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[timetokill]

Sega's finances, abandonment by third parties, and the fact that people weren't yet wise to the fact that Sony was massively overhyping and overpromising while underdelivering, a strategy they would continue to use in every generation since.

 

[Jhotun]

Dreamcast didn't fail. SEGA did.

 

[Lernaean]

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

Bayonetta, Condemned as other games like Alien Isolation, are games that Sega published, not games that internal teams in Sega developed. SMB is a DC era arcade game that didn't make it to the DC. It's a remnant of the DC era that made it to other consoles and along JSRF and PD:Orta, among others, is one of the few post DC games that actually mattered, as they are games developed internally by teams no longer existing.
From all those you mentioned only Yakuza and VC actually mean something today. VC is a very niche game, and Sega as a publisher only now decided that the Yakuza series deserve some western exposure, and even that only as digital download software, when the scope of the games is so much bigger.
In addition, most of the internal and very talented teams are disbanded, Sonic Team is just a shadow of it's former self, Smilebit just develops trash like Sonic and Mario at the Olympics and key figures like Yuji Naka have left.
Sega continues to do horrible mistakes, and while they are sitting on great IPs, they don't have the intention, or simply the manpower, as they bled all their talent, to use them and revive their brand.

 

[thewhitehawk]

The Dreamcast failed because Sega previously blew most of its money to trying to support, at one point, I think 5 game systems at the same time: Game Gear, Genesis, 32X, Sega CD, Sega Saturn. I'm not certain but I think that at some point they may have even some Master System support in some countries.

Edit: In 1995 Sega published games for all SIX of their consoles. I think there was a period of 3/4 years in which they were supporting and developing/financing/publishing games for at least 4 different platforms.

It was the first Sega console in which all of their studios and efforts were all-in and it really showed in their lineup, I'd argue it had the strongest lineup of titles that Sega ever had on a single console.

It failed because of Sega's previous failures. They invested a lot of money in the Dreamcast, but they didn't recover their investment and weren't successful enough, fast enough, to keep the hardware business afloat. The Dreamcast was an all-in gamble for Sega and it had the right mindset, the right games and the right features for the time, but it just didn't have the right financing.

Regardless of its failure, it's still my favorite home console of all time. I don't remember ever owning a console that had such an abundance of bright, fun and joyful games. Most of the games Sega made for it were simply brilliant for their time.

It's sad to see that nowadays Sega would rather, or can only, echo their previous successes than to make new games. Other than Sega All Stars Racing I don't remember the last time they made a fun new IP. You'd guess that by focusing on a handful of franchises they'd have better quality control and show the same type of quality they used to have but they still published Sonic Boom which was more than just a game for them, it was a new spinoff franchise with multiple licensing deals. Even though the latest Aliens was quite good, the previous one was a complete mess.

Sega's quality just seems erratic these days, it feels like being managed in a high Defcon status and whenever they need a new stream of money they just cut their losses and press the big red button (wink, wink) to put it on store shelves and let them survive until the next half-baked release.

 

[virtualS]

Looking back, I think Sega would have been more profitable supporting the Dreamcast for a few more years with exclusive titles and selling Dreamcasts at profit (if possible) rather than going all 3rd party all over the place so fast.

 

[Blueingreen]

Sega Japan, I remember reading Sega America was also developing a successor to Saturn and was to be powered by voodoo gfx card, was more powerful than the power vr card. Sega Japan overruled it and went with power vr, that's when EA said we are not supporting it.

Any else remember something like that?

Can't say I heard of that, however it's not the first time I've heard of a brutal power struggle between Sega America and Sega Japan, Sega has some of the craziest behind the scene stories in the industry it's truly unbelievable. I don't doubt for one second that the rivalry between SoJ and SoA played at least some role in the Dreamcast's demise.

 

[tmtyf]

All of these posts seemingly don't know that only dreamcasts manufactured prior to October, 2000 could play burned games. Dreamcasts after October 2000 had the piracy ability stripped of them.

This is false. Dreamcasts made after 2000 still play backups.

 

[allan-bh]

I think the main factor was the PS2 that certainly is the most anticipated console of all time. Moreover, third-party support was not that good, for example EA was absent. This lack of better support also damaged the system.

But if Saturn had not bled Sega, Dreamcast could have continued his career.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Player apathy.

 

[thewhitehawk]

Can't say I heard of that, however it's not the first time I've heard of a brutal power struggle between Sega America and Sega Japan, Sega has some of craziest behind the scene stories in the industry it's truly unbelievable. I don't doubt for one second that the rivalry between SoJ and SoA played at least some role in the Dreamcast's demise.

