Dreamcast's death meant the survival of Sega?

[Elven6]

Do you guys agree with what this guy claims?

http://www.goodcowfilms.com/farm/games/random-archives/sega-financial-pulling-out-of-dreamcast.htm

Seems like hes done his research on this, although its a bit outdated.

[JKKDARK]

Yes, I think that he is right.

[GI_Josh]

Yes, he is right. In order for Sega to focus on making games, (the best thing it can do, IMO) it needed to drop the console game. It had notoriously lost in all of its console wars, and it wasn't getting any better. Sega needed to find it's niche, and making games, not hardware, was it.

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

i understand sometimmes you gotta cut off a finger to save the hand but sega really went at the wrist here. The genesis dominated the early '90s, DC and Saturn 100% dominated in Japan, and odly enough all Sega consoles, even the 20 year old ones still dominate in Brazil. Sega problem wasn't that it was in over its head its that it diddn't know what to do when it was on top. The Saturn failed due to bad prices and bad advertising. Sega seems to think at times that if it broadcasts out these calvin kline-esque advertisements without explaining itself things will fall into place. The NOMAD failed because somewhat of the batteries' life issue but really she was just a technologically advanced girl living in a GameBoy's World. I mean come on! I will not budge here, NOMAD failed because you just diddn't like it and even Sega can't solve that. The SegaCD failed because it was just silly. Every game was like a movie or something, wasn't really for gamers.
the Neptune had no chance simply because it was too little too late to solve the problem that warrented it's creation. The Dreamcast failed because of the same key issues that hurt sega period:

1. Did not take advantage of immidiet opening when it stood alone in its game generation.

2. Did not advertise properly.

3. Always spoiling the Japanese Markets with the best projects, add on, concepts.

4. Infighting within SOJ-SOA relations.

5. And it seems sega can usher in any error of advancement and prowess yet no one cares until its been copied.


Sega is not best making games just like Susan B. Anthony does not belong in a kitchen.. GI you just want to see Sega whore it self off to the other console makers. Sonic on nintendo games is not acceptable. Without games and console sega is useless because its hypocritical.

[Smurph]

i understand sometimmes you gotta cut off a finger to save the hand but sega really went at the wrist here. The genesis dominated the early '90s, DC and Saturn 100% dominated in Japan, and odly enough all Sega consoles, even the 20 year old ones still dominate in Brazil. Sega problem wasn't that it was in over its head its that it diddn't know what to do when it was on top. The Saturn failed due to bad prices and bad advertising. Sega seems to think at times that if it broadcasts out these calvin kline-esque advertisements without explaining itself things will fall into place. The NOMAD failed because somewhat of the batteries' life issue but really she was just a technologically advanced girl living in a GameBoy's World. I mean come on! I will not budge here, NOMAD failed because you just diddn't like it and even Sega can't solve that. The SegaCD failed because it was just silly. Every game was like a movie or something, wasn't really for gamers.
the Neptune had no chance simply because it was too little too late to solve the problem that warrented it's creation. The Dreamcast failed because of the same key issues that hurt sega period:

1. Did not take advantage of immidiet opening when it stood alone in its game generation.

2. Did not advertise properly.

3. Always spoiling the Japanese Markets with the best projects, add on, concepts.

4. Infighting within SOJ-SOA relations.

5. And it seems sega can usher in any error of advancement and prowess yet no one cares until its been copied.


Sega is not best making games just like Susan B. Anthony does not belong in a kitchen.. GI you just want to see Sega whore it self off to the other console makers. Sonic on nintendo games is not acceptable. Without games and console sega is useless because its hypocritical.


While I do agree with some of what you say, your point immediately becomes doug as soon as people see your nickname.

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

nickname? wtf do u mean good sir?!

[Smurph]

nickname? wtf do u mean good sir?!

"ßüboni¢ $oñic".

Any person with a decent IQ will cringe at the sight of that name.

