thanks when I removed it.
  • Similarly some of the details in the lead don't appear to be sourced anywhere - for example that the sale to Gulf and Western was "In an effort to become a publicly traded company"
    • This one was actually because the excess detail about this was moved to History of Sega and trimmed down from here. Removed from the lead.
      • Lead looks fine to me otherwise. If you have other concerns, let me know.
  • Some of the details in captions warrant citing - for example that the red logo was used until 1975
    • I can't find that one, but I did remove the year. I don't think there's any lack of understanding in knowing precisely what year the changeover on the logo was made.
  • Ranges should use endashes
  • Be consistent in whether you include locations for books
  • Fn1 is missing page numbers
  • FN7 has a duplicated publication
  • FN11: is this an authorized republication?
    • Hard to say for sure, but I'm going to assume no - and that's kind of funny, because other normally reliable sources have jumped all over it and talked about the translation. I found the book and was able to find some page numbers, and then removed the Shmuplations link just to be on the safe side. Red Phoenix talk 01:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • As per the documentation for {{cite news}}, publisher is usually omitted when substantially identical to the publication title. More broadly though, with this in mind you should be consistent in when publisher is included and when it is not
  • Subscription and via attributions should use the separate |via= rather than being bunched into the publication title
  • FN21 is missing page numbers - check other NewsBank refs, there are generally page numbers provided by the database
  • FN22 returns a harv error
    • Found out the hard way that setting a ref parameter means you can't use the sfn template for the same. Fixed by simply reformatting FN22 to be consistent with other refs to the same source. Red Phoenix talk 01:53, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • When is "61 March 1995"? ;-)
    • So you'll get a laugh out of this one - 61 was the page number, and the cite journal template actually made it look like it was part of the date, lol. I changed "page" to "pages" which made the template insert a period. Red Phoenix talk 01:19, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN47: the website title is redundant here
  • Be consistent in when you include locations for periodicals

I'm going to pause here and suggest you first add any citations that are missing, and then go through all of the citations and make sure they're consistently formatted before proceeding. For the moment I'm going to oppose on sources just because there's a significant chunk of work that's going to be required here; happy to revisit once some of that's been done. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:53, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Nikkimaria: Please revisit asap; I spent several hours tonight weeding all of the minor inconsistencies out. What I went with was no publishers where there is a website parameter listed, and no URL-based website parameters - publishers are used instead. I also chose no locations for book publishings, and fixed all of the minor issues above, including en dashes. I apologize if I'm rushing you, but I'm almost out of time if I'm going to make my goal of getting this article to FA in time to be on the main page on June 3. Thank you, Red Phoenix talk 04:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Still seeing some unsourced info in the infobox - for example the cited source identifies someone else as the chairman and gives the currently listed individual a different title
    • I see that the new source for financial data gave the officer listing for Sega Sammy Holdings, but not Sega. The company gives their financial data all at once for all of their subsidiaries. I threw in another source in the infobox announcing positions for Sega, specifically.
  • Still seeing some unsourced info in the captions - for example that Sonic became the mascot in 1991
    • I was pretty sure this was covered in a source in the paragraph next to it, but I've taken the liberty of adding another one anyway.
  • FN8: issue? Same with FN28, check others
  • Fn15: date doesn't match source
    • Must've been a fat-finger typo.
  • FN16: source includes a specific date. Same with FN25, check others
  • FN29: source includes a page number. Same with FN39, check others
  • Fn32: date?
  • FNs41 and 42 are to the same publication but are differently formatted
  • FN51: author name is misspelled
  • FN55 includes publication location while other similar references don't. Same with FN63, check others
  • FN56 uses a URL-based website parameter - you mentioned above you weren't doing that? Same with FN61, check others
    • A quick side note here - I fixed what you were seeing (and certainly not ones I caught on the first pass because they were less obvious), but there will be one or two occurrences where the name is a .com, or something like that. 1Up.com, for instance, that is the site's name and what we use on Wikipedia, not just "1Up".
  • Businessweek or Business Week?
  • FN70: page, issue? Same with FN73, check others
  • FN74: accessdate?
  • Hansard is a publication title
  • FNs 52 and 86 are the same
  • FN91: publication title is AllGame not Allgame

