What went wrong with the Dreamcast?

wow you are so full of it. do you even know dreamcast had the most succesful launch ever of any console up to that point? dreamcast was hot property. it was talk of the town in 99 and 2000 until ps2 was coming. it wasn't destined to fail at all except when you knew sega could never pay for it for multiple years the sega cd was very succesful up until the senate hearings. it was not seen as a failure at all until years later by people who didn't know aout it. the 32x was a failure. and other sega stuff was so amll nobody knew about it. nintendo didn't just lose everythign when they released teh failure of the virtual boy either :roll: bultje112

The Dreamcast had everything going for it at the time, from its 128-bit arcade-quality graphics (the first for a home system) and its revolutionary online console gaming service (which the Xbox later imitated) to its vast game library (which in the two years of its existence easily rivals what the Xbox and GameCube produced in their entire lifespans) and record-breaking sales. In the two years of its existence, the Dreamcast was a success, but it was Sega's lack of confidence against Sony that led them to pull the plug, not to mention that they did not have the financial means to do so. If the Dreamcast had failed, it could have led to bankrupcy, so exiting the console business was the safer option for Sega.

In my view, Segas marketing for Europe was totally wrong.I don't know whether the situation was similar in other countries, In my experience the Dreamcast wasn't well known in Germany.If I remember me correctly there were no TV commercials and I don't remember have to seen any Sega Dreamcast products in video game stores and shopping centres, so nobody really knew what the name Dreamcast was represented for.

Stefan91x

Elsewhere in Europe, however, Sega was an established brand since the 8-bit era and the Dreamcast was heavily promoted, especially through football (i.e. soccer to Americans). In the UK, the popular football club Arsenal wore the Dreamcast logo on their shirts, and continued doing so even after the Dreamcast's demise, for quite a while. Likewise, several football clubs in France, Spain and Italy also promoted the Dreamcast. The console received plenty of promotion in Europe.

In my view, Segas marketing for Europe was totally wrong.I don't know whether the situation was similar in other countries, In my experience the Dreamcast wasn't well known in Germany.If I remember me correctly there were no TV commercials and I don't remember have to seen any Sega Dreamcast products in video game stores and shopping centres, so nobody really knew what the name Dreamcast was represented for.

Stefan91x

I've been in many places in europas. at leats I know in netherlands, uk and south europe dreamcast had lots of hype and was very popular. especially in the uk. I never forget people who were literally fighting over copies of virtua tennis when released in shops.

I find the Dreamcast library to be so limited that I can barely find any games to justify owning it. PS2, on the other hand ...

CLOUDsea

then you have no idea about the dreamcast library. or you hate fighters, racinggames and arcade games

Not so great management, fans losing trust in Sega over the horrible 32X and Sega CD, piracy (the console didn't even have to be modded to play burnt games), not having support by a couple third party companies, and of course the Ps2 hype train ran over it.

its kind of a shame, cause those VMU's are still considered one of the best console memory units around.

its kind of a shame, cause those VMU's are still considered one of the best console memory units around.

Allicrombie

[QUOTE="Allicrombie"]

its kind of a shame, cause those VMU's are still considered one of the best console memory units around.

travisstaggs

It's cool looking, but most developers failed to really take advantage of it. I imagined being able to take the thing with you and play simple games like Tetris (or I guess Columns since it's Sega), Snake, or Video Poker on it. But I don't have a game yet that allows anything like that.

[QUOTE="travisstaggs"][QUOTE="Allicrombie"]

its kind of a shame, cause those VMU's are still considered one of the best console memory units around.

Emerald_Warrior

It's cool looking, but most developers failed to really take advantage of it. I imagined being able to take the thing with you and play simple games like Tetris (or I guess Columns since it's Sega), Snake, or Video Poker on it. But I don't have a game yet that allows anything like that.

[QUOTE="CLOUDsea"]

I find the Dreamcast library to be so limited that I can barely find any games to justify owning it. PS2, on the other hand ...

bultje112

then you have no idea about the dreamcast library. or you hate fighters, racinggames and arcade games

There you go.

