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[Some Guy]

The sad things was, the DC was actually selling quite well. It just wasn't selling well ENOUGH to save a company already teetering towards bankruptcy before the DC even launched.

SEGA didn't just need to be a hit... it needed to be a MONSTER. There are articles floating around online where ex employees and management talk about the truly insane sales targets SEGA would have actually needed to hit (in an incredibly short amount of time) to save the company before it ran out of money. They probably couldn't have hit those targets even if the PS2 had been delayed a year, let alone in the face of a strong direct competitor. A solid second place could have worked for a healthier company but SEGA needed nothing less than a totally unprecedented industry success just to stay afloat. Meanwhile, companies like Microsoft were willing to spend an entire generation losing money just to get a foothold into the marketplace.

When it was clear those targets weren't going to happen, they had no choice. They ended DC production and exited the hardware business because doing so allowed them to immediately and dramatically reduce expenditures and use those savings to keep the rest of the company afloat instead.

 

[Cyborg]

I think its the timeframe you launch a new console.

If you go first you better be damn sure you have the latest technology and are powerful as your competitor that launches a year after you.

 

[Death Metalist]

It came out at the wrong time unfortunately.

 

[Freshmaker]

Midway had decent Dreamcast support. Konami was at least developing a 3D castlevania until the DC died.

Meh to Midway.

Given Nightmare Creatures, Konami didn't care at all.

 

[M°°nblade]

Okay I was wondering how did the dreamcast exactly fail so quick in only 2 years?

It was more advanced tech but only half as powerful as the PS2 which was only a year away and which was unveiled with mindblowing tech demo's and gran turismo 3 footage.
It was easy to develop for but after the saturn relations with third party publishers were sore and the faith in the succes of the console was very low.
It had a good launch lineup and a list of acclaimed first party titles but no blockbusters.
It didn't have good third party support imo.
It had nice arcade ports in an age where the interest in arcade games already was in decline.

The biggest problem was that while it had a shitload of great low- and mid-budget exclusives, shenmue was one of the very few (if not the only) cinematic 'AAA' game Sega had.
Sony already had big names like Tekken, MGS2 and Final Fantasy X covered and ofcourse GT3. All of them designed for home/console entertainment and not some games designed for 10 minutes of arcade fun like sega rally, taxi or soul calibur.

 

[Percy]

Partially lack of EA support, partially lack of mainstream appeal... but the primary reason was undoubtedly what a mess Sega was in financially following a long string of hardware flops (Sega CD, 32X, Saturn.) and disastrous management.

It was fucked before it even came out.

 

[Drilbit777]

The DC was not competing with PS1 and N64, it belongs to a gen ahead and its natural competitors would be the PS2 and the GC.





It did have some of the best games that gen, yes.



Near perfect to perfect I'd say. DC had similar architecture with the NAOMI, which was the Sega made arcade hardware these games run on, that's why it worked so good.



Well, it did have a good launch cause it launched a tad later in the west and it had gathered a pretty decent library.



You don't really get it I'm afraid. Were you present at that time? I mean actively gaming, following gaming news etc?
The Dreamcast's worst enemy was Sony's aggressive marketing even before the PS2 released. Sony would put bullshots, even CG captures and would say that this is what games running on PS2 look like. The magazines at the time, and those early corners of the internet that did gaming, were full of people saying that they'll keep their money because the real deal is coming and it's called PS2, reposting those same CG shots at a viral rate and making the DC seem like a generation or two behind of the upcoming console. When this all proved to be bull, the fight was already lost, and the momentum for Sony was already gained.
The DC was one of the last pure game consoles, that put gameplay first, and that committed resources to different teams to come up with new ideas that would complement the hardware, whatever that might mean to you, or remind you.
The DC was the stuff that dreams are made, but the gaming community was too eager to abandon it as underpowered, and in prospect of a superpowerful system that never came.
Then a very panicked Sega finished it off.
The story of the DC is a sad story of false promises, shady marketing, and a community that had taken its first steps into the second and worst console war that is still raging.
The DC was the herald of a brighter future that never came.