That is true, you can read about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast#Development

 

[biggersmaller]

The PS2

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

Dude! I would find one while they're still relatively cheap. Dreamcast had some truly great games, I mean - many were improved when ported elsewhere or are simply too outdated to recommend at this point. However, below are some examples that transcend either of those categorizations:

Mars Matrix
House Of The Dead 2
Power Stone 2
Shenmue (I think people could squeeze enjoyment out of it if viewed as a 90s adventure game vs the cinematic open world it was aiming for)

 

[xam3l]

Look at this beauty, something about this picture makes me think of a vintage muscle car.

 

[allan-bh]

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)

indeed a solid start in 1999.

And even dead yet had relevant sales in 2001/2002. I suppose virtually all of these 1.25m sales was in 2001.

 

[spekkeh]

It's a long story, but the executive summary is Playstation happened.

When it was still Nintendo and SEGA, SEGA tried to distance itself from Nintendo and its child friendly image by being the more edgy console for older boys. Black console, more shooters etc. While this worked very well for the Master System and Mega Drive / Genesis, it's also a bit of a risky demographic in that (especially at that time) gamers grew up and out of the hobby, so whereas Nintendo had the benefit that their demographic entered on their system and could stay in the Nintendo fold for longer, SEGA continuously needed new influx. Luckily, they were a bit of an arcade name, which fit well with the demographic.

However, their demographic was deteriorating in more ways than aging. SEGA went all crazy on hardware but did not have enough software development (or talent frankly) to justify all the addons. Meanwhile, the SNES proved a veritable powerhouse. You just needed the one console (and perhaps a multitap and if your were European an NTSC convertor), and you could play a crazy amount of classic games. Sega added in the Saturn which was a dud, and even the SEGA faithful were starting to feel burned on their SEGA products.

So we have an older demographic that stayed with SEGA because of their childhood but by and large was not completely crazy for the name, and SEGA needed new influx from casually interested, or perhaps Nintendo fans getting older, but this was console wars prime.

Then Sony entered. A name that was much more well-known in Europe and the US among the casually interested, and a big domestic champion in Japan, and it was targeting exactly the same demographic as SEGA. So the casuals flocked to Playstation--the exact same group SEGA needed to stay viable, as did some of the weary SEGA fans of old who were burned on SEGA but didn't want to go to teh kiddeh Nintendo. Nintendo fans meanwhile stuck to the fold, or if they also perceived it as kiddie would much rather jump to Playstation than to the bitter rival.

By the time Dreamcast launched, there was hardly a demographic left. Japan had three domestic champions to choose from, of which Nintendo and Sony were more popular. Europe was a smaller market and more Nintendo inclined; there were also more casuals who opted for Sony. When Xbox swayed the last of the American demographic, SEGA even if they weren't already in dire straits, had practically no-one left to sell their console to.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

Sega running out of cash, lacking the funds required to keep it afloat.
Sega having a bad history of semi-failed consoles that quickly got shelved (Mega CD, 32X and Saturn).
The PS2 behemoth looming on the horizon.
Mediocre third-party support, and no first-party titles that were attractive to people besides the Sega faithful.

By the time Dreamcast launched, there was hardly a demographic left. Japan had three domestic champions to choose from, of which Nintendo and Sony were more popular. Europe was a smaller market and more Nintendo inclined; there were also more casuals who opted for Sony. When Xbox swayed the last of the American demographic, SEGA even if they weren't already in dire straits, had practically no-one left to sell their console to.

Mmm, not really. The Master System and Mega Drive both outsold the NES and SNES in Europe IIRC.

 

[Azure Phoenix]

They lost far too much ground with the Saturn, after Sony steamrolled the competition with the PS1 they had far too much mindshare, simply a whisper about the PS2 being on the horizon was enough to take all attention away from the Dreamcast.

Basically, the Saturn needed to have not been a complete clusterfuck of a system with non-existent support in the West for the Dreamcast to have stood any real chance against the PS2. But even then the power gap and lack of DVD support is too great, Sega would have needed to put out a successor by 2003, putting themselves in a horrible position when the 360 rolled around in 2005. The sad truth is that there was no easy way to save the Dreamcast, the fate of that console was sealed as far back as the Mega CD and 32X.

