The Sega Dreamcast- What Happened?

[Wulfer]

This happened.

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Look, this wasn't the big deal.. This was the big deal.

And if Sega had gone with 3DFX they would have had a more powerful graphics card and they wouldn't have lost mighty big 3rd party support. Sega Japan dropped 3DFX and and went with a different graphics card one less powerful. History would have been alot different had Sega chose the correct graphics card. 3DFX was a big PC graphics card back then and a key arcade board on San Francisco Rush 2049. Sega made a wrong move and Sony just cleaned up the rest... Sony didn't do jack because they were not out yet. Sega's bad graphics card choice and Sony's marketing was key to stopping Sega.. Had Sega gone with 3DFX We may not have even cared what a PS2 could be. However, Sega shot itself in the foot one more time and this one really hurt because EA dropped Sega and went to Sony! EA was close to 3DFX and releasing games for the board. EA didn't like Sega move to the other board so, they left Sega for Sony!

 

[GillianSeed79]

I was around for the launch of the Dreamcast. Saturn/32X completely tarnished Sega's reputation in the west. People were also waiting for the PS2. Sony hyped up the emotion engine to the moon, making people think we were going to get Toy Story/Final Fantasy cutscene graphics. That turned out not to be true, but it was already too late. The real nails in the coffin were EA not supporting it and the fact it super easy to pirate Dreamcast games.

 

[Deleted member 12790]

And if Sega had gone with 3DFX they would have had a more powerful graphics card

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define "powerful." In terms of fill rate and polygon performance, deferred tile-based rasterization that PVR cores provide has always punched way above their conventional graphics chip counterparts. In terms of raw polygon rendering performance, the PVR core is not the bottleneck, and I don't think any 3DFX graphics chip would necessarily be able to put stuff on the screen better.

In terms of vertex calculations? Then sure, by virtue of 3DFX's technologies including a dedicated discrete FPU, that would have helped dramatically. But sega could have just as well have included a math co-processor on the dreamcast. the SH4 + the PVR2 core + a math co-processor would have wiped the floor with any (price comparable) 3DFX offering at the time.

As such, the bottle neck for the dreamcast isn't the graphics core at all. It's the lack of dedicated discrete FPU. The SH4 has to handle all vertex calculations (admitted through an embedded FPU with SIMD instructions).

 

[Wulfer]

3DFX would have hurt Sony's marketing because 3DFX was as good or better than the PS2 board. Again we may have been saying what PS2. EAwouldn't have left and and other wouldn't have dropped Sega support knowing EA was there. Those events were so key to hurting the Dreamcast even through it was a great machine. Pirating came later and had nothing to do with EA dropping support.

 

[Wulfer]

define "powerful." In terms of fill rate and polygon performance, deferred tile-based rasterization that PVR cores provide has always punched way above their conventional graphics chip counterparts. In terms of raw polygon rendering performance, the PVR core is not the bottleneck, and I don't think any 3DFX graphics chip would necessarily be able to put stuff on the screen better.

In terms of vertex calculations? Then sure, by virtue of 3DFX's technologies including a dedicated discrete FPU, that would have helped dramatically. But sega could have just as well have included a math co-processor on the dreamcast. the SH4 + the PVR2 core + a math co-processor would have wiped the floor with any (price comparable) 3DFX offering at the time.

As such, the bottle neck for the dreamcast isn't the graphics core at all. It's the lack of dedicated discrete FPU. The SH4 has to handle all vertex calculations (admitted through an embedded FPU with SIMD instructions).

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The bottlenecks didn't hurt Sega as much as EA's unwilling support. PVR had one big weakness Sega didn't know about. EA was invested in 3DFX (in the west) and when Sega pulled out, this hurt 3DFX. EA was pissed and therefore told Sega what they could do with the Dreamcast and backed Sony. The rest is history. Sega backstabbing 3DFX killed EA's support for Sega. PVR had nothing that could fix that! I was working in the industry back then I can remember the whole deal because I knew someone who was invested in 3DFX (and went to E3 Atlanta) to see their setup. He was quite mad because he felt 3DFX was going places and with Sega backing them their stock was headed through the roof. You know what happened so, you can imagine his anger....