[ACID]

I for one dont agree. Sony had better games when its sega was release , then the nintendo excluding mario series. And they where always going strong nintendo releses duck hunt and sega releases hogans alley. Mario then wonderboy. and so on. They always had an answer for nintendo at that time , But like sony they got gready and thats what made them loose at the counsil wars. Early releases all though better. No games. And we can look at another millions excuses. But the maine one was greed.

[Smurph]

I for one dont agree. Sony had better games when its sega was release , then the nintendo excluding mario series. And they where always going strong nintendo releses duck hunt and sega releases hogans alley. Mario then wonderboy. and so on. They always had an answer for nintendo at that time , But like sony they got gready and thats what made them loose at the counsil wars. Early releases all though better. No games. And we can look at another millions excuses. But the maine one was greed.

keyword: 'some'.

[GagaMan]

Yeah, if Sega had kept producing the Dreamcast, there was a good chance they would have gone completely bankrupt, and that they wouldn't even be around anymore. It's a shame, because they still had so many Dreamcast units left to sell by 2001, that they couldn't just stop making more units, but continue making games for it along side the multi format games. Hell, there recently were selling off the last units they had just this year in Japan, bundled with Radilgy, so the units they had left over would of easily of been enough to last them another two years or so.

If they kept it going without producing more units of the system, we may of seen games up until about 2004, IMO. Super Monkey Ball for the DC would have been sweet.

Another thing that bugs me: Ever since the Dreamcast was stopped, Sega have run out of creative steam. For the short time that the Dreamcast was going, Sega were probably at their creative peak, releasing tons of original games. Now what do we get? Sonic games that don't improve on what we already got years ago with Sonic Adventure, remakes, ports, sequels and not a lot else. They may of saved themselves from death by killing off the Dreamcast, but they have been as good as, really.

[Darksaviour69]

Hell, there recently were selling off the last units they had just this year in Japan, bundled with Radilgy...


i'm pretty sure they were refurbished units

[quzar]

First of all, Sega did get bought, in a corporate sense Sammy became the majority shareholder of Sega stock and therefore main controller of the company.

Next, the Dreamcast's production stopped many months prior to when they officially cut off support to it, it was simply not selling, and they had no reason to make more.

After that, Acidburn: ... where to start?


I for one dont agree. Sony had better games when its sega was release , then the nintendo excluding mario series. And they where always going strong nintendo releses duck hunt and sega releases hogans alley. Mario then wonderboy. and so on. They always had an answer for nintendo at that time , But like sony they got gready and thats what made them loose at the counsil wars. Early releases all though better. No games. And we can look at another millions excuses. But the maine one was greed.

First, what do you mean by "Sony had better games when its sega was release ..." I'm not asking for elaboration, I'm asking for clarification, as I simply cannot understand what you're talking about. It seems the gist of your post is that Sega has always made poor games, that is quite a subjective notion, and is based on a very narrow idea of sega's role as a console producer.

The Sega Master System, although a flop here, was wildly succesful in Europe, Australia, and Brazil. The Genesis stood with as much, more than, or close second in market share to Nintendo's NES then SNES. The SegaCD and 32x were perceived as flops but as far as I've ever seen were marketed well to their audience (those who already owned a Genesis) and considering that niche target, sold fairly well. The saturn was EXTREMELY popular in japan. Then the Dreamcast sold more units on the first day than any console prior to that, had a game which got into the book of world records for the amount spent of development (Shenmue).

That being said, I think it was a big mistake for Sega to publically pull support. In the US, no games were developed after that (that I know of, or at least no game that wasn't already slated for release). Had they simply let it die on there own, they stood to lose nothing (as they had already been not making the consoles). I read something about that after the price fell to 50$ (christmas of 01 iirc) there was a huge boon in sales, and it ended up being that a large portion (30-ish%) of the Dreamcast's library was released after Sega dropped support for it.

Basically, I think it was a HUGE mistake on their part, as it told developers "we think it's failing too!".

