Sega Dreamcast, A marvel in console history

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Sega Dreamcast, A marvel in console history

Post by DarkGambitX »

Well, I wrote up this little article, and as well slipped in a exerpt from an article that explained Dreamcast's failing. Which most obviously, was the release of Utopia. Check it out http://big-jerms.blogspot.com/2006/03/s ... nsole.html Return back to my blog anytime, if you enjoyed this article.
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Post by BaldMonk »

Nice article, however, in my opinion tho, I think one of the main killers of the Dreamcast were the PS1 ports.

Everyone that I've shown the Dreamcast to have been shocked at how good the graphics are, and always say "I thought it was the same as the PS1"

I think that was one of the main killers. People wanted a state of the art machine, which is was, but many people only saw the PS1 ports. Despite the gameplay being the only REAL aspect to making a game good, people do want a game that has awesome graphics.

:)
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Post by Stormwatch »

Don't blame Utopia... blame Sega's own stupidity, for allowing the system to boot from CDs.
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Post by DarkGambitX »

You have a good point Storm. Sega were foolish for using the GD-ROM, seeing it was so similar to CD-R, they should have realized. I just would have liked the DC to go a bit longer to without being pirated and such. I am blaming Utopia, because that was the major downfall for the failing of the Dreamcast. Thanks for the output, and please contine to visit my blog.
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Post by Cid Highwind »

The GDRom was a great medium, it still isn't readable in any PC drive, unlike any dvd format. If the DC wouldn't support CDr it would've been a very safe format I think.

Nice article, maybe I should write one myself for my own blog some day :)
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Post by Sweater Fish »

Piracy was only a secondary cause in the Dreamcast's failure. The main reason was the Playstation 2, or at least all the hype surrounding it.

If the Dreamcast had a been a more successful system in the mainstream, particularly in Japan where it was a serious failure, all the piracy on the DC would have been inconsequential as it was on the original Playstation or the Famicom, two of the most successful systems in history but which also had more widespread piracy than the DC ever could have hoped for.


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Post by GyroVorbis »

You guys are gonna want to kill me, but I think the Dreamcast was stabbed in the back by a trio of its own family members: Sega CD, Sega 32X, and Sega Saturn.

Lets go with the PS2 theory. The only reason the PS2 had so much hype was because of the PSone. The only reason the PSone was allowed to become so hyped was because the Saturn and N64 couldn't stop it. N64 aside (Nintendo had their own issues), the Saturn could blame 1) difficult hardware 2) CD and 32X. The PS2 has crappy hardware, but developers still put up with it.

So scratch that one out. That leaves the CD and 32X. TWO hardware let-downs were probably more than enough to give the media a bad impression with Sega. Whether or not the Saturn could've redeemed Sega wouldn't matter, because people were still not going to trust Sega or put faith in them after the two failed Genesis attachments.

So the PSone prospered.

Then comes the Dreamcast. The revolutionary next-gen console which could render polys in the MILLIONS. It didn't matter how much the Dreamcast could do, or what it was made of. All that mattered was that the PSone had a big enough fanbase to last until the PS2 came out. All that Sony has to do is say that the PS2 can do "omg 66 million polys" and people would be all over it, because 1) better specs (supposedly) than the Dreamcast 2) Sony had a huge fanbase from the previous generation due to Saturn's failure due to Sega CD and Sega 32X's failure.

And there's my Sega Console "Trickle Down" theory...

So ultimately, I personally think that the number one contributor to the fall of Sega's commercial support of the DC is the Sega CD and Sega 32X.
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Post by Sweater Fish »

Yeah, plenty of people claimed that they'd been "burned" too many times already be Sega, so that's why they wouldn't buy a Dreamcast. But if all the people who didn't buy a Dreamcast because of their previous bad experiences with Sega had actually bought Sega CDs, 32Xs and Saturns, those would have been successful systems. As it is, the 32X aside, people who actually bought them knew they had lots of great games despite their market failures and that the Dreamcast probably would be great too regardless of its success, as it was.

I put the "I've been burned by Sega too many times already" bit in the "Sony marketing machine" category, particularly if as you claim it was also why the Saturn didn't do well in the U.S.


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Post by Zod »

Piracy definately contributed to the DC's demise, but the DC was also intended to compete with the xbox and ps2 (as it was release a fair bit later then the ps1).

I think the lack of a DVD drive really hurt it, I remember that being a huge selling point for ps2's and XBOX's.

a lot of people think the 360 might have the same kind of problem, with not having a HD drive. I guess its hard to look that far in the future. In '99, DVD's were just going mainstream.
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Post by DarkGambitX »

Well, the 360 is releasing a HD DVD just to clarify. There are many things that contributed to the down fall of the DC; however, I feel Utopia really killed the console. That was both Sega's fault for making it so easy , and Wildlight's fault for dabbling in piracy, although many of us do it.
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Post by Juan »

If it wasn't for Utopia I wouldn't even have a DC. And I think I speak for A LOT of people.
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Post by DarkGambitX »

Well yes, thats true; however, console developers, do not make there money on the physical console. Actually, they usually loose a fairly large sum of money. Its usually the games that contribute the money, or the accessores.
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Post by Zod »

DarkGambitX wrote:Well, the 360 is releasing a HD DVD just to clarify. There are many things that contributed to the down fall of the DC; however, I feel Utopia really killed the console. That was both Sega's fault for making it so easy , and Wildlight's fault for dabbling in piracy, although many of us do it.
I'm aware the 360 is getting an HD-DVD drive, allthough they are publicly stating it will on before HD movie playback and not for games. If the blueray drive inside the ps2 catches on, and developers really embrace the extra space, I can see microsoft having to change that stance, and possibly start putting HD-DVD drives into stock 360's.

