They still would have bleed money in Japan at $249 people dont realize how bad the Dreamcast did in japan, stores had piles of stock, they had to cut the price, and spend time even after the console was announced discontinued trying to clear stock there.
Well, I was a kid when Dreamcast launched so I never knew about its problems in Japan or really understood SEGA's financial issues at the time. However, I would still remember magazines like EGM mentioning that stuff every now and again in their news sections. When I got older is when I started learning about SEGA as a corporation and that's when a lot of the business decisions started to hit me in a way I was old enough to comprehend fully.
From my understanding, it was always the issue that in Japan, SEGA just released Dreamcast too early. Saturn was still doing well there, and SEGA could've put more 1P support towards it in '98 and early '99, which probably would've helped with their finances in areas and also helped justify perhaps getting a DVD drive in the Dreamcast by default. That later release date in Japan would've also made sure their 1P releases weren't delayed or had massive bugs at launch, and probably have more software at the time of DC launch there, too.
It would've meant a later release in America which might've been problematic, unless SEGA could find a way to do a simultaneous launch in both regions in late '99 or do Japan in mid '99 and America in late '99. Otherwise it'd be a Dreamcast for the US in probably June 2000 at earliest (coincide the launch with a strong E3 showing) and having just a few months to build up momentum before PS2 coming out four months later.
Considering the PS2 itself didn't have a lot of great games at launch and didn't start getting its bangers until GT3 (May 2001), while I don't think Dreamcast could ever have a lead over PS2 I think it could've held good ground and, more importantly, make things harder for Gamecube and Xbox, cutting into their eventual marketshare.
It'd of been enough for SEGA to persist with Dreamcast for a full generation and build up stability for a successor. Basically, doing what Microsoft actually did with the OG Xbox to build up brand strength for the 360.
The games that werent so hot in US were basically nonexistent there. You couldn't even move VF3 for free before people found out the port was bad and that was still a popular arcade title when 3tb released.
IMO VF3 should've gotten the Soul Calibur/Tekken Tag treatment. The Model 3 version looked great, but it felt outdated visually compared to those games three years after its release. The bigger issue was lack of extra content for the home, but that was a general problem with a lot of SEGA's arcade ports of the time. Seldom did they put in a bevy of extra content for the home versions, meanwhile Namco did that regularly and it was a massive benefit.
The US managed 6 million consoles in a bit over 3 years. It's arguable that if Sega consolidated their releases they probably would have survived since there would have been less flop software in japan losing money on shelves. Also they should have cut shipments faster.
You sure it was 3? They made the announcement in January 2001 from my research, so that was barely 1.5 years after its American launch. I can't recall when they officially stopped taking count of numbers but suppose they continued 'till September '01 that'd of been 2 years, not 3.
Which goes to prove your point tho that they really maybe should've just focused on the American region in particular, and Europe to a smaller extent. But, this was still a SEGA that wasn't far removed time-wise from the Saturn era, which had the Japanese division literally more or less ruin the Western branches' efforts out of spite. They sacrificed those markets for Japan, and I don't think SEGA would ever consider giving up Japan to focus on stronger performance in non-Japanese markets, especially that soon after Saturn.
Same goes for Europe. If any region should have had a country exclusive release of Shenmue 2 it should have been the US. I have no idea what Sega was smoking making that exclusive to two regions where the Dreamcast cratered like the berlin wall.
So you already had an overproduced prequel that didn't make the money back, now you lose near the same amount making the sequel exclusive to two regions that didn't buy the first one? Lolololol.
Yeah, again, I think it was a holdover of the poor upper-management side of SEGA of Japan still basically calling the shots. I think there was still some spite there over SEGA of America and the American region being so successful with Genesis whereas SoJ bombed with MegaDrive in Japan.
And then to top it all off, they make the Xbox version, over a year late, not In japan but in NA, then release a EU version another year late?
These are the types of decisions that show why Sega was incompetent.
Pretty much.
Nope.
I dont know why people are pretending the Dreamcast wasnt popular, at least in the US. It was never going to be big in Europe.
The only place I can see Saturn killing the Dreamcast is Japan, but even than that was more about Sony and Nintendo locking Sega out of franchises they had access to on the Saturn, and not so much the Saturn itself.
TBH there was a chance Dreamcast could've been a success in Europe; while the Saturn bombed there, the MegaDrive beat SNES in Europe as a whole, and if SEGA could've appealed to European gamers tapping that MegaDrive era it could've stolen a bit of Sony's thunder and mindshare I think.
