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[Alexios]

I mean, sure you can't play GTAIII or San Andreas on Dreamcast at their wonderful ~20 fps as on the mighty PlayStation 2 since it was discontinued before AAA development really took off but you can play all these and many more gems so Dreamcast held its own while it lasted and holds up


In retrospect there are many more excellent looking Dreamcast games, a short list doesn't really do the system justice. I've been changing mind about what to include rediscovering random games like Maken X or Aero Dancing i many of which can be very impressive, these are but a starting point.
​

 

[SkylineRKR]

this thread has inspired me to hook up my DC to my PC monitor. i also had NO IDEA dynamite cop came out on DC. Im playing it now. i loved that game and die hard arcade.

It was a launch title. A port of Model 2. I was impressed when I first saw it running in a store, the moves you could pull off. And slapping fools with a large tuna lol.

Did you know there is even a third one? Its called Asian Dynamite. Never played it.

 

[RaySoft]

 

[MonkeyClaw36]

Dreamcast never stood a chance. With how quickly Sega moved from Genesis to Sega CD to 32X to Saturn to Dreamcast, customers had very little faith in the investment.

This is plain horse shit and you damn well know it.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Yes DC was relatively weak compared to the other consoles of that gen. Bluntly about raw power, it was 4-8 times weaker than PS2,GC, Xbox. Ofcourse, it was assembled approx 2 years earlier. DC was impressive though, because it was the first one out and the PS1 was showing its age. But its almost a thing in its own, it absolutely couldn't compete with the other 3.

The DC really was a stop gap, which was what everyone sort of feared. DC was shafted once PS2 was out.

 

[Alx]

The DC really was a stop gap, which was what everyone sort of feared. DC was shafted once PS2 was out.

The DC actually technically held its own against PS2 alone, it had less raw power but was praised for better image quality, having more VRAM for textures and early support of "progressive scan". Plus some daring initiatives in online gaming. It was only when Xbox and Gamecube entered the market that the power balance shifted far away from the DC, and the PS2 became the weaker console "but we already control the market so we don't care".
What really killed the DC was the lack of support from third parties (except for arcade games) from the beginning, requiring Sega to do all the heavy lifting and losing money in the process. Had they been less desperate in their strategy and found a way to make a benefit from their IPs (just like Nintendo did), they may have managed to survive.

 

[SkylineRKR]

The DC actually technically held its own against PS2 alone, it had less raw power but was praised for better image quality, having more VRAM for textures and early support of "progressive scan". Plus some daring initiatives in online gaming. It was only when Xbox and Gamecube entered the market that the power balance shifted far away from the DC, and the PS2 became the weaker console "but we already control the market so we don't care".
What really killed the DC was the lack of support from third parties (except for arcade games) from the beginning, requiring Sega to do all the heavy lifting and losing money in the process. Had they been less desperate in their strategy and found a way to make a benefit from their IPs (just like Nintendo did), they may have managed to survive.

I don't think so. Its true DC had better or cleaner IQ and VGA support, but there is no way the DC would render anything looking remotely close like Silent Hill 2/3, MGS2/3, GT3, Jak, FFX. But also smaller games like Tony Hawk 3 at 60fps, I doubt DC could deliver the same experience. Most DC games looked flat with lighting, and simple with low poly counts.

The PS2 was ofcourse weaker than the Xbox and GC, but could still deliver some impressive looking games. Especially Konami seemed to understand its architecture. The effects done in SH, MGS and Zone of the Enders 2 were pretty fucking good and even the HD ports couldn't quite do the same.

 

[GenericUser]

Both

 

[The Stig]

It was a launch title. A port of Model 2. I was impressed when I first saw it running in a store, the moves you could pull off. And slapping fools with a large tuna lol.

Did you know there is even a third one? Its called Asian Dynamite. Never played it.

had no idea. i must have it.

 

[Henry Panic]

The DC actually technically held its own against PS2 alone, it had less raw power but was praised for better image quality, having more VRAM for textures and early support of "progressive scan". Plus some daring initiatives in online gaming. It was only when Xbox and Gamecube entered the market that the power balance shifted far away from the DC, and the PS2 became the weaker console "but we already control the market so we don't care".
What really killed the DC was the lack of support from third parties (except for arcade games) from the beginning, requiring Sega to do all the heavy lifting and losing money in the process. Had they been less desperate in their strategy and found a way to make a benefit from their IPs (just like Nintendo did), they may have managed to survive.

Nah, third parties were initially there and backed off when those early investments yielded no results. The Dreamcast was always going to fail because of Segas poor messaging, the games they chose to promote, and not having games people wanted.