I was only around 5 years old of the dreamcasts release in the west so I wasn't following any gaming news aside from what I saw through commercials and a couple ads. I only had recently picked a dreamcast up a few years ago and was really impressed by the games and the visuals for its time which led to my appreciation of the system itself .

Granted I know that the PS2/Xbox/GC were its real competitors but I feel like the system still had untapped potential that we'll sadly never know even if the system was nowhere near as powerful as the other consoles.

You do make some very good points and I will agree that the system had no chance against the PS2 but I still do believe that if Sega hadn't made horrible mistakes with the Sega Cd/32X/Saturn then maybe things would be completely different today.

Also looking closer at the system now it didn't have the same 3rd party support the PS2 had, aside from a few good titles here and there. It just could not compare to what the PS2 was offering so I overestimated its 3rd party support which it was sadly missing.

Thanks for the feedback I really appreciate it.

 

[cyberheater]

I did my part. I bought a Dreamcast at launch. A fantastic console.

 

[Taiser]

 

[cantona222]

I bought a Dreamcast for the first time last year and beat Shenmu. I also don't know why it failed.

 

[Occam]

Short answer: Because of 32x and Saturn.

 

[Lernaean]

I still do believe that if Sega hadn't made horrible mistakes with the Sega Cd/32X/Saturn then maybe things would be completely different today.

Oh, Sega did countless horrible mistakes, be sure of that.

 

[Celine]

Okay I was wondering how did the dreamcast exactly fail so quick in only 2 years?

• It had more advanced tech than its competition the PS1 and N64.

• Easier to develop games which made it easy for devs to port and release new titles on it

• Critically acclaimed first party titles( Shemune, Skies Of Arcadia, Sonic Adventure)

• Good third party support (alot of great games were released for the system like RE Code Veronica, Grandia 2, Soul Reaver, Rayman,Power stone, Marvel 2, etc.).

• Near Arcade perfect ports. This was something that the PS1 couldn't pull off due to RAM limitations and games like Marvel vs Capcom 1 ran horribly on it while the dreamcast version was near perfect. Lots of events still use the dreamcast version of Marvel 2 since it runs almost perfect compared to the PS2 and xbox versions which suffered from lag. Soul Calibur even ran better on Dreamcast and improved on its visuals compared to the arcade versions

• Very good launch lineup. This is what systems are usually lacking early in their early life. The US Dreamcast Launch Lineup had a lot of great titles released for such as Power Stone, Soul Calibur, and even Sonic Adventure which moved the series to 3D.

All these things would have made it a good contender against the PS2/Xbox/GC but even then it still failed shortly after the next generation of consoles arrived.

1) Tech alone won't sell a system.
2) Yes but if the bigger publishers don't see much reason to support it it won't matter.
3) Critical acclaimed games are less important than good selling games.
I think people overrate Sega games as far as sales performance they had (not quality).
4) Most games you listed are niche games with limited sales potential.
5) Arcade perfect port were important five years prior the DC release, when DC was launched arcades and arcade based games were sinking.

 

[KnockOneOff]

it was the first online console and i loved that console in every single way, i was gutted when it passed


but i think the PS2 sadly killed it, as people were hanging on for the PS2 after the success of the PS1, i guess piracy was also a factor

Sooooooo much time spent for me in Dream Arena, Quake 3 online and Chu Chu Rocket!

 

[M°°nblade]

Except the decision to discontinue the device was made before that list of games existed...

Until 2001, though, DC games were prettier than their PS2 counterparts. The original Soul Calibur and Shenmue blew minds at the time.

Those games were not yet released but already existed and set the bar for 'next gen' in the minds of gamers because they were intensively demoed and hyped even before the PS2 launched.

MGS2 looked stunning with those rain&weather effects and all the other small details.

While a lot of DC versions of early games looked better, everybody was convinced the PS2 would destroy it as soon as developers mastered the 'emotion engine'.

 

[amar212]

I've been hearing a lot about this but do we have actual software numbers to back it up? Do we have third parties talking about how their games aren't selling, or Sega itself, on the console because of pirating? Honest question.

