Dunno if someone else already posted this, but if not here 'ya go. Piracy was nowhere
near as big a factor for Dreamcast's demise at that time as people like to think. How many owners do you think had anything better than 56K or even 28K dial-up internet to download tons of those 100s of MBs-sized games?
Jenovi gets to the real reasons later in the vid but basically the problem was lack of enough profit over a period of time, partly due to pricing Dreamcast too low for the Western market (SoJ wanted $249, Stolar rolled out $199, and SoJ went with that due to the positive reception).
They had Soul Calibur, but nothing after. They outright refused to port Ridge Racer 4/5 and Tekken Tag Tournament, even when Sega begged for it. Namco's whole Dreamcast was basically SC and Mr. Driller, they had 0 follow up project.
Yeah, people like to think Namco was a big supporter of DC but they barely did much outside of Soul Calibur. Although I'm curious to what extent Sony may've had a hand in "tying them up" from focusing on Dreamcast more, but companies like Capcom easily put more real weight into the system than Namco.
Also part of the reason I scoff when people try saying Soul Calibur was the best game on the system: best fighting game maybe, and even that is debatable (DOA 2 was right up there and even more visually impressive in ways). But hard to really say it's the best on the system period, when it has others at that level or better (Skies of Arcadia, Jet Set Radio, Sonic Adventure 2, Shenmue 2, RE Code: Veronica, Grandia II etc.).
Namco had one of the biggest launch games on the system.
The real reason was the EA boycott. In 1999, if you didn't have Madden you were fucked. Back then Madden WAS a system seller in the US.
EA not being there hurt Dreamcast A LOT, but EA put out some BS reasons for not supporting it, and even the commonly accepted reason isn't 100% true.
Basically, there's someone from EA at the time who said Dreamcast was a horribly designed console and that's why they didn't support it. Pretty flagrant and fraudulent reason all things considered, when anyone who understands console design can point out all the smart choices in Dreamcast's design and architecture.
The common reason of EA not supporting due to Visual Concepts making competing sports games holds more weight, but the factor that holds even more than that which isn't talked about was EA having stock in 3DFX, who were developing one of the two Dreamcast prototypes...and then ruined their shot by leaking its existence to the public well before SEGA were ready to divulge things publicly.
Apparently EA tried convincing SEGA to stick with the 3DFX design anyway since that'd of meant a ton of financial benefits for EA themselves, but SEGA rejected, and that's probably what really drove EA away from Dreamcast support.
Theres only one reason the DC failed,
Thats on Sega. Incompetence. Plain and simple.
Sega should take a lesson from Nintendo in how to be successfull in the video game field.
1) ignore the dorks on specialised game forums, they represent 0,00001% of the game population. Yes Neogaf Im talking about you lol.
2) aim for the mass market. See the Wii, DS, Switch.
Sega had the games and the talent, it just lacked the vision and the marketing.
To add to that: Nintendo realized very early (the Japanese side, at that, likely due to working with them) that they could not compete with a company like Sony head-to-head in the mid '90s at the same beat they did with SEGA in the early '90s. Sony simply had many more resources, distribution channels, cash, and in-house solutions to pull from. That's why even though the N64 saw sharp marketshare drop for Nintendo over the SNES/SFC, it was still a very profitable venture and Nintendo as a whole revamped themselves very well in the late '90s as the multiplayer console of choice, furthered their handheld strengths and had a cultural phenomenon in Pokemon (made by a company that SEGA previously worked with btw, only to never work with them again. Basically Pokemon could've been a SEGA IP had they kept working with Game Freak post-Pulseman, go figure :/).
SEGA did none of those things, or didn't do them as a cohesive whole. Their strengths were their arcade pedigree, and bringing the arcade experience home. IMO they should've leaned even more into trying to keep the arcade gaming market going stronger with even more innovative experiences that couldn't be had at home, while pushing graphics well ahead of consoles of the time (which they already did with Model 2 and 3). Meanwhile, they could've taken a Neo-Geo approach and built a home console version of their Model 2 (and later Model 3) boards with exact same performance, priced for a premium market with appeal of playing SEGA Model 2 games at home.
With that type of design they could've also went with some innovative games that could've felt like "for the home" experiences while also working well in an arcade environment. SNK already allowed gamers to transfer save progress between arcade and home, and Capcom had games like Red Earth which were very long games (unusual for arcade games) with transferrable save progress, functioning a lot like console action-RPGs.
Meanwhile, in that kind of scenario I actually think SEGA would've been better off as a 3P developer for Sony and Nintendo, at least on the console side of things, and a lot of the games they made for Saturn would've eventually been PS1/N64 games instead, likely enjoyed better sales and marketing. Tie that in with maybe rewards for playing the games in the arcades including benefits towards those hypothetical console games for PS1 and N64, I think they'd of been much better off financially this way.
But that wouldn't mean SEGA'd of had to fold on hardware altogether, that's where I think the handheld market could've been beneficial for them. If they basically brought forward the Nomad design but with much better battery life while keeping it affordable, that'd basically of kept a means of still commercializing the Genesis/MegaDrive while also building games specifically for that new type of portable device. Sony already would show later on that someone other than Nintendo could be very successful with a portable (PSP); it's actually possible that if SEGA went to focus on portables instead after MegaDrive/Genesis, Sony might've ventured to contribute to that design, and SEGA would just continue onward as a handheld rival for Nintendo for the next decade or so, making a very different environment there than what we ended up with.
At the very least, it'd of meant a Switch-like device way earlier than the Switch we actually got
