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UnevenEdge

The American Dreamcast turned 20 today.


RainyDayJizz#35

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I can't remember if this was a simultaneous release in all regions, cause Sega would do something like that for 9/9/99, but damn. Kinda makes me wanna fire the thing up and play some Super Magnetic Neo or Crazy Taxi. After I found out the games were super easy to burn I got a boatload of them, cause they're impossible to find now. Could definitely go for some Die Hard Arcade too...

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i believe japan got it earlier but stil 9/9/99 was a very epic campaign. you cant say sega didnt go all out for this launch. they had adds all over magazines and on tv. they had kiosk set all over with demos of good games. and most important they had sonic for the fist time in years. i stil remember playing the sonic adventure demo for hours at the store. that launch lineup is still the best in my opinion.

 

a shame it failed cuz sega was probably at its best during this time. both as a console maker and a game developer. 

 

 

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It really did have so many amazing games, Sega was always just too far ahead of the curve I think. If you look at modern RPGs how many of them incorporate elements from Shenmue now? And Sega felt like the one company that let Treasure do whatever they wanted. Bangai-O is still one of my favorites. 

I was always one of those people holding out hope that maybe one day Sega will put out another console after making games for a while. Might still be, but gaming has changed so much I dont know if anyone could appreciate what they would bring to the table now. 

One thing is for certain, I'm damn glad i still have my Dreamcast.

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51 minutes ago, Ric said:

The Dreamcast didn't actually sell that bad, for example it sold better than the Wii U in the years it was on the market. But Sega was in the hole already after the Saturn/Sega CD/32X.

It really was a shame. They focused so much on being ahead of the competition they doomed themselves, I honestly can't  say whether I like Genesis or DC more. They were both what Sega is really capable of to me. And what outside developers loved about Sega was the freedom they had on the platform.

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25 minutes ago, GreatBallsOfJizz said:

 And what outside developers loved about Sega was the freedom they had on the platform.

You're kidding, right....Outside developers ran from that thing like ass AIDS....Not to mention their folly in not falling in line with EA like everyone else was doing (though I applaud their standing their ground on that)....But tenacity and integrity aside, they threw too much money into tech that it didn't need....Trying to capitalize on the broadband market when household internet was barely a thing...Much less, connection speeds that would even make such a thing fun.

But I digress....The sheer lack of outside development is definitely one of the top 3 reasons that thing had such an untimely death.

 

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Much as I liked the Sega Saturn, its lack of support and success in the US was a big reason the Dreamcast would eventually fail. Saturn did fine in Japan but Sega was in the hole from all the addons they made for the Genesis and the failing US market for the Saturn. 

Then the juggernaut, best selling game system of all time launched. The PS2 dominated and its inclusion of dvd player capabilities, which was done in house by Sony, had a big impact on Sega. They were having to buy parts from other companies and it just got too expensive to stay above water. Sega lost money on their systems, especially with the internet support, so they had to make sales from games. And that didn't happen. Sega couldn't handle the loss of profit like the comparatively giant Sony could and did. 

 

Sucks but I also honestly don't know many people that had the Dreamcast when it was still new. Everybody had the PS2. And a "cheap" DVD player made it appealing for parents to justify buying one for the house since it wasn't just for games. 

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8 hours ago, Sho Minamimoto said:

You're kidding, right....Outside developers ran from that thing like ass AIDS....Not to mention their folly in not falling in line with EA like everyone else was doing (though I applaud their standing their ground on that)....But tenacity and integrity aside, they threw too much money into tech that it didn't need....Trying to capitalize on the broadband market when household internet was barely a thing...Much less, connection speeds that would even make such a thing fun.

But I digress....The sheer lack of outside development is definitely one of the top 3 reasons that thing had such an untimely death.

 

Saturn, yeah. It had the same problem N64 did, way too difficult to make games for. But I was mostly referencing the creative freedom allowed, which is why most Treasure games are on it, and why SNK stuck with them almost as much as Neo-Geo. I'm thinking back to when it was the two names though, and Nintendo might still be a bitch to deal with... seems they've lightened up some though. Dreamcast was probably gonna win those 3rd parties back, but as we all know they were too far in the hole. 

Believe me, there are crazy games from known and unknown studios on DC, it has one of the best libraries of all the systems I've owned. Revisiting Bangai-O, the dialogue in that game seems like commentary on the entire business at times. I should check if it came out when it was clear Sega would fail because it seems to lament the evident 3-d transition creating a buzz of popularity when a lot of game makers are creating actual art. Did Cannon Spike come out on anything besides Dreamcast? I'm not sure. 

It's been a long time since I read about this but everything between Genesis and DC is what killed Sega. I love Sega and I know all that stuff was shit. Outside development couldn't have helped them at all, consumer confidence in them was too low to bring them back. 

And Gunstar outlined plenty of what happened too. Not sure what I reiterated since I'm just waiting to get out of work now.

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7 hours ago, GunStarHero said:

Much as I liked the Sega Saturn, its lack of support and success in the US was a big reason the Dreamcast would eventually fail. Saturn did fine in Japan but Sega was in the hole from all the addons they made for the Genesis and the failing US market for the Saturn. 

Then the juggernaut, best selling game system of all time launched. The PS2 dominated and its inclusion of dvd player capabilities, which was done in house by Sony, had a big impact on Sega. They were having to buy parts from other companies and it just got too expensive to stay above water. Sega lost money on their systems, especially with the internet support, so they had to make sales from games. And that didn't happen. Sega couldn't handle the loss of profit like the comparatively giant Sony could and did. 

 

Sucks but I also honestly don't know many people that had the Dreamcast when it was still new. Everybody had the PS2. And a "cheap" DVD player made it appealing for parents to justify buying one for the house since it wasn't just for games. 

Hmmm....I'm old and shit, but the OG PS didn't play DVDs?....Maybe it didn't, memory fails...I didn't have a PS until the PS2 came out and got one for cheap....I had a 64......Thing is, Dreamcast came out when I first went to ATL for college and even though I went to GA Tech, I had a bunch of homeboys from Morehouse, and those uppity negros had everything...Including Dreamcasts.  I played a lot of DC back then and felt poor when I went home to my 64.

WAIT....EDIT....It played CDs....It didn't play DVDs.

Edited by cyberbully
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the problem with saturn was the hardware was made for pushing 2d graphics instead of 3d. and sega realizing that the market was shifting towards 3d games, added another cpu onto the hardware which made it much more difficult to develop than any other same gen hardware. so 3d games across those 3 platforms always did worst on the saturn. but it still produced some really good results when the developers knew what they were doing. look at the panzer dragoon games or burning rangers for good 3d games on saturn. 

 

n64 was more or less badly engineered. on paper it was more powerful than both systems but in practice it was bottle necked at many points. and this is before even counting the limited space on carts. but still it could do things that the ps1 and saturn would struggle with. and vice versa, the ps1 had things that the n64 would have problems with as well. mainly things that required more detailed textures. 

 

the weird thing is that i think the ps2 was actually harder to develop for *could have been the ps3* than the ps1. and both the gamecube and dreamcast made an effort to make it easy to develop for. and they both succeeded in that aspect. 

 

but yeah it was known by the release of the gamecube and xbox that the dream had died. or was going to die soon. 

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