EVERY SINGLE Dreamcast owner I knew used 90% of pirated games. Heck, I didn't see original DC game box until 2000.

 

[Drilbit777]

Oh, Sega did countless horrible mistakes, be sure of that.

I'll make sure to take note of that. I'm just saying that they would have not been bleeding out so much money during that time if it wasn't for those systems bombing.

 

[Drilbit777]

EVERY SINGLE Dreamcast owner I knew used 90% of pirated games. Heck, I didn't see original DC game box until 2000.

Curious question but were CD burners cheap in the late 90's to early 2000?

 

[Freshmaker]

Okay I was wondering how did the dreamcast exactly fail so quick in only 2 years?

• It had more advanced tech than its competition the PS1 and N64.

That wasn't the DC's competition. It was supposed to compete with the PS2.

 

[M°°nblade]

Curious question but were CD burners cheap in the late 90's to early 2000?

They costed about 60-100€ at that time if I remember correctly.

Certainly not everybody had one. Some people rented the games and burned them, but most piracy went through crime networks. They modded PS1&2 consoles for 75€. PS1 copies costed 5 euro's. When the PS2 game, the price went up and DVD copies of PS2 games were sold for 10-15€ a piece.

 

[Lernaean]

EVERY SINGLE Dreamcast owner I knew used 90% of pirated games. Heck, I didn't see original DC game box until 2000.

Every single PS2 owner i knew used 100% pirated games, so that doesn't say a lot.
Hell, thinking about it, i was the only person i knew who bought games, for all consoles i mean.

 

[SporeCrawler]

Sega probably could have sustained for 5 yrs or so if they had the bank of sony, ms or nintendo

 

[Celine]

Now to show you why DC died so quickly here few data.

DC project was a money pit:

DC lost so much money because it was subsided by Sega from the start in the attempt to jump start rivals Sony and Nintendo.
Despite the loss taken by Sega per each unit, DC sales were disappointing even in US where the launch was very positive.

Look at the trajectory (US figures provided by NPD):
1999: 1.48M (roughly 4 months)
2000: 1.28M (price cut to $149 in September)
2001 and 2002: 1.25M (at fire sale prices)

Latest known LTD worldwide (shipment data provided by Sega):
DC: 9.13M
SAT: 9.26M
MD: 30.75M

To sum up, DC was a big gamble by Sega which backfired badly because the market at large rejected the system

 

[immortal-joe]

The blow that was the Dreamcast's death was always softened by the fact that Sega remained. I still feel we got a few classics from Sega in the post-hardware era. Of course, having the PS2's legendary library helped too at the time.

 

[amar212]

Curious question but were CD burners cheap in the late 90's to early 2000?

They were accessible.

But people were actually buying pirated games from small private vendors who invested into burners. In my city (southeastern Europe, 800.000 population) you could buy both PSone/Dreamcast pirated discs literally anywhere. In that time many people owned PC with burners, it was not something expensive, but it was easier to pick the phone and make an order of 20-30 games that "arrived" that month.

The normal habit was to buy bulk of all new games released for that month, whatever was out, everyone was buying it.

It was transition to DVD burners with PS2 that was "expensive" for casual owners, for both burners and media. Heck, I remember that empty DVD-R costed a fortune.

 

[Lernaean]

The blow that was the Dreamcast's death was always softened by the fact that Sega remained. I still feel we got a few classics from Sega in the post-hardware era. Of course, having the PS2's legendary library helped too at the time.

Sega remained and became what it is today, which isn't really something to celebrate.

 

[The Sarcastic Dude]

The juggernaut that was the PS2 was too much.

 

[Blues1990]

Piracy was one of the key problems that the system to an early grave. I remember some of my friends playing pirated versions of Metal Gear Solid on their Dreamcast.

 

[Gen X]

In short poor software sales compared to console userbase. Even the best games on the console weren't stellar sellers which some will put down to piracy.

The PS2s DVD Rom was also a contributing factor despite the price difference.


Also, check the Guiness Book of World Records 2000, the Dreamcast is listed in there.

 

[M°°nblade]

They were accessible.

