/vr/ - Retro Games

>>2481586
for the 16263729292836373 time, the Dreamcast didn't kill Sega

>>2481586
The Dreamcast sold well enough that it would have survived as a niche console in the market, just like the Gamecube and Xbox. I believe I read that the Dreamcast's launch was the most successful console launch in history at the time.

The real problem was that Sega was already in financial trouble. At that point even if they had put a DVD drive in it and it sold a bit better, Sega still would have faced going out of business if they continued to sell the Dreamcast.

>>2481592
Never said that it did. The ps2 did. However, if the DC had DVD support it may have been a more powerful contender.

>>2481586
The dreamcast was already dead.
It died in 1994 with the fuck up that was the Saturn launch and the cancerous tumours that SEGA decided was necessary for the Megadrive.
Along with total communication breakdown between the Japanese and American sides of the company.

>>2481602
The PS2 didn't kill the Dreamcast. Sega's previous mismanagement killed the Dreamcast.

>>2481586
>If the Dreamcast was released with DVD support, would it have fared better?

If they put a DVD drive in the Dreamcast, it would've been much more expensive. On top of the drive hardware, they also would have needed to add extra hardware to handle MPEG2 and AC3 decoding (it was not powerful enough to do it in software).

So they either would have lost fuck tons more money while making the console, or they would have had to sell it at a price point at where it wasn't successful anymore. Remember, the DC was huge because it retailed for $200 on launch, and even that was the final act of Bernie Stolar, Sega wanted it to sell for $250.

How much would the DC sell if it cost $350 or $400?

>>2481602
The PS2 didn't kill the dreamcast either. Sega killed themselves when they dismantled Sega of America.

>>2481619
Not only would they need to charge more for using extra hardware, but they also would have had to pay Sony for the right to use their technology.

I'm sure that right there is a good part of the reason why Nintendo consoles can't read commercial CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays. Hell, we already saw what happened between Nintendo and Sony over CDs royalties.

>>2481624
>Sega killed themselves when they dismantled Sega of America.
I'm sure they were still around when the Dreamcast was launched.

>>2481664

>>2481624
I blame Peter Moore. The guy just wanted a higher paycheck and defected to Microsoft, killing a large bit of the gaming industry in the process.

Dreamcast failed for several reasons, I doubt any fixing any individual one would've saved it.

>>2481664
Here's the deal. Sammy ended up becoming a majority shareholder and after that there was massive restructuring. Some games that were going to be released on the Dreamcast went to GameCube and XBOX. When the XBOX 360 and PS3 came out, it was clear Sega was no longer functioning normally. There was more restructuring and AM2 was about the only team left until they too were dissolved. Sega is only a named used by Sammy for overseas recognition. They don't really exist anymore.

It could have, if they answered Sony's totally-a-DVD-player-and-btw-it-also-plays-game marketting. They never did.

>>2481624
>>2481607
>>2481592
Yes, you pedantic fucks, it was previous mismanagement and incompetence that put sega in a precarious position in the late 90s. This leads to the obvious question of what sega could have done differently with the dreamcast in order to recover from said mismanagement and incompetence.

You're not being clever for identifying a point that we're all accepting as a given when discussing this topic. You're being that guy.

>>2481967
Take the motion controls from the fishing controller, and base the whole console around it. Release Virtua Sports as a pack-in including a variety of motion controlled sports games.

Abandon money-wasting niche projects like Shenmue. Advertise your console with a focus on normals instead of hardcore gamers.

There, I just saved the Dreamcast.

>>2481758
>Sega is only a named used by Sammy for overseas recognition. They don't really exist anymore.
This guy gets it.

>>2481758
What about the Sega Games division that publishes stuff like Ryu Ga Gotoku in Japan?

>>2481586

As a console, no.
As a toilet, yes.

>>2481967
The point is it doesn't matter what they did. They couldn't have recovered. Putting a DVD drive in would likely have just made sales profits even worse since they'd either have to start selling at a loss or sell at a high price point that would drive people away. Dreamcast was faring well enough before it was discontinued. Sure, it stood no chance against the PS2, but considering neither the Xbox nor the Gamecube put a dent in PS2's sales either, it seems pretty clear that there was no chance for Sega to come out on top, even with something like DVD. By 2001 it didn't matter how many they sold, the company was fucked.

It's not being pedantic, it's just that the entire question is moot.

>

"We had a tremendous 18 months. Dreamcast was on fire - we really thought that we could do it. But then we had a target from Japan that said we had to make x hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift x millions of units of hardware, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business. Somehow I got to make that call, not the Japanese. I had to fire a lot of people; it was not a pleasant day. So on January 31st 2001 we said Sega is leaving hardware. We were selling 50,000 units a day, then 60,000, then 100,000, but it was just not going to be enough to get the critical mass to take on the launch of PS2. It was a big stakes game. Sega had the option of pouring in more money and going bankrupt and they decided they wanted to live to fight another day."

