20 Years 20 Days Since the Launch of the Dreamcast. What went wrong?

Dreamcast was screwed the moment it was birthed from it's mothers cyanide laced womb.

The Dreamcast was fine, it's pre-destined fate came from everything prior coupled everything incoming, namely Sony.

By this point Sony has completely and utterly owned them with the original Playstation launch. Segas lack of support, pricing, hardware and apathy towards the West had all contributed towards it's downfall.

The Dreamcast was Segas penance, the light at the end of the tunnel, the game was lost from the start but they played it anyway.

Did we have a related thread on the Dreamcast a few days ago that was locked because it was off-topic?

Obviously the poor add ons in previous gens cost them heavily financially. Ultimately how easy it was to pirate software was a huge factor.

I think it was just a combination of sega being on their last legs as a console maker (the DC had a troubled development with a lot of nasty internal politics going on as i understand it) and sony being just so utterly dominant.

i mentioned in another thread that where i am (in ireland) that the hype for the PS2 was huge and i suspect thats not unique to here.

the DC launch was practically a non event. the playstation brand was (and arguably still is over here) the go to console to play games on. if you bought a console then chances are you would got a playstation because why wouldn't you? you got a playstation and you play fifa on the playstation...thats what one does. what else would you play it on?

it's like google and search engines. who uses anything but google to look stuff up online (*cough* i do....*cough*...ahem)?

then there was the hype around the emotion engine and other leaks from sony that really just tempered any hype for the dreamcast.

at the time sony were just a juggernaut. it took sony messing up themselves (and you could argue some problems with the PS2 later in its life), and nintendo throwing a spanner in the works for many people over here anyway to even acknowledge that there are other consoles besides playstation.

Gamers bought into hype for the ps2. Very simple.

Also the controller kinda sucked.

But how much of that was a big factor. Was it that rampant? I remember pirated PS2 games too from that era but that didn't seem to have caused much issues with PS2 game sales.

The PS2 had a bigger user-base, in part thanks to people looking for DVD players, aside from the PS1 being widely established as top dog.

Piracy on the Dreamcast was far easier done.

I remember my mother refused to by one for my younger brother because she bought me a CDX, which was a scam and a flop. She refused to buy anything Sega after that

Truth: The Dreamcast had bad software.

Everyone keeps saying it had this amazing line up when that’s false.

When you look at the Dreamcasts line up, it had some sports games, fighting games weird niche Japanese games and ALL the games were “arcade ports”.

Seriously, most Dreamcast games were barebones and just ports of old arcade games. Sega was a lazy developer and they failed to evolve their games to modern 3D gaming.

They really only had a couple games that were actually modern and those were Sonic Adventure and Shenmue. Shenmue flopped in sales. Sonic adventure did okay but 1 game is not good enough.

I want you fanboys to quit the myth that the Dreamcast library was amazing. It wasn’t.

People bought the PS2 and to a much lesser extent GameCube/Xbox because all those companies managed to push gaming forward instead of making arcade games.

Gamers wanted new modern games and Sega didn’t provide that. PS2 did.

Sega, by the time of DC's release, had sabotaged consumer trust with numerous half-assed, relatively unsupported hardware iterations prior to its release, and also had garnered the aggravation of retailers with the surprise launch of the Saturn for which no forewarning was given, and of which came back to haunt them. There were many incompetent corporate decisions that preceded the release of the DC which worked against it, not helped by the behemoth Sony had in its pocket. The DC's software launch lineup was outstanding, and was not the reason for its failure. If anything, it lasted as long as it did due to it and didn't have the lifespan long enough to realize a more substantial software lineup.

The Dreamcast was a candle that burned twice as bright. I mourn that system to this day, it held such potential that unfortunately could not overcome the ineptness of the company that handled it. But for what it was worth, it was an amazing swan song to see the departure of Sega from the industry. They certainly could've done much worse.

Dreamcast was fine. The problem lies in the Sega CD and Sega 32X, and Saturn (US), they completely killed all american confidence in the system.

Dont forget that dreamcast games were in production in Japan for YEARS. It just failed in the West because of the company's history.

It definitely was not software. Dreamcast had a great library. Especially considering how little time it was on the market.

I believe it was a combination of Sega's past failures (CD, 32X, Saturn) and Microsoft releasing the Xbox. The market can only sustain three big competitors at a time. It was Atari, Nintendo and Sega until Playstation. Atari got booted out of the market because they were the weakest of the four: comparing Jaguar CD.

