The Dreamcast, what happened?

The Playstation 2 (which had the cheapest DVD player at the time) and Piracy killed the Dream. I'm writing a piece on the history of the console, so if there's anything else, I'd love to know...

Good to see a forum like this. I like.

Sega made the same folly that Nintendo did back with the N64, and against the same competitor no less: they chose to use a dying format. Rather than go with DVD they went with CD which gave the PS2 a massive edge on the consumer market (you got a game console and a DVD player which back then was a huge deal). It also didn't help that Sega used a slightly modified Saturn analog controller for the Dreamcast's controller (only one analog stick, no built in rumble, and it had two fewer buttons than the Saturn controller and three less than the dual shock) and that the Dreamcast was the weakest system last gen (although its sound processing capabilities were better than the PS2's). Sega also didn't really think things through with the online play. The dreamcast came with a 56k dial-up modem and if you had broadband then you had to special order the broadband modem for an appalling $150 IIRC (which was completely stupid considering that your connection would be bottlenecked thanks to the fact that 99% of the people you would be playing against would be using dial-up). Of course, the DC was the only console for quite awhile with online play since the PS2's modem and Xbox Live didn't come out for awhile so that aspect didn't really hurt it. Another reason for the DC's failure was that the good games were hard to come by. Even though the DC managed to build up an impressive library of high quality games in its tragically short lifespan most of those games were produced in very limited qualities.

Finally, one of the biggest reasons the DC failed was because of the PS2 hype machine. A lot of people held off on buying the DC because they felt that the PS2 would be better and as a result the DC had to fight against an atmosphere of consumer hesitation and skepticism starting from launch.

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At the 2000 e3 the Dreamcast actually had a stronger showing that the ps2. I think what doomed the Dreamcast was its failure to adopt the DVD format. You can't really bump up texture quality to ps2 levels on a CD without having like 5 discs.

The Dreamcast certainly had its strong points though; Playing through Shenmue totally changed my outlook on games and I ended up buying an Xbox just so I could play Shenmue 2 without having to import it.

When the PS2,X-Box and GC came out, the DC didnt stand a chance on those three giants.

Sega didn't have the money to compete with Sony.

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Sega always had Atari Syndrome, they focused energy, time, and money on projects that undermined them, and ultimately bled money until they were on the verge of bankruptcy. For all the great games and marketing, they just never had any business sense.

PS2 hype kept many a person from checking out the DC. EA's lack of support didn't help either. In addition, Sega's historical mistakes didn't help. The 32X add on was a failure and the handling of the Saturn hurt perception of Sega's consoles.

the Sony lies kiiled the DCSpideR_CentS

sonys lies killed the dreamcast. even without sony segas always done poorly in sales markets,,

take n64 for example that had double the sales of the dc and saturn as well ,, so why is it that n64 out sold both a old competitor along with newer hardware,, hmm ring a bell same thing with genesis i dont know how good mastersystem as i didnt know much about sega at that time but what i knew of sega was a system that never sold , despite all segas lies, face it they claimed genesis does what nintendont in one of their ads, quite stupid if you ask me,, snes did more then what genesis does lol thats a mouth ful

dreamcast couldnt hold its own ,, with the ps2 already out selling it,, then the announcement of a gamecube and a 4th system to be on the market that killed sega so they quit who knows gc would have out sold dc actually it did , as did xbox , dcs 4 yrs on the market only pumped out 10 milli units world wide compared to gamecubes 4 yrs on the market 25 million world wide-the next console up in sales, so i doubt sega had anything left for nintendo after being flatten by ps2 ,, i dont blame them for leaving early starts never help ,, at least one not as early as dreamcast it was ahead of its time

barely any good titles meant the doomsday for sega , it only had 2 fpses thats the lowest amount of fpses since nes lol

I still use Dreamy loads, the problem was that Sega bottled out of the fight with the ps2 before it really even got started. Early DC games were easily ahead of the ps2 equivalent but Sega dint have the money or the faith in their own product to really take the fight to sony.

