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Why The Dreamcast Still Would Have Failed Without The PS2

You mean that things improve over time. Still doesn't mean that it wasn't fine for the time. It was the only and best solution until the improvements were invented/standardized. I played hundreds of hours of Quake III and it just worked.
Yes, it was fine for the time.

It was up to Sega to basically plan ahead on where gaming could be headed and plan the controller layout accordingly.

They were the only one of the four console manufacturers that gen that stuck to a single joystick, layout.
 
Yes, it was fine for the time.

It was up to Sega to basically plan ahead on where gaming could be headed and plan the controller layout accordingly.

They were the only one of the four console manufacturers that gen that stuck to a single joystick, layout.
Yes, the first manufacturer to release its console because the second stick was hardly justified in 1998. They planned for a fine controller with a great stick, analog triggers, and a button layout that allowed for FPS to be playable in good condition, and that inherited from the Saturn 3D controller.

So yes, as you said, the controller was perfectly fine.
 
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I like that the premise of the thread is "let's ignore the PS2", so most people just resort to explain how Sega was doomed by the PS1.

But dual analogue! Yeah, which was practically exclusive to PlayStation at the time, and far from a standard yet. I mean, it's almost like the DC got a good bunch of PS1 ports, and somehow managed to run them without the need for a second stick OR a Select button.
But the RPGs and Square! Which took off in the west thanks to the PS1.
But death from a thousand cuts! Yeah, from the PS1.

Twist it any way you like, you can't contextualize the DC's devastating failure without PlayStation in the picture somewhere.
 
I like that the premise of the thread is "let's ignore the PS2", so most people just resort to explain how Sega was doomed by the PS1.

But dual analogue! Yeah, which was practically exclusive to PlayStation at the time, and far from a standard yet. I mean, it's almost like the DC got a good bunch of PS1 ports, and somehow managed to run them without the need for a second stick OR a Select button.
But the RPGs and Square! Which took off in the west thanks to the PS1.
But death from a thousand cuts! Yeah, from the PS1.

Twist it any way you like, you can't contextualize the DC's devastating failure without PlayStation in the picture somewhere.
Actually, Sega's downfall was happening with or without Sony due to the many bad decisions made in the years prior.

Loss of consumer confidence being a big one.
 
dont think dual stick was that important
quake3 felt crappy to play on the DC controller, but dual stick also felt crappy on ps1

if the DC lived longer, they couldve made a dual stick controller
sega released a revised controller with the genesis (6 button) and saturn (3d) so the idea wasnt new to them.
not ideal, but whatever.

without the playstation, sega wouldve had a shot.
ignore the ps2, think about if there was no ps1.
saturn wouldve had more market share, more games... sega wouldve made way more money.
they mightve been able to afford a post-gamecube console.
 
dont think dual stick was that important
quake3 felt crappy to play on the DC controller, but dual stick also felt crappy on ps1

if the DC lived longer, they couldve made a dual stick controller
sega released a revised controller with the genesis (6 button) and saturn (3d) so the idea wasnt new to them.
not ideal, but whatever.

without the playstation, sega wouldve had a shot.
ignore the ps2, think about if there was no ps1.
saturn wouldve had more market share, more games... sega wouldve made way more money.
they mightve been able to afford a post-gamecube console.
Honestly, if Sony never entered gaming probably would be a lot smaller.

PlayStation basically took gaming from being considered a hobby for kids, to something that people of all ages played.

Obviously, gaming was never for kids only but the general perception of it amongst the casual changed with PlayStation.
 
Honestly, if Sony never entered gaming probably would be a lot smaller.
Or without Sony showing how massively successful consoles could be other companies would have given up so we'd end up with systems taking the Switch approach earlier on/from more companies since portables had already proven themselves (to the point Sony also tried them despite PS2)🤷‍♂️
 
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Or without Sony showing how massively successful consoles could be other companies would have given up so we'd end up with systems taking the Switch approach earlier on/from more companies since portables had already proven themselves (to the point Sony also tried them despite PS2)🤷‍♂️
I don't think other companies would have necessarily given up.

With the eventual evolution of 3D gaming coming to, other companies would have likely given it (gaming industry) a shot.

