[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/vr/ - Retro Games

View post   
File: 30 KB, 580x480, dreamcast.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7986142 No.7986142 [Reply] [Original]

>In 1997, 3dfx was working with entertainment company Sega to develop a new video game console hardware platform. Sega solicited two competing designs: a unit code-named "Katana", developed in Japan using NEC and Imagination Technologies (then VideoLogic) technology, and "Blackbelt", a system designed in the United States using 3dfx technology.[citation needed]

>However, on July 22, 1997, 3dfx announced that Sega was terminating the development contract.[12] Sega chose to use NEC's PowerVR chipset for its game console,[13] though it still planned to purchase the rights to 3dfx's technology in order to prevent competitors from acquiring it.[14]

Did this have anything to do with its downfall? What if they chose 3dfx instead?

>> No.7986205

>>7986142
Might be the only thing segay ever did right. 3dfx went bankrupt a few years later

>> No.7987503

>>7986142
If they went with the 3DFX, there is a possibility 3DFX would still be around and sega would still be making hardware.

>> No.7987557

>>7986142
Only thing Sega ever did right was the Mega Drive/Genesis and Sonic. Everything else has been mediocre or pure shit.

>> No.7987625

>>7986205
That only means sega would be able to acquire 3dfx.

>> No.7987635

>>7986142
3dfx was the worst choice possible powerVR was so threatening as a platform Nvidia had to spread massive FUD about it. Today it is revered in the mobile graphics industry for its efficiency and it still maintains the dreamcasts core technology showing far more longevity than the corpse of 3dfx which died with nvidia's disgraceful fx5000 series. Nvidia even copied the tiled rendering for a massive performance boost across the board in 2016 and up with the maxwell architecture.

3dfx = losers, failures and disgraces like sega of america and that faggot bernard stolar. This is the objective reality of it.

>> No.7987640

is this the sega hate thread

>> No.7987645

PowerVR was an insanely good GPU for the Dreamcast, easily the best part of the system's hardware. No, it wasn't a bad choice.

>> No.7987650

>>7987645
this

>> No.7987652

>>7987635
>3dfx was the worst choice possible
No, their video cards were cheaper than the rest and 90s devs were familiar with their hardware.
>powerVR was so threatening as a platform
Yeah, they failed to manufacture large enough quantity of powerVR cards so Sega couldn't sell enough DC units during its launch and kept losing money.
>Today it is revered in the mobile graphics industry for its efficiency
Because its only feasible in the recent years thanks to its modern semiconductor manufacturing process. In the Dreamcast era, the manufacturer failed to supply enough units for the DC.
>it still maintains the dreamcasts core technology
Which is essentially the technology 3dfx invented too, they were the pioneers in graphics cards manufacturing. PowerVR only added tiled rendering. Also PowerVR isnt a sega company.
>3dfx = losers, failures and disgraces
Just like the company that built sega cd and the shitturn then.

>>7987645
It performs quite well, but difficult to manufacture. 3Dfx's card would perform just as fast though, only without as much graphical effects like transparency.

>> No.7987658

>>7987652
australia-kun has arrived

>> No.7987660

>>7987652
>only without as much graphical effects like transparency
sounds like sega made the right choice then eh

>> No.7987663

>>7986142
3dfx would have gone out of business anyway with their dumb attempts at controlling manufacturing. Dreamcast would have died out anyway due to the ps2 coming out 2 years later.

>> No.7987664

>>7987658
Whenever he arrives just say the magic words SEGA MASTER SYSTEM

>> No.7987670

>>7987658
Who's "australia-kun" really? Is he the voice of reason in this manchild board?

>>7987660
At bankrupting themselves due to chip shortage, yeah.

>> No.7987674

>>7987670
seegar system

>> No.7987683

>>7987670
The chip shortage issue was only for the Japanese launch and was resolved by the time the US launch happened.

What bankrupted Sega was Bernie Stolar insisting on a 56K Modem being in the Dreamcast over a DVD drive and then launching it $100 cheaper than the Japanese launch price causing it to be sold at a massive loss. That created a massive hemorrhage of money that Sega could never recover from.

>> No.7987685

>>7987683
They were losing before that.

>> No.7987694

>>7986205
FPBP OP BTFO
/thread

>> No.7987702

As a Sega guy myself I hate Segafags so much. When will their obsession with searching for the straw that broke the camel's back ever end? You can't pinpoint any one thing that ended it all. It's multiple instances where multiple bad decisions were made. If you were able to go back in time and change just one thing it's still going to all fall to the ground. Even with the power of hindsight you still fail to see just how fucked they were, give it a rest. Stop watching SegaLordX videos and play some games.

