Petition for Dreamcast 2: 2nd Shot

[cube_b3]

_______________________________________Disclaimer
Now I know everyone has read posts with this name made a million times usually made by Noobs however I am not a Noob and neither does my proposal have much to do with Sega Making a new system.

_______________________________________History Lesson
Sega has always been making there systems more compact and calling them part 2. They have done so with the Master System and of course with the Genesis as well. Genesis 1 was big and bulky. Genesis 2 was small and compact however what had been more fascinating was Genesis 3 which was not made by Sega that?s right incase you where not aware it had been manufactured by Sega!

In late 1997, a New Jersey based company named Majesco Sales approached Sega with the idea of reloading the Genesis as a low-budget alternative system to the higher-priced Sony PlayStation and Nintendo N64 in the U.S. market. Majesco felt that there was still enough value left in Sega's name to make a go at it, and it offered to handle everything it could - marketing, distribution, sales, and so on. In exchange, Sega would receive royalties on every piece of hardware or software that Majesco sold.

The re-emergence of the Genesis after an enforced absence of two years also brought about a brief revival of the first console war. Nintendo had also been trying to clear its back inventory of SNES stocks, having produced its own budget version of the SNES in 1997 and filling the shelves of any willing retailer with excess SNES inventory. Once Majesco horned in on the action with its US$50 Genesis 3 console, Nintendo matched its price. Majesco then dropped the price of the Genesis 3 to US$40 and again to US$30, with Nintendo matching them dollar-for-dollar every step of the way. Software prices for both systems remained stagnant, ranging anywhere from US$10 to US$25 per title. By this time 16-bit sales only accounted for 10% of the total U.S. console market, but it was a brisk and fiercely fought share. "I think you may see some sharpening of the SNES price in the holidays," said Nintendo vice president George Harrison. "It's the best kept secret in the industry," noted Majesco's Morris Sutton. "Retailers have been making a lot of money on 16-bit.?
?Majesco would wind up selling between 1 and 2 million Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 consoles, along with 10 million or so Genesis cartridges for fiscal year 1998. In comparison, Nintendo would only sell 1 million SNES consoles and 6 million SNES carts. As with the American Civil War, the rebels would win the last battle - if not the war itself.

ROUND 2
After the success of Genesis 3 Majesco also surveyed to make Saturn after it?s demise however "2aturn" was not half as popular as Genesis thus the plan never reached fruition.

_______________________________________Gist

The rough plan here is to start a petition in order to get Majesco to make Dreamcast 2.

Problems A
Those who are not skeptical and like my plan should know the reason Sega agreed to go on a venture with Majesco was because they already had more then a million Genesis in there where house we on the other hand have no Dreamcast in Dead Stock.

Antitode
So if our plan does reach fruition it would be close to Treamcast for the rest of the world Refurbished and Compacted Dreamcast consoles Not Brand New.

Problem B
Sega & A<<laim had millions and millions of unsold carts, Us on the other hand don't have any GD's and the PreOwned ones are dying(scratches) GDs are not as durable as Carts.

Antitode
I am open to suggestions

ROUND 2
2nd Shot

Tec Toy is still manufacturing Mega Drive 2 (in silver), They are also manufacturing portable SMS (it's not Game Gear). Why not also manufacture Dreamcast 2 (something like Treamcast). What they do may not be for American or European market nonetheless this plan would be good for Brazil and also provide us an alternate place to buy Treamcast from.

If you read the mini bio below they also translate games. This would be great news for Brizilliains who would get awesome Japanese games translated into there own language. (Maybe somehow we could some Japanese games in our language).

So far I haven't found a problem with this plan...


Miscellaneous

Tec Toy
founded in 1987, with the purpose of making electronic toys, a niche that other Brazilian toy manufacturers had failed to notice. They quickly stroke a deal to become the exclusive representative of Japanese videogame giant Sega Enterprises Ltd.. Consequently, their first product was the Zillion infrared toy gun. In the coming years they would release all of Sega's game machines, from the Master System to the Dreamcast. Their success in the gaming field was so notable that toys became a minor - eventually abandoned - part of their business.

With Tec Toy, Sega had a huge advantage over rival Nintendo in the Brazilian market; although there were countless Nintendo Entertainment System clones there, Nintendo had no official representatives until 1993. This way, the Master System was a massive success there, and Tec Toy even made some game versions not released anywhere else. During the 90s, Tec Toy had 80% of the official Brazilian market. It should be noted however that there were probably much more units of NES clones and pirated games for those systems.

Tec Toy translated several games to Portuguese, such as the first three Phantasy Star games (but not IV, which only had a fan-made translation in 2004 [1]), Shining in the Darkness, and Riven (which also had its voices dubbed).