 

[jdkluv]

Cuz

Sega

Is

Trash

Brah

 

[robo2000]

IN Europe one of the reasons was that the were the sponsor of the football club Arsenal, they paid a lot of money for that... (there marketing budget was someting like 100 million and the paid like 80 million for the sponsorship) I dont know the exact details but i hearded someting like that, and that the whole sponsorship was one of there many big mistakes.

 

[GabeTheGrouch76]

The Dreamcast's "failure" --which for the most part, was a case of failing to meet the company's financial expectations-- was mostly the fault of Sega's own blunders in the past. The commercial failures of the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn cost Sega a ton of money and left them with too little money to support a console-that was the primary catalyst of the Dreamcast being discontinued.

Shemnue was also another reason because of it's exceedingly high budget despite being a critical darling (IIRC it was reported to be either $47 million or $70 million - that not only would had made it the most expensive game of it's time, but was estimated to require every Dreamcast owner buying two copies of the game in order for it to break even)-a game costing this much took a chunk of Sega's financial cash at a time they couldn't afford to lose more money for the aforementioned above reason.

The PS2 was a third factor, as the Dreamcast had not only a good slew of games, but also from what I've heard an excellent launch lineup. Yet when the PS2's launch was imminent, whatever public support they gave to the Dreamcast had largely eroded or was overwhelmed by the sheer anticipation for the PS2. Also worth noting that a lot of gamers and developers who were burned by the Saturn and jumped ship to PlayStation refused to give the Dreamcast a chance and held their money/support for the PS2 instead.

 

[MeachTheMonster]

Cause sega was broke, and wasnt in a position to continue to support it.

 

[The Real Abed]

PS2 having DVD support and piracy being really easy I think

First post gets it.

It was competing with the PS2...

Not to mention that eventually Nintendo released their competing console and then Microsoft entered the market. Three consoles was one thing but four is another. Especially when Sony was already an unstoppable juggernaut.

Also their track record was pretty much ruined by the constant add-ons, cancelled projects and fairly recent release of the Saturn. People just lost their trust.

 

[Cynn]

I've read this before. Why, exactly? Wasn't Dreamcast a heavily arcade-like system? That's not really how I'd describe the Xbox.

The Xbox was essentially designed as a followup to the Dreamcast. If you read "Opening the Xbox" by Dean Takahasi he describes the Xbox hardware teams locking themselves in a room with a Dreamcast for weeks taking inspiration from it and it's software.

The Xbox released as a powerful console with a focus on online play and controller design right out of Sega's handbook. Sega also added to the sentiment by releasing a lot of awesome games on the Xbox like Jet Set Radio, Sega GT, Outrun 2, Crazy Taxi 3, Phantasy Star Online, Otagi 1/2, Super Monkey Ball, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Shenmue 2, Gun Valykrie, etc. etc.

It was no mystery nor secret that the Xbox was Sega DNA through and through. Stolen DNA but Sega DNA.

 

[thewhitehawk]

The controller didn't help, I remember at the time people selling the system because they couldn't deal with the controller. It was a complete downgrade going from the near perfect Saturn 3D pad to that piece of shit that is the Dreamcast controller.

What?!?

I owned both and the Dreamcast controller is anything but trash. At the least of reasons why the Dreamcast failed the controller is at rock bottom. The VMU's battery issue was more relevant to the console's failure than the controller itself.

 

[thewhitehawk]

The Xbox was essentially designed as a followup to the Dreamcast. If you read "Opening the Xbox" by Dean Takahasi he describes the Xbox hardware teams locking themselves in a room with a Dreamcast for weeks taking inspiration from it and it's software.

The Xbox released as a powerful console with a focus on online play and controller design right out of Sega's handbook. Sega also added to the sentiment by releasing a lot of awesome games on the Xbox like Jet Set Radio, Sega GT, Outrun 2, Crazy Taxi 3, Phantasy Star Online, Otagi 1/2, Super Monkey Ball, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Shenmue 2, Gun Valykrie, etc. etc.

It was no mystery nor secret that the Xbox was Sega DNA through and through. Stolen DNA but Sega DNA.

It's no secret indeed. As a then-fan of Sega I admit that part of the reason why I was bitter about the Xbox was due to how blatantly similar to the Dreamcast it was. The Dreamcast was supposed to be partnership with Sega and ended up being a trojan horse and talent house for Microsoft to enter the industry.