For all we know, Xbox still could have became a thing without PlayStation being a factor as to why.
 
PSP and 3DS survived the advent of 3D games with only one analog stick without much trouble.
Changing controllers during a generation is not uncommon. The PS3 had a controller without vibration and then one with that feature. It had PS Move, EyeToy, etc. The PS1 had numerous analog controls.
Nintendo, then, has a lot of different controllers.

Regarding storage capacity, well, most PS2 games were extremely large for what was actually needed. The console didn't have the capacity to compress textures, so a lot of things had to be duplicated. An example that comes to mind is GTA Double Pack for Xbox, which was 1.5 GB (with 2 games) and on the PS2 it was 4.5 GB per game.
Or the GameCube games, also under 1 GB, and graphically better than the PS2.

Dreamcast had one of the best texture compression hardware capabilities, perhaps only surpassed by the GameCube. A typical 2 MB texture could be compressed to 256 KB or less. On the PS2, due to a lack of dedicated hardware, this was more limiting, requiring the use of CPU cycles. Therefore, developers opted not to compress textures.
 
The Mega CD, 32X and Saturn killed the Dreamcast. Having no EA games was a shocker too, when people had started buying the yearly Fifa/Madden. The controller had a tamogotchi in it and looked like a mess in shop demos when they took it out - how could they go with a worse design PS1 and N64?

It was DOA.

I get the nostalgia for it on here - I had an Amiga CD32 and loved that thing - but it was a terrible idea and put the final nail in the coffin for Sega hardware.
Sega's overall expenditures and Osborning of the Saturn had a bit more to do with killing their momentum.
 
Eh, I agree not launching with a dual analog controller was a mistake, but I remember they were some plans to produce one, which worked well.

GD-Rom wasn't an issue, given the Gamecube was able to make due fine enough without DVDs. Really DVDs were just great for FMVs, and adding value through playing movies in your living room.

It failed because they couldn't get enough games that sold the system, Sega's general financial/business issues, and the other consoles that came out had far greater support for titles. Even Microsoft just had more cash to push games on to their platform + Halo.
 
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The lack of EA Sports was always going to kill my favorite console.


EA's condition for supporting the Dreamcast was that Sega kill off Visual Concepts. I don't know about you, but I can't bear the idea of living in a world without 2K Sports.

That said, yeah, the lack of EA support was a massive red flag to most gamers in the year 2000. "This is only a placeholder console" was the underlying message, and once PlayStation 2 hype began in full force (there's a topic that will make Sega fans grouchy), it was all over for our beloved Dreamcast.

"Once again, this reporter places the blame on you, the viewer." - Kent Brockman
 
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Regardless of why the DC died, it is still my favorite console to this day, and thankfully my launch day DC still works just fine! 😎
 
If PS2 had launched alongside GC/Xbox a year later, they would have been fine. Probably not lighting the world on fire, but the vacuum between DC launch and the rest of next-gen would have given them the sales they needed to soldier on. They thought they could get by with 20m sold.

They had a strong slate of software on the horizon as well, which they wouldn't have sold to Xbox if the DC were still alive.
 
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If PS2 had launched alongside GC/Xbox a year later, they would have been fine. Probably not lighting the world on fire, but the vacuum between DC launch and the rest of next-gen would have given them the sales they needed to soldier on. They thought they could get by with 20m sold.

They had a strong slate of software on the horizon as well, which they wouldn't have sold to Xbox if the DC were still alive.
True, however Sega seemed slow to adjust to the change of arcade games being phased out in favor of longer console experiences.

They needed a killer app, one that got the approval of the mainstream audiences.

We are talking GTA 3 level, it did not have this but it did have of good games for its relatively short life.
 