[Darksaviour69]

i think its shareholders that the offical said that they are going to stop development for the dc and are becoming a developer, as shares prices went up when they said that. Also i pretty sure sega said that they were stopping in Jan 2001 but the factory actually stop in march/april (as they said it would in jan)

[quzar]

No, production of Dreamcasts (on a large scale) ended in late october of 2000. Pretty much the only Dreamcasts that were made after that were special edition style ones. In October they saw that even though they had already cut down production, they still were making more than were moving off the shelves. My source is an interview with some sega exec for the show "icons".

[Darksaviour69]

hmm, i also remember ( well at least in europe) that dreamcast sales peaked in xmas 2000, beating the psx in sales for the first time.

My source is the offical dc mag (uk), i remember the article well, its burned into my mind! i must look it up again some time.

was that that G4 icons show, i watch that, it seemed as if not a great amount of research went into that show, its was very "mtv" if i remember right.

[quzar]

I agree with your take on the G4 show. They just grabbed, for the most part, random people associated with things and asked them questions. Hell, they had the lead artist for Rez talking about the fact that the saturn was hard to code for -_-. But this was a sega corporate guy who was telling a bit of a story about it, so I felt that part was reliable.

Also, I was talking about the christmas of 01, the christmas AFTER they decided to cut production, although it may have also been true for the christmas of 2000.

[Franzkill]

Yeah, if Sega had kept producing the Dreamcast, there was a good chance they would have gone completely bankrupt, and that they wouldn't even be around anymore. It's a shame, because they still had so many Dreamcast units left to sell by 2001, that they couldn't just stop making more units, but continue making games for it along side the multi format games. Hell, there recently were selling off the last units they had just this year in Japan, bundled with Radilgy, so the units they had left over would of easily of been enough to last them another two years or so.

If they kept it going without producing more units of the system, we may of seen games up until about 2004, IMO. Super Monkey Ball for the DC would have been sweet.

Another thing that bugs me: Ever since the Dreamcast was stopped, Sega have run out of creative steam. For the short time that the Dreamcast was going, Sega were probably at their creative peak, releasing tons of original games. Now what do we get? Sonic games that don't improve on what we already got years ago with Sonic Adventure, remakes, ports, sequels and not a lot else. They may of saved themselves from death by killing off the Dreamcast, but they have been as good as, really.

The otogi games and Gun Valkrie on the Xbox were original games weren't they?

The only ports and/or reamkes of Sonic games I have seen are the ones on Sonic Mega Collection/Plus/Gems which is in itself a COMPILATION of previous games in the series and features exclusive extras such as artwork, comic book scans etc. Also Sonic Adventure DX which was released on the Gamecube and PC. I have it on the PC and whilst not perfect its fun to play IMO.

Sonic Riders, Sonic Heroes and the games on the GBA? Alright so mabye Sonic Heroes didn't blow people's wigs off in amazement but the GBA games were awesome IMO and faithful to the classic games on Genesis whilst introducing some new features as well. I personally think Sonic Riders is underrated a bit and while it has its fair share of flaws I think its a great game to play (especially with your mates) and at times can be thrilling and have its moments.

Sonic Rush on the DS? Is that not an awesome game?

[Elven6]

GUNVALKYRIE was a cancelled Dreamcast game, even though production stopped I don't see why the games had to stop so fast either.

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

Any person with a decent IQ will cringe at the sight of that name.

Huh? What about it is the problem?:mad: Its just random characters you know.. :confused:

And who are you to talk about shit huh? WTF is with your? you dont know about smurphs. i bet you werent even born in the '80s.. ewww the smurphs how funny what a giggle.. f***ing emo kids (and yes i know i said anone who calls kids emo is emo himself but i had to say it)..

