True, I'm not saying it was the only factor. The Dreamcast still would have likely lost, but if they were able to be even somewhat affordable with a DVD drive in it, they would have put up a much better fight. The modem is just the first place on the DC that you can cut to alleviate some of the cost and make room for the DVD drive.
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Why did the Dreamcast fail?
- Thread starter Drilbit777
- Start date
True, I'm not saying it was the only factor. The Dreamcast still would have likely lost, but if they were able to be even somewhat affordable with a DVD drive in it, they would have put up a much better fight. The modem is just the first place on the DC that you can cut to alleviate some of the cost and make room for the DVD drive.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
The thing about DC tho is it didn't even have VCD support, and VCDs were really popular in Japan at that time I suppose. I mean, even the Saturn got a VCD add-on; Sega could've at least tried to support VCD playback out of the gate built-in to DC, then release a DVD add-on later (or better yet, just a revised edition that supported DVD playback).
The multitude of "what-ifs" here is almost endless. Hell, it's got ideas in my head now just thinking about it.
DarkoMaledictus
Tier Whore
Mario granted, but Crash Bandicoot was a fucking joke lol. Its not even a real Mascot
Dreams-Visions
Member
I'll tell you why Dreamcast failed for me. Might be different for others, but this is why for me:
1.) SegaCD - Shit attachment. Only a handful of decent games across its entire lifespan despite carrying a full console price tag. Unreliable hardware. Marketing was better than the platform ever was.
2.) Sega 32X - Shittiest serious attachment ever. No more than one or two or three decent games its entire lifespan.
3.) Sega Saturn - Never really competed in software with the PlayStation or N64 leading it to a shorter than expected lifespan. Once again, Sega's marketing was better than the product as Virtua Fighter sold plenty of consoles to soon-to-be disappointed gamers.
I bought 2 of the 3. That was enough for me to swear off Sega for good. I wasn't going to be fooled again by them. I had been fucked by their shit products enough. Their prior equipment failures cost them all future hardware purchases from me. I missed out on some great games I'm sure, but I couldn't be made to give a fuck because the bad memories of Sega consoles past could not be let go of.
Playstation 2 hype simply sealed its fate for me.
Sega confused their customers, and people felt betrayed. Many people bought the genesis but then they released the 32X and MegaCD, and after spending the money there were not much games.
Then those who stuck with them and purchased a Saturn felt they did not have the best system or games competing with Nintendo and Sony. Owning this system was like owning a Turbo Gfx 16.
By the time the dreamcast came out, people didn't to give them more money. Especially since the PS2 played DVD's. Many families bought that as it gave them a DVD player and game console.
Edit = What Dreams-Visions stated
Then those who stuck with them and purchased a Saturn felt they did not have the best system or games competing with Nintendo and Sony. Owning this system was like owning a Turbo Gfx 16.
By the time the dreamcast came out, people didn't to give them more money. Especially since the PS2 played DVD's. Many families bought that as it gave them a DVD player and game console.
Edit = What Dreams-Visions stated
Demigod Mac
Member
A lot of reasons as mentioned in this thread, but I'd say the MGS2 E3 2000 trailer was the definitive turning point.
Up until then, a common refrain was, "PS2 just does fancy tech demos; it won't look that good in-game!"
But the MGS2 trailer squelched that argument. The PS2 hype hit fever pitch; everyone now wanted one except for the most stalwart DC fans.
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/metal-gear-solid-2-e3-2000-reveal/2300-673/
Was just insane, no one had seen anything remotely like that before.
In retrospect it's easy to criticize MGS2 for its many flaws, but until it was released, we were all pumped beyond reason.
Headhunter was the closest thing on Dreamcast, and it definitely lacked Kojima's slick presentation:
Up until then, a common refrain was, "PS2 just does fancy tech demos; it won't look that good in-game!"
But the MGS2 trailer squelched that argument. The PS2 hype hit fever pitch; everyone now wanted one except for the most stalwart DC fans.
http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/metal-gear-solid-2-e3-2000-reveal/2300-673/
Was just insane, no one had seen anything remotely like that before.
In retrospect it's easy to criticize MGS2 for its many flaws, but until it was released, we were all pumped beyond reason.
Headhunter was the closest thing on Dreamcast, and it definitely lacked Kojima's slick presentation:
Big Green Anus
Member
Sega, piracy, no dvd and it looked cheap compared to the futuristic looking PS2. Goodness, that was a sexy looking system!
I'm happy to see prominent members of the gaming industry acknowledge the dreamcast whenever it's birthday passes.
I'm happy to see prominent members of the gaming industry acknowledge the dreamcast whenever it's birthday passes.
zero shift
Banned
Sega just ran out of money. The Dreamcast was reasonably successful when it launched. It wasn't until it lost momentum once the PS2 came out because Sega ran out of marketing money.
