101–109 of 109 posts
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It wasn’t so much over engineered but more old before it’s time. Sega bet on 2D and then retrofitted their console to be 3D after rumours emerged that the PlayStation and N64 were 3D-focused systems.
I wish they would have doubled down on the 2d games.
What I found most fascinating about the Dreamcast was the extensible utility of the VMU cartridge slotted beneath the controller in that it not only served as storage for saved game data but as a heads-down display for ongoing gameplay. It also had the capability of being a standalone unit for mini games with it's replaceable coin battery. What's even more interesting is the modding community attempts in repurposing…
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They confused it with Sega Saturn, that's the one that was pushed under the bus by Nintendo 64 in 1996. Nintendo however was late to the game, the PS1 was already entrenched.
If I remember right, the Saturn shipped shortly before the PlayStation, but it was more expensive ($400USD vs $300USD) and shipped in a manner that annoyed most retailers (it was initially exclusive to KB Toys, I believe). The article also didn't go into the add-ons released for the Genesis/Master System (the Sega32X and SegaCD among them), and how Sega's attempts at keeping the G/MS alive instead wore out many conso…
Meanwhile the Dreamcast I had one friend who had one, but I also remember how everyone had a PS2, I remember the backwards comparability and launch titles were what sealed it. I'm the type that would have picked it up a few years later but it kinda always felt like the best games never left Japan for it, and then it was just kinda gone before you knew it.
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I wish they would have doubled down on the 2d games.
It was a dead market. Everyone wanted 3D because that’s what they saw at the arcades so that’s where Sega’s developers were already skilled at. Plus that’s what was already appearing on PCs.
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Best selling game console of all time I think. No shame losing to the best.
It was only the best in terms of hype and sales. Video-quality-wise, it was likely the worst of its generation.
What I found most fascinating about the Dreamcast was the extensible utility of the VMU cartridge slotted beneath the controller in that it not only served as storage for saved game data but as a heads-down display for ongoing gameplay. It also had the capability of being a standalone unit for mini games with it's replaceable coin battery. What's even more interesting is the modding community attempts in repurposing…
You can also connect two VMUs together - without the host system - to play games against another person or transfer saves.
No other console tanked the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast was fatally wounded as a platform because their DRM was easily bypassed. You didn't even need a special hardware dongle or modification. You could instead straight up download copies of games that were modified to work on the system. No point in supporting a platform that was dominating arcades but whose sales were getting obliterated by piracy at home.
Lack of a DVD drive killed the Dreamcast. People saw much more value in a PS2. I had a Dreamcast at launch and still love the games that came out on it. If it had a new revision with a DVD player in it announced at the same PS2 price point to compete with the PS2 and XBOX then Sega might still be in the console business.
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I wish they would have doubled down on the 2d games.
It was a dead market. Everyone wanted 3D because that’s what they saw at the arcades so that’s where Sega’s developers were already skilled at. Plus that’s what was already appearing on PCs.
Home consoles and computers had already established a huge range of gaming experiences that are not viable in the arcades. (RPGs, strategy games, more sophisticated sports games-- anything where the mean game time is more than a couple minutes)
I wonder if Sega could have leaned into the strengths of 2D hardware by capturing lucrative, well-known franchises rather than rushing to make something 3D. In retrospect, a lot of the early 3D games were sort of forgettable, and aged poorly?
If they could have said "we wooed Square, and the next two Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games exclusive", the Saturn would have sold several million units regardless of hardware.
The article states that the Dreamcast "fell out of the public eye as the Nintendo 64 was released". Am I missing something here? As far as I know the N64 was released more than two years before the Dreamcast's release. The Dreamcast always felt like it belonged to the PS2/Xbox/Gamecube console generation more than the PS1/N64 generation, although it was released in between generations. Release dates: * PlayStation 1:…