Back to buisness:


They always had an answer for nintendo at that time , But like sony they got gready and thats what made them loose at the counsil wars. Early releases all though better. No games. And we can look at another millions excuses. But the maine one was greed.
soo basically the gist of what you are trying to say is Sega maintained its ground against nintendo c. late 1980s-'90s til they got money crazed?!:confused: Your saying they came out with the multiconsole games 1st and so were able to get ahead due to demand for the game itself? And so because this method worked so well they diddn't bother to make any original 1st party games when the 3rd party ones couldn't keep sales up bankrupting them like the New England State of Maine...?


by 2001, that they couldn't just stop making more units, but continue making games for it along side the multi format games. Hell, there recently were selling off the last units they had just this year in Japan, bundled with Radilgy, so the units they had left over would of easily of been enough to last them another two years or so.Lets not confuse excess units with slow sales results. It is possible they simply made too many due to naive expectations. I think making games for other consoles was a good thing in limit capacity. It would had helped Sega if the games they made for PS2, X-Box, and GC could also be made on the DC even if the ver. was limited. That was always a mistake. The DC could had survived off the other 3's games plus since the DC was 50 bux here is the kicker, you can not get say your favorite PS2 games on the DC fore a lower price and still get online to play everyone else.
I don't see why the games had to stop so fast either.they just sabotaged themselves. Instead of annoucing to the gaming world they were stupid failures it might had been better to allow way for an accidental recover that way they could come out of it half decent looking.

Sonic Riders, Sonic Heroes and the games on the GBA? Alright so mabye Sonic Heroes didn't blow people's wigs off in amazement but the GBA games were awesome IMO and faithful to the classic games on GenesisThe major problem I see is with the big titles with DC-heritage. Halo is a case and point. It could be argued that while XBX was in the dangerzone Halo heald it afloat. The problem here is that im not sure if games like Halo and Half-Life so populer on other systems would had been as popular or succesful on the DC. There is just an X factor here I don't understand and never will. :confused:

was that that G4 icons show, i watch that, it seemed as if not a great amount of research went into that show, its was very "mtv" if i remember right.MTV has much better background info. G4 put on a half assed show. I remember it They failed to talk about Halo or Half-Life on the system, Its success in Japan, how it outsold the Xbox for awile, the homebrew community, the internal power struggle between SOJ and SOA, or anything else. Just how it was ahead of its time and then some exec bitch comes up (like we'd ever see Mario on a Sega system..) saying the ppl who spent hundreds of dollars for Dreamcast(s) should be happy our games live on on these enemy system. And I thought I was shocked when I saw the Bandekut on the Xbox..

[GagaMan]

Toejam & Earl III was also in development for the Dreamcast, until they moved it over to the X-Box.

But really, what other new properties have they made since the Dreamcast? Billy Hatcher, Rub Rabbits...er...anything else?

[Fear and Loathing]

I haven't bought another system since the Dreamcast (well apart from PSP for Mega Drive on the go!), because there are none that appeal to me enough and as the Sega games are spread across the consoles I'd effectively have to buy all of them to get all the games I want.

With the Dreamcast Sega were producing quality games in quick succession, I think games like F355 Challenge, Virtua Tennis, Shenmue and MSR were released in a period of a couple of months over here, just great game after great game. It was so exciting to own one at that time, just waiting to see what amazing game was going to be released next. As I say, none of other consoles since then have caught my eye in the same way.

I'm just kinda hoping that Sega have a plan to make quality games for all of these systems so a wider range of people become fans of their games, allowing them to build enough of a customer base back up to launch themselves into the next console race in 5-6 years time. Well thats what I'm dreaming of anyway:D

[Cernex]

My two cents about Sega's retirmnet was due to poor merchandizing and market decisions in the post-Genesis era.

The Sega Genesis was a HUGELLY succesful console back in the day (even beating Nintendo in one Christmas season (92? 93?) , were it had 60% of the market).

Problem came with the 32x/Saturn era.

The Sega CD, although a commercial failure, still holds a lot of respect AND has plenty of critically praised games (Snatcher and Lunar come to mind), so if Sega had just stayed there, it wouldn't had lost a lot of money.

Problem came with the 32x.

We all know a console (and add-ons) needs R&D, merchandizing, manufacturing costs... the whole schbagle. Well, problem with the 32X was, besides Doom and MK II, IT FAILED. COMPLETELLY.