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True, however Sega seemed slow to adjust to the change of arcade games being phased out in favor of longer console experiences.
Sega did plenty longform games from very early on (though many weren't localized due to failing sales/platforms). On Saturn there's Deep Fear, Shining the Holy Ark, Magic Knight Rayearth, two Mystaria/Blazing Heroes/Riglord Saga, Burning Rangers, three Shining Force (III) games, two Dragon Force games, The Legend of Oasis, two Sakura Wars games, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Wisdom and more, as well as games that bridged the gap from arcade to home like Panzer Dragoon and NiGHTS (having a story etc. despite arcadey gameplay). They continued on Dreamcast with Shenmue (which started life as a Saturn project of course so even with that they were pioneering in the cinematic approach early on), Headhunter, Skies of Arcadia, Rent A Hero, Hundred Swords, three Aero Dancing/Wings, two Sonic Adventures, Metropolis Street Racer, Jet Set Radio, Phantasy Star Online, two more Sakura Wars etc. Plus their sports games, you may call them arcade style but sports built empires like EA's at home and they did very well with their own output quality wise (and clearly differ from arcade sports, though both Sega Rally 2 and Virtua Tennis 2 had meaty content added too).

Of course it didn't work out but that's like going to someone and asking to just make a video go viral, lol, it's not for lack of trying and it's not just quality that dictated sales/success, especially when making games for platforms the writing was soon on the wall for their future thanks to external as well as internal factors and just falling back to a sales discussion adds nothing, we know they didn't succeed, this thread only exists because they didn't. They had more in the pipeline that ended up on Xbox and elsewhere like Gunvalkyrie. Their later longform stuff as a 3rd party build on what came before, from Yakuza to Valkyria Chronicles or whatever. Some like Phantasy Star, Beyond Oasis and Shining Force (and others that didn't get to continue on like Golden Axe Warrior, Zillion or Sword of Vermilion) were done before the Saturn or even the Genesis so, they were quick, not slow 🤷‍♂️
Instant_Classic said:
Yes, and what was Sega's Mario 64 or OoT moment, to show this transition was going successfully?
That's another argument altogether about transitioning series from 2D to 3D (action based I guess, not like Fire Emblem which remains largely the same with 3D graphics like Shining Force itself transitioned earlier), not from arcade to home. I guess they don't have any still relevant major 1:1 examples (as Phantasy Star Online may as well have been a new IP compared to past games, though 3D Sonic itself became fairly successful and you can easily connect the dots between shmups, sprite scaling rail shooters and full 3D like Panzer Dragoon which had its moment in - cult hit - history with the Saturn and Xbox entries as their racing and sports games went through a similar process) but they were obviously among the major pioneers of 3D gaming with all new rather than previously 2D games, you can't be serious, they were leading in 2D, 3D and online. For 3D they obviously moved the industry forward with their racing, fighting, lightgun (which Namco followed after for their own arcade and PS hits) & online games, hell, they went full 3D JRPG before Square on both Saturn and the DC and even Shenmue paved the way, though yes, it didn't work for them, we know, lol.​
 
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Did DC however ever outsell the PS1 at any point besides possibly its launch? PS1 rode on just fine up until 2001 or so. PS1 really had an extremely strong 1999 and 2000 with 2 mainline FF games, Vagrant story, Driver, Ape Escape, Dino Crisis, RE3 and CMR 2.0. Even though I did have a DC I could never get rid of my PS1 during this period. I wouldn't want to miss out on those games that would be released during its twilight years.

I probably used the PS1 more during the DC's life.

The issue was obvious, people wouldn't really warm up to arcade games anymore. A much asked question was if DC would have stuff like Metal Gear Solid or Gran Turismo (and not with Bleem). As much as I liked Sega GT, all things considered it was a Temu version of GT.
 
True, however Sega seemed slow to adjust to the change of arcade games being phased out in favor of longer console experiences.
This started in the 80s with the Master System. Not with the Dreamcast lol. There have been console exclusive efforts ever since SEGA started to release consoles.
 
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Back then, there was no notion of where aiming should be. Like a lot of players, this was my first FPS layout on console and it was just fine.
There was, if you had experience with PC FPS games.

I played a lot of Quake using a KB/mouse. That meant movement controls are on the left side and aiming at the right. This became the standard quickly on PCs.

Going from that to consoles was far smoother for me on the N64 because most FPS games had the option to hold the controller from the left side and use the Dpad for movement and aim on the right side again.

Modern dual analog controls were second nature to me after all that, i never had to rewire my brain switching from right to left handed.
 
DC will failed just as how Series failed. Consumer sentiments just makes no sense.