Fans can list as many YouTube videos as possible to try and counter that claim, but at best it may make gamers on a forum look into them. Customers saw these games back then and had limited interest in them.

It's not about established ip on the PS2 from the PSX either, because the Xbox was a new comer and did much better with new software on console and similar games as the Dreamcast. GameCube had a rough time but also did way better.

It shows that Sega was missing something critical.

I don't think so. Its true DC had better or cleaner IQ and VGA support, but there is no way the DC would render anything looking remotely close like Silent Hill 2/3, MGS2/3, GT3, Jak, FFX. But also smaller games like Tony Hawk 3 at 60fps, I doubt DC could deliver the same experience. Most DC games looked flat with lighting, and simple with low poly counts.

The PS2 was ofcourse weaker than the Xbox and GC, but could still deliver some impressive looking games. Especially Konami seemed to understand its architecture. The effects done in SH, MGS and Zone of the Enders 2 were pretty fucking good and even the HD ports couldn't quite do the same.

Dreamcast could probably do Final Fantasy X. It wasn't a very technically impressive game. Lots of recycling in that game too.

 

[64bitmodels]

just butting in to say that the dreamcast version of Sega Rally 2 looked like this

whereas the model 3 version looked like this....

I vastly overestimated the graphical capabilities of the DC. PS1 and N64 definitely get crushed by it but it's not that much more of a major powerhouse than many PCs people had at the time. The Model 3 on the other hand is what they should have based the DC on

 

[Henry Panic]

just butting in to say that the dreamcast version of Sega Rally 2 looked like this

whereas the model 3 version looked like this....

I vastly overestimated the graphical capabilities of the DC. PS1 and N64 definitely get crushed by it but it's not that much more of a major powerhouse than many PCs people had at the time. The Model 3 on the other hand is what they should have based the DC on

Sega would have lost money so fast if they based DC on model 3, they may not have had time to save themselves by going third party, because they would already be bankrupt.

As for the DC, it was weaker than PC even at launch (1999) and just moderately midrange, not the higher acceleration rigs.

Many PC ports on the DC were surpringly worse than expected. I'm doubting it could handle just the Monaco track on GPL.

Dreamcast has a limit in how much area it could render on screen at once. Usually anything more than a block away in the game world will stream in off screen. Even in Shenmue this happened which was the consoles Hallmark game.

And GPL came out in 98.

 

[cireza]

just butting in to say that the dreamcast version of Sega Rally 2 looked like this

whereas the model 3 version looked like this....

I vastly overestimated the graphical capabilities of the DC. PS1 and N64 definitely get crushed by it but it's not that much more of a major powerhouse than many PCs people had at the time. The Model 3 on the other hand is what they should have based the DC on

Sega Rally 2 isn't the best example though. You have Metropolis Street Racer or F355 for example that look very good. Of course, there would be more powerful PCs out there, but the Dreamcast was 200$.

 

[Alexios]

Dreamcast has a limit in how much area it could render on screen at once. Usually anything more than a block away in the game world will stream in off screen. Even in Shenmue this happened which was the consoles Hallmark game.

That's not how any of this works. Distance has nothing to do with anything. It's just the amount of polygons it (or rather the game engine) can render, if they use too many in one section then they can't render more so it's culled at a distance ensuring previous sections will be off screen before more render in, to put it simply. Different games spread their polygon budget differently. Obviously a game that wants a lot of up close detail like Shenmue or Resident Evil will mean more closed off spaces and world design that doesn't generally allow for very distant views and while racing games also strive to have their twists and turns to facilitate that they have to make do with larger stretches of road ahead at times. Of course it's all juggled with other things like textures, effects, target framerate or if they will even be visible that far in 640x480 (hence games like MSR may have very little to no perceived pop in on Dreamcast but if you run them in high resolution on an emulator it becomes more evident) and the rest of the game logic. There are plenty games with much better draw distance, you basically chose a notoriously, infamously bad quality Dreamcast port to make a (nonsensical) point as if there aren't many better, in general or even on this very page. Even previous generation consoles had games with distant or no pop in, like Vanishing Point on both PlayStation and enhanced on Dreamcast or San Francisco Rush 2049 on N64 and other systems or mediocre games like 4 Wheel Thunder (but also the impressive Dreamcast games shown/mentioned already, one really must be stupid or have an agenda to ignore all its amazing games and proclaim Sega Rally 2 is the best example and representative of Dreamcast's capabilities or flaws in any genre).
​