>> No.7987703

>>7987652
>3Dfx's card would perform just as fast though, only without as much graphical effects like transparency.

It's literally the EXACT opposite. 3dfx has the raw horsepower to deal with transparencies, but it has absolutely no way to efficiently deal with opacity.
Even at full throughput, a Voodoo 2 can deal with a depth complexity of about 4 at 60 FPS. Games like Quake 3 easily double this amount.
All PowerVR does is accelerate the sorting process, something games already do out of necessity.

>> No.7987708

>>7987685
Not a lot really. Sure Saturn wasn't a success, they were still in a position that they could have recovered from if someone didn't create a massive hemorrhage of money.

>> No.7987717

>>7987708
>if someone didn't create a massive hemorrhage of money.
By making the 32X and Saturn.

>> No.7987721

>>7987717
None of those consoles sold that a loss.

>> No.7987724

>>7987717
The 32X and Saturn weren't the hemorrhage. Selling Dreamcast $100 cheaper than the JP Launch price which was already at a loss created the hemorrhage.

If you look at Sega's financials around this time you can see their profits take a steep nosedive right around the time of the US Dreamcast launch.

>> No.7987747

>>7987683
>The chip shortage issue was only for the Japanese launch and was resolved by the time the US launch happened.
The US launch was almost 1 year after the Japanese launch. Sega could've sold millions more units in Japan if it wasn't for the manufacturing issue.
>launching it $100 cheaper than the Japanese launch
Because it was launched 11 months late in the US, and the PS2 was about to come out within next year for $299, the same price as the DC launch price in Japan.
>That created a massive hemorrhage of money that Sega could never recover from.
What? Sega earned almost $100 million from the launch alone. I doubt they were selling it at a loss. When you manufacture something at a huge quantity for a certain period of time, the manufacturing price will go down.

>>7987721
32X wasn't, but the shitturn absolutely was.

>>7987724
>If you look at Sega's financials around this time you can see their profits take a steep nosedive right around the time of the US Dreamcast launch.
Not really, that happened in 1997.

>> No.7987749

>>7987747
>but the shitturn absolutely was.
Source? Never heard anything about the Saturn being sold at a loss.

>> No.7987758

Australia kun pls go

>> No.7987761

>>7987758
>Bernie poster
>Australia-kun
Why does Sega attract mentally ill fags?

>> No.7987762

>>7987749
The PS1 retailed for $299 and Saturn for $399 at launch. Then the price wars happened and both consoles got their price tags cut to $199 at the same time. Go figure.

>> No.7987764

>>7987762
That was like 6 months after the Saturn was released

>> No.7987770

>>7986142
>Did this have anything to do with its downfall? What if they chose 3dfx instead?
There was nothing wrong with the Dreamcast hardware. Sega's problems were elsewhere.

>> No.7987773

>>7987761
I guess when you can't cope with greatness it just makes you seethe

>> No.7987775

https://segaretro.org/Sega_Dreamcast/Hardware_comparison

Why are Sega zealots so fanatic? This page is littered with misinformation.

>> No.7987783

>>7987775
name 12

>> No.7987795

>>7987747
>Sega could've sold millions more units in Japan if it wasn't for the manufacturing issue.
Probably not. The Saturn was still very popular in Japan and Sega rushing the Dreamcast out actually pissed of Japanese devs and consumers.
>Because it was launched 11 months late in the US
That's not fast enough to make up a $100 difference, especially when it was already being sold at a loss in Japan. If anything PS2 launching at $299 a year later made it make more sense to sell Dreamcast for a bit more at either $299 or $249 at launch as they could then cut it to say $199 when PS2 launched to undercut it.
>Sega earned almost $100 million from the launch alone
But the massive losses from selling Dreamcast at a launch cancelled that out.
> I doubt they were selling it at a loss
They were, it's a known fact and can be seen in their yearly profits and financial reprots.
> When you manufacture something at a huge quantity for a certain period of time, the manufacturing price will go down.
Sure over time, but not at launch. Which is why Stolar cutting it so dramatically low created a hemorrhage. It's why he was fired. Sega of Japan had no choice but to price match to prevent reverse importing.
>Not really, that happened in 1997.
You're reading them wrong then. You can literally see the massive nosedive happen between end of year 1998 and end of year 1999. What significant thing happened in that time? The US Dreamcast launch.
> but the shitturn absolutely was.
Only very early on in Japan. By the time the first price cut happened in September of 1995 Sega had already started consolidating down the hardware and making it cheaper to manufacture. By March of 1996 the Model 2 was released at $200 in Japan and wasn't sold at a loss by that point. Sega beat Sony to the $200 price mark. Being a smaller company and more price conservative in Japan, they wouldn't have done that if they couldn't have afforded to do it. Sega continued to make the hardware cheaper as time wen ton.