 

[Deleted member 12790]

The bottlenecks didn't hurt Sega as much as EA's unwilling support. PVR had one big weakness Sega didn't know about. EA was invested in 3DFX (in the west) and when Sega pulled out, this hurt 3DFX. EA was pissed and therefore told Sega what they could do with the Dreamcast and backed Sony. They rest is history. Sega backstabbing 3DFX killed EA's support for Sega. PVR had nothing that could fix that! I was working in the industry back then I can remember the whole deal because I knew someone who was invested in 3DFX (and went to E3 Atlanta) to see their setup. He was quite mad because he felt 3DFX was going places and with Sega backing them they're stock was headed through the roof. You know what happened so, you can imagine his anger....

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Sega pulled out of the 3DFX deal, because 3DFX revealed information about Sega's next system which caused their stock to fall.

Regardless, your post explicitly said going with 3DFX would have given them a "more powerful graphics card" which isn't true.

 

[Wulfer]

Sega pulled out of the 3DFX deal, because 3DFX revealed information about Sega's next system which caused their stock to fall.

Regardless, your post explicitly said going with 3DFX would have given them a "more powerful graphics card" which isn't true.

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True or not true I would have checked with EA about support before killing the deal. Sega had their own arcade boards back then but, they could have had another in 3DFX. Just another reason the red carpet was laid out for Sony to take over. The Dreamcast was a great machine no one can convince me otherwise. I wish it could have had the time it deserved!

 

[jwhit28]

There was a Virtua Fighter craze in Japan around the time Saturn launched and the ports of Virtua Fighter / Virtua Fighter 2 were killer apps that pushed the console sales in the first few years.
By the time DC came out the craze had died out considerably.

Virtua Fighter games sales on Sega consoles in Japan:
Virtua Fighter 2 (SAT): 1417K
Virtua Fighter (SAT): 630K
Virtua Fighter Remix (SAT): 437K (remaster of VF1)
Virtua Fighter Kids (SAT): 210K (this was just a quick cash in)
Virtua Fighter 3 TB (DC): 330K

VF2 and VF1 (if we include the Remix version) were both million seller, a true rarity for Sega published games in fact the only other Sega published to have ever sold more than 1M in Japan is Oshare Majo Love and Berry: DS Collection.

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I didn't realize the craze died so fast. I remember the VF games on PS2 and PS3 reaching Greatest Hits status and thought they must be carried hard by Japan cause I never met anyone that plays them.

 

[Wulfer]

I didn't realize the craze died so fast. I remember the VF games on PS2 and PS3 reaching Greatest Hits status and thought they must be carried hard by Japan cause I never met anyone that plays them.

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And Sega never ported Daytona USA 2 I'll never understand???

 

[KingPat]

Yeah the dreamcast was ahead of it's time. I had a choice to pick between the ps2 and dreamcast. Hindsight I should of probably picked the ps2 but the dreamcast was fun as hell and those old Sega sports games were a blast too.

 

[j7vikes]

1. Sega wasn't able to overcome its bad reputation from the Sega CD, 32x, and Saturn.
2. The PS2.
3. Sega didn't have the cash to keep its hardware business going anymore.
4. Not having EA.

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Pretty much this. The whole thing felt rushed and it never seemed like it really had a chance to grab hold of everyone. I remember a few friends with extra cash bought one and we played the hell out of it. But it wasn't something a lot of people had around me and the moment the PS2 released it wasn't just the people in my area with extra cash buying it. It was everyone that had a PSX or 64 upgrading.

I remember thinking (granted I was probably 15 or 16 range when my friends first got one) that the system was cool but it didn't really feel next gen. PS2 "felt" next gen and obviously Sony knocked it outta the park and made the most successful thing ever.

But damn we had some good times with the DC. Just always felt inevitable that it wasn't going to be successful enough to keep Sega going on the hardware side.

 

[WyLD iNk]

Don't look at me. I did my part. Bought two of them and a steady stream of games during its life.

 

[NeoChaos]

EA got the Exclusive NFL rights, which pushed Sega, and countless other publishers (including Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony) out of Football games, and eventually sports games in general.

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You have the timeline wrong. EA didn't get the exclusive NFL license until 2004, which was well after Sega had already sold 2K Sports to Take Two.

 

[Segafreak]

One thing people keep saying is that Sega lost its independence when it became Sega Sammy, but they had been owned by another company since the 80s.

Sega was already having major financial problems. If it weren't for that it would have been viable for a couple of more years and sold 20-30 million.

Yes, piracy was easy as hell but it was well after it was dead that you could just burn media with the boot disc built in.