Dreamcast had the advantage of coming out first, but the PS2 and the XBOX had the advantage of using slightly more advanced technology. The PS3 keeps getting pushed back, by the time they end up releasing it, theres gotta be a litle new technology the could shove into it, to make the games look better then on an 360. If the ps3 puts hard drives in every model (build it, none of this clip on shit), and includes the blueray, thats gonna give it a big step up in my opinion :)
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Post by UndeadDC »

Nothing hurt sega more than sega itself. And I think GyroVorbis was right on the money about the previous consoles. For a clearer pictrue of sega's problems you might want to check out this article, it may have been posted here before and it's primarily about the saturn, but it's still a good read.

http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/games/ ... _archives/
SegaBase%20-%20Kamikaze%20Console%20Saturn%20and%
20the%20fall%20of%20Sega%20-%20PART%20ONE%20OF%20TWO%20
(October%201993%20-%20July%201996).htm



:P I broke it up because it was so huge. You'll just have to copy and paste it piece by piece
Last edited by UndeadDC on Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Quzar »

[insert stereotypical comments about the DC's demise that have been discussed to death a million times and are so indeterminant that nobody could possibly claim with any good reason that one thing was the 'main cause']
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Post by lynx44 »

I know its already been said, but I just have to reiterate that piracy was not the cause of death for the Dreamcast. I remember when they announced that they were going to stop support of the dreamcast and start porting over some of the major favorites from the system (like Crazy Taxi) to the PS2.

It was very shortly before this that the Utopia boot disk came out, maybe a month or two. This wasn't enough time for everyone to jump on the piracy bandwagon. Most people still had dial up, and I remember I still didn't have a CD burner, and I didn't get one for quite a while after. You couldn't rip your own games (not easily at least) so you had no other choice but to download them. I don't think bit torrent was around, and the files were pretty huge so it was difficult to share them without getting shut down. So on a 56k modem, downloading a game wasn't really an option.

I also remember the hype surrounding the PS2. It was huge. I know plenty of people that were holding off on the DC for the PS2. And yes, as it has been said, the DVD player was a BIG plus at the time. A lot of people still didn't have one, and with the PS2 at $300, it cost hardly more to get a state of the art system and a DVD player all in one.

I would also agree that the failure of the Saturn most likely lead to the failure of the DC, although I never thought of it that way.

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Post by Zod »

I've never actually even heard of the dreamcast until a friend of mine told me about, and this was only after they announced that they were gonna kill it. They were 99 bux Canadian at toys r us, and all the games were discounted and cheap, same with the accessories.

So I got one, was the first console i'd gotten since my genesis, a lot of people see it on my shelf and ask what the DC is.
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Post by Orange_Ribbon »

GyroVorbis wrote:You guys are gonna want to kill me, but I think the Dreamcast was stabbed in the back by a trio of its own family members: Sega CD, Sega 32X, and Sega Saturn.

Lets go with the PS2 theory. The only reason the PS2 had so much hype was because of the PSone. The only reason the PSone was allowed to become so hyped was because the Saturn and N64 couldn't stop it. N64 aside (Nintendo had their own issues), the Saturn could blame 1) difficult hardware 2) CD and 32X. The PS2 has crappy hardware, but developers still put up with it.

So scratch that one out. That leaves the CD and 32X. TWO hardware let-downs were probably more than enough to give the media a bad impression with Sega. Whether or not the Saturn could've redeemed Sega wouldn't matter, because people were still not going to trust Sega or put faith in them after the two failed Genesis attachments.

So the PSone prospered.

Then comes the Dreamcast. The revolutionary next-gen console which could render polys in the MILLIONS. It didn't matter how much the Dreamcast could do, or what it was made of. All that mattered was that the PSone had a big enough fanbase to last until the PS2 came out. All that Sony has to do is say that the PS2 can do "omg 66 million polys" and people would be all over it, because 1) better specs (supposedly) than the Dreamcast 2) Sony had a huge fanbase from the previous generation due to Saturn's failure due to Sega CD and Sega 32X's failure.

And there's my Sega Console "Trickle Down" theory...

So ultimately, I personally think that the number one contributor to the fall of Sega's commercial support of the DC is the Sega CD and Sega 32X.
Don't you bring my little saturn into this. I am still rocking out the SAT.
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Post by GyroVorbis »

Amen bro.

Still playin' the Saturn like it was '99... oh wait... DC was '99... Damnit Saturn was like '94? '95?
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