>> No.7987796

>>7987775
Sega Retro's technical specs are full of bullshit. Even Sega fans know this. Take everything they say with a massive grain of salt.

Homebrew developers have actually tried to go in and correct them but they changes get reverted and the devs get banned. That should tell you something.

>> No.7987802

>>7987783
>The Dreamcast's CPU–GPU transmission bus is faster than the Voodoo3 and has a higher effective bandwidth than the GeForce 256 due to the Dreamcast's efficient bandwidth usage, including its lack of CPU overhead from the operating system, textures loaded directly to VRAM (freeing up CPU–GPU transmission bus for polygons)

This has been the standard on PC since day one. Why do you think shit hits the fan when you run out of VRAM?

>The Dreamcast's Hitachi SH-4 CPU calculates 3D graphics several times faster than a Pentium II from 1998,[2] and faster than a Pentium III and NVIDIA GeForce 256 from 1999.

The source they linked is a performance test with a very specific practical purpose. This is never indicative of peak throughput (which they list as being lower). The Xbox, having a Pentium 3 based CPU, has a far higher peak rating.

>In terms of game engine performance, the CLX2 peaks at 5 million polygons/sec,[4] compared to the GeForce 256 which peaks at 2.9 million polygons/sec.[5]

The 5 million figure comes from an article about Le Mans. I have never been able to find any empirical verification of this. What constitutes peak gaming performance is also quite an open question. There are too many games and settings to just draw a conclusion from one benchmark.

> The T&L geometry performance of the Dreamcast's SH-4 CPU is faster than the Xbox's Pentium III CPU but slower than the GameCube's PowerPC CPU

No source on this, but I see no reason why this would be the case. Both CPU's have 128-bit FP SIMD capabilities.

>> No.7987813

>>7987795
I can't find any info that says the DC was sold at a loss, or anything that says Saturn wasn't. All the articles I found pointed out to the otherwise.

>> No.7987825

>>7987813
>I can't find any info that says the DC was sold at a loss.
There's literally articles mentioning it on the first page of google results when you google "Dreamcast sold at a loss." It was sold at a loss at launch, and then they cut cutting prices on it to try and keep momentum going with the PS2 coming. Hell at one point they would rebate you the entire cost of the system if you signed up for SegaNet.

>> No.7987827

>>7987761
Sonic the Hedgehog.

>> No.7987840

>>7987640
It's the Dookie thread

>> No.7988261

Redpill me on tiled rendering.

Is there a con to it?

>> No.7988293

>>7987802
>> The T&L geometry performance of the Dreamcast's SH-4 CPU is faster than the Xbox's Pentium III CPU but slower than the GameCube's PowerPC CPU
T&L wasn't done on CPUs. Both GPUs had dedicated T&L hardware. This is an extremely stupid thing to say.
>No source on this, but I see no reason why this would be the case. Both CPU's have 128-bit FP SIMD capabilities.
Actually, Gamecube only had 64 bit (2x32 bit) SIMD. This is one reason it is said to have weak SIMD.
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/Paired_single

>> No.7988328

>>7988261
More complex architecture (you're rendering multiple images at once instead of one), therefore higher cost and manufacturing complexity.

>> No.7988341

>>7987825
This is all I could find.
http://ebook.pldworld.com/_eBook/SEGA/150-000105-1e_SegaDreamcast.pdf

And it has a disclaimer.
>All analyses are done without participation, authorization, or endorsement of the manufacturer. Any cost analyses presented in this material are estimates prepared by Portelligent from generally available data. While Portelligent believes that these estimates reflect the probable costs, the actual producer did not supply the data, and therefore the actual costs may be different from these estimates
And:
>We believe our cost estimates generally fall within ±15 percent of the “right answer,” which itself can vary depending on the market and OEM-specific factors mentioned earlier

While the large chunk of the research method is left unexplained by the author, it seems that the potential cost saving of ordering items in a bulk for a long period of time has not been included in the calculation. It expect it to be quite substantially lower than $250, if that uses the price tags of the off-the-shelf components rather than DC's custom built ones.