It costed Sega a lot of cash, from which it never really recovered (reason why "Neptune" was never developed).

And the Saturn (IN AMERICA)... oh, I still remember that infamous E3 were they tried to have a headstart from the PSX, but ended up alienating a lot of major console salers (Wal Mart comes to mind) AND really never had any EXCELLENT software (one of the reasons I THINK the only way to play a Saturn right is with imports), and the PSX lowered it's price, thus giving one deadly blow to the Saturn in US.

And that's were the other problem comes: SONY.

In the whole "SNES-Playstation" debacle we all know, the Playstation was created and not only did it almost killed Nintendo, but killed ONCE AND FOR ALL one of Sega's biggest selling points: the adult market.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean it killed it in the point of "it dissapeared"

What I mean is that one upon a LONG time, with the Genesis, we ALL know (and remember) the classic "SNES is for kiddies and the Genesis is for grown-ups", and very right they were (Shadowrun, Snatcher and Mortal Komabt 1, just to name a few).

See here, Genesis had the grown-up market, while Nintendo, at least at the time, tried to please the "familiar" aspect of it (problem with Nintendo??? They never tried to please the grown-up audince... but that's for another argument). But when the PSX came with such games as Tomb Rider, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Clock Tower... I mean, they were games you would surelly never, EVER play in the SNES OR the then-up-coming N64 (which died for reasons of it's own).

Why did this titles got to the PSX when the Saturn was more powerful (check Wiki)??? Plenty of theories are lying around... the fact they didn't had a dev kit alienated customers... the fact it wasn't selling good enough in US (always a critical market)... I mean, you name it...

Point here is, that the PSX COMPLETELLY TOOK the grown-up market, and now the "evolved" phrase was "the N64 is for kiddies, and the PSX is for grown-ups".

Were's SEGA in that equation??? OUT.

So, with SEGA without one of it's biggest selling point, the Saturn was suddenly floating out of there (at least the way I see it) with not a lot of things to "call out" casual gamers, reason why it was such a flop in US.

And coasted a lot more to SEGA.

By the time the Dreamcast got here... man, so many things... GD-Rom not being big enough, the PS2 and MGS2 stealing a lot of it's "next-gen" thunder... there were a lot of bad decisions that, COMBINED with the 32x/Saturn HUGE FAILURES (because the American market has always being bigger than the Japanese market), SEGA was already dying by the time it got out.

They just didn't had the money anymore to keep pushing it by the time they pulled the plug, at least the way I see.

The Dreamcast was a good console and all, but it was dragging 2 VERY BAD consoles (well, 1 console and 1 add-on), and it just wasn't good enough, or at least it I think that's the reason.

Sure, Sega no longer had to invest in R&D anymore, nor merchandizing... I mean, with the money it had, it could make games like no other. That's why, to me, they pulled the plug too: They just couldn't afford another console either.

So, did "killing" the Dreamcast saved SEGA??? Yeah. Was it the Dreamcast fault SEGA stopped doing consoles??? NO WAY
Was the Dreamcast a bad console??? By the looks of it, and judging by the numbers we have, NO.

El Cernex

(P.S: Didn't mentioned the whole "SEGA US/SEGA JP" debacle because I don't know "enough" about it. I only know they were constantly fighting with each other AND both invested in r&D for THEIR OWN systems (as I remember hearing somewere SEGA US already had developed it's own cartridge based next-gen conosle, but it was soon "replaced" by the Saturn))

[mesosade]

dreamcast was a damn good console if it was released during ps1 they'd be rolling in it. HELL i've been on my dreamcast till now! and ummm screaming at chankast too :D

[ßüboni¢ $oñic]

(P.S: Didn't mentioned the whole "SEGA US/SEGA JP" debacle because I don't know "enough" about it.
aSSUMING Sega International is not a synonym for Sega Japan I think it would had been a good idea for SOA, SOJ, EU Sega and Sega Brazil to just assume a regional autonomy and then see how their fortunes changed and give it to the head of all sega divisions asuring good growth and software diversity.