Stopping there - still some work to do here, I'm afraid. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:09, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Nikkimaria: We are ready for another look - I trawled the whole reference list as well as your notes. I did 34 edits today since this morning to fix the issues, including all of your notes so far. Please let me know what other concerns you have and what needs addressed. Red Phoenix talk 21:30, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN4: author name is misspelled. Same with FN161, check for others
  • FN29 is missing agency attribution
    • I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean for this one. Red Phoenix talk 03:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
      • Rather than being attributed to a specific author, it's credited to a press agency, so should use |agency=Associated Press. This attribution is also missing in FN169, check for others. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Awesome to know. Specifically a cite news feature, I see - I don't frequently work with newspaper-based sources. I added to those two, and found two more that I gave this attribution.
  • FN39 is missing author
    • Done
  • How are you deciding when to include publisher for periodicals? I see it in FN41 but not in many others
    • That was my mistake; it made no sense anyway to have that publisher when it's practically the same name as the periodical. Removed.
  • BBC is a publisher. Same with CNN, check for others
    • Fixed all occurrences of BBC and CNN
  • FN59 is missing date
    • Done
  • FN63 has the same issue flagged in the last round
    • Oh crud, sorry. I didn't even see that one. Fixed.
  • FN70 was flagged in the last round, as was FN73
    • ... And that one I must have missed entirely. My apologies. I couldn't find info on issue and page for Video Business, but I was able to replace one with an existing book and the other I just struck as being supported by the other sources present around it.
  • FN76 formats author differently from other refs. Same with FN109, check for others
    • Fixed the broken formatting, and I didn't see any others on a check.
  • FN136: this citation is intermingling the chapter author and the book editors - they should be in separate parameters
    • Fixed. I learned about new parameters for the template in figuring out how to fix this, so that's good.
  • FN145: date doesn't match source. Same with FN166, check for others
    • Here's the deal here: I changed all the dates for articles sourced to GameSpot (so more like 8 sources changed). I'm almost positive all of their dates are wrong for articles published before the year 2000, but Internet Archive doesn't have anything older and nothing on their site says an original date, so I guess we'll just go with what their site says.
  • FN132 and 146 are the same
    • Fixed. I caught another duplicate cite I hadn't seen, too. I don't see any more at this time.
  • What makes International Business Times a high-quality reliable source? See WP:RSP
    • Honestly, I was not familiar with RSP (Believe it or not. But I'm more than familiar with WP:VG/S, which I use more anyway). Replaced with an IGN source
  • What makes Kikizo a high-quality reliable source? Nikkimaria (talk) 00:56, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's published by Adam Doree, and his site was previously published by AOL. That being said, just to be extra triple sure I went ahead and replaced the source with 4Gamer.net, which is in Japanese but is listed at VG/S.

@Nikkimaria: Ready for more when you are. I apologize for the flags I missed the previous go-around. I've put a few more hours into trying to get this right, and I appreciate your patience. Red Phoenix talk 03:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • FN141 still includes location. Same with 286, check for others
    • It was just those two - I did a search for the parameter under source editing. Still can't believe I missed them, but I have it.
  • Fn157: I see that Eurogamer is generally considered reliable, but am not sure about this particular case as the author's background is unknown
    • I looked it up - that's actually John "Gestalt" Bye, one of the founding members of Eurogamer and writer for magazines before that. I'll update with his actual name.
  • FN164: date doesn't match source. Same with FN171, check for others
    • Fixed. Both of those were CNET, and I think that may make sense in light of GameSpot's dates being wrong - GameSpot was owned by CNET at one time.
  • FN202 doesn't match author formatting of other sources
    • Fixed. I also went through again to look for any others and came up empty.
  • FN214: don't see that author named at the source?
    • Odd that it's not in the current page, but it is in the archive for it. I'd hate to remove attribution to someone just because their website did, especially since it's in the linked source archive, unless I'm told it needs gone.
  • FN220: author is misspelled. Same with FN223, 259, check for others
    • Fixed all three. Have not seen any others as of yet.
  • FN221 is missing author
    • Missing author added
  • What makes Crunchyroll a high-quality reliable source?
    • I was just trying to keep this info in English, but I went ahead and replaced it with the source itself for the Crunchyroll article, which is the Japanese website 4Gamer.net, considered reliable per WP:VG/S
  • FN151 and 262 are the same
    • Consolidated.
  • FN288: why not cite the original source? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:53, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Initially, that was because I couldn't find it. But I did, now, and I have replaced it with Famitsu.