Then there was Playstation, Nintendo and Sega. When Microsoft joined the fray, Sega was the weakest due to the mindset people had from previous mistakes.

Ever since, it has been Playstation, Nintendo and Xbox. Nintendo was barely hanging on till Switch

Perhaps if they had the cable at the top rather than the bottom of the controller then things would have been different, who knows.

Unfortunately it was the PS2 that hurt it. Just wasn't given a chance.

WTF is wrong with you???

How much bullshit can one write, I present you this ^

Funny you say that the PS2 pushed gaming forward and now we have the PS4 which pushes gaming to the movies, oh and the PS2 had the most shovelware of any console except for maybe the Wii.

I'd rather play Sega's arcade games from the Dreamcast then touch anything Sony produces these days.

Are you serious? It's the Dreamcast 20th anniversary and you wanna complain about it? Who am i'm kidding, you don't even reply, forget I said anything.

@uninspiredcup:

DVD in America was cheaper in 2000 than a stand alone ps2 was,it was in Japan were DVD was a little more expensive.

The ps2 was the successor to the biggest console ever sold, so naturally many went with it.

He's always trying to act like a mod, watch out he's coming for your spot lol.

For me I remember everyone I knew had pirated dreamcast games. We were kids at the time it was so easy and cost effective. I regret it now thinking back I agree the ps obviously had a much larger install base plus the DVD player which played a huge part.

It had an awful controller.

@R4gn4r0k: it's the most comfortable controller I've ever owned... Fits my hands like a glove.

FYI - this is really a Retro board topic. In the future please post these there

I'd argue this and the Saturn controller are two of the best controllers made.

Gamespot would probably have more luck getting people to post outside System Wars if the forum itself was condensed. Many sections but many of them not terribly active. Perhaps back in 2000 that would make sense, but in it's currency capacity it's nonsensical.

@i_p_daily: While AJ defenitly wrote more, both your post contain almost the exact same amount of bullshit, congrats I guess on fitting your bullshit into less words I guess?

I thought I posted in here already. Anyway, it's easy to say that the hype for the PS2 killed it. The PS2 was announced around the time the Dreamcast was released. Not only were people used to the PS1 series and controllers, but the PS2 could play DVDs too. People were willing to wait for a new console rather than going with the Dreamcast. Perhaps if the Dreamcast was released a year earlier it would have done a lot better. Sega did a piss-poor job at advertising as well. Sega is what went wrong.

The Dreamcast was and still is my favorite Sega console back in 1999 at the turn of the century. At the time, the internet was free, not just through Sega but there was Netzero and a dozen other companies elbowing for space as internet providers that resulted in hundreds of free months of internet. Having the ability to play a game like PSO online, with my friends on any given night just made the console amazing. It was the connectivity that drove my love for it. That and at the time it had Shenmue, which was so amazingly immersive for it’s era that I spent countless hours roaming about town, playing arcade games, drinking fizzy sodas that made Ryo’s nose tingle and collecting little capsule toys just because I could. But the matter is, I got the Dreamcast for Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi. Dreamcast was the right console at the right time, the marketplace and consumers just didn’t sync with the “dream” of the Dreamcast.

What really brought Dreamcast down was Sony's PS2. Sega were up against PS1/PS2, some of the most phenomenally popular and successful consoles of all time. The N64 was also well received. PS2 had the upper-hand due to it's build-in DVD drive cause DVD at the time was still new to the world and Dreamcast didn't have that kind of feature cause DVD were a big deal. Sega also tried to undercut the price on PS2, which robbed them of their potential profits and people forget that Sega became a laughing stock back in the day. By the time 95-96 rolled around, they had already lost all their goodwill with most of their customers base and never recovered even though I gave them more chances then they earned from me. They kept bringing out new platforms and quickly dumping them, treating their customers as if they had money to burn.

Even if there weren't part supply issues for the Dreamcast, I don't think the potential few hundred thousand units they might have sold would have kept the Dreamcast afloat. Maybe just delay the end for a little while longer. But after reading through all the posts in the thread, here is a list of the issues.