To this day i'll neva forget the first time i turned my shiney new DC on and sonic adventure came up, the quality of the colours and textures really were a sight to behold and the ps2 never did have that effect on me in all the years i had one.

well the system sold well in japan until the ps2 came out. the ps2 was able to play dvd's and that killed the dreamcast.

i don't care, i wanted to have the system since it was released and finally two days ago i have got an almost new dreamcast :D

peopel .....and oh yea sega had the worst people in charge of sega of americacrystos

True then he left and went over to MS (peter Moore) for those that dint know.

The economic failure that was the saturn spoiled many a consumers trust in SEGA, and in their next console.

The console is quite vulnerable to piracy and people took advantage of it.

The DVD player was a big bonus at the time, getting a new 300$ movie player with a new videogame system was a good bargain.

SEGA was broke man; STRAIGHT BROKE. Mainly from the money troubles brought on by the 32X, Sega CD and the Saturn.

Dreamcast has never died though, it still had games comin' out for it in Japan last year and you never know if another SHMUP or 2D fighter will come knockin' on the Dreamcast's doors.

A combination of many things happened, but Sony is mostly responsible for the the demise.

sony got owned by dreamcast scene, for those saying ps2 was a more powerful system, truth is, it wasnt, dreamcast had better performance and graphics. here check this out, and read the letter at the bottom download in pdf

http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/Main/OpenLetterToKazuoHirai

sony got owned by dreamcast scene, for those saying ps2 was a more powerful system, truth is, it wasnt, dreamcast had better performance and graphics. here check this out, and read the letter at the bottom download in pdf

http://www.dreamcast-scene.com/index.php/Main/OpenLetterToKazuoHirai

skulper34

This is interesting to say the least. Its kind of the reason I have games like Crazy Taxi for Dreamcast rather than PS2. I'd also argue that there was greater support for 60hz televisions and VGA graphics than on PS2.

Just to clarify something, the Dreamcast didn't use the CD-Rom as its storage medium. It used GD-Roms which had a storage capacity of 1.2 Gigabytes compared to 700 Megabytes with a CD-Rom.

Though this was much less than the 4.3 GB capacity of the standard DVD-ROM, which was in its infancy when the Dreamcast was being developed.

sega was the DCs worst enemy in the end. like ninty and the GC, they promoted and advertised ti very badly.

sega (unlike ninty) were also already in serious financial trouble at the time. they couldnt bring the DC to market all by themselves..they need to get MS and dreamworks involved.

it had some crackin games but, ultimately, sega messed up. the PS2 was a factor but, as we know, the industry is perfectly capable of supporting 3 consoles so there was room for the DC. sega just failed to get the market interested.

apparently there was also alot of problems with segas internal departments which cost them a fortune also. ti was all very messy.

Basically, the public bought into the hype that was the PS2. Sega, since it likes to shoot itself in the foot constantly, figured they couldn't run the race anymore despite the fact that plenty of people wanted the system to stick around.

I pesonally love my DC, even now. I still play alot of stuff and it's the system that I have the most games for by far.

I, like someone else in this thread, am doing a huge piece on why the DC failed. It's in my gaming newsletter, which is in my signature.

Rubes

I remember the Dreamcast was so bad that they dropped the price to like $75 and people still weren't buying it! The system was a joke. :P The PS2 was the real deal.nVidiaGaMer

[QUOTE="nVidiaGaMer"]I remember the Dreamcast was so bad that they dropped the price to like $75 and people still weren't buying it! The system was a joke. :P The PS2 was the real deal.codezer0

Dreamcast (SEGA overall) will never make a return in the console market. They will just continue to make games. If a company hasn't entered the console market now and stayed in it then it is too late for them to do so. There are and will be 3: Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft (it may be cut down to 2 dominent companies in the future).

Because it's was too awesome for the world to handle

Seriously...Developers hated sega because they ditched the saturn whilst developers were developing for the system,no ea games was a massive blow,no dvd player and the fact that the ps1 was a massive successor,so the hype for the ps2 was uber.

R.I.P Dreamcast...

The Ps2 had came out it had a better processing system ,and also it had a DVD player. So it was sad ,but in Japan mostly because of the DVD player the Dreamcast died ,and the ps2 took over.Mage_7

I remember the Dreamcast was so bad that they dropped the price to like $75 and people still weren't buying it! The system was a joke. :P The PS2 was the real deal.nVidiaGaMer

i hope you're joking...