It also didn't help that the Dreamcast was arcade focused in the same way that the Xbox was PC focused. The difference between the two is that the arcade market was dying and was unappealing to non-Japanese markets.
It also didn't help that the Dreamcast was arcade focused in the same way that the Xbox was PC focused. The difference between the two is that the arcade market was dying and was unappealing to non-Japanese markets.
chromatic9
Member
As a Mega Drive and Mega CD owner at the time I think they lost somewhat with the Mega CD and 32X add ons nonsense. When it came to a Saturn or PS1 it was straight forward for many. Sadly Sega's slip coincided with Sony entering the console business, it also raised the profile of gaming, Sony was a huge name back then and did everything so right and got the important new games. Dreamcast was never going to do anything after Saturn selling only around 9-10 million.
Dreams-Visions
Member
nice to know I wasn't the only one for whom the attachment phase of Sega products soured them on all future Sega products.
Cynn
Member
I believe they had the same requirement of Microsoft and the Xbox. That's why MS cancelled their entire line of sports titles and "XSN" framework. It was smart in the long run but XSN was pretty great.
Pretty much this. Sony entering the market basically started eroding at Sega's demographic (ie anybody not already on the Nintendo bandwagon) and Sega gave consumers plenty of reasons not to go with their hardware after all the life support the Genesis was on and how non-supported the Saturn was by Sega themselves, it was an eventual changing of the guard.
Elaborate
Cynn
Member
I agree, but tell that to Sega in 1993-94 when they were hyping titles in commercials like Sewer Shark, Night Trap and Corpse Killer instead of the Lunar games, Popful Mail or Snatcher.
How's anybody supposed to know about the good titles if Sega themselves weren't willing to let the general public know about them?
Klart
Member
Me too, I was kinda out of gaming at that time, but that just pulled me back in big time. I had to get one asap.
MrCunningham
Member
I believe they had the same requirement of Microsoft and the Xbox. That's why MS cancelled their entire line of sports titles and "XSN" framework. It was smart in the long run but XSN was pretty great.
Nobody knows how to run a monopoly like EA. But I am not surprised by this.
Yeah, the SEga CD does have quite a few hidden gems (I pretty much have everything listed in that video), but they were all overshadowed by the barrage of terrible FMV games that Sega of America was so keen on pushing. On one hand, I can't really blame them, 2D games on the Sega CD don't really look any better than 2D games on the Genesis in still screenshots. They tried to market the Sega CD as a multimedia machine and push FMV to try and give the add-on an identity of its own in the market. But on the otherhand, all of those shallow, grainy and terrible FMV games really helped ruin the reputation of that add-on.
Nemesis121
Member
There were quite a few low end hole in the wall gaming stores in Brooklyn New York selling bootleg games out in the open for $7-10, Piracy hit it had, and if your copy didn't work you could come back and get another, they were selling these bootlegs like the real deal, they even had fake covers on the CD, Piracy was real for DC..
ZombiePlatypus
Member
Dreamcast did SO MUCH right. But it wasn't enough.
Bad blood from Saturn, rampant piracy, and PS2 being a mega hyped beast with a DVD player were too much to take on.
As short as its lifespan was though, it was incredible. Some of my best gaming memories.
Bad blood from Saturn, rampant piracy, and PS2 being a mega hyped beast with a DVD player were too much to take on.
As short as its lifespan was though, it was incredible. Some of my best gaming memories.
Lightning Count
Member
SEGA had blown most of it's cash, by developing add ons for the Mega Drive, then fell flat on it's face with the Saturn, due to late in the game changes to hardware design, which resulted in a console that was powerful but a nightmare to develop for.
For once though in recent years I must give props to Capcom, they stood by the DC more than any other third party dev out there. Just a shame that modern Capcom is a shell of it's former self.
For once though in recent years I must give props to Capcom, they stood by the DC more than any other third party dev out there. Just a shame that modern Capcom is a shell of it's former self.
petran79
Banned
Regarding football titles though, EA didnt mind Konami's PES on the Playstation
Dreamcast had Sega Worldwide Soccer as their flagship title, but that game left a lot to be desired. Also UEFA Dream Soccer had some nice feature, even female national team squads, yet it had gameplay problems too.
The era of "realistic" sports sims was arriving, yet Sega was still entrenched in their arcade roots. No wonder Virtua Striker was the most popular football game on Dreamcast, yet it was like day and night when compared to FIFA or PES.
RAIDEN1
Member
Notice how the console was never officially titled as the : "Sega Dreamcast" but just the Dreamcast, as if it was it's own independent label...as I think I remember reading somewhere ages ago, Sega was trying to downplay the fact its a console associated with them, due to all the bad blood from years gone prior to the release of Sega's machine.