But in order to do that, they would've needed to focus on MegaDrive IP that players actually remembered. They had Sonic, but no new Streets of Rage. No new Eternal Champions. No new Shining Force, etc. They would've needed as many of those returning as possible, along with maybe a new game in an IP associated with Sony at the launch as to make a statement.
How not? Once 64 came out in the west the Saturn's third party support diminished, by 97 it got significantly less games and by 98 it only got like 8 games. The Dreamcast had a popular and way more successful launch than the Saturn, it sold almost the same numbers with way less time in production, but most people didn't trust Sega to keep on.
The bigger problem was that SEGA simply ran out of money they could allocate to continued Dreamcast production, distribution, and marketing. They weren't generating enough revenue (or profit) to do so.
1)Being a year and half out of the western market is the biggest issue, trust was corroded. They could have released the DC alongside Japan in 98, but the launch line there was mediocre at best, but there wouldn't be no gap. The US release was a major marketing planing to make ammends with all the wrongdoings with the saturn: A Massive marketing, proper third party deals, worthy catalogue to be available at launch, and more excelent software coming the next weeks and months instead of having 12 month drought like every new generation start.
IMO an early '99 launch in Japan would've been much better. Would've given Saturn more time for itself in the Japanese market, and ensured games like Sonic weren't delayed from the initial launch. I don't know if this later timing would've afforded them to add a DVD drive, but I actually think instead of adding a DVD drive or a modem by default, SEGA should've added a HDD instead, and found a way to partner with some film studios to release their movies in the GD-ROM format.
This way, they could've advertised Dreamcast on having playback features (essentially) in line with a DVD player, and with the included HDD could've opened up possibilities for both games and media playback that wouldn't of been possible on a PS2 (as it lacked a HDD). They were also already close with companies like JVC and Hitachi, they could've set up something with those companies, and others like NEC, making GD-ROM movie players that were backwards-compatible with VCDs, pitching them as a cheaper but capable alternative to DVD players.
Yeah, it'd of been another format war and one well before HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, and I'm not necessarily saying or thinking GD-ROM would've won out in the end, but pushing the format at that level would've really benefited Dreamcast among the mainstream IMO, even if just for the format war rivalry, and of helped with it benefiting in the eyes of many as a system capable of multimedia film playback similar to PS2, just with a different format.
Even supposing the format war was over by say 2002 or early 2003 in favor of DVD, it would've had enough benefit for Dreamcast to persist staying relevant and inadvertently hurting Gamecube even more, although Xbox complicates that scenario if they decide to go with DVD anyway, maybe helping bring that format war to an end slightly sooner as a result.
2)EA being out was because they wanted to take advantage of Sega weak position to force an sports exclusivity deal or no support, Stolar had just bought Visual Concepts and said he couldn't do it, VC games were considered just as great, if not better, than EA Sports titles. But it really did hurt the lack of these famous franchises and the non sports ones such as Need For Speed.
Apparently (Jenovi covered this in one of their vids) this wasn't the main reason EA rejected Dreamcast. They had an investment in 3Dfx and wanted SEGA to pick their design for Dreamcast. Due to the leak from the lawsuit tho, they picked the Japanese design, meaning EA would be losing out on millions from console sales since they weren't using the 3Dfx design.
3)The pricing: This is controversial, the 199 dollar price was already something they were doing in Japan before the US release, one could argue that at 250 dollars it wouldn't have any effect of making customers away from buying it or only a very small percentage, on the other hand, the poor position could have been the major factor to make a market share quick as possible with the price, to make things worse the PS1 and 64 had their prices cut to just 99 dollars just a month before.
IMO, either Sega should have released it worldwide in 98 and try to get on board many western developers as possible to rush something for the launch window, because people would have bought anyways it due to being a new generation system, or accept that Visual Concepts was a near loss and let EA have the exclusivity. Also Shenmue was a good seller on the western release even if it was when the PS2 had been released worldwide, I don't know why Sega had released it's localized version a year after its Japanese launch, it was the next big thing at the time, they wasted potential extra million copies there.
I think $249 would've helped offsetting lowered attach rates, as generally DC attach rates were lower than the Saturn's (altho the Saturn had an abnormally high attach rate, TBF, more than both PS1 and N64).
I mean the only online game I had was PSO, but from what I could see there was not much to it especially being a PC gamer at the time.
By that logic you could say there wasn't much to most console games at the time since quite a few had PC equivalents. Why bother with GoldenEye 007 when you had Quake and Unreal Tournament? Why bother with FF VII when you had Might & Magic & Ultima?
Why have bothered with almost any of the fighting and racing games when a lot of them had arcade versions which were better on a technical level, and had more multiplayer/networking options?