just butting in to say that the dreamcast version of Sega Rally 2 looked like

Again one notorious port brought up endlessly vs several that fared a lot better. Oratorio Tangram, Virtua Striker 2, Sega Bass Fishing are essentially 1:1 with Model 3 and even Virtua Fighter 3tb and Fighting Vipers 2 have fewer/less important downgrades than Sega Rally 2. Of course there are also games that weren't on Model 3 but stack up to any on it (like the Fishing sequels, F355, Dead or Alive 2, etc.), maybe with the exception of Daytona USA 2 though its unique style and courses don't make comparisons easy, F355 obviously wasn't going to have you racing under a swinging pirate ship or similar fantasies. Still, how is Sega Rally 2 the only/best Dreamcast game you've ever seen even after coming in this thread? Also, Flycast doesn't emulate Dreamcast Sega Rally 2 well, I dunno if you forced texture filtering there since it doesn't apply by default but it still looks wrong (in other tracks you will see the rectangles around foliage textures are visible) and the game wasn't widescreen (or likely with other enhancements like anisotropic filtering to make those screenshots) on Model 3 either so that's hardly a valid comparison, or stance to keep against the Dreamcast by it.​

 

[64bitmodels]

You have Metropolis Street Racer or F355 for example that look very good.

haven't played those, though i heard that the guy who composed Sonic 3d Blast's saturn OST worked on the soundtrack for the former. are they good games?

 

[Henry Panic]

That's not how any of this works. Distance has nothing to do with anything.

I never said it did. The issue is that coincidentally each game that shows off the capabilities best ALL have the same problem with how much they could render on the screen at once.

We can speculate why, maybe the games used similar techniques for the graphics, but that is what ended up happening.

There are no examples on the system showing otherwise that aren't in restricted levels where you don't need to render far. Any major graphical showcase on the Dreamcast with larger designs all have the same problem: if they try to do too much on the screen, they have to have what's missing generate from off screen outside of the 50 feet it can render.

None of your videos prove otherwise, they show you have to limit what's happening on screen to avoid this issue. You gave me two static racers with almost nothing happening on the tracks.

You're confusing the Dreamcasts inability to render much on screen at once, with draw distance.

Two separate things. Look at Scud Race on model 3 and look at what's happening around the car to see a racing game that demonstrates my point on what the DC cannot do.

 

[Alexios]

I never said it did.

You clearly said it can't render far. That's not how shit works. I quoted you doing it so what are you saying this to, your own posts?​

Dreamcast has a limit in how much area it could render on screen at once. Usually anything more than a block away in the game world will stream in off screen. Even in Shenmue this happened which was the consoles Hallmark game.

Also, nothing in my posts is speculating, I discussed things vs your examples and named games showing facts you refuse to accept by handwaving it all away with no coherent argument. What crazy things happen in your precious Grand Prix Legends given it's also serious and down to earth in theme like F355 etc.? It's all simply racing. Vanishing Point is just a random game, not anything impressive, I just time stamped a track with sections similar to your GPL gif, though it has traffic on top of the opponents and the occasional airplane, air balloon, train, waterfall, etc. Similarly 4 Wheel Thunder is also mediocre but alternates certain tracks from openly lit to closed and dark so car lights illuminate the way (it has more unique tracks than shown but good footage doesn't exist), Rush 2049 has views for miles, shortcuts, traps, jumps and the Dreamcast's is the best version of the era, Le Mans has 24 opponents, dynamic time of day and weather (but also more evident loding on cars and scenery, yet these are all things used on all platforms, nobody renders the highest details far ahead, they just may do a better job hiding that, unless everything is low detail even up close), MSR has amazing geometry levels and does the different conditions too but they're different versions of the tracks like Forza Motorsport's (generations earlier). It's racing, what else can ya do if the theme isn't crazy like Daytona USA 2 or Scud Race? Is Sega Rally 2 arcade shit too now since it doesn't do more?

What is even your point, if Shenmue sucks for having obviously segmented areas without distant views then are you saying Quake 3 also sucked on PC at the time because it had closed off maps? It's just the type of game it was, obviously if they wanted it to have crazy large maps like Tribes instead then something else would have to give just as DOA2 looks like it does because it has 2-3 characters on screen where a fighting game like Giant Gram 2000 spreads the budget to 4-5 characters with the referee. I don't care what you think of "my" videos you handwave like that, at least they aren't the worst example like Sega Rally 2 trying to generalize a nonsensical point about the system. The Aero Dancing games have near infinite draw distance except the city maps where the 3D buildings understandably have more pop in just as they did in PC flight sims of the era anyway, elsewhere even distant bases, airfields etc. render miles ahead. Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From the Ashes renders far more than a block with plenty of action, explosions, friendly and enemy AI (though fade in is quite visible it's not so different to something like Armored Core). MDK2 doesn't seem to restrict its levels in any way as plenty of them have crazy distant views with no pop in. Did Max Payne PC suck for being in mostly enclosed areas with only the core action going on? What else should be happening in these games that don't do enough for you? More enemies on screen? Why, they're all balanced differently for the numbers they have each, I never wished for more enemies in MDK2. If you want some extreme amount there are plenty great 3D shmups on Dreamcast with loads of enemies, bullets, explosions and bonus items to gather all at once. What's good enough for you?