They also modified some games to replace characters with local licenses; that way, Teddy Boy became Geraldinho, certain Wonder Boy titles became Monica's Gang games, and Ghost House somehow starred El Chapulín Colorado ("Chapolim Colorado").

More interestingly, they have made unique ports and even developed original games. Some of these are: Street Fighter II for the Master System, Duke Nukem 3D for the Mega Drive, and an original Woody Woodpecker game for the Mega Drive. More recently they released two Mega Drive titles based on Show do Milhão — a TV game show hosted by Silvio Santos in the same vein of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.

Even before the Dreamcast was discontinued and Sega withdrew from the console hardware business, Tec Toy realized that their long-time partner was failing, and decided to diversify. They now also sell karaoke devices, DVD players, and MP3 players. They also manage the Brazilian servers for Ragnarok Online. However, they still make older Sega consoles, especially variants of the Master System and the Mega Drive with dozens of built-in games.

Besides the videogames, Tec Toy's most successful toy was Pense Bem (Think Well): using books (themed history, geography, mathematics, etc.) with questions, the kids clicked the buttons with alternatives in a machine. The toy responded if it was right or wrong. Some Pense Bem books included famous characters like Monica's Gang, Sonic the Hedgehog, Dinosaurs and Donald Duck. Beside the books, Pense Bem had 10 built-in programs. Pense Bem-themed games are included in the new Super Mega Drive 3[2] and Master System 3 Collection.

Majesco Entertainment
Majesco Entertainment is a video game publisher founded in 1986. It first made a name as a reissuer of old titles that had been abandoned by their original publisher. By cutting the prices dramatically and, eventually, arranging the rights to self-manufacture games for both Nintendo and Sega systems, the company found a sustainable market niche.
Later, they arranged with Sega to manufacture a version of its Genesis (also known as Mega Drive) 16-bit console, which had been superseded by the 32-bit Saturn. They released this in 1998 as the Genesis 3, and followed up with a version of the hand-held Game Gear called the Game Gear Core System.
More recently, the company's focus shifted to in-house game development - initially under the brand of Pipe-Dream Interactive, since few believed they could make the transition successfully. Majesco now focuses on developing for newer systems, such as Nintendo's GameCube and Game Boy Advance, Microsoft's Xbox, and Sony's PlayStation 2. A few of their latest titles released, involving popular characters, included a few Bomberman titles for the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance.
The publisher has reached financial trouble lately with their major games, such as Psychonauts, which sold poorly despite achieving several awards and critical acclaim, and Advent Rising, which generated intense hype but was ultimately panned by critics for being released pre-maturely and without adequate bug testing. Their best selling titles in the last few years was their series of GBA Videos for the Game Boy Advance. They also recently published the game Jaws Unleashed.
In January 2006 the company's financial situation was so bad that it had to cancel two games it was going to publish: Demonik, developed by Terminal Reality, and Taxi Driver, a sequel to the movie. Majesco's President, Jesse Sutton, said that in the future the company would "focus primarily on publishing value and handheld video games". [1]
On September 14 2006, Majesco released Bloodrayne, Bloodrayne 2, and Advent Rising on Steam.

Bibliography

SEGABASE
WIKIPEDIA
TEC TOY OFFICIAL WEBSITE

[DaMadFiddler]

[APE]

Problem: Name sequelization for consoles sounds and looks stupid.

Antitode: Come up with something new and original! (something Sony can't do)

[Juan]

You'd be better off asking Tec Toy

[Quzar]

Problem: Name sequelization for consoles sounds and looks stupid.

Antitode: Come up with something new and original! (something Sony can't do)

By Dreamcast 2 he means a Dreamcast model 2, like the Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 or the PSOne/PSTwo.

[melancholy]

I was going to state the key problem to this petition, but you conveniently saved me the trouble by calling attention to it yourself:

Problem B
Sega & A<<laim had millions and millions of unsold carts, Us on the other hand don't have any GD's and the PreOwned ones are dying(scratches) GDs are not as durable as Carts.

Antitode
I am open to suggestions

What makes this petition even more ridiculous is that you suggest it 3 weeks before the next generation of consoles hit the market. We are at a point where in a matter of a few months Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 will be hard sells, and you want to suddenly resurrect a 4 year old system that has next to no commercial software available for it? I love the Dreamcast, but you are asking Sega to completely tank it's entire business with this petition.

The only way this would be a good idea is if they made it into a standalone system with built-in games, much like those retro Atari gaming controllers with the games built into the controller. But the cost of manufacturing would kill that idea instantly.

In short, you just wasted a lot of time writing that petition.

[mankrip]

I don't have any hope of this happening, but let's see what we can come up with, just for fun:

Including built-in games is a good idea. However, ROM chips and hard drives are too expensive for this. The best idea would probably be to use SD cards, and to include a built-in broadband adaptor in the console, which could be used to buy and download games into the SD card.