1. Sega lost faith with consumers with 3 failed "consoles" in a row; Sega 32x, Sega CD, and the Sega Saturn.

2. Mismanagement- Sega of America was very successful in marketing the Genesis in America and they had complete control over decisions made in the American market, Sega America was so successful that Sega Japan got jealous and took control away from Sega America. This lead to the disastrous Sega 32X launch and Sega CD; which Sega America knew was a bad idea and tried to tell Sega Japan not to release those add ons. Sega America even warned Sega Japan not to launch the Saturn as a surprise launch, but they did anyway and that hurt relations with retailers for Sega. There's a few documentaries on this if you want to go deeper.

3. DVD- PS2 had a DVD player which not only had more space for games, it was enticing to consumers as it would be a majority of people's first DVD player in their home.

4. Hype- The PS2 hype was real and hard to overcome.

In the end I think if SEGA AMERICA had more control over the American market it might have been different for the Dreamcast. I think Sega America would have axed the Sega 32x and maybe the Sega CD and would have focused on Genesis until the Saturn Launch. Then they would have given the Saturn a hard release date to build up the hype for Saturn. Without having to focus on 32x and CD Sega could have used those additional resources, time, and money to the Saturn, and it could have been better; thus solving the problem of the 3 "failed" systems before the Dreamcast.

But oh well. Who knows.

Never thought I would see a company get jealous on it's own brand just because someone is doing the work for you but only better. Sega Genesis was a huge thing here in America cause Sega of America was hyping that console from left to right in terms of ads on TV with Sonic being fun then Mario, but yeah, which I stated above, they lost good faith in customers by launch more and more products and some of us didn't see that coming. It's too bad Sega of Japan could have learned their lesson when they launch Dreamcast.

As people have mentioned, I think it boils down to 3 things:

• Sega hurt their image with the simultaneous launch of the Saturn and Genesis add-ons due to poor communication between the US and Japan offices.
• The copy protection was easily bypassed on the DC. To be fair this is also the reason the DC continues to have a home brew scene today.
• The PS2 was cheap and could play DVDs.

They could have sold couple of hundred thousand more according to Sega in Japan if it weren't' for NEC not being able to provide PowerVR 2 GPU for it's initial launch. But other than that it's North America sales were pretty good. It actually had a much, much better lineup than the launch of the PS2. It had games like the stellar Soul Calibur with it's awesome graphics and game play, NFL2K (which was great) and many other tittles. It also had a descent GPU. Some people think that choosing the Voodoo 2 over the PowerVR 2 was what caused the Dreamcast to fail. But Voodoo 2 lacked 32-bit graphics and it didn't had 2D graphics support you would have to get another chipset for 2D graphics, which would have increased the cost of the Dreamcast in my opinion. While the PowerVR 2 had 32 bit graphics (making games look more vibrant and more colorful vs Voodoo 2's 16-bit graphics) and it had support for 2D which made it ideal fit for Dreamcast's $199.0 launch price tag. Sure the PowerVR 2 wasn't going to beat the nVidia's TNT2 or ATI (now AMD's) the original Rage Fury back in 1999 but PowerVR 2 held it's own for the time it was released (originally in 1998).

Aside form the the graphics, it had pretty stellar lineup. It had 18 different launch lineup including Sould Calibur as mentioned, but also other such as House of the Dead 2. While PS2 had a piss poor lineup.

Actually, DC games were pushing way more polygons than PC games at the time. This was partly due to the PowerVR CLX2's highly efficient tiled rendering architecture, which eliminated overdraw and enabled a higher effective fillrate. But the bigger reason was the Hitachi SH4 CPU, which was a powerful geometry processor for its time. It was the SH4+CLX2 combo that made the Dreamcast a polygon powerhouse for its time.

It's worth noting that the DC's arcade counterpart, the Sega Naomi, cost nearly $2000. And yet the DC only sold for $200. In other words, Sega was selling the hardware at a loss. They were hoping to offset the hardware loss with software profit, hence why they put so much effort into creating a stellar software lineup. But unfortunately, Sega failed to sell enough software to offset the hardware loss, for whatever reasons.

@vfighter: having another whinge I see.

Sony threw licenses out to every Tom, Dick & Harry back in the day, and yes the PS2 had good games but also had a whole lot of sholvelware so that part is actually correct.

Secondly Sony is moving games towards movies, go to YouTube and look at the videos for all of Sony First party games and you will see that they go for 6hrs minimum, it's supposed to be a game you play not something you watch.

No go cry elsewhere vwhiner.

I don't know what Sega was smoking. EA was big even in the 90s.