There you go.

Dreamcast library would have to be one of the highest average ratings in history, wouldn't it?

andmcq

There you go.

Dreamcast library would have to be one of the highest average ratings in history, wouldn't it?

I own 115 games for my dreamcast and I would have a hard time to name 5 games that aren't at leats a 6

We could blame EA for not supporting it, SEGA for rushing and dropping Saturn, or Sony for PS2 and adding DVD players. But ultimately it was us, the gamers. We caused the demise of the amazing DreamCast and it's about time we admit it.

exactly!

The discs are CD-R with no security. You can download an ISO and burn it onto a disc without playing (which is illegal). Piracy killed the Dreamcast.NiKva

It's not quite that easy, but pretty close. You do have to have a boot disc.

[QUOTE="NiKva"]The discs are CD-R with no security. You can download an ISO and burn it onto a disc without playing (which is illegal). Piracy killed the Dreamcast.Emerald_Warrior

It's not quite that easy, but pretty close. You do have to have a boot disc.

[QUOTE="NiKva"]The discs are CD-R with no security. You can download an ISO and burn it onto a disc without playing (which is illegal). Piracy killed the Dreamcast.Emerald_Warrior

It's not quite that easy, but pretty close. You do have to have a boot disc.

1. SEGA didn't have consumer trust because of failures like SEGA CD, Game Gear, SEGA 32X, Saturn, Nomad, etc 2. SEGA couldn't secure major third party support, especially from companies like EA and Square 3. SEGA didn't have enough money to turn the tide when things started going south, couldn't compete with Sony's hype for PS2 4. Dreamcast used GD-ROM, a variant of CD-ROM, instead of DVD. This had three major negative effects: no movie playback like PS2 and Xbox had, much smaller storage capacity, and extremely easy piracy. 5. The Dreamcast was the least powerful system of the generation and it launched at a time when N64 and PS1 were at their heights (1998-1999), leading to a lot of confusion about who the system was competing with. 6. Lack of a second analog stick and lower system power made it impractical to stay alive by getting downscaled PS2 portsfamicommander

this was really nicely put, good job. I just want to add the abysmal controller and lackluster idea of the pocket thing they had I forgot the actual name sorry.

[QUOTE="famicommander"]1. SEGA didn't have consumer trust because of failures like SEGA CD, Game Gear, SEGA 32X, Saturn, Nomad, etc 2. SEGA couldn't secure major third party support, especially from companies like EA and Square 3. SEGA didn't have enough money to turn the tide when things started going south, couldn't compete with Sony's hype for PS2 4. Dreamcast used GD-ROM, a variant of CD-ROM, instead of DVD. This had three major negative effects: no movie playback like PS2 and Xbox had, much smaller storage capacity, and extremely easy piracy. 5. The Dreamcast was the least powerful system of the generation and it launched at a time when N64 and PS1 were at their heights (1998-1999), leading to a lot of confusion about who the system was competing with. 6. Lack of a second analog stick and lower system power made it impractical to stay alive by getting downscaled PS2 portsaccesdenied

this was really nicely put, good job. I just want to add the abysmal controller and lackluster idea of the pocket thing they had I forgot the actual name sorry.

It's very simpleand cain be summed down to thse main reasons:

1. Segas scary mind set of focusing on hardwaremore than software. Since the Genesis, they had this thing with trying to update or make an impressive hardware experience without focusing on software, and the difficulty or interest it had on developers. 32x?, CD? Saturn? Dreamcast? They were not thinking of developing in mind with those systems, they were thinking about hardware.

2. Setting the Dreamcast up for the internet was a tad inconvenient.

3. Lack of genre focus. they were focusing more on acion/arcade type games. Even in Japan, there wasn't really a focus on promoting, however, reasons 1 hit this to.

4.CDs messed up space issues, and all other consoles had more space.