End of the day though its the classic scenario, didn't matter how much power a console had "under the hood" ...case in point the Xbox, it blew away the competition hardware wise compared to the 'Cube and PS2, yet Sony's machine still left the competition for dead...
End of the day though its the classic scenario, didn't matter how much power a console had "under the hood" ...case in point the Xbox, it blew away the competition hardware wise compared to the 'Cube and PS2, yet Sony's machine still left the competition for dead...
MrCunningham
Member
I think Sega lost a lot more cash on the R&D projects they were working on behind the scenes, than they ever did with the Sega CD and possibly even the 32X. They did sink a lot of money into developing the next successor to the Saturn and burned a few partners in the process. There was the Saturn 2 project early on with Nvidia, and later 3DFX was working with Sega of America on the Black Belt system, meanwhile Sega of Japan had the Katana system in development, which is what turned into the Dreamcast. Then there was the Sega Neptune (stand alone 32x) and Sega Pluto (Sega Saturn with net link built in) consoles.
3DFX lost a lot of money from the Sega partnership and was one of the contributing reasons for their downfall as a company.
The Saturn was another big drain on the company, financially. It was expensive to produce and Sega took a loss on each unit sold to compete with the Playstation. The hardware was originally planned to be sold at a $399.99USD (doesn't seem like something you would bat an eye at now, but this was expensive for a console in 1995) to compensate for the additional silicon they put into the hardware to compete with the Playstation 1. But Sony dropped a bomb at E3 with a $299.99 price tag and this caused Sega to panic and drop their console price by $100.00, resulting in losses.
And as others have said before, Sega pushed the US release date forward to get their console out first, this resulted in many US retailers unhappy with the company and not stocking their console at all. This was another big stab at Sega, at least from the NA side, anyway.
I think it may have been more of a matter of them not being able to do anything about it. During that point, they didn't have Sony's head over a barrel like they did with Sega or newcomer Microsoft who really needed support from a publisher like EA. And I doubt EA could have persuaded the FIFA organization to give them exclusive rights, unlike the NFL did with Madden.
Journey
Banned
Sega failed the Dreamcast.
Add on after add on, Sega had way too many product launches one after another. The Dreamcast was their beat product, but its too bad they finally ran out of steam right when they needed it.
There was a really good discussion about this on the Giant Bombcast last year, if anyone's interested. Jeff Gerstmann talks about his experience covering Sega around the time of the death of the Dreamcast, and why he thinks it failed like it did.
Literally everything that could've gone wrong, did go wrong. The SoJ vs. SoA infighting thoughout the entire decade, the non-stop quick-fix add-ons for the Genesis, the Saturn's entire existence outside of Japan, EA not supporting the system, SEGA's lack of money...
It's a wonder the damn thing even came out at all. Besides the NA launch, there is literally nothing good about the Dreamcast's existence, besides the games of course.
It's a wonder the damn thing even came out at all. Besides the NA launch, there is literally nothing good about the Dreamcast's existence, besides the games of course.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Not having DVD. I was in college at the the and already had a standalone player as I'm big into movies. But pretty much al my friends got PS2s so they could have a DVD player and game console. I was the only one with a Dreamcast.
http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/basement/ga-archive.htm
try Good Cows archive it might be in there.
ConanTheKing
Member
That's terrible, there's a thread there from 9/11, it's almost like reliving the moment.
I believe they had the same requirement of Microsoft and the Xbox. That's why MS cancelled their entire line of sports titles and "XSN" framework. It was smart in the long run but XSN was pretty great.
In the case of the Xbox, that isn't true- it's that EA wanted to run their own servers for online play (instead of relying on Xbox Live), and it wasn't till Madden 2005 that they finally came to an agreement and got their games on online on Xbox.
I'll echo the statement and say it was the 2000 MGS2 trailer that killed the Dreamcast. I remember buying the Bleem disc for MGS at EB Games (I didn't own a PSX), and while I loved MGS, I remember hating the control scheme they had to use on the Dreamcast because the controller just didn't have enough buttons. And while the graphics in games designed for the Dreamcast looked great (Code Veronica blew my mind), when you compared them to MGS2, they just didn't compare.
And when you look at the games of Holiday 2001, like MGS2, Grand Theft Auto 3, and Halo, even if Sega was flush with money, the writing was on the wall. They system just could not compete with the newer hardware.
barneystuta83
Member
I decided to have a look on archive.org and found this.
https://archive.org/stream/IGN_Unpl...IGN.com_US#page/n27/mode/2up/search/dreamcast
It is called "Life After Dreamcast" and is an article on some of the developers and 'predictions' on what they would go onto next.
Just making my way through it, so will be interesting to see where they did actually end up.
EDIT:
EDIT2: I could look at this archive all day. Some great content in there!
https://archive.org/stream/IGN_Unpl...IGN.com_US#page/n27/mode/2up/search/dreamcast
It is called "Life After Dreamcast" and is an article on some of the developers and 'predictions' on what they would go onto next.