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I think so too, DC wasn't selling that bad compared to Gamecube or Xbox and would have ended up selling just as much if not more if Sega had enough $ to ride it out.

I never knew about the Okawa part of how Sega really was saved.

Damn, he should be more well known.

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March 2001 was a sad month, fate had it Okawa san passing and 2 weeks later Dreamcast getting discontinued.

 

[laziboi]

You have the timeline wrong. EA didn't get the exclusive NFL license until 2004, which was well after Sega had already sold 2K Sports to Take Two.

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News

The global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. Public relations and investor relations professionals rely on Business Wire for broad-based and targeted market reach.

www.businesswire.com

This was in 2005, after EA officially acquired the Exclusive NFL rights.

 

[Moose the Fattest Cat]

News

The global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. Public relations and investor relations professionals rely on Business Wire for broad-based and targeted market reach.

www.businesswire.com

This was in 2005, after EA officially acquired the Exclusive NFL rights.

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Exactly. NFL/EA's illegal monopoly killed it.
Should be illegal.

To imagine what video game football could be in an alternate timeline... NFL 2K5 is still better than present day Madden. The halftime show in the most recent Madden doesn't even have clips!! Just a very bland blue map of the continental US!!

EA Sports
It's maddeningly insane.

 

[Moose the Fattest Cat]

Even if somehow there was never a Playstation 2, I'm certain the Dreamcast would not have lived much longer and Sega would still have followed the same overall trajectory.

Sega's margins were preposterous. To have been able to save themselves, practically everybody else would've needed to drop out of the video game industry to allow for such wide adoption of Sega's product to off-set their massive losses from the previous generation. They needed it to be the Wii, but they made a Gamecube.

If Sony somehow disappeared, all else being equal, Dreamcast would've maybe made it to 04 and then finished by Xbox and completely third-party by Wii.

 

[Mahnmut]

PS2, bad communication and DVD player. I remember back in the day, DC was around the corner and some people in my school didn't even know the existence of the console. Really poor media coverage (in Europe at least). Also a lot of people knowing its existence were all waiting for the PS2. The final blow was the DVD, it was a huge thing at that moment. Having a console and a DVD player was a huge deal. Sega planned a DVD player/extension for the DC, but it was too late.

 

[daninthemix]

I don't think 3DFX or PVR matters - it's games, and as others have said, many of the big games on Dreamcast were too quirky and not at all mainstream.

 

[Deleted member 13155]

I thought 3DFX was rather shitty and they went out soon after didn't they? I think Sega dodged a bullet tbh.

Terrible game with some neat ideas though.



Do you mean HDD ? Because it didn't become a standard until the next generation.



The first part of this sentence doesn't make sense :P



Eh, not really, especially not in Europe with all those 50hz only games.

I also remember PS2 games not looking as good as on DC back then: you had to buy that Sony PS2 RGB cable to get the best picture on a CRT, the default cable being just ok.

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1. GD-Rom. It wasn't a good solution throughout the early 00's. Not if Sega seriously wanted that format to carry them towards 2005 or so. Gamecube also suffered because of their discs, but less so because Nintendo always has its own huge library with killer apps. Like with N64, which cost them a huge amount of support but they hold out. I know Sega planned DVD but as we know add-ons like this never work out well.

2. Dreamcast was underpowered doesn't make sense? Its to me obvious that it wouldn't hold a candle beyond 2001. In terms of disc space, overall raw power etc. DC had its own charm but I can't see how it would run any kind of comparable game to say, MGS2, Metroid Prime or Halo. It wasn't in that ballpark at all. It felt like it was more designed to beat the existing trend (PSX and N64). I think that awful controller is also a good testament of this, it was very limited (with 1 analog for example). VMU though I will always defend. I miss it. DC was in most areas not thinking ahead, perhaps online gaming which might've been a year or 2 too soon, heh.

3. My DC didn't get an RGB cable out of the box either. The composite that I got with it looked like trash.

 

[Deleted member 13155]

Didn't most multiplatforms look and run better on the Dreamcast? Plus it had VGA support

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Which ones?

DC hardly had any multiplatform games. Some of them were ported to PS2 though. Those looked worse on PS2. But those were among the least impressive PS2 games anyway, on a technical level. PS2 can run basically everything the DC can. DoA2 for example looked worse on PS2 sure, but as Itagaki said it was rushed within months and without his permission. PS2 did run the game, and with far more content. This was perhaps the best looking DC game out there.