Both failed hardware are good, launch messaging and games are good. Consumers are just irrational
 
There was, if you had experience with PC FPS games.
Cool but we are talking about console players here. And left handed people play with the mouse to the left. Hardly relevant.


Yes, and what was Sega's Mario 64 or OoT moment, to show this transition was going successfully?
Moving goal posts ? How is this question relevant in any way to your previous (wrong) statement ? Are we now talking about successful console games now that we have proven your point about games having no content being wrong ?
 
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Cool but we are talking about console players here. And left handed people play with the mouse to the left. Hardly relevant.
It's relevant because the whole movement on the left side and direction on the right side started as the standard on PCs, mostly because FPS were huge on that platform. And then consoles followed it.

Single stick controllers couldn't be a part of that, except for the N64 gamepad.
 
It's relevant because the whole movement on the left side and direction on the right side started as the standard on PCs, mostly because FPS were huge on that platform. And then consoles followed it.

Single stick controllers couldn't be a part of that, except for the N64 gamepad.
It was irrelevant to players who had only played on consoles. I couldn't care less about how PC games played back then. If PC is so much of a reference on how to play games, then why are we still playing with controllers ?

Also it was possible to play with keyboard and mouse on Dreamcast I think. Which makes the whole argument utterly pointless.
 
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Cool but we are talking about console players here. And left handed people play with the mouse to the left. Hardly relevant.



Moving goal posts ? How is this question relevant in any way to your previous (wrong) statement ? Are we now talking about successful console games now that we have proven your point about games having no content being wrong ?
There aren't any goal posts being moved.

If the Dreamcast was going to stand up to the likes of MGS2 or GTA 3, it needed a hit.

Fun arcade style games and Shenmue while good for the hardcore, weren't going to get the casuals Sony pulled in with the PlayStation.

Do you understand, now?
 
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It was irrelevant to players who had only played on consoles. I couldn't care less about how PC games played back then. If PC is so much of a reference on how to play games, then why are we still playing with controllers ?

Also it was possible to play with keyboard and mouse on Dreamcast I think. Which makes the whole argument utterly pointless.
While it's possible to play with KB + M on Dreamcast, that didn't satisfy the feeling people got from playing Halo CE at lan parties in four player split screen per Xbox.

One console, four controller ports in a way that was actually considered good to even PC gamers at the time.

Yes, people played FPS games on consoles before that point but the workarounds to accompany the single stick format, were not appealing to the majority.

I played Perfect Dark and GoldenEye back in the day, they were fun.

However, once dual stick FPS controls were figured out it never made sense to go back.

The single stick was an avoidable limitation that Sega did not have to set themselves up for.

Releasing a revised controller would have proved how shortsighted they were, in this regards.

Even Sony in 96 knew that change was eventually going to have to be made, with the reveal of the dual shock.

Yet, Sega years laters didn't learn.

Sega killed Sega.
 
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Even if the Dreamcast was initially successful, sega would have ruined it by releasing pointless add-ons to divide and segment the user base. There was already talk of a DVD and Zip drive add-on.
 
While it's possible to play with KB + M on Dreamcast, that didn't satisfy the feeling people got from playing Halo CE at lan parties in four player split screen per Xbox.
The premise of the argument, or at least what it became, was that SEGA were dumb for not putting a second stick, and thus having aiming on the left. And that PC setup of mouse + keyboard should have inspired them.

This argument is dumb enough by itself, as demonstrated in a previous post. But it completely falls flat when you consider that keyboard + mouse was an available configuration on Dreamcast. So they had to be aware of this configuration, right ?

So in the end, we are back to "the controller setup was perfectly fine for the time, and playing FPS just worked".
 
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Even if the Dreamcast was initially successful, sega would have ruined it by releasing pointless add-ons to divide and segment the user base. There was already talk of a DVD and Zip drive add-on.
I don't think the DVD drive or Zip drive add ons would have helped the console.

Either it's built in, or it's too late.
 
I clearly understand that you moved the goal post. First it was "Dreancast only had arcade games" and suddenly, after you were proven wrong, it became "Dreamcast did not have these PS2 games".
I never said it was not because "Dreamcast didn't have the PS2 games".

I said, Dreamcast needed a hit on the level of GTA 3 and MGS2, with the masses.