Yes, Sony was smart to put a DVD player with the PS2. Kind of like it was a good idea to put a Blu-ray Player on the PS3. One of the reasons I got it over the Xbox 360 even though I am a PC Gamer. Yes, it struggled initially against the Xbox 360 (partly due to the great games it had and the X360 being easier to develop for) but eventually in it's life cycle it caught up the Xbox 360. Some of it can be attributed to the fact that it had a Blu-ray player.

It's initial launch line up was good compared to the garbage line up of the PS2. Yes, I agree that there were many arcade ports on the Dreamcast (ie: House of the Dead 2). But compared to previous generation Sega did a much better job. Over the long run obviously the PS2 produced better games merely due to the fact that game play changed over time going into the mid-2000's and Dreamcast was obviously not around by then. So, not a surprise there. I would hardly call Dreamcast games garbage.

I think this is true. Sega lost over like half a billion in the Saturn era. No way they could sustain that. Microsoft apparently lost 1 billion on the original Xbox. They could afford to lose that much because they got deep pockets from the sales of their software. You need deep pockets to enter into the console business due to how cut throat it is with success depending on various factors, such as games, hardware, marketing, etc.

In the long run I don't think Sega could sustain themselves. So pulling out of the console market seemed like the right decision. Too many mistakes over a decade (primarily in the Saturn era) was what cost them.

On a side note, it's good for game developers. Can you imagine trying to make games for 4 different consoles on top of a PC release? :P Developers might had to pull their hair out meeting deadlines for launches.

Still trying to figure out why the Dreamcast is so loved by people yet not many people owned one. Seems like some nostalgic niche group. Sega lost the battle. To a point Nintendo helped them lose. The Dreamcast was the bottom feeder of Generation 6. Sega messed up 3 gens in a row & they were doing so well during Gen 4.

@davillain-: It was basically company civil war, and it's sad. I really feel if Sega America was left with control of those big decisions in the American Market the console landscape may have been different today. I still think the Dreamcast may have been the last Sega Console but I think it would have lasted a lot longer and we would have had a 4 console generation for a lot longer.

Because it was the first time we were able to get ARCADE quality graphics and game play in the home. Before consoles could get close, but the arcade games always looked better. The Dreamcast changed this, basically because the dreamcast was a mini arcade cabinet.

I still play Hydro Thunder on my Dreamcast, it's a near perfect port. If you don't like arcade games then yeah the Dreamcast is not for you.

@Star67: Hell a lot of the arcade ports on the Dreamcast SURPASED their arcade counterparts. Sould Caliber looked WAY better on the Dreamcast, with a ton of extras thrown in.

@vfighter: Exactly!

People need to remember that the Dreamcast came out before the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. When you went to the store to play the demos or if you or your friend had one, it was the first time seeing games look like arcade games or better in your home.

When I first played I Dreamcast I was blown away. It made my PS1 games look dated and clunky.

Awesome console!!! But hacked too early, too easy to remain profitable!!!

It's such a shame, because it's one of the best console ever created!!! One of my fav too.

Still have two with more than 149 games.

Corrections:

1. The Sega CD was a commercial success in the early '90s. It was the best-selling CD console outside of Japan at the time. It wasn't until the 32X failure in the mid-90s that there was backlash against the SCD. While it did have a lot of FMV shovelware, it also had plenty of quality classics, e.g. Sonic CD, Lunar 1-2, Snatcher, Final Fight CD, etc.

2. The 32X was almost entirely Sega of America's fault. Sega of Japan had almost nothing to do with that. In fact, SOJ outright rejected the 32X, and didn't even bother releasing it in Japan until after the Saturn launched. It was SOA that wanted the 32X so badly, not SOJ. This whole "blame Sega of Japan" revisionism is mainly being pushed by Tom Kalinske, popularized by his book Console Wars. While it's an interesting book, it's historically inaccurate in a lot of ways and heavily biased towards SOA and against SOJ, because of Kalinske's "disgruntled employee" complex and his refusal to acknowledge his own failures.

3. True.

4. True.

P.S. I don't think the result would've turned out much different (or possible even worse) if SOA had more control. Without SOJ holding them back, SOA would've just went all-out with the 32X, which would've only ended up making things worse. It was also Kalinske's idea to push the date of the Saturn all the way forward to May '95, much earlier than what SOJ were suggesting. SOA's marketing campaign for the Saturn was also terrible, compared to SOJ's masterful Segata Sanshiro marketing campaign which helped make the Saturn a success in Japan. If SOA had more control, the Saturn would've likely still failed in America either way.