I dunno what you want to see short of GTA style games the DC never got, not that anything happens in the distance far away from the player, who only affects things nearby, in those either. Many of the generation's most impressive ("Hallmark" if you will) games like MGS 2, 3 or the popular survival horror games had small segmented areas. What scale of game and gameplay are you thinking exactly, that somehow had both amazing up close asset detail and no compromise at all in the scale and distant views? 2007's Crysis? It's safe to say that wasn't common game design before 2001 and DC's death. With the GTA video linked in the very first post in this page you can see those games had obvious compromises just as anything else (and also had hardly great detail up close) to enable their scale on these older underpowered platforms and PC specs, hell, Crazy Taxi 2 is generally better in that (yes the pop in is evident in some sections more so than elsewhere but look at the density of assets, many of which are far more distant than others that pop in closer to populate the area with more detail) yet maintains 60fps despite its blazing fast gameplay speed.​

I know based on your posts you're a diehard fan, but boy, if you're not going to read my posts, and instead will skip them entirely missing the point in the process, to argue what you want to argue about instead, there's not much discussion to be had.

I mean look at the rest of your post. Ranting about MGS2-3 and Crysis, games I never mentioned, random comparisons to Armored Core, and talking about 'closed areas' which only serves to prove you didn't read either post. It was never about draw distance. You're clearly in the thread only to white knight without considering what the other person is actually saying.

Um, you brought up Shenmue as its "Hallmark game" after discussing racing games, made generalizations of the system having too restricted areas or too much pop in or not rendering far or not doing things outside the core close up action based on Sega Rally 2 and ignoring all others, but now you pretend it wasn't about any of that so that my examples of racing and some third person action games like MDK2 or Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise From the Ashes vs similar games on other platforms like Max Payne or Armored Core and the whole generation's "Hallmark" games MGS 2 & 3 can be handwaved as off topic fanboy drivel because they don't show and compare Dreamcast's capabilties as good as your generalizations based on one shit port? Fine, handwave everything and backpedal to your first post with your precious Grand Prix Legends proudly shown next to Sega Rally 2, guess what, it's proven easily achievable on Dreamcast with not one but three random and average games in timestamped videos being at least equal (if not better, you clearly see the road ahead is suspended on nothing in your precious GPL, the others do better grounding it off the track). There are many more where those came from as well, from the impressive Dreamcast games already mentioned elsewhere that you handwave even though they share none of the weaknesses of your Sega Rally 2 example to more random mediocre games like Speed Devils and Faster than Speed too.​

 

[SkylineRKR]

Sega Rally 2 isn't the best example. Other Model 3 ports fared better. And some Naomi games look better than Model 3 while Naomi was much more cost effective and scalable which was ofcourse the point. Naomi also has many 2D games for example.

DC was obviously more versatile than Model 3.

haven't played those, though i heard that the guy who composed Sonic 3d Blast's saturn OST worked on the soundtrack for the former. are they good games?

Yes. Ferrari is extremely good. There is only one car, and only cockpit view (on DC), but I could imagine a Ferrari drives like it as it will take you a lot of time before you master it. Its a sim.

MSR is also really good, but a lot more unforgiving than its sequels. You can actually lose kudos and even lose double if you use a joker which does bring risk/reward. But you could cheese Hotlaps.

 

[Henry Panic]

You clearly said it can't render far. That's not how shit works. .

I know based on your posts you're a diehard fan, but boy, if you're not going to read my posts, and instead will skip them entirely missing the point in the process, to argue what you want to argue about instead, there's not much discussion to be had.

I mean look at the rest of your post. Ranting about MGS2-3 and Crysis, games I never mentioned, random comparisons to Armored Core, and talking about 'closed areas' which only serves to prove you didn't read either post. It was never about draw distance. You're clearly in the thread only to white knight without considering what the other person is actually saying.

 

[cireza]

haven't played those, though i heard that the guy who composed Sonic 3d Blast's saturn OST worked on the soundtrack for the former. are they good games?

MSR was the shit back then. It was a game from the future. It introduced a ton of things that became standard afterwards. The soundtrack is one of the highlights, it was excellent. Richard Jacques had worked on providing the equivalent of radio station, which became the norm really in racing games. You had that feel of driving in the streets etc... Hard to believe all of this was already there in this game 20 years ago.

