After announcing their surrender in the hardware wars, Sega stayed in the game as a third-party developer. While many fanboys cried foul, others conceded that bringing Sega's expertise to more systems couldn't be a bad thing. Thus a chapter in history was closed, and another opened, and soon Sega titles could be seen on all three new consoles.

Admittedly, many of the games they released were ports of previously released titles. Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Skies of Arcadia, Shemnue 2, and Phantasy Star Online appeared on other consoles. The occasional sequel, such as Panzer Dragoon Orta (Xbox) cropped up. Collections of classic Genesis titles and Sonic games have come out in various forms for various systems.

There were some new franchises birthed as well: Monkey Ball, Feel the Magic, and others were released. While Sega wasn't necessarily a top-tier developer, they released a steady stream of decent games for every system, even if most of those games came from the same few franchises. They did publish some standouts, such as the creepy Condemned on Xbox 360, but for the most part they released and re-released the titles that were synonymous with the Sega name.

Over the last year or two, though, it almost seems like Sega is going out of their way to crush their old franchises into the ground. Poor entries in popular series, drastic offshoots, and a seeming lack of direction plague some of Sega's most famous franchises. Names that once fell from gamers' lips with reverence now do so with a sad little laugh, and even the staunchest of Sega supporters (that'd be me) is hard pressed to stand behind many of the products we've seen of late.

I've picked three of the most popular and classic Sega franchises, titles that were pretty much synonymous with the name Sega whether they were a hardware or a software developer. I'm examining where they started, their high points and what they've been reduced to, and what can be done to shine up their tarnished images.