But people were actually buying pirated games from small private vendors who invested into burners. In my city (southeastern Europe, 800.000 population) you could buy both PSone/Dreamcast pirated discs literally anywhere. In that time many people owned PC with burners, it was not something expensive, but it was easier to pick the phone and make an order of 20-30 games that "arrived" that month.

The normal habit was to buy bulk of all new games released for that month, whatever was out, everyone was buying it.

It was transition to DVD burners with PS2 that was "expensive" for casual owners, for both burners and media. Heck, I remember that empty DVD-R costed a fortune.

Yep, every kid in town knew 'that guy' that delivered that stuff through his local computer shop.

A friend of mine also bought a CD burner but at that time burning a CD at 2x speed could easily take one hour and often the writing failed because of buffer errors. It was very delicate stuff at that time.

 

[Celine]

Dreamcast didn't fail. Sega was too deep in the hole on other things before it even released.

The Dreamcast didn't fail. Sega failed. They ran out of money, couldn't afford to support their own console anymore, and had to go third-party just to keep the lights on. That's the truth of it.

Actually data point out that DC failed.
Not sure why the system should be given more credit than it deserves.

 

[Markitron]

The PS2

I have never even seen a Dreamcast in real life, feel like I missed out.

 

[malfcn]

Didn't Sony buy all of the shelf space away from Sega, or tell retailers to stop stocking it? Or is that just legend.

 

[M°°nblade]

Sega remained and became what it is today, which isn't really something to celebrate.

Bayonetta, Yakuza, Virtua fighter 5, Super Monkey Ball, Valkyria Chronicles, Condemned. Plenty of stuff to celebrate the survival of Sega post-dreamcast.

 

[M°°nblade]

Didn't Sony buy all of the shelf space away from Sega, or tell retailers to stop stocking it? Or is that just legend.

Why would they though. They didn't need to.

 

[protomouse]

Sega was broke, son. Imagine what could have been, and weep.

 

[Celine]

The sad things was, the DC was actually selling quite well.[/B] It just wasn't selling well ENOUGH to save a company already teetering towards bankruptcy before the DC even launched.

And your statement is based on what data exactly?
DC sales were so so in Europe and Japan and in the only market were it started strong (US) the trend was downward.

I'm not sure if we actually know accurate Dreamcast sales, Sega never has been good at letting that information out there (for any of their consoles), unlike Nintendo.

DC is actually the only Sega system for which Sega gave not only hardware LTD but also software LTD.

 

[Mohonky]

I remember reading an interview about the next generation of consoles coming and what developers and publishers thought going into the new gen (Dreamcast was just out, PS2 was coming, Xbox and Gamecube were still fairly unknown in terms of hardware). Basically everyone spoke of the PS2 like yeop, it's going to be massive and its got ridiculous amounts of power we're really excited about it and cant wait, Dreamcast? Yeh it seems like a decent system but we arent doing anything for it.

EA was basically 'PS2 is going to be the system to own, we wont be having anything to do with Dreamcast'

Dreamcast was basically DOA. It actually sold really strong initially and the games and system got great reviews but the majority of developers and publishers were already on the PS2 bandwagon.

 

[The Sarcastic Dude]

I do wonder how the game industry would be like today if the DC were a success and Sega was still in the hardware biz.

 

[M°°nblade]

I do wonder how the game industry would be like today if the DC were a success and Sega was still in the hardware biz.

Then maybe Microsoft would never have entered it?

 

[petran79]

Just like in the case of Atari and Commodore, also behemoths of video games software and hardware at that time, Sega couldnt keep up with the competition and made huge marketing blunders. It is just that their demise was delayed few years.

But the main issue was that Sega had issues as to who their target audience would be.

Nintendo with the Nintendo 64 said goodbye to all the 2D gaming bliss of the NES and SNES, consoles that had third party games that catered to all tastes.
This caused a lot of their fans to abandoned them or jump ship, mainly to Sony. Only loyal fans remained or newcomers.
Still Nintendo 64, despite the inferior sales numbers, had formed a new identity with their main franchises jumping to 3D. So Nintendo knew to whom they were developing games. Also Pokemon.