F355 is a super difficult simulation game, not for everyone. But it was really well done as well. They are totally opposite in style. Give MSR a try if you can, just to see all it had back then. Modern games are better in every aspect, of course.

 

[Henry Panic]

MSR was the shit back then. It was a game from the future. It introduced a ton of things that became standard afterwards. The soundtrack is one of the highlights, it was excellent. Richard Jacques had worked on providing the equivalent of radio station, which became the norm really in racing games. You had that feel of driving in the streets etc... Hard to believe all of this was already there in this game 20 years ago.

F355 is a super difficult simulation game, not for everyone. But it was really well done as well. They are totally opposite in style. Give MSR a try if you can, just to see all it had back then. Modern games are better in every aspect, of course.

MSR studio made several great games. Shame they were closed down out of nowhere.

Could use more creative arcade racers these days as a AAA release.

 

[SkylineRKR]

MSR studio made several great games. Shame they were closed down out of nowhere.

Could use more creative arcade racers these days as a AAA release.

Bizarre was really good. F1 97 on PS1 was a classic, also very impressive from technical standpoint. MSR was a rough diamond, but PGR on Xbox was hands down my fave launch game. PGR2 and 3 were also good, with 3 I think introducing the cockpit views as we know them today. PGR4 was absolutely great and one of the most impressive looking games on 360 probably.

And Blur, I thought it was fantastic. The game crashed a lot on PS3 back then, but online was really fun. Activision did them in, with Blur not meeting expectations. Even 007 Blood Stone, which I picked up for 10 bucks or so, was a fun romp. But the writing is on the wall when they are being ordered to do a cash in license game.

I could understand MS though. Arcade racers were going down and MS had Forza as well.

 

[Henry Panic]

Bizarre was really good. F1 97 on PS1 was a classic, also very impressive from technical standpoint. MSR was a rough diamond, but PGR on Xbox was hands down my fave launch game. PGR2 and 3 were also good, with 3 I think introducing the cockpit views as we know them today. PGR4 was absolutely great and one of the most impressive looking games on 360 probably.

And Blur, I thought it was fantastic. The game crashed a lot on PS3 back then, but online was really fun. Activision did them in, with Blur not meeting expectations. Even 007 Blood Stone, which I picked up for 10 bucks or so, was a fun romp. But the writing is on the wall when they are being ordered to do a cash in license game.

I could understand MS though. Arcade racers were going down and MS had Forza as well.

What's strange to me is why Xbox wanted to avoid PGR after 4 so intensely.

Playground pitched a reboot to Xbox and they refused. They took the Forza spin-off though so one could say that Forza Horizon may not be here if the PGR reboot pitch wasn't made.

But what gets me is, why have two games called Forza? Project Gotham Horizon would lead to less confusion and arguably more sales.

Once Horizon came on the scene sales for Motorsport started dropping. I don't think that was a coincidence.

 

[Alexios]

Got Aero Dancing i's expandalone disc Jikai Saku Made Matemasen to show a nice rolling demo with decent camera angles. The game has to be seen in motion/played to appreciate it fully. Again here it's in high resolution with the nice but less so for dark scenes mattias crt shader. The last four with the lettering on screen are from the pro player or whatever replays function (which is a bit bugged, planes crash when they shouldn't, same for the rolling demos which might be a randomly selected replay, any such playback isn't properly emulated in this and other games like Le Mans yet).

 

[MrStauf]

Piracy killed the Dreamcast it was retarded to release a console with virtually no protection especially when broadband was coming of age.
There where Newsgroups flooded with Dreamcast .iso's that you could download then burn to cd and the games would run without a problem, no mod chip required or anything.

 

[cireza]

There where Newsgroups flooded with Dreamcast .iso's that you could download

And these shitty isos have killed many lens.

 

[Brigandier]

At $199 it was absurd and was a very forward thinking machine for 1999.

Have very fond memories of my Dreamcast and it's sat on my shelf fully modded to play at 1440p natively and it's glorious.

 

[Henry Panic]

Piracy killed the Dreamcast

Not much in the US, but the Dreamcast was doing poorly before piracy mattered.

The early adopters of the Dreamcast quickly stopped buying many games outside a few favorites that would also eventually fade away.

By Apr 2000 engagement was basically in the gutter. Well, there was Visual Concepts they did ok, but even with the buzz around those highly graded sports sims they couldn't reach a 3rd of a Madden or then NBA Live.

Ironically once the Visual Concepts Basketball stuff left Dreamcast it ended up killing NBA live.