—Peter Moore, on the Dreamcast's discontinuation.

>>2481586
No. Sega already dug themselves in a hole thanks to their stupid shenanigans during the Saturn.

>>2481967
Why would a DVD player suddenly save the Dreamcast when the original Xbox and Gamecube did fine without built in DVD support?

>>2481967
>This leads to the obvious question of what sega could have done differently with the dreamcast in order to recover from said mismanagement and incompetence.
Literally nothing short of covertly bombing every PS2, XBox and GameCube production plant in the world.

>>2481758
What? Where are all the Sega devs, then? How intact is Sonic Team?

Sega of America were always complete idiots who couldn't market for shit. All of their systems failed hard except the Genesis and that was only dumb luck and timing that made it a success.

The Saturn was particularly a sad case because it did pretty good in Japan thanks to its RPGs, but we never got to see those because SoA were obsessed with marketing to jocks and black people who wanted sports and fighting games and wouldn't play that girly Final Fantasy kind of stuff.

why does it matter?

the xbox is in every way the spiritual successor to the dreamcast, and it did alright

Dreamcast failed, in large part, because of piracy.

My friends only bought a handful of games. Piracy was just too easy on it.

>inb4 "piracy creates jobs, advertises games, makes money appear, etc"

Reading about the Sonic X-Treme project on the Saturn is pretty painful stuff. The poor dev team were literally starving themselves, becoming sick, and spending days locked in the office in a vain attempt to reach an impossible deadline.

>>2482650
This is repeating the same myth that the Amiga died from piracy.

>>2482640
When the PS1 debuted, people scoffed at Sony because "Hurr what does a consumer electronics company know about gaming?" Well, it turned out that this ignorance was to their advantage because Sony had an open-door policy and would approve practically anything while Sega/Nintendo had a more fixed image of what games they wanted on their consoles and what demographics they were marketing to.

So the PS1 got all the games even with a lot being shovelware. The end.

>>2482659
Oh, my friend circle pirating was a myth? Good to know. I'll have to ask them why their games all looked like burned discs.

>>2482679
Dude...the PS1 had horrible piracy because the discs had no copy protection, but it still went on to become the most successful console of all time. Quit making excuses, Sega fanboi.

>>2481967
>ask stupid question with obvious answer
>get mad when people answer the already obvious answer

The fuck do you expect? You essentially just asked if there are such a thing as clouds in the sky then freaked out when someone said yeah.

>>2482640
Yeah, they only made Sega a bit player to rivaling Nintendo in America in just one-gen, clearly SoA sucks at marketing for not doing even better.

>>2482715
>>2482640
You have Tom Kalinske to thank for making the Genesis a success in the US. The people who took over his position were a bit more inept by comparison.

>>2482743
>>2482715
The Genesis succeeded mostly because of timing - it arrived when Nintendo had no 16-bit console. In fact, they didn't have any plans on the table to replace the Famicom in the near future since it didn't have any real competition and they were selling every one they made. Only when they were hit by surprise were they forced to break down and develop a 16-bit console.

>>2482750
>Blah blah revisionist bullshit.
Except the Super Famicom already had its first prototype shown to the public in late 1988, back when the Mega Drive was launched in Japan. If the SFC was developed in response to any console, it was the PC Engine (which launched in 1987 and had a similar CPU).
http://www.disgruntleddesigner.com/chrisc/secret/SFC_1988Q4.html

>>2482650
But couldn't the opposite be said about PS1? I've heard a lot of people say that back in the day the PS1 was the clear choice compared to the N64 because the CDs were easy to pirate.

>>2482679
>My friends burnt discs
>Therefore everybody burnt discs and the console died because of it

>>2482640
>Sega of America
>complete idiots who couldn't market for shit

>>2482640

their pinball division was pretty decent

>>2482650
This. Everyone I knew with a Dreamcast had 0 legit games, just a stack of CD-Rs. Third parties aren't going to support a system like that for long.

>>2482782
>the Super Famicom already had its first prototype shown to the public in late 1988, back when the Mega Drive was launched in Japan

That doesn't mean that the SFC was not created in retaliation to the Megadrive. Remember, the MD could have had prototype versions or specs revealed earlier as well.

The reason the MD was so popular was because of Kalinske and SoA though, there is no question about that. SOJ was failing extremely hard with the Megadrive in Japan (not that they can be blamed - it was such an uphill battle that it was more like rock climbing).