Sony too knew that their target audience for PS2 would be the millions of gamers who bought PS1 and the franchises.

Sega though had an identity crisis. If Nintendo had to get used to their fan base being split with the Nintendo 64 and the move to 3D, Sega had it even more difficult. They developed a system that would cater mainly to people who liked Sega franchises and didnt mind jumping to 3D, arcade gamers, those interested in online play and newcomers. Now to do all this would not only require a sophisticated system but also increase video game developing costs significantly. Dreamcast was basically a PS3/Xbox360 7 years before their release! It was the most eclectic console ever to grace the competition. Had the best of all worlds (computer games, arcades and console games). Unfortunately you cant appease them all. Sony and Nintendo followed the secure road, Sega tried to climb the mountain and fell.

 

[ConanTheKing]

Bayonetta, Yakuza, Virtua fighter 5, Super Monkey Ball, Valkyria Chronicles, Condemned. Plenty of stuff to celebrate the survival of Sega post-dreamcast.

Not sure if that is good or bad. These are good games you mentioned, but some of them are niche like Super Monkey Ball or have not been around for a long time like Condemned which is probably like 6 or 7 years old now. The only current titles that were good in recent history would be Bayonetta 2 and Yakuza? But with one on the Wii U platform which doesn't sell well and the other which doesn't seem to have mass market appeal, the financial troubles for SEGA could get worse.

 

[Mohonky]

Then maybe Microsoft would never have entered it?

I remember people wondering if the Seag DC's Windows CE operating system was MS dipping their toes in the water, it probably was.

 

[IronicSonic]

Sega ran out of money, and despite a strong lanch in the US, all momentum evaporated to the point where they literally couldn't give them away. And I mean literally in the correct sense - you could get a Dreamcast free by signing up with SegaNet and they still couldn't move the systems.

In reality, Sega simply did not have enough money to support a successor to the Saturn. The Dreamcast needed to be an unprecedented runaway success to be sustainable. It had a good run but couldn't withstand any period of not selling, as consoles tend to go through from time to time.

This. Is very simple really. Nintendo has demonstrated that money can mantain a console alive

 

[Nemesis121]

Short answer: Because of 32x and Saturn.

This, Saturn/32x killed DC before it was even an idea in the minds at Sega..

 

[M°°nblade]

Not sure if that is good or bad. These are good games you mentioned, but some of them are niche like Super Monkey Ball or have not been around for a long time like Condemned which is probably like 6 or 7 years old now. The only current titles that were good in recent history would be Bayonetta 2 and Yakuza? But with one on the Wii U platform which doesn't sell well and the other which doesn't seem to have mass market appeal, the financial troubles for SEGA could get worse.

I was talking about quality, not popularity.

I don't know sega's current financial state but leaving the hardware business definitely had a positive effect.
Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games and the other sonic games sold pretty well on the Wii. Monkeyball as well on the PS2 and GC.

 

[valkyre]

Because Playstation 2 + the fact that Sega was imprinted on pretty much everyone's head as the 2nd and even 3rd runner in the console race.

 

[Jigorath]

1. SEGA was simply in too bad a financial position.
2. It couldn't compete with the PS2.
3. The Xbox and Gamecube were on the way.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

I still feel that during the Dreamcast's short lifetime, it had way better games than PS2. I won't list them because they're the same things everyone posts in threads like these, but it legitimately makes me kind of sad. Wish I could go into a parallel dimension where it didn't go belly up. Maybe we'd have a Shenmue 3.

PS2 is still an amazing system, though. Great games and a DVD player.

 

[Dunkley]

The 32X and especially Saturn and the expensive commercial campaigns for it that didn't pay off punched a massive hole into SEGA's budget they could not redeem with the Dreamcast, even though they did go out in a blaze of glory desperately trying to provide a quality library together for the DC, hoping they'd win back their customers, but the Saturn did too much damage already at this point, and the rivals had caught up with their new line of consoles, so all that push was for naught.

At least SEGA's push on the Dreamcast library ended up providing us all with a crazy amount of memorable classics.