Shows the way Sega handled the console environment was a big part of it's failure to stick around.

GameCube ran into a similar problem but started out at a much higher post, they lasted long enough to halt console production then come back to regain sales after. Almost any other company would have failed after they stopped production. But the GameCube started out strong enough to weather that storm of discounts and consoles being frozen.

Sega didn't do that, but they sure tried with the pre-launch marketing and their strong 1999 support going into the next year.

While I think some of the games they were staning for were poor decisions, I don't think Sega was in any position to have a BETTER first 6 months than they did. They really did the best they could imo but it wasnt what was needed sadly.

 

[=GabrielKnight=]

just butting in to say that the dreamcast version of Sega Rally 2 looked like this

whereas the model 3 version looked like this....

I vastly overestimated the graphical capabilities of the DC. PS1 and N64 definitely get crushed by it but it's not that much more of a major powerhouse than many PCs people had at the time. The Model 3 on the other hand is what they should have based the DC on

Sega Rally 2 is not a good example. It was a launch game and used windows ce libraries which were really bad. Later Dreamcast games were on par or better than model 3 games, thanks to Dreamcast being much more versatile and friendly to developers.

At the time the Dreamcast came out PCs may have been more powerful, but no pc game was even close to some of the DC games in term of graphics... Soul Calibur, Shen Mue, Dead or Alive 2, for example.

 

[nkarafo]

Sega Rally 2 is not a good example. It was a launch game and used windows ce libraries which were really bad. Later Dreamcast games were on par or better than model 3 games, thanks to Dreamcast being much more versatile and friendly to developers.

True. But still, the DC couldn't handle some of the Model 3 games no matter what, especially some of Model 3's later revisions.

 

[bender]

Listen to that disc drive spin. You aren't loud like that unless you are a lion. Lions are powerful.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Piracy killed the Dreamcast it was retarded to release a console with virtually no protection especially when broadband was coming of age.
There where Newsgroups flooded with Dreamcast .iso's that you could download then burn to cd and the games would run without a problem, no mod chip required or anything.

DC had good protection. But ironically they added a feature to the hardware that would be able to read Mil-CD, for Karaoke purposes. This was exploited so that the DC could be fooled. Later on they removed Mil-CD playback and I think those DC were immune to piracy but it was too late.

Its true that DC was like the only system you could pirate without the need of anything, especially when self boot iso was a thing. You could ofcourse use the swap trick on Saturn and PS1 but that was more cumbersome to do.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Not much in the US, but the Dreamcast was doing poorly before piracy mattered.

The early adopters of the Dreamcast quickly stopped buying many games outside a few favorites that would also eventually fade away.

By Apr 2000 engagement was basically in the gutter. Well, there was Visual Concepts they did ok, but even with the buzz around those highly graded sports sims they couldn't reach a 3rd of a Madden or then NBA Live.

Ironically once the Visual Concepts Basketball stuff left Dreamcast it ended up killing NBA live.

Shows the way Sega handled the console environment was a big part of it's failure to stick around.

GameCube ran into a similar problem but started out at a much higher post, they lasted long enough to halt console production then come back to regain sales after. Almost any other company would have failed after they stopped production. But the GameCube started out strong enough to weather that storm of discounts and consoles being frozen.

Sega didn't do that, but they sure tried with the pre-launch marketing and their strong 1999 support going into the next year.

While I think some of the games they were staning for were poor decisions, I don't think Sega was in any position to have a BETTER first 6 months than they did. They really did the best they could imo but it wasnt what was needed sadly.

Nintendo always had more financial reserves than Sega and never(?) sold at a loss. Nintendo also has Mario. It will sell, always. And at full price for as long as need be. The Wii U wasn't a much bigger success than the DC, selling approx the same amounts LTD, but look at the best sellers on both. Mario Kart sold over 8 million copies with 3D World and NSMB behind at approx 6 million each. The biggest DC game sold perhaps 2.5 million worldwide.

Visual Concepts is interesting. What if Sega didn't let them go? Would NBA 2K where it is today? It would be easily Sega's biggest moneymaker, I believe they sell 10+ million each nowadays, not counting DLC and MTX. Perhaps Sega would find a way to keep NBA 2K small time, lol.

 

[Henry Panic]

Nintendo always had more financial reserves than Sega and never(?) sold at a loss. Nintendo also has Mario. It will sell, always. And at full price for as long as need be. The Wii U wasn't a much bigger success than the DC, selling approx the same amounts LTD, but look at the best sellers on both. Mario Kart sold over 8 million copies with 3D World and NSMB behind at approx 6 million each. The biggest DC game sold perhaps 2.5 million worldwide.