@Nikkimaria: All comments addressed. If there is another wave, I'll be ready for it. Thank you for your detailed review so far; I have never had such a detailed source formatting review before, and it's nice to learn new things about references during this process - twelve years and six FAs into my time on Wikipedia, ha ha. Red Phoenix talk 00:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • FN1 should use dash not hyphen
    • Done.
  • FN4: something to be aware of with using Google Books is that their metadata isn't always the greatest - for example this ISBN appears to correspond to a different edition, it doesn't match the one in the actual book
    • I'm a little lost here - the one in the actual book is an ISBN-10 but it converts to that ISBN-13. I can't find anything for another edition.
  • Fn69: date doesn't match source
    • I'm not sure if you're looking at the URL, which says 1994-2-20 but opening the article itself it says February 21, 1994 (at 12 AM, no less). Shouldn't that mean we stick with the 21st?
      • It says Feb 20 for me, at 11PM - looks like this is one of those annoying sites that adjusts the publication date based on your time zone. Since the URL says Feb 20 I'd go with that. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh lovely. Well, in that case, I have done the change.
  • FN70: generally book publications don't include a day-level date, year is more appropriate
    • Done
  • FN131: if this publication has a full name suggest using that instead, and also quotes within quotes should use single quote marks - this happens elsewhere too
    • It sure does - that's Electronic Gaming Monthly. I fixed the quote issue too and found four more that I fixed.
      • Looks like there's at least one other, FN186.
        • Ah, the "Dreamlast" quote. Missed that one, sorry.
  • Fn210: Bloomberg here could be treated as either a publisher or an agency, but it shouldn't be a publication title
    • Since it's from their website, I'll set it as publisher.
  • Fn253: the page name appears to be "Our Back Story" rather than what's in the footnote
    • Done
  • FN264: not a requirement, but as this appears to be available free online I'd suggest linking it. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:26, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not a bad idea. Done.

@Nikkimaria: Comments addressed, but a couple of questions back this time in the above responses. Let me know what you think or if there's more to address. Thank you again for your time in conducting this review. Red Phoenix talk 21:28, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

After the two changes flagged above this should be good to go. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: All done, thanks again! Red Phoenix talk 21:58, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support from Namcokid47

I hate to even say this, but I don't know if this is ready to be an FA yet. As a GA it's a total win, as an FA I'm not 100% sure. I personally have to agree with Indrian here in that a lot of this article feels like names and dates from press releases, without having much of a "why and how" here. This is a fantastic article and I've used it as a base for my drafts on Namco and Bandai Namco Entertainment, but I think this needs some more time in the oven. The references are another point of concern, as a lot of them are indeed from press releases or corporate websites instead of video game books or publications (the near-entirety of the Corporate Structure uses primary sources - this is fine when sourcing revenue or smaller sub-divisions, but surely some third-party sources could be found for them), and some of them are not formatted properly or don't have consistent dates. I also noticed multiple instances of the article switching from "their/they" and "it/its" when referring to Sega, which needs to be fixed.