And then, the system could become cheaper to produce if it doesn't have a GD-ROM drive. The bad thing about this is that it would be impossible to play disc-based games in it, and I have no idea if it's possible to copy-protect a SD card.

[Hobbes T Tiger]

Sega could always sell ISO's online that were cut down to burn onto CD-R's or not cut down for multiple discs.

Or would it be at all reasonable to make the games donwloadable to be transferred directly to a console? I imagine that would depend on the size of your average DC game.

A stand alone unit is probably the only way this would work, and it would need a heck of a lot of internal memory to store in-built games. That could work out pricey. If it came with one of two games at a resonable price and a card slot and BBA then transferring games would be possible, but I still think the logistics of offering 100's of MB as a dload would be prohibitive to all but the most ardent fan and the memory costs would be high as well. (assuming games are 100MB+)

If Majesco/Tec Toy/whoever could sell this unit with say 3 in-built games and make money off it then perhaps they could also a download service so long as the licensing wouldn't bankrupt them. It would need to be so inexpensive to run that they wouldn't lose money if only the membership of this forum bought game images.

It might just be that it's too late. The Saturn unit might not have worked because of unavailability of discs. That's true of DC as well. Cartridges are a different story altogether. You can fit hundreds of images into a relatively small footprint.

[DaMadFiddler]

IIRC, Sega used to have a game download service in Japan, which let you play old Saturn games. Somebody hacked the program and extracted the emulator, which is apparently a pretty decent (though resource-intensive, and certainly illegal) Windows-based Saturn emu.

At this point, Sega (and any of their business partners) would be far more inclined to use a model like this on an existing infrastructure...something like Gametap, Xbox Live Arcade, or Wii Virtual Console. In fact, as storage capacity and ISP bandwidth grow with time, both of these are quite plausible.

New hardware, however, would make absolutely no sense for them.

[Calavera]

Sega has always been making there systems more compact and calling them part 2. They have done so with the Master System and of course with the Genesis as well.

Two times isn't always...

[cube_b3]

What makes this petition even more ridiculous is that you suggest it 3 weeks before the next generation of consoles hit the market. We are at a point where in a matter of a few months Gamecube, Xbox, and PS2 will be hard sells, and you want to suddenly resurrect a 4 year old system that has next to no commercial software available for it? I love the Dreamcast, but you are asking Sega to completely tank it's entire business with this petition.

The only way this would be a good idea is if they made it into a standalone system with built-in games, much like those retro Atari gaming controllers with the games built into the controller. But the cost of manufacturing would kill that idea instantly.

In short, you just wasted a lot of time writing that petition.

Genesis 3 came out in 1998 much after PS1,Saturn,N64 and the others had already been released infact Dreamcast was almost released.

I am fully aware that this has several problems that's why I am asking for everyone's initial input before really starting anything.

Calavera Wrote

Two times isn't always...

Considering Sega has only 4 Internationally recognized consoles it is.[32x and Sega CD do not count and neither do handhelds]

_______________

As for each person suggesting the built in game idea and broad band adapter this would make Dreamcast 2 far too costly to purchase. If it helps cut price I will go as far as saying don't even include the 56k modem.

My inspiration came from Treamcast, they take utilized existing Dreamcast Hardware fitted it into a smaller shell and attached an LCD screen.

Analyze this package; it's Compacted, Has an LCD, Car Adaptor, VCD/MP3, and Available in Grey, Black or White shell, plus Cost Efficient at the same time. Almost forgot one may also change the Main Led Green for 10$.

I'll bet if Treamcast was released Internationally it would've sold well but since it is in copyright violation I have heard that it is no longer in production in Hong Kong even(however this is another topic).

Now if Majesco or Suggested Company TecToy repeat the same procedure legally it may possibly work casual gamers may very well buy it for Nostalgia?s sake that's why Genesis 3 sold in the middle of the 32-Bit Era in fact Saturn was almost dead when Genesis 3 came out.

[APE]

Of course the 32x, segacd and handhelds don't count because they're counter to your arguement!

[DaMadFiddler]

Well, I think you've gotten your input. It would be nice for us, but it has one completely insurmountable flaw:

It would make no business sense for any company to manufacture this device.

Sega is out of the hardware business. The Genesis / MasterSystem devices-on-a-chip use dirt cheap components, require very little storage for their games, have wide appeal due to their past popularity in various markets, and thus have very high profit margins. A Dreamcast device would either require large amounts of storage for games, or would require Dreamcast media...which is legally complicated to re-publish, and which is relatively rare.

Messiah and others have succeeded (to a degree) with NES clones, because of how ecumenical the NES console was, and even with THAT fanbase, they are still very much niche markets. It's doubtful something like this would sell more than a few hundred units worldwide, which given the requirements of the project, would not come anywhere close to being worth the investment for any company, large or small.