While the SOJ vs. SOA conflict certainly contributed to Sega's downfall, the reality is that it was ultimately Sony that destroyed Sega. There just wasn't much Sega could do against Sony's powerful PR machine. While Sony is now a shadow of its former self, Sony was a juggernaut in the '90s, when it was the world's biggest tech brand, the Apple of that era. Sony was flush with cash, which it spent effectively on R&D, marketing, PR, studio buyouts, and third-party deals, while also selling cheaper because it got enough cash to absorb hardware losses. Whether Sega screwed-up with the Saturn, or got almost everything right with the Dreamcast, it was still the same story twice over: Sega just couldn't compete with Sony's powerful corporate machine.

MirkoS77 thinks that Coolyfett needs to start talking in third person again. Coolyfett was always unique because of it.

Depends on region Sega was big in the UK.

I remember going into EBs once to buy Shenmue 2 and a customer was being told by the customer service kid not to get their son the Dreamcast he wanted because next year the PS2 will release and it will be better. He didn't know a thing about PS2 but he was fanboy enough to tell people not to buy Dreamcast and that kind of schoolyard fanboyism, I believe was a big contribution to the downfall of one of the best consoles iv owned. PS fanboys, money and piracy all those things went wrong with the Dreamcast.

@Jag85: I get some of your points but maybe there is some misinformation out there coming from both sides.

Sega of Japan approached Sega of America about making a new genesis console, Project Mars, but Sega of America wanted it to be an add on instead of a new stand alone console.

I don't know what's true with this situation, I think there was some in fighting and jealously for sure between the two Sega's. Either way, they had multiple projects going on at the same time for a new system and it was a waste of resources for sure. They needed to put all energy into the Saturn and they didn't.

And the Sega CD was bad, and Sonic CD is a bit over rated.

@Jag85: I wonder if Sega had DVD build into the Dremacast, it would have lived much longer and PS2 was all about DVD cause moving away from VHS was a huge leap in that regards.

Oh and between the relationship between SOJ & SOA, I only read various gaming magazines discussing that and that information at the time could be misinform.

Most of the information and misinformation about the conflict is almost entirely coming from one side, former disgruntled SOA employees. We haven't heard anything from SOJ, or its former employees, about their conflict with SOA.

While the conflict between SOJ and SOA gets a lot of attention, there's another more important internal conflict that often gets overlooked: the conflict within SOJ itself, between its arcade and console divisions.

In the early '90s, Yu Suzuki's Sega AM2 arcade division was pushing the boundaries of 3D gaming, with cutting-edge hardware like the Sega Model arcade systems and smash hits like Virtua Racing, Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA, Virtua Cop, etc. AM2's pioneering efforts led to a rapidly growing 3D gaming market in arcades. And yet AM2 had no involvement in the Saturn's development. Sega's console division believed the console market wasn't ready yet for 3D gaming, and wanted to focus on 2D gaming instead (this was true for both SOJ and SOA). Almost like they were oblivious to Sega AM2's huge success with 3D gaming in arcades.

Ironically, the Sony guys who created the PS1 were big fans of Virtua Fighter, which inspired them to develop the PS1 with 3D-focused hardware, taking cues from the Sega Model 1 & 2 arcade hardware. Sony was just bringing to the console market what Sega AM2 was already doing in arcades. It was only after Sega caught word of Sony's plans that Sega finally made last-minute changes to the Saturn with additional chips to boost the 3D graphics, which just ended up making the hardware too complex for third-party devs and too expensive for consumers.

This is where I think Sega's biggest blunder was. If they got Yu Suzuki and Sega AM2, the masters of '90s arcade tech, involved in the Saturn's development, then that could've saved the Saturn. It was only after the Saturn failed that Sega's console division went back to the drawing board, and finally got Suzuki and AM2 on board to help develop the Dreamcast (with the same hardware architecture as the Sega Naomi arcade system). But by then, it was too late. If they had done that earlier with the Saturn, then that could've saved Sega. In other words, SOJ do deserve much of the blame for the Saturn's failure, but not for the way they treated SOA (which likely wouldn't have done any better), but rather for the way they treated Yu Suzuki and Sega AM2.