I know full well you've poured so much time and effort into this one article, and the amount of content and the writing quality is excellent. However, there's still some issues with it, such as its comprehensiveness and references, that I don't know if it's fully-ready to be an FA. Sega is a massive company with a lengthy corporate history behind it, so I know it's hard to pinpoint every single thing that they've done, but that's probably why so few company articles are at FA. I'll give this another work if I see my concerns be addressed. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 18:10, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Namcokid47: I disagree with pretty much your entire assessment, and a lot of it has been refuted already if you read above - it's almost all been brought up already. Let me see if I can break this down, point by point, and address each concern you have brought up in your comments.
  • Concern 1: they/their vs it/its, originally by TheJoebro64 — Fair; I hadn't gotten to fixing it yet. I filtered it tonight to use "it/its", which is more consistent with American English and matches with the lead "Sega is", not "Sega are". That's now done.
  • Concern 2: Formatting/Consistent dates, originally by Nikkimaria — That's the whole point of a source review, to catch these issues. That's also why source reviews are mandatory at FACs for an article to pass. I trust Nikkimaria, who is a highly established editor and coordinator at WP:FAR, to catch the issues that would be in the way of this article advancing to FA status. And we're almost done, too. That an article with 290 sources would take so many comments doesn't surprise me. It's a lot to keep track of, and getting extra eyes on reference sections is usually almost impossible otherwise.
  • Concern 3: References from "press releases" instead of "video game books/publications" - Take a good look at any book on the history of video games. I'll name four of them right here that were used in this article:
  • Steven L Kent's The Ultimate History of Video Games
  • Ken Horowitz's The Sega Arcade Revolution: A History in 62 Games
  • Alexander Smith's They Create Worlds
  • Roberto Dillon's The Golden Age of Video Games
  • All of them share something in common - they include a lot of the same cites. In the books, yes - the authors cite where they learned of this part of the history. And wherever such a citation came from and whenever possible, I preferred to find that citation and include straight from that source, rather than the book. If that's where the information actually came from, that's what should be cited, ideally. There are a couple of press releases used, true. That's because sometimes that's the only way to get the necessary level of detail (for instance in Corporate Structure, other sources covered the "Sega Games" conversion but only the press release spoke of Sega Corporation specifically becoming Sega Games and the holding company being built on top of it). Sources on current corporate structure are naturally weaker with Sega drawing less interest since the Sammy merger and their quietness in making changes internally since then, but I don't see the number of primary sources with an issue as it's not citing questionable facts or establishing notability, and it's comparatively small in proportion with the whole article. Some of the sources from reputable reliable sources are probably based heavily on press releases, with a bit of analysis that was not included, true. But that ties into concern 4, below:
  • Concern 4: Not enough of the "how and why" Then tell me what you want to cut out of the article. The how and why is why History of Sega exists, and it contains a lot more of it. Here, we hit the main bases and we're hitting the top of WP:SIZERULE - so much so that part of the reason for the spinout of History of Sega was I was actually crashing the VisualEditor because of the size. Is History of Sega done? No, of course not, but it's equipped with a good bit of this already, and we don't consider groups of articles at FAC. Unfortunately Indrian has not responded to repeated pings to respond to my refutation, but SnowFire, one of the article reviewers, stated their satisfaction with the comprehensiveness in response to Indrian's concern, and that "it's important not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good", a phrase I actually took to heart.
  • I want to point out that I consider Sega the top, overarching article for a number of sub-articles that do have a lot of this information, including History of Sega, SG-1000, Master System, Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, and Dreamcast, among others. Four of those are FAs and three of those are GAs, and they incorporate a fair bit of history with them as well, as well as the how and the why. I envision Sega development studios as fulfilling that role for R&D down the road, where studios such as Sega AM2 and Sonic Team have that information already as well. So, the how and the why is there in a lot of senses. They're simply spun out into other articles.
I don't know if I can explain it better than that, but this I know: This article is in FA shape. It's ready for this. It's comprehensive as a top-level overarch of the company, with a number of sub-articles that give the details, in a streamlined format to give the most concise explanation within the space allotted. It's in excellent shape, and the minor issues not caught at two previous GA reviews, two previous FACs, and a previous peer review are being addressed. As long as things move the right way, it's ready to be on the main page on June 3, just two weeks away (and I've been working with the TFAR coordinators to try and make it happen). And my mind is made up on that. I have zero doubt, and zero uncertainty, that it's ready. Red Phoenix talk 00:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly I have not done a good effort at reviewing the article, from bringing up already-corrected errors and providing those that were not even remotely that big of a deal. There's obviously a well-researched, well-documented amount of info here, so my claim of "it's not very comprehensive" was complete BS (alongside the references - they're an easy fix and should no means be an argument to oppose an FAC). I spent a good amount of time reading over the article, and I give this a full support. @Red Phoenix: I sincerely apologize for my poor, lackluster job at reviewing the article. I don't know if I'm even close to having enough experience to comment on FACs (or even GANs), so I basically parroted comments that have already been resolved, which is inappropriate. I vote to support this article. Namcokid47 (Contribs) 02:22, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Namcokid47: Hey, no worries :-) . FACs are tough for both nominators and reviewers, and I’ve been on the wrong side of both aspects before. If you’d like in the future, I’d be glad to help teach you some finer points of FAC and reviewing. Red Phoenix talk 16:54, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@FAC coordinators: - I am working with the TFA coordinators on getting this article to the Main Page on June 3, in two weeks’ time, provided it passes. If it’s not too much trouble, to help them in such a short timeframe can I get a set of eyes to look this over sooner rather than later? By my count we are at 4 supports and no opposes (Nikkimaria’s was struck), a complete image and source review presuming Nikkimaria didn’t have more after striking the oppose, and everyone expressed satisfaction at their comments being resolved except for Indrian, who I pinged at least twice but did not receive any response - while other editors were swayed by my counter arguments. Thank you, Red Phoenix talk 16:54, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pls check and rationalise the duplinks in the article post-promotion. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 12:39, 24 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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