 

[AniHawk]

Sega's finances, abandonment by third parties, and the fact that people weren't yet wise to the fact that Sony was massively overhyping and overpromising while underdelivering, a strategy they would continue to use in every generation since.

basically. i think sega could have gotten through the generation on their own had they not run out of money at least. a cash-flush sega, one that wasn't burdened with the utter mistakes the saturn/32x were (among several other hardware failures), probably would have not seen franchises die thanks to microsoft's utter mishandling of them. crazy taxi might've continued, shenmue would have seen a third entry, and who knows what would have become of 3d sonic.

i think there would be no getting around it being their last home console though. sony and microsoft soon made competition rather difficult with the line in the sand they drew. that, and nfl would have become madden-exclusive anyway at some point regardless. in stephen kent's the ultimate history of video games, he calls the race, 'three horses and a pony,' and i think it's a pretty accurate description. even if sega had managed the generation, and they probably would have come out with sales superior to the xbox and gamecube, i don't know how they would have done last gen.

 

[GabeTheGrouch76]

The Xbox was essentially designed as a followup to the Dreamcast. If you read "Opening the Xbox" by Dean Takahasi he describes the Xbox hardware teams locking themselves in a room with a Dreamcast for weeks taking inspiration from it and it's software.

The Xbox released as a powerful console with a focus on online play and controller design right out of Sega's handbook. Sega also added to the sentiment by releasing a lot of awesome games on the Xbox like Jet Set Radio, Sega GT, Outrun 2, Crazy Taxi 3, Phantasy Star Online, Otagi 1/2, Super Monkey Ball, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Shenmue 2, Gun Valykrie, etc. etc.

It was no mystery nor secret that the Xbox was Sega DNA through and through. Stolen DNA but Sega DNA.

Not that it helped Sega much. A fair amount of those games they released on the system were commercial disappointments despite being critically well-received-largely in part of the Xbox being a Western-oriented system whose most successful games were FPS and sports games.

 

[The Real Abed]

Just imagine if Sega succeeded and Microsoft was the one forced out. Last generation could have been Nintendo, Sega and Sony again. Just like old times.

 

[AniHawk]

It's no secret indeed. As a then-fan of Sega I admit that part of the reason why I was bitter about the Xbox was due to how blatantly similar to the Dreamcast it was. The Dreamcast was supposed to be partnership with Sega and ended up being a trojan horse and talent house for Microsoft to enter the industry.

microsoft was looking to buy their way into the industry by any means necessary. they shopped around hard. they famously tried buying nintendo and couldn't do it. they bought bungie, who were primarily apple/mac developers. they bought rare when the british company thought they were under too strict a home under nintendo and thought microsoft would be a better place. sega was also on the list of companies they vied for, and the story goes that sega backed out at the last minute, but as a result 'owed' microsoft several exclusive titles. so shenmue ii, jet set radio, gunvalkyrie, panzer dragoon orta, and a multitude of others became xbox exclusive, and microsoft, perhaps for not having bought the company in the end, did nothing to promote those games. despite sega's insane amount of work on the platform, the xbox wound up with fewer sales of sega games than any other platform from that generation, with the exception of the neo geo pocket color.

 

[AniHawk]

Just imagine if Sega succeeded and Microsoft was the one forced out. Last generation could have been Nintendo, Sega and Sony again. Just like old times.

i think the only way that wold have happened would have been if bungie said no to a buyout. it's hard to imagine a successful xbox without halo at launch, $500 million marketing campaign or not.

 

[dose]

The Mega CD actually sold really well for an add-on. 1 in 3 megadrives around the world had a Mega CD, and it had sustained and pretty good support throughout it's life.

I've no idea where you're getting these numbers from - or why you think it had good support - but you're wrong.
According to various sources, Wiki says

2.7 million Sega CD units were sold by the end of 1994, compared to the 29 million Sega Genesis units sold by the same time.[22][23] In early 1995

and

The poor support for the Sega CD has often been criticized as the first link in the devaluation of the Sega brand. Writing for IGN, Buchanan described an outside perspective on Sega's decision to release the Sega CD with its poor library and console support... In reviewing for GamePro, Snow commented that "[the] Sega CD marked the first of several Sega systems that saw very poor support; something that devalued the once-popular Sega brand in the eyes of consumers, and something that would ultimately lead to the company's demise as a hardware maker."[45]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_CD

 

[Cynn]

It's no secret indeed. As a then-fan of Sega I admit that part of the reason why I was bitter about the Xbox was due to how blatantly similar to the Dreamcast it was. The Dreamcast was supposed to be partnership with Sega and ended up being a trojan horse and talent house for Microsoft to enter the industry.

I gravitated toward the Xbox because of the Sega inspiration so we sort of took opposite roads due to the same reason. That's kinda interesting.