Does that make sense, now?
 
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The premise of the argument, or at least what it became, was that SEGA were dumb for not putting a second stick, and thus having aiming on the left. And that PC setup of mouse + keyboard should have inspired them.

This argument is dumb enough by itself, as demonstrated in a previous post. But it completely falls flat when you consider that keyboard + mouse was an available configuration on Dreamcast. So they had to be aware of this configuration, right ?

So in the end, we are back to "the controller setup was perfectly fine for the time, and playing FPS just worked".
todd-howard-it-just-works.png
 
I never said it was not because "Dreamcast" didn't have the PS2 games".

I said, Dreamcast needed a hit on the level of GTA 3 and MGS2, with the masses.

Does that make sense, now?
How many times are you going to repeat the exact same thing exactly ?

Let me help you. You started with :
True, however Sega seemed slow to adjust to the change of arcade games being phased out in favor of longer console experiences.
And when proved wrong, you moved the goal post to :
I said, Dreamcast needed a hit on the level of GTA 3 and MGS2, with the masses.

Does it make sense now ?
 
Unreal Tournament would have been SOO GOOD on dreamcast if it had a second stick.
Also being able to use that for a camera in Sonic adventure would have been better than L and R buttons.
 
It was irrelevant to players who had only played on consoles. I couldn't care less about how PC games played back then. If PC is so much of a reference on how to play games, then why are we still playing with controllers ?
I'm saying consoles eventually followed this standard. Which means you have to rewire your brain anyway going from single stick controllers to dual analog, even if you never played on PCs. I'm saying, if you played on PCs the dual analog standard was already second nature. Because it was the scheme that made sense. Any console with a standard dual analog (or the weird N64 pad) never had to make any such transition. The DC would eventually need a dual analog controller, making the standard one obsolete because the controls were inverted compared to the upcoming dual analog standard.


Also it was possible to play with keyboard and mouse on Dreamcast I think. Which makes the whole argument utterly pointless.
Pointless? You had the keyboard on the left and mouse on the right, correct? So how it was pointless? That's the entire point:

KB/Mouse = Inverted controls compared to single stick controllers = rewiring your brain every time you want to play with the controller or vice versa.

But dual analog controllers = no rewiring required at any point.

Also, how many console players in a living room couch setup wanted to play with a KB/Mouse on the DC? Why always bring the small, niche cases to prove your points? You really think this thinking would help Sega succeed on the mass market? It's simple, the mass market was in need for a dual analog setup that would implement a similar standard scheme very soon. Sony knew this, which is why they released the dual shock and the PS2 with it. Some N64 devs knew this, which is why they implemented dual analog controls in their games (Goldeneye/Perfect Dark). The signs were there.

Only Sega seemed to be completely oblivious to this upcoming change.

Even now you have to rewire and get used to the difference when you play an FPS on the Saturn or Dreamcast because dual analog has been the standard since forever. With the PS1 you can get away with some games that support the dual shock. On the N64 you can get away with the left hold system. With the DC controller you don't have a choice but to rewire (unless you are a lefty maybe, which is an exception, not the rule)
 
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nkarafo said:
Even now you have to rewire and get used to the difference when you play an FPS on the Saturn or Dreamcast
Even now, wow, I really expected Saturn FPS to have been patched with dual analog in the last 30 years, sucks to find out otherwise, well, good old lazy Sega, like how hard is it to bring out an adapter for Dual Shock (btw that released after all Saturn's FPS) and an update service for the system 🤦‍♂️

Rewiring is needed for 2005+ games like Twilight Princess (fully reversed and unnecessary camera as it controls like Ocarina of Time so would be perfectly fine without a second stick) and RE4 (again easy to skip horizontal peeking and reversed vertical, I never even used this on the Wii and PC) 🤷‍♂️

It's not hard to see camera control as an often experimental addition easy to consider an incipient feature that had zero impact on playing or completing many greats long after Dreamcast's death (so even if SEGA had survived there could have been a DC2 before that was a must) despite Halo 💁‍♂️
 
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The console didn't have the capacity to compress textures, so a lot of things had to be duplicated.
Let's not conflate things - data duplication has nothing to do with compression. On optical (and eventually mechanical) drives it was common practice to place assets to minimise seek times. Which in some cases means you'd duplicate them across drive to keep data-access linear.
This was done on all consoles, though XBox needed it less since it cached data on mechanical drive that had something like 100x faster seek times than optical discs.
But plenty of games did it anyway - heck, level packs were basically that - zero data reuse even if level used the same assets.