PS2 also ran VF4 Evo, which was a Naomi 2 game. And while not exactly arcade perfect I think it looked really good. Better than anything on DC.

 

[pswii60]

"Wha Happun?"

Wtf is that.

Anyway, I remember the day Sega announced they were leaving the console business like it was yesterday. Initially saw the news on Segadojo. It was a sad day.

 

[Celine]

I didn't realize the craze died so fast. I remember the VF games on PS2 and PS3 reaching Greatest Hits status and thought they must be carried hard by Japan cause I never met anyone that plays them.

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With VF4 on PS2 sales in Japan picked up steam again (VF4= 542K; VF4E = 117K) but never reached the peak achieved by VF/VF2 despite being on a very popular console like PS2.
The real differentiator compared the past was that VF4 sold more in US than what it did in Japan which was a first, until that point Virtua Fighter sales skewed heavily toward the japanese market.
VF5 sold notably less than VF4 despite being released on two platforms.

 

[Nerun]

Loved my Dreamcast from Day 1 until the very end, I still imported some games from Japan, played Shenmue 2 (PAL), imported Shenmue 1 from Japan and played through it with the help of internet translations (printed out) and I really think it had a lot of awesome games and was ahead in graphics for some time (compared to PS2). I wasn't a huge Sega Fan before the Dreamcast to be honest, only bought the Saturn after the Dreamcast vanished off Ebay. Ok, I did own a Mega Drive and a Game Gear, which I both liked but I guess I was more into the Amiga (which had a similar fate to Sega in some ways) during that time. Yeah I was one of the few people who sticked with the Amiga while everyone else played on console or PC already, even bought and heavily upgraded the Amiga CD 32 (SX-1, HDD, more RAM, etc.).

Anyway, it was really sad to see the Dreamcast and Sega in Parts going down back then, I knew that the 3DFX part was a certain matter in it, but overall I think it was mostly the problem with the expansions of the Mega Drive, the Saturn in parts already and the huge surprise hit with the Playstation and Marketing Power of Sony for the upcoming PS2 that lead to the end of Sega as a console maker. Hardware and Games were fine/really good, some nice exclusives, etc. sure EA and Square were missing and that was another partially reason, but not the main one from my viewpoint.

I miss a lot of great Sega games, IPs and unique game concepts that we got on the Dreamcast, as well as really new stuff with PSO and Shenmue.

 

[Bman94]

Just repurchased one, should arrive by next week. The Dreamcast was my second console I ever owned so I'm glad to have a chance to get back into it. The Dreamcast is such a weird stop-gap between Generations and I love it. It's quite amazing the output for such a small amount of time.

I should have jumped in a few years ago, cause these prices are starting to get really high, even games like Sonic Adventure is selling around $30-60 for a complete package.

Next jump to jump in Is OG Xbox while its still cheap.

 

[super moustique]

Which ones?

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Headhunter, Alone in the Dark New Nightmare, Rayman 2 come to mind.

1. GD-Rom. It wasn't a good solution throughout the early 00's. Not if Sega seriously wanted that format to carry them towards 2005 or so. Gamecube also suffered because of their discs, but less so because Nintendo always has its own huge library with killer apps. Like with N64, which cost them a huge amount of support but they hold out. I know Sega planned DVD but as we know add-ons like this never work out well.

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Ah yeah, I totally forgot about that format. Making a DC was pretty expensive for them already so DVD was most likely out of reach.

2. Dreamcast was underpowered doesn't make sense? Its to me obvious that it wouldn't hold a candle beyond 2001. In terms of disc space, overall raw power etc. DC had its own charm but I can't see how it would run any kind of comparable game to say, MGS2, Metroid Prime or Halo. It wasn't in that ballpark at all. It felt like it was more designed to beat the existing trend (PSX and N64). I think that awful controller is also a good testament of this, it was very limited (with 1 analog for example). VMU though I will always defend. I miss it. DC was in most areas not thinking ahead, perhaps online gaming which might've been a year or 2 too soon, heh.

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I disagree as we got games like Shenmue 1 and 2 while something like Soulcalibur was better than in the arcades lol The sad thing here is that SC was a launch game and NB released almost nothing else on the platform for some reason... You're right on the controller though.