Not that it helped Sega much. A fair amount of those games they released on the system were commercial disappointments despite being critically well-received-largely in part of the Xbox being a Western-oriented system whose most successful games were FPS and sports games.

Yeah that's not untrue but as a really disappointed Sega fan they were great medicine post DC death. I really, really loved the Dreamcast. In fact, I went to play some Powerstone after reading the OP. lol

 

[HolyBaikal]

PS2 having DVD support and piracy being really easy I think

You know... I don't think that piracy actually hurt the PSP or the Dreamcast...

 

[thewhitehawk]

microsoft was looking to buy their way into the industry by any means necessary. they shopped around hard. they famously tried buying nintendo and couldn't do it. they bought bungie, who were primarily apple/mac developers. they bought rare when the british company thought they were under too strict a home under nintendo and thought microsoft would be a better place. sega was also on the list of companies they vied for, and the story goes that sega backed out at the last minute, but as a result 'owed' microsoft several exclusive titles. so shenmue ii, jet set radio, gunvalkyrie, panzer dragoon orta, and a multitude of others became xbox exclusive, and microsoft, perhaps for not having bought the company in the end, did nothing to promote those games. despite sega's insane amount of work on the platform, the xbox wound up with fewer sales of sega games than any other platform from that generation, with the exception of the neo geo pocket color.

That sums up why I don't like Microsoft in general. They think money is enough for them to win any market. They will spend absurd quantities of it and then completely mismanage their investment.

Their strategy for business seems to always be: throw money at it until it works. When it doesn't, they throw their money at something else.

Sony and Nintendo make a lot of mistakes but when they make them they try to work them out or make the best out of it. Nintendo got us a lot of great Gamecube exclusives, Sony started focusing on games, lowered the price of the PS3 and provided great value with Playstation Plus.

Look at how Sony and Nintendo handled indies, and how Microsoft did it. All three of them had issues and issues with independent developers. Nintendo gave away free Unity development licenses and greatly facilitated publishing on their platform. Sony put developers on the spotlight and gave them stage time, resources and sometimes financing and facilitated publishing.

What did Microsoft do?

Gave away consoles, slightly improved their licensing terms but still made it difficult to publish games on their console if the developers intended to also release it on other platforms (read: either an indie launched on Xbox One first or they were screwed). Obviously that strategy wasn't very successful because most indie developers weren't having it so what did Microsoft do to "fix" it? They throw $2.5 billion at Mojang. It feels like they had a board meeting and decided "Well, lets just buy the indie game that's more successful than all the others put together and we solve that problem entirely."

It feels as stupid of a decision as their purchase of Nokia. They purchased that company to support their mobile platform and then leave it dead in the water and provide better and more updated software to competing platforms. That's like buying a Sony console and seeing the best Sony first-party games being published on competing platforms.

 

[allan-bh]

i think the only way that wold have happened would have been if bungie said no to a buyout. it's hard to imagine a successful xbox without halo at launch, $500 million marketing campaign or not.

Microsoft had very lucky because no one could predict that Halo would have so much appeal and ended up being essential for Xbox.

 

[MrCunningham]

That and EA Betraying them by failing to keep their promises.

Business as usual for EA. Sega did manage to somewhat compensate for this loss with Visual Concepts, though. VC did a rather good job delivering sports games for the console and the original NFL 2K series was a big seller for Sega on the Dreamcast.

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

Same here. And to be honest, the Dreamcast was the very last console I have ever purchased on launch day.

i think the only way that wold have happened would have been if bungie said no to a buyout. it's hard to imagine a successful xbox without halo at launch, $500 million marketing campaign or not.

Yeah, they pulled the carpet out from Apple's feet on the Bungie buyout. There were stories of Steve Jobs being pissed that they didn't buy out Bungie first. Halo made its worldwide debut at Mac World '99 and was used as a showcase for what they could accomplish on the iMac with OpenGL rendering.

Microsoft really strong armed themselves into the industry by just using the best tool that they had at their disposal; their massive bank accounts. Halo was definitely a big reason for the Xbox's success early on though, and MS also made a good move of using intel/ Nvidia combination of hardware, which also really pulled in a lot of PC developers to the console as well. The Rare buyout was another big thing for them, but unfortunately, Rare's output just wasn't good enough to make a big splash on that console.

Even if Sega didn't pull the plug on the Dreamcast, I don't think it would've been able to sustain much of an impact on the market to be able to compete with the hype train off the PS2 and the marketing muscle of Microsoft.