>>2482640
>The Saturn was particularly a sad case because it did pretty good in Japan thanks to its RPGs,

The Saturn did good in Japan because of Virtua Fighter (which was THE most popular thing at the time), Segata Sanshiro, and the ton of arcade ports (model 2, neogeo, cps2). Sakura Taisen was about the only very popular RPG on it, which could be compared to the outputs of Squaresoft and Enix.

Also don't forget that the SNES was past its prime and the N64 has yet to come. It was the only time in their history that Sega outsold Nintendo on the console market, if only on 1 specific market and for a short time frame (1997-8).

SoA was great when they were allowed to do what they wanted to do, what sunk them was that SoJ started calling the shots. It wasn't SoA who wanted to launch the Saturn early with no games.

There's an alternate universe where Sega partnered with Sony on a new console instead of the two making the Saturn and PlayStation, leading to Sony probably buying Sega and all of Sega's IPs being Sony-exclusive.

>>2484064

there's another alternate universe where sega partnered with Philips and we got Mario and Sonic games on the same platform

>>2484127
I don't think Sega and Philips were ever rumored and Nintendo/Philips happened.

>>2484129
in another alternate universe, Coleco sued Sega for cloning the Colecovision. They settled out of court with Coleco gaining the rights to publish Sega games/systems in America, effectively becoming Sega of America. The Coleco Genesis was well received, and the 32x never happened

I doubt DVD support could of saved them from Sega CD, 32X and the Sega Satrun on top of how easily it was to pirate their games. Not to mention adding a DVD player would of increased the price or they would of had to sell it for a loss. That's if they werent selling it at a loss already. I honestly dont know.

>>2481742
nah, I trust that guy

He may be a businessman but he knows his shit.

A lot of awesome stuff on xbox was thanks to him.

>>2482010
and made a wii

>>2482641
the first xbox was, I agree.

But we're far from that era now

>>2482652
I've read of it definitely failing when the lead programmer fell sick with something serious or something

It was pretty fucked up

>>2482679
ps1, ps2 and nintendo ds are among the most pirated platforms ever. Yet the most successful ever.

Heck, even pc is doing fucking great these days.

It probably sold MORE hardware thanks to that. Kinda like psp sold okay regardless of the retarded "herpderp portable ps2" sony policy

Think before you write.

>>2482650
Piracy was a factor but it's not the main reason.

Dreamcast primarily failed because they couldn't sell enough consoles at the rate of PS2. That's it. Even Peter fucking Moore stated that in 2001.

"we had a target from Japan that said we had to make x hundreds of millions of dollars by the holiday season and shift x millions of units of HARDWARE, otherwise we just couldn't sustain the business."

>>2484338
They are the most pirated exactly because they are the most popular. Their success begets the piracy, and loyal customers in an equal amount. People will pay for Zelda and some people will pirate Zelda. However, an unsuccessful console would JUST have pirates. Especially when it's so easy even your grandma can do it.

>>2484331
That and Naka not allowing them to use his Nights engine anymore set them back pretty bad.

>>2482056
They are the only team left, really.

Even Sonic Team are being phased out and replaced by external hired devs (Sonic Boom games), while they are demoted to mobile stuff like Sonic Runners.

AM2 have been very inactive in recent years.

Reiko Kodama seems to have been window ledged.

>>2487287
And Shenmue 3 is being made for the PS4 and PCs. What a world we live in now.

No, it wouldn't have saved it. Most gamers previously bought a PSX and were very loyal. You can see it reflected in the PS2 launch numbers even without a killer app at launch (unless you consider Madden a killer app). The inclusion of a DVD drive would have hurt sales because the system would not have had the $199 price point with more expensive hardware.

In hindsight AM2 should have made an enhanced VF3 for Dreamcast (perfect way to show off the hardware), which would have helped hugely in Japan. The lazy Genki port of VF3 harmed the DC in Japan.

>>2486604
Is it true that he got butthurt about it too? I read that he saw Sonic running on the NiGHTS engine and he completely flipped out.

>>2487308
I think that was an unsubstantiated rumor. IIRC one of the devs said they were working on a build using the Nights engine, but the SoJ exec that showed up saw an older build using a different engine and ordered the entire game be built around the older build.

The entire X-treme development history was one clusterfuck after another and IMO STI wasn't at all blameless. It was basically all the shit that happened with Boom's development, except unlike back then, SoA had no problems letting BRB shit out a half-finished game instead of pushing back the release date to let them finish it.

>>2481586
Nope. What killed the Dreamcast was Sony's PR department talking tons of shit about system specs and the consumers ate every bit of it. Specs which Sony failed to deliver, due to those jewish bastards crippling the system VRAM size. Which made games like DOA2:Hardcore run better on Dreamcast than in did on the 'superior" Playstation2.