Visual Concepts is interesting. What if Sega didn't let them go? Would NBA 2K where it is today? It would be easily Sega's biggest moneymaker, I believe they sell 10+ million each nowadays, not counting DLC and MTX. Perhaps Sega would find a way to keep NBA 2K small time, lol.

Nintendo did with VB, late GBC, early 3DS, and much of the GC, but when things were not working out Nintendo changed instead of doubling down multiple times like Sega did.

That's why when it was clear the Wii U was not going anywhere they cut production and stopped dropping the price so they could sell fewer Wii Us at a profit, and since they didn't have piles of stock out in stores they weren't losing money with dust collectors. They focused on profit and software that did well, so while only selling a few mill more than the Dreamcast, Nintendo made way more money than Sega did.

Ironically sports could have saved the Dreamcast. It's more likely the consumers who brought those games would have brought a few more pieces of software too.

They put most focus on NFL, but they could have pushed NBA more too, and added more support for golf and NHL. Soccer would be important for Europe.

Even Sega GT wasn't partnered with even a 3rd class relevant sponsor. There was no way the game stood a chance without one, even Forza 1 had one out the gate. If they did get a sponsor it would have been a more popular racing sim, especially in Europe.

Instead Sega chose to rep some odd games it's last year. The company or individuals kept pushing what was WANTED instead of what they NEEDED to do to keep the business going.

Even with NFL Sega didn't push it too hard, that's why none of them sold 2M copies. They had a potential 5M seller or more but it was clear Sega was prioritizing a specific identity for the console, which to them was more important.

Imagine NBA 2K exclusive to one console the last 20 years. That's guaranteed 10-15M sales for Dreamcast 2 hardware before any other games are involved. Anyone would kill for a safety net like that for hardware.

Sega's actions after dropping out were equally strange. They split their base across platforms which meant you needed to spend a lot of money to access your favorite games.

Wanted Saturn ports, House of the Dead, and Sega Rally? You needed a PC. Missed or didn't play SA 1 and 2? Needed to buy a GameCube. Wanted the other racing games, Crazy Taxi, and Shenmue? Needed an Xbox. Wanted Virtua games and Virtua Cop? Needed a PS2.

I've never seen a company not only hurt themselves that much before, but also almost seem as if they had distain for their customers and they felt they knew what buyers wanted best more than the customers themselves.

 

[Alexios]

​

 

[SegaSnatcher]

Yes, it was more powerful than most 3D Arcade hardware at the time.

It was a pretty significant generational leap over PS1/N64.

CPU/GPU and RAM saw a huge improvement.

It offered Arcade quality and in some situations better than Arcade (e.g. Soul Calibur) experiences all for only $199.99.

 

[cartman414]

Nah, third parties were initially there and backed off when those early investments yielded no results. The Dreamcast was always going to fail because of Segas poor messaging, the games they chose to promote, and not having games people wanted.

Fans can list as many YouTube videos as possible to try and counter that claim, but at best it may make gamers on a forum look into them. Customers saw these games back then and had limited interest in them.

It's not about established ip on the PS2 from the PSX either, because the Xbox was a new comer and did much better with new software on console and similar games as the Dreamcast. GameCube had a rough time but also did way better.

It shows that Sega was missing something critical.

Arguably the most important:

 

[Ozzie666]

It was powerful, Soul Calibur was all you needed to see in 1998/99. Had it used DVD's and if that bootstrap piracy loophole had been fixed? who knows. It was easy to program for and most developers loved it, sans the gd-rom. The controller needed some work though. A

Sega did almost everything they could to erase past mistakes with the Saturn. Dreamcast and the innovative software are Sega at its best and most charming. Their sports titles scared EA shitless and drove them to make exclusive deals. It just goes to show no matter the system specs, the importance of previous generation momentum cannot be under stated.

Cheap price vs anything else out there at the time too. Sega should have eaten the DVD license fees just to get it in more homes.

 

[MrA]

Yes, it was more powerful than most 3D Arcade hardware at the time.

It was a pretty significant generational leap over PS1/N64.

CPU/GPU and RAM saw a huge improvement.

It offered Arcade quality and in some situations better than Arcade (e.g. Soul Calibur) experiences all for only $199.99.

and with a nice lower power 22-watt psu vs ps2 75 watt psu at launch, a console that launched 16 months later, and the Dreamcast was nearly 3 years old by the Xbox/ gc launches,

 

[Hudo]

The Dreamcast was pretty powerful for a console at release. It could easily run most of Sega's big arcade games. But some people in this thread seriously suggest that the Dreamcast was more powerful than high-end PCs back then are deluding themselves quite hard. I guess these things never change, huh?
In any case, the big thing about the Dreamcast wasn't the graphics or even the VMU. It was the online capability of the platform. A console where you could play online and browse the web. Crazy shit. Years before Xbox live was even a thing. Nintendo didn't even try with the Gamecube and the PS2 was some half-assed, botched attempt at online play that was largely carried by Squaresoft.