As to the image data compression - most PS2 games had a similar compression ratio as everyone else (4-8bits/texel) with added layer of LZW derivatives (lossless compressors) which came at a CPU cost on all consoles (and yes it was used on DC just as much). Exception was animated textures - where PS2 had a hardware decoder (and everyone else did it on CPU), but outside of rare edge cases these wouldn't take bulk of storage in memory or disc, so it's rare they would matter.
You are correct that DC had lowest bitrate for textures (before CPU pass) at 2bits/texel, but it wasn't universally applicable due to some limitations of the format. But yes it would take less storage overall than other 3. But we shouldn't forget geometry compression where PS2/XBox had hardware support, and while other two used it to an extent - it came at a cost.

An example that comes to mind is GTA Double Pack for Xbox, which was 1.5 GB (with 2 games) and on the PS2 it was 4.5 GB per game.
Or the GameCube games, also under 1 GB, and graphically better than the PS2.
Most GCN multiplatforms had dramatic cuts to Audio and Video quality to fit the disc sizes. On average - there was something like 50-75% cut in bitrates (lossy) to compensate for disc-space. In many cases - other assets were also compromised.
PS2 also often added empty-data padding to its games to position data on outer-most layer of disc for faster access. Something that XBox wouldn't always need due to the aforementioned HDD advantage, and GCN/DC didn't have the space anyway (and GC used a CLV drive, so it didn't even apply).
 
Which means you have to rewire your brain
You didn't have to rewire anything as the Dreamcast/Saturn layout was your first introduction to FPS. People either played with the controller or the mouse, they weren't constantly changing lol.

What are we going to ask now ? That SEGA should have looked into the future and put the stick on the right ? This is ridiculous.


if you played on PCs the dual analog standard
It wasn't anyway as the only thing that is analog is the mouse. The keyboard is actually the same as hitting the 4 face buttons rather than a stick.
 
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You didn't have to rewire anything as the Dreamcast/Saturn layout was your first introduction to FPS.
You had to rewire later on when the standard was implemented. Which would force Sega to release a dual analog controller. Thus, the original DC controller was not good enough for a 6th gen console.

And if you want to play a DC FPS game today, you still have to rewire unless you play on an emulator and fix the controls yourself.

What are we going to ask now ? That SEGA should have looked into the future and the stick on the right ?
No, Sega should have looked into the future and release a dual analog controller. Like Sony did. When you release a new console that you expect to play games for the next 5-6 years, of course you are going to look into the future.

It wasn't anyway as the only thing that is analog is the mouse. The keyboard is actually the same as hitting the 4 face buttons rather than a stick.
But the face buttons are on the right side. The WASD keys on the keyboard are on the left. So no, not the same.

You understand a dual analog controller in late 1998 wasn't too much to ask for and you know it would be the right thing but god forbid you admit a single thing the Dreamcast did that wasn't perfect and could improve. But i suppose people weren't ready for such perfection, otherwise the console would have been a success.
 
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You had to rewire later on when the standard was implemented.
And if you want to play a DC FPS game today
This is so dumb I can't believe it. So we are now reproaching SEGA to not have anticipated what would become a standard years later ? Wow. Unbelievable.

There was no standard back then, people coming from Saturn to Dreamcast had only known the exact layout the Dreamcast has. It was never an issue for SEGA players. You guys are making stuff up.
You understand a dual analog controller in late 1998
I understand that it was fucking pointless. I have been playing Dreamcast since the release and never felt I was missing a second stick.

This is like reproaching SEGA to go with quads on the Saturn, because eventually, the standard became triangles. This is so fucking dumb. Quads worked and thanks to them, we never got the ugly texture warping PS1 games are riddled with.

People speaking in hindsight, pretending past decisions were mistakes but taking them totally out of context and not considering that they still worked despite not becoming the standard years later. Ridiculous.
 
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