3. My DC didn't get an RGB cable out of the box either. The composite that I got with it looked like trash.

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Yeah, but I remember my DC games looking better even with the default cable ! :P

I remember thinking (granted I was probably 15 or 16 range when my friends first got one) that the system was cool but it didn't really feel next gen.

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Come on now, the DC launched with Sonic Adventure and Soulcalibur. The former didn't age all that well depending on who you're talking too ( :P ) but both certainly felt next gen back then. SC is still an impressive game.

 

[j7vikes]

Headhunter,Come on now, the DC launched with Sonic Adventure and Soulcalibur. The former didn't age all that well depending on who you're talking too ( :P ) but both certainly felt next gen back then. SC is still an impressive game.

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I should have been more clear on my memories as reading that back it doesn't convey the message I wanted. Most of us in my town (and yeah I was a small town kid) hadn't even had our N64's or PSX's that long at the time. Obviously it's been a long time but I don't think I got my 64 until June of 1997 (N64 in the US had a limited launch and I had limited pocket money). So by the time 9/9/99 we were all embedded in the current generation and playing the hell out of all those games. I guess I would say we viewed it more as the next cool thing, but not the next must HAVE thing.

Not to say it wasn't a good console or a strong step up. I was merely remembering my (and I believe my friends) mindset at the time. When the PS2 came out I remember everyone thinking "THIS" is the must have. The look of the console, the DVD player, etc it "felt" like the next gen had arrived and it felt like you needed to get that console immediately.

Just the somewhat hazy memories of the time frame from what I can remember as a 15-17 year old boy.

 

[super moustique]

VF5 sold notably less than VF4 despite being released on two platforms.

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So that's why there's still no VF6 to this day...

I should have been more clear on my memories as reading that back it doesn't convey the message I wanted. Most of us in my town (and yeah I was a small town kid) hadn't even had our N64's or PSX's that long at the time. Obviously it's been a long time but I don't think I got my 64 until June of 1997 (N64 in the US had a limited launch and I had limited pocket money). So by the time 9/9/99 we were all embedded in the current generation and playing the hell out of all those games. I guess I would say we viewed it more as the next cool thing, but not the next must HAVE thing.

Not to say it wasn't a good console or a strong step up. I was merely remembering my (and I believe my friends) mindset at the time. When the PS2 came out I remember everyone thinking "THIS" is the must have. The look of the console, the DVD player, etc it "felt" like the next gen had arrived and it felt like you needed to get that console immediately.

Just the somewhat hazy memories of the time frame from what I can remember as a 15-17 year old boy.

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Now, that's more understandable ! :P

Still, like most people (me included lol), you got played hard by Sony's marketing because the launch wasn't all that good.

A year later though, that's when we started getting shit like Onimusha and other great games.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I thought 3DFX was rather shitty and they went out soon after didn't they? I think Sega dodged a bullet tbh.

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In the end nVidia bought 3DFX for their intellectual property, so the hardware and software design must have been decent enough.

1. GD-Rom. It wasn't a good solution throughout the early 00's. Not if Sega seriously wanted that format to carry them towards 2005 or so. Gamecube also suffered because of their discs, but less so because Nintendo always has its own huge library with killer apps. Like with N64, which cost them a huge amount of support but they hold out. I know Sega planned DVD but as we know add-ons like this never work out well.

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GD-Rom didn't really hurt them that much. Most PS2 games didn't make full use of DVD, because the PS2's dual-layer reading didn't work well in earlier models. So the average game was 1 to 2 GB.

 

[Lua]

Btw, if someone here was around at the time sega got out of console business(and some months before it) and have link/saved forum conversations that are still around please link me. I'm studying sega for a paper.

 

[super moustique]

One of the first times a console game was able to match the arcade experience. Felt like a big turning point in history.

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It didn't match the arcade experience though, it surpassed it ! :D

 

[greetdeath]

I absolutely loved my Dreamcast, but the reason it failed in my mind was how easy it was to copy games.

 

[j7vikes]

Still, like most people (me included lol), you got played hard by Sony's marketing because the launch wasn't all that good.

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Definitely. I remember being more blown away by the idea of the PS2 than the initial games. But I can definitely remember it having that "wow" factor as an idea that I don't remember having with the DC.

Our world of information is so different now compared to then. I had a subscription to EGM and the internet took about 8 minutes to load a screenshot on IGN it seemed. I would love some type of alternate reality where we could start back at 1983 or something with the internet and the ability to share information and see how the "wars" changed.