Dreamcast's death meant the survival of Sega?

[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? Its just random characters you know..

And who are you to talk about $#@! 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?! 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 Genesis

The 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.

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?