You know... I don't think that piracy actually hurt the PSP or the Dreamcast...

Well for the PSP, it didn't hurt hardware sales, but it did take a huge toll on software sales. Same for the Nintendo DS, it had a massive popularity spike in the western world because it was so easy to buy flashcards and pirate games for it. On the Dreamcast side, I think CD burners were really starting to take off in popularity around the time of 2000-2001, so it is hard to say how much it really hurt the console.

 

[spekkeh]

Mmm, not really. The Master System and Mega Drive both outsold the NES and SNES in Europe IIRC.

The Mega Drive did, but I thought that was primarily frontloaded due to launching when the NES was still out. In my experience the SNES had much more mindshare later in the lifecycle, but that could be just N=1. But I mean, just look at N64 versus Saturn sales.

 

[biggersmaller]

You know... I don't think that piracy actually hurt the PSP or the Dreamcast...

This is antectodal, but I had a leather CD organizer full of CD-R Dreamcast games. I also had two friends that had the same thing. I now believe piracy is wrong, but back then we pirated at-least a dozen copies of maybe 4-6 titles that we would've otherwise purchased (not counting the games we pirated but wouldn't have purchased otherwise).

 

[barneystuta83]

It has to be EA and 3rd party support in general.

For all the great first party games and near perfect arcade ports, which there are many, not having the killer sports games was a huge kick for Sega.

The Dreamcast, released in Europe and America in 1999, didn't have the following titles from EA:

Fifa 2000 (N64 and PS1)
Madden 2000 (N64 and PS1)
Medal of Honor (PS1)
NBA Live 2000 (N64 and PS1)
Need for Speed: High Stakes (PS1)
NHL 2000 (PS1)
Tiger Woods (PS1)

While 2k filled some of the gaps, and Sega tried themselves, not having those killer games had a huge impact.

If they had secured these titles at launch (or before the end of the year), many people would have upgraded at that time, and things may have played out slightly differently. A good launch, maintained with a solid holiday lineup of games, could turn a few heads.

Would it have changed the course of history significantly though?

I don't think so, Sony absolutely nailed the PS2. DVD's, solid first party titles, a HUGE 3rd party title collection, all the big hitters came to Sony. Sega and Nintendo had their exclusive first party titles - and then what?

You only have to look at the Wii U, which is suffering a very similar fate, to see what not having the big games on your console does to you.

 

[Needlecrash]

Why did the Dreamcast fail? The PS2 came along that's why.

 

[Celine]

indeed a solid start in 1999.

And even dead yet had relevant sales in 2001/2002. I suppose virtually all of these 1.25m sales was in 2001.

The consoles sold in 2001/2002 are dumped systems with fire sales MSRP to clear inventory:
$99 (February 2001),
$75 (August 2001)
$49 (November 2001)

Nothing I would call "relevant".

 

[SteveWinwood]

because it was too good

 

[HolyBaikal]

When it was still Nintendo and SEGA, SEGA tried to distance itself from Nintendo and its child friendly image by being the more edgy console for older boys. Black console, more shooters etc.

That's why I didn't like the SEGA Genesis. :<

 

[Canis lupus]

Seems like we have this thread every year.

DC failed because it was basically an arcade machine for the living room. It came out just when the arcades were dying out in the west.

 

[spekkeh]

Seems like we have this thread every year.

DC failed because it was basically an arcade machine for the living room. It came out just when the arcades were dying out in the west.

Arcades where dying out because you could have the experience in the living room.

 

[Canis lupus]

Arcades where dying out because you could have the experience in the living room.

Yeah and arcade experiences were passé. Cinematic games were the new hype.

DC didn't have any of the big 3rd party franchises, Sega was living in their bubble own like Nintendo is now, the difference that Nintendo is able to control their finances better and have more cash.

 

[Mostlypainless]

GTA 3 was the game everyone wanted, and it was not coming for the DC.

 

[allan-bh]

The consoles sold in 2001/2002 are dumped systems with fire sales MSRP to clear inventory:
$99 (February 2001),
$75 (August 2001)
$49 (November 2001)

Nothing I would call "relevant".

More than 1 million for a dead system I think is relevant.

 

[rjc571]

People saw this and lost all interest in the Dreamcast. PS2's best looking games looked like CG next to DC games.

 

[Phediuk]

Sega ran out of money, and the market was shifting away from Japanese/arcade style games.

 

[Ricker]

PS2...you know the expression waiting for a Steam sale...? back then it was waiting for the PS2