You wanted feedback, and that's what you got. I know it wasn't what you were hoping for, but it is what it is. Take my advice, and don't waste your time on this. Like I said: nice idea, never going to happen. If you really want to play DC games again, your time would be better spent pushing for DC games on Xbox Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console.

[Hobbes T Tiger]

It's doubtful something like this would sell more than a few hundred units worldwide, which given the requirements of the project, would not come anywhere close to being worth the investment for any company, large or small.

I agree with this. The majority of people who would want to buy this already have a working DC or know how to get one very inexpensively. I wouldn't really support such a project because I really don't want one.

If you really want to play DC games again, your time would be better spent pushing for DC games on Xbox Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console.

This is also true. I really, really hope Sega release Saturn onto Virtual Console. I imagine that's possible and certainly easier than Dreamcast. I always wanted a Saturn but never had one. Even now it's costly to get a Saturn and games. Virtual Console (and the like) is the future of emulation.

[Sultan of Saturn]

I feel the Dreamcast love, but you have to check out Majesco's financial numbers. The splurge they made on Advent Rising and the poor sales of Phantom Dust and Psychonauts resulted in huge losses for them of which they still have not recovered. They are looking ahead and not behind. They were still able to make bank back then with the 16-bit systems as the price of games and software was kept affordable. Plus, it was a cartridge-based media. Piracey with disc media is crazy, and profits are made off of the software and not so much so with hardware. I had asked National Console Support concerning sales of Under Defeat and asked them how they were, and they said that the numbers were less than expected. As such, we haven't heard anything else about another Naomi arcade conversion. Even when the system was $50, people were passing it up for a $300 PS2.

If you want the Dreamcast to live on - keep playing the system, show it off to your friends, try importing something different, make and/or support the emulation community with new releases.

[Darksaviour69]

I had asked National Console Support concerning sales of Under Defeat and asked them how they were, and they said that the numbers were less than expected.

The regular edition of UD sold out and G.Rev made a second unplanned run of the game.

check out the poorly translated post

having said that it was a small run to start with and Under Defeat was hyped up to be the last dreamcast game

[not just souLLy now]

Sega should definitely give up making profit and go back to the days of nearly bankrupting themselves, that makes perfect buiness sense. Someone hire this man.

[Quzar]

Sega should definitely give up making profit and go back to the days of nearly bankrupting themselves, that makes perfect buiness sense. Someone hire this man.

He's already got a job, remember? Pirating Dreamcast games duh.

[cube_b3]

Of course the 32x, segacd and handhelds don't count because they're counter to your arguement!

No bease 32x and SegaCD where add-ons and Handhelds are not home consoles.

Quzar Wrote

He's already got a job, remember? Pirating Dreamcast games duh.

First of all Quzar I am Vehemently against piracy and do not support it, I am a proud owner of over 100 Dreamcast Orignal GD's. Second Piracy is legal in my country which does not mean I support it.

not just souLLy now Wrote:

Sega should definitely give up making profit and go back to the days of nearly bankrupting themselves, that makes perfect buiness sense. Someone hire this man.

I was fully aware the plan was not perfect therefore I asked for help, so we could it right. DaMadFiddler gave me his input and told me the problems which I understood.

So please do me a small favour try to lend a hand, show people what they are doing wrong so they don't do it instead of beeing an asshole.

Thank You

DaMadFiddler Wrote:

Well, I think you've gotten your input. It would be nice for us, but it has one completely insurmountable flaw:

It would make no business sense for any company to manufacture this device.

Sega is out of the hardware business. The Genesis / MasterSystem devices-on-a-chip use dirt cheap components, require very little storage for their games, have wide appeal due to their past popularity in various markets, and thus have very high profit margins. A Dreamcast device would either require large amounts of storage for games, or would require Dreamcast media...which is legally complicated to re-publish, and which is relatively rare.

Messiah and others have succeeded (to a degree) with NES clones, because of how ecumenical the NES console was, and even with THAT fanbase, they are still very much niche markets. It's doubtful something like this would sell more than a few hundred units worldwide, which given the requirements of the project, would not come anywhere close to being worth the investment for any company, large or small.

You wanted feedback, and that's what you got. I know it wasn't what you were hoping for, but it is what it is. Take my advice, and don't waste your time on this. Like I said: nice idea, never going to happen. If you really want to play DC games again, your time would be better spent pushing for DC games on Xbox Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console.

I Understand, The only way Dreamcast units would sell again is if they had built in games and that would be just to pricey therefore not a profitable venture.
I really appreciated your input.
Thank You

[mankrip]

If you really want to play DC games again, your time would be better spent pushing for DC games on Xbox Live Arcade and Wii Virtual Console.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Wii, the 360 or the PS3 have enough power to accurately emulate a Dreamcast.