 

[X-Wing]

Just take a look at the character models in Shenmue and you will know.

 

[Seider]

just butting in to say that the dreamcast version of Sega Rally 2 looked like this

whereas the model 3 version looked like this....

I vastly overestimated the graphical capabilities of the DC. PS1 and N64 definitely get crushed by it but it's not that much more of a major powerhouse than many PCs people had at the time. The Model 3 on the other hand is what they should have based the DC on

Sega Rally 2 on Dreamcast was a DC port from the PC version. Dc Sega Rally 2 was developed using Windows CE instead the native development kits of the Dreamcast.

We can see a lot of racing games on Dreamcast a lot better than that mediocre Sega Rally 2 port to Dreamcast.

 

[cireza]

Nintendo didn't even try with the Gamecube

There were a few online games, PSO episodes 2 and 3 come to mind.

 

[Physiognomonics]

I don't think so. Its true DC had better or cleaner IQ and VGA support, but there is no way the DC would render anything looking remotely close like Silent Hill 2/3, MGS2/3, GT3, Jak, FFX. But also smaller games like Tony Hawk 3 at 60fps, I doubt DC could deliver the same experience. Most DC games looked flat with lighting, and simple with low poly counts.

The PS2 was ofcourse weaker than the Xbox and GC, but could still deliver some impressive looking games. Especially Konami seemed to understand its architecture. The effects done in SH, MGS and Zone of the Enders 2 were pretty fucking good and even the HD ports couldn't quite do the same.

PS2 didn't have those games the first year while on DC there was plenty of beautiful games notably Soul Calibur. It was not before MGS2 and Jak & Daxter that PS2 felt superior to DC games. PS2 games were very uneven graphically and the first year games were disappointing.

But still on DC we had gameplay gems never found on PS2 like Toy Commander, Crazy Taxi or Power Stone 1 & 2. Those games remind me of the current Nintendo games.

 

[Hudo]

There were a few online games, PSO episodes 2 and 3 come to mind.

Fair enough. I wasn't even aware of that.

 

[SkylineRKR]

PS2 didn't have those games the first year while on DC there was plenty of beautiful games notably Soul Calibur. It was not before MGS2 and Jak & Daxter that PS2 felt superior to DC games. PS2 games were very uneven graphically and the first year games were disappointing.

But still on DC we had gameplay gems never found on PS2 like Toy Commander, Crazy Taxi or Power Stone 1 & 2. Those games remind me of the current Nintendo games.

Dreamcast didn't have those in its second or third year either. Ofcourse, DC was on the market for a longer time, when PS2 came out DC saw its second or even third wave of games (many IP already saw sequels on DC). Its understandable that PS2 launch software wasn't entirely there yet. DC fans would hold on to some quick and mediocre straight ports, which usually fare worse. But next to those ports we saw games like GT3 like 8 months after the US launch of the PS2. That game likely shut down any kind of hopes DC fans had.

What PS2 achieved within its first year was already a bridge too far for DC. There wasn't much yet, but the likes of GT3, DMC and Ace Combat showed lots of potential. More than anything I had seen on DC throughout its run. But to be honest, even launch software like SSX, Timesplitters and FIFA were a step above of what I usually saw on DC.

 

[ManaByte]

PS2 games were very uneven graphically and the first year games were disappointing.

People forget how rough early PS2 games were with the aliasing. Tekken Jag Tournament?

 

[SkylineRKR]

People forget how rough early PS2 games were with the aliasing. Tekken Jag Tournament?

US version is one of the cleanest PS2 games out there. I believe John Linneman once made a video about it.

I found this one,



Still looks good and imo better than SC in terms of detail, lighting and stages.

 

[cireza]

People forget how rough early PS2 games were with the aliasing. Tekken Jag Tournament?

In PAL region the games were riddled with aliasing and shimmering. It was super painful to watch, especially as people were playing with composite in interlaced 50Hz.

Meanwhile, Dreamcast offered 60Hz on the large majority of its games, and it was always cleaner than 50Hz. My CRT for example handles much better interlaced 60Hz than 50Hz. In 50Hz the shimmering is unbearable.

 

[DragonNCM]

a grate console......remembering playing unreal tournament & quake 3 online....was a fun blast