>> No.7988482

>>7988293
>T&L wasn't done on CPUs. Both GPUs had dedicated T&L hardware. This is an extremely stupid thing to say.
True, though this doesn't invalidate the existence of a direct comparison. It compares exactly what it's meant to.
>Actually, Gamecube only had 64 bit (2x32 bit) SIMD
I meant the Dreamcast and the Xbox.

I read more into it, and the peak FLOP number of the Dreamcast stems from the special matrix multiplication that gives it three ADD operations per cycle.
But that's the theoretical maximum, and I have yet to see any proof that this actually applies in practice to vertex transformations. Manipulating registers isn't usually free.

>> No.7988486

>>7988261
no

>> No.7988520

>>7988341
>This is all I could find.
Then you didn't look hard enough. That study though is from 2000 and is clearly looking at a later revision Dreamcast with cost reductions. However they're saying they'd estimate it as being about $220. By this point in time Dreamcast was already slashed down to $150 or even $99 in some places. And Sega was also rebating the entire price of one if you signed up for online. So they'd be losing about $70-$120 on each one sold.

Now if cost reduced Dreamcast in 2000 cost about $220 to manufacture, what do you link a launch model without cost reductions cost in 1998/1999? Japan's $299 price in 1998 was already at a loss from what we know from interviews. Sure it may have evened out to break even by 1999, but Stolar was an idiot and slashed it by $100 more and created a hemorrhage of money.

>ordering items in a bulk for a long period of time has not been included in the calculation
The Dreamcast wasn't on the market long enough to reap any benefits from this. The Hemorrhage early on was too massive to allow for this to happen.

Seriously, Sega was losing money on every Dreamcast sold and wasn't making up the difference in software sales. Why do you think they discontinued it after 2 years? If Dreamcast was truly as profitable as you're trying to claim they wouldn't have had to drop out. The Saturn and 32X weren't that severe of a loss that something as profitable as you're trying to claim the Dreamcast was couldn't have turned it around.

The reality is that Dreamcast wasn't profitable. Sure it sold very well for only being on the market for 2.5 years and was a great system, but it didn't help make any money. It instead almost bankrupted Sega.

>> No.7988525

>>7988486
midwit

>> No.7988529

>>7987557
You mean the Yakuza series.

>> No.7988552

>>7988525
false, source your claims

>> No.7988602
File: 36 KB, 500x500, 1583661924953.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7988602

>>7986142
Excuse my autism but I hate this fake picture because the controler cable isn't as long as depicted. There's no way you can make seven (7) loops this big with a dreamcast controler.
So why?

>> No.7988736

>>7988520
Not him, and I would also argue SEGA was losing money on US Dreamcast sales, if you measure hardware alone. I believe their plan was to make it up (like Sony) in software sales, but US was also trying to bank on monthly subscription sales of online service, which wasn't a bad idea, if they had it about 5 years later.

To the document though, it looks like they're analyzing a 1999 US Dreamcast. It's not the launch model of Dreamcast, which would have been a Rev 0, which actually were just leftover Japan models that they added a modem to (Original Japan models did not come with a modem) and swapped the bios on for US, and these were actually only in very small quantities. The vast majority of US Dreamcasts available for most of the 1999 year, as in a few weeks after initial launch, were the model they have pictured (which is the same as my own which I bought in October). Even though the document is copyright 2000, it doesn't mean they couldn't have done their research starting in 1999, and done publishing in early 2000, and even if they started in early 2000, the timeline would still line up for general launch pricing and conditions.

There were several minor revisions of the DC model after this, though this model did cut a lot of costs from the original JP v0, which had a very nice cooling system, and a better GD Drive.

So SEGA was definitely not flushing copious amounts of money down the toilet with hardware sales, but they were losing money, and the software and subscriptions sales weren't able to make up for it, especially after the PS2 dominated and software sales started going more towards the PS2.

>> No.7988743

>>7987702
What I think flies under the radar is ghat Sega never actually got a grip of the home console environment. They were primarily an arcade manufacturer that got lucky for a few years in the 90s. They rode that wave for a while but it was an accident they couldn't replicate and internally the company was so dysfunctional that nobody could right the ship.