Just making my way through it, so will be interesting to see where they did actually end up.
EDIT:
Visual Concepts: Went all in, pretty much, on their 2k sports games, with just a handful of other games. That is what the article predicted and they did push EA most of the way for some time.
Sonic Team: To quote the article "everything that comes out of the house of sonic sells by the bucket loads"... turned out to be not so true. A bit of a mixed bag really, mainly at the weaker end.
United Game Artists: From what I can dig up, they released just three titles post Dreamcast. Sonic Riders, its sequel, and Sega Rally Championship for the PS2.
Sonic Team: To quote the article "everything that comes out of the house of sonic sells by the bucket loads"... turned out to be not so true. A bit of a mixed bag really, mainly at the weaker end.
United Game Artists: From what I can dig up, they released just three titles post Dreamcast. Sonic Riders, its sequel, and Sega Rally Championship for the PS2.
EDIT2: I could look at this archive all day. Some great content in there!
aygomyownroad
Member
After the Saturn did so poorly against the PlayStation 1 most people had the PlayStation brand as the more mature console.
PlayStation 2 had DVD and was many people's only one.
The dreamcast was amazing but Sega were up against real financial clout at a time they didnt have money.
Also the Saturn launch really pissed off some retailers iirc
PlayStation 2 had DVD and was many people's only one.
The dreamcast was amazing but Sega were up against real financial clout at a time they didnt have money.
Also the Saturn launch really pissed off some retailers iirc
ElodieTicotoune
Banned
It failed because even tho the Dreamcast was liked by lots, the Sega console followers even if LOUD and VOCAL, you still are a minority.
Just like with Tim Schaefer games, take that as an example.
You can hear people CHANT his name, talk about all that he is, and he is indeed a great game maker and people like his games, People praise his past games and everything. Yet when they re released, lets say Monkey Island, people chanted and were happy as hell. But when you see the sales numbers, they are small.
You simply are a small minority in the big pool of people who game.
No matter how loud you can scream how good his games are. No matter how many pages a thread about his game can generate in here, it dosnt change the fact that you guys scream HOW GOOD it is in here and then think wow everyone wants a game from him, NO! thats just you guys a LOUD bunch, that want those games but in the end thats pruty much it.
Just like everyone was going nuts when they announced Duck Tales, i remember seing threads upon threads how it's going to be this nice game and all, You guys were loud and vocal, it almost seemed like a guaranteed hit. Then the game releases and it sells a little. There again, you guys were just a small minority who REALLY wanted that game and shouted about it.
In my opinion the same goes for the Dreamcast, you scream greatness, and all but in the end, you are just a small minority who really DID enjoy that console.
Look at all the praise the Wii U is getting for their games, thats nice and all, great reviewed games and all, people screaming how hot and nice it is, yet the sales numbers tell a different story.
Some of you in here make it sound likes it's the biggest thing since the invention of the wheel. You people, self hype things making yourselfs think that everyone is going to run out and get them lol.
Just like with Tim Schaefer games, take that as an example.
You can hear people CHANT his name, talk about all that he is, and he is indeed a great game maker and people like his games, People praise his past games and everything. Yet when they re released, lets say Monkey Island, people chanted and were happy as hell. But when you see the sales numbers, they are small.
You simply are a small minority in the big pool of people who game.
No matter how loud you can scream how good his games are. No matter how many pages a thread about his game can generate in here, it dosnt change the fact that you guys scream HOW GOOD it is in here and then think wow everyone wants a game from him, NO! thats just you guys a LOUD bunch, that want those games but in the end thats pruty much it.
Just like everyone was going nuts when they announced Duck Tales, i remember seing threads upon threads how it's going to be this nice game and all, You guys were loud and vocal, it almost seemed like a guaranteed hit. Then the game releases and it sells a little. There again, you guys were just a small minority who REALLY wanted that game and shouted about it.
In my opinion the same goes for the Dreamcast, you scream greatness, and all but in the end, you are just a small minority who really DID enjoy that console.
Look at all the praise the Wii U is getting for their games, thats nice and all, great reviewed games and all, people screaming how hot and nice it is, yet the sales numbers tell a different story.
Some of you in here make it sound likes it's the biggest thing since the invention of the wheel. You people, self hype things making yourselfs think that everyone is going to run out and get them lol.
barneystuta83
Member
Grab your favourite beverage and dive into this.
https://archive.org/stream/IGN_Unplugged_Issue_05_2001-08_IGN.com_US#page/n11/mode/2up
How different the world was back in 2001.
https://archive.org/stream/IGN_Unplugged_Issue_05_2001-08_IGN.com_US#page/n11/mode/2up
How different the world was back in 2001.