5. The fact that it was easy to pirate games because of reason 4.

6. A lot of production costs went into the controller instead of the console or hardware.

7. Instead of spreading out game promoting, or trying to make equal budget games, they used panic tactics and though few games with bigger budgets would make up in software sales to help with further development. Things like Shenmue for instance.

8. The Ps2 had some effect, but it is not even 40% of the reason for the dreamcasts downfall, as software and console promoting where not really there at all and many didn't even know the system existed when it came out. (like the TG16, except the TG has longer life, and was released in more areas.) But it did help.

9. Sega not even trying to get exclusive deals or trying to expand its own developers or development. mostly for reason number 1.


There you go.NewJakandsig

Inferior hardware, other consoles being hyped more (PS2, Gamecube), possibly the easiest piracy known, a bad controller, SEGA not having much hope for it and the fans. Therefore, SEGA went bankrupt.

Inferior hardware, other consoles being hyped more (PS2, Gamecube), possibly the easiest piracy known, a bad controller, SEGA not having much hope for it and the fans. Therefore, SEGA went bankrupt.

XxOskarxXTBXx51

stopped reading right there

[QUOTE="XxOskarxXTBXx51"]

Inferior hardware, other consoles being hyped more (PS2, Gamecube), possibly the easiest piracy known, a bad controller, SEGA not having much hope for it and the fans. Therefore, SEGA went bankrupt.

bultje112

stopped reading right there

[QUOTE="bultje112"]

[QUOTE="XxOskarxXTBXx51"]

Inferior hardware, other consoles being hyped more (PS2, Gamecube), possibly the easiest piracy known, a bad controller, SEGA not having much hope for it and the fans. Therefore, SEGA went bankrupt.

Darkman2007

stopped reading right there

[QUOTE="Darkman2007"][QUOTE="bultje112"]

stopped reading right there

XxOskarxXTBXx51

Ultimately, it was the PlayStation 2 announcement and hype that killed the system - though games from EA and Square along with DVD instead of GD-Rom capabilities would have been a major help. The thing is there was quit a lot of other 3rd party support, especially from Capcom, Konami and SNK. Here's a list of games released along with designers/publishers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dreamcast_games plenty of which were not SEGA.

Inferior hardware, other consoles being hyped more (PS2, Gamecube), possibly the easiest piracy known, a bad controller, SEGA not having much hope for it and the fans. Therefore, SEGA went bankrupt.

XxOskarxXTBXx51

The story about the Dreamcast's Failure starts off with Sega spamming new consoles and new releases such as the Sega 32 X, Sega Saturn, and Sega CD. Fans started not trusting Sega because they thought only about a couple of months after the Dreamcast gets released, there will be a new Sega system, so a lot of fans went down on Sega, also, because of a popular sports franchise agreeing not to work for Sega anymore because of all the stuff they keep on doing to their fans. When the Dreamcast released, a lot of more people bought the Dreamcast than expected, the rumor was that it would beat the PS2 even though that releases after two years of the Dreamcast. That makes the Dreamcast dead within two years. How did this happen? The Sony Playstation 2 was released two years after, and then the life and success of the Dreamcast was dying very early. But then, about a month before December, it was said that the Playstation 2 was not going to sell as much units as expected. So Sega, went in and thought that it was finally their chance of coming back up hill. But unfortunately, still nobody bought the Dreamcast, so Sega made crazy ideas like "If you sign up for Sega Net you get a free Dreamcast!" That didn't even work, so sadly, Sega's final system died terribly after the release of the Playstation 2. Although, I think that the Sega Dreamcast is actually better than the PS2.LetsGoPros

My Dreamcast is incredibly slow (l-l-l-l-l-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooad-d-d-dd-iiing) and it's in good condition.

The Dreamcast is the slowest invention ever.XxOskarxXTBXx51

People really need to stop putting the Sega CD on their lists. Also, I am pretty sure despite strong sales in certain areas, it was barely known. I think it's more known withing the last few years then when it came out.Containmomentum