P.S. Sega CD was a good console with a solid software library, including classics like Sonic CD (which is underrated, not overrated), Final Fight CD, Lunar 1 & 2, Snatcher, Shining Force CD, Popful Mail, Exile, Flashback, Monkey Island, Eye of the Beholder, Robo Aleste, Lethal Enforcers, etc. If you just ignore the FMV shovelware, then you'd realize the Sega CD has a quality software library with plenty of gems. The SCD is nothing at all like the 32X, which is a genuinely bad console. The SCD is a genuinely good, underrated console.

@davillain-: Sony was one of the owners of the DVD format. I'm pretty sure that would mean Sega would've had to license it from Sony and paid them royalties on every DVD. Even if that wasn't an issue, DVD players were very expensive in the late '90s. The Dreamcast would've ended up becoming expensive if it had a DVD player.

poor hardware.

Well put it was Segas last "good bye" to it's fans after all their previous bungles.

Yes, the politics was indeed very nasty. The American team that was using the Voodoo 2 chip for the Dreamcast, a lot of the team members, practically walked out the moment it was decided that they would go with Sega's Japan team that used the PowerVR 2 chip. In all my years of following console development and GPU development, never had I heard of a two different teams working on the same product with respect to getting the same outcome (new console) in this case. Who does that? That's a tremendous waste of resources. Can you imagine being an engineer working on a project for a product that you think will come out in the market only to be thrown under the bus to a different team. Waste of money and shows the tremendous incompetence of Sega. It seems like there was a tug of war between Sega America and Sega Japan instead of one central goal that everyone works towards.

I am not going to deny that DC games looked even better than some PC games. Which was one of the reasons I found it impressive being a PC gamer. Yes, the PowerVR titled architecture is very efficient. But it was still slower than high end PC GPU's like the TNT2 Ultra at the time shows as the review of the Neon 250 (which was the desktop version of the PowerVR 2 chip used in the Dreamcast) below shows.

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/neon250#comments

Also, the use of titled rendering had its draw backs such as blurrier images in far distances.

With respect to the Sega Naomi, it would cost a lot more. You have to consider the cost of the monitor, everything inside, and if it's a racing title you would have to include steering wheel, pedals, or if it's a shooter arcade game (guns) and it's tracking function when shooting.

I am not a surprise that it would be selling at a loss. The desktop version of the GPU was going for like at least $130 - $150 alone. Consoles typically sell at a loss in it's beginning cycle. Bad thing for Sega was as you mentioned they didn't sell enough software and it didn't have scale of sales to make up for the console losses.

The Dreamcast's polygon-processing was faster than high-end PCs upon release. The most intensive PC game of '99, Quake III Arena, went up 10,000 polygons per scene. Dead or Alive 2 on the Dreamcast went up to 70,000 polygons per scene, almost an order of magnitude greater than Quake III. In terms of raw polygon performance, the DC was unrivalled upon release.

The Neon 250 only represents a fraction of the Dreamcast's power. It was heavily downgraded compared to the Dreamcast's PVR CLX2, significantly reducing its tiled-rendering capabilities. The Neon 250 was essentially a low-end GPU in the PVR2 series. And more importantly, the PVR2 was designed around the Dreamcast's Hitachi SH-4 CPU, the real source of the DC's power. The SH-4 was pushing 1.4 GFLOPS of 3D geometry computation, which was unrivalled by PCs up until the PIII 800 and GF256. It's the SH4+PVR2 combo that made the DC a polygon powerhouse, not the PVR2 alone.

Tiled rendering has no real limitation on draw distance. The only real limitation it has is when it comes to translucency effects. That's where the DC's fillrate takes a hit. But when dealing with just opague polygons, the DC has a very high effective fillrate for its time (equivalent to well over 1 GPixels/s).

The Sega Naomi base arcade hardware cost $2,000, without any peripherals. And even that $2,000 was considered low by arcade standards, compared to the Sega Model 3 which cost far more. Its CPU and GPU appear to be slightly faster than the DC versions. But much of the cost went towards the memory. It has much more RAM than the DC. And it stores games on solid-state ROM memory for fast access times, rather than discs. Either way, the DC was definitely sold at a significant loss margin. The manufacturing cost of each DC must've been much higher than what it sold for at retail.

Quake III had to be downgraded for the Dreamcast, PC version looked better with loaded significantly faster loadtimes and frame-rate, overall a superior experience.

Although for a PC-to-Console port, it was still very good, as back then even porting a competent Doom was hard.