Sega’s Plans for World Domination (1993)
wired.com
wired.com
The Dreamcast had so much potential, a year's head start over the PS2, a decent selection of launch titles, and online games, but I guess the damage was already done. They struggled to put their own franchises to good use on other systems since then, and now mostly seem to survive as a publisher and owner of a few third party developers.
In hindsight, perhaps it's more accurate to look at Sega as a company that had one good breakthrough with the Genesis that they could never replicate, rather than a once great company who failed. It was a long series of bad decisions after that, not just a single failure.
An interesting excerpt from the article:
"Just some of the developments coming to an Electronic Boutique near you: Truly interactive game movies starring hot Hollywood stars; immersive 3-D game environments using cheap VR technology; and motion-sensing technology that places you directly into the game"
Maybe they really were just ahead of their time, with the biggest companies still trying and failing in these areas. Or maybe it just shows they're just plain bad ideas.
The damage was done with third party developers. I think the public was ready for the Dreamcast/PS2 showdown, but the Dreamcast barely had games that anyone cared about. Nintendo had clearly dropped the ball with the "hardcore" (for lack of a better term) game audience by this point, so the real battle was supposed to be between Sega and Sony.
I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought everyone's loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega.
Unfortunately, the Dreamcast didn't stand a chance because of Sega's crippling debt. Only a phenomenon on the level of Super Mario Bros., Tetris (gameboy), Pokemon, World of Warcraft, Wii Sports or Minecraft could've kept them from closing down production.
Sales say otherwise, with only 9MM units sold. The PS1 sold over 100MM.
When faced with a choice between a company taking your loyalty for granted and one willing to pay for the privilege, it's not surprising how many jumped.
The same thing played out later with the introduction of the Xbox where Microsoft muscled, bullied, and bought companies to make their platform happen.
The Dreamcast showed how Sega took 3D seriously and it was an amazing console, easily competitive with the PS2 and Xbox. The only problem was Sega'd lost their de-facto leadership position and were scrambling to stay relevant.
It's interesting, however, that I've met several people who had their first internet experience on the Dreamcast because it had several modules that made that possible.
I'm guessing you didn't play one. The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, especially considering the short time it was actively supported. Admittedly 3rd party support was thin on the ground, but the games that did make it to that system were some of the best of that generation IMO.
> "I can't remember if the story was that Sony had effectively bought everyone's loyalty, or if the devs had decided they hated Sega."
My understanding was that 3rd party devs had been burned three times in a row by Sega on products that were poorly supported by Sega (MegaCD, 32X, Saturn). There was also the piracy problem on the Dreamcast, and the fact that the PS2 was a DVD player as well as a games console. If the Dreamcast had used a DVD drive instead of the GD-ROM option they went with I could see it easily adding another 2 years onto the Dreamcast's life.
The silver lining is that the piracy issues also helped the Dreamcast be one of the best supported homebrew gaming platforms.
I remember one development house saying something along the lines of, Developing for the PS2 is like writing a sentence with a paint bush while for the Dreamcast it was like using a fine point pen.
The Dreamcast had an amazing game library, true, but it almost entirely consisted of niche games that the general public didn't care about. The Sonic Adventure games were the only ones with mainstream appeal.
The market then was different from the market now. Nowadays, Steam is full of awesome quirky niche indie games that are successful, and if a console launched now with that kind of library, it would probably be successful, but back then if you didn't have AAA games with name recognition, you were dead in the water. You'd only recognize how awesome the Dreamcast's library was if you were interested in taking huge gambles on stuff you've never heard of before.
You didn't have to take a huge gamble, you just had to play one to see quality that was on offer.
As for games with mainstream appeal, aside from the Sonic Adventure games there were a number of decent sports titles for the system (Virtua Tennis 2 probably being my personal favourite, but the 2K Sports franchises seemed to make amends for the lack of EA support). I'd also say games like Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Metropolis Street Racer and Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 had broad appeal.
Think about when the PS2 was released, what was the big draw at the time? Tekken Tag Tournament is the only thing that sticks out as a memorable PS2 exclusive in the initial period when it was competing with the Dreamcast. I personally don't think the PS2 had the superior game library at the time the Dreamcast was discontinued.
but more importantly, suppose it did hurt dreamcast. wmil already said that. if you're convinced that this is the correct position, why not point to interviews or news articles of the time to prove your point, instead of just endorsing someone (as if that proves anything)?
Sega and game devs weren't eager to advertise that fact, so you're not going to find any articles. But once that happened developers weren't putting money into new releases.
I remember buying a second hand PS2 for Guitar Hero. The aforementioned game was pretty much the only original game that came with it, it was also bundled with a Swap Magic disc and about 100 pirated games. Clearly pirated PS2 games weren't hard to come by. However, the PS2 was hugely successful, so from the point of view of a game publisher even if you lose a high proportion of potential sales to piracy you can still make a profit.
This article gives some insight into how important strong software sales were to the survival of the Dreamcast:
http://www.polygon.com/2013/8/7/4599588/why-did-the-dreamcas...
Whilst the Dreamcast did not have the worst ever attach rate, any downturn in sales was not something sustainable. As I said in a different comment, if the Dreamcast had been released with a DVD drive (even if this bumped up the retail price) then this would have helped immensely, not only to counteract piracy (DVD burners were much rarer at the time), but also to take away one of the big reasons for waiting for a PS2. Whether they could've afforded to do so in 1998 is another matter.
How many developers abandoned Sony because of that?
Konami, EA, Squaresoft, etc - all these developers had already decided they wouldn't have anything to do with the Dreamcast before it launched. Had nothing to do with the piracy scene that cropped up a year or so after the DC launched.
> The damage was done with third party developers. I
> think the public was ready for the Dreamcast/PS2
> showdown
Sports games like Madden and the NBA games were huge killer apps for a very large segment of the audience. Probably even moreso than they are today; entire genres of games (MMO, FPS, etc) had yet to make a meaningful impact on consoles back in 1999.
Ironically, Sega's own NFL2K on the Dreamcast actually was amazing - way better than any Madden game released up to that point. And it sold pretty well, too! And the Dreamcast's 4 controller ports meant that you didn't need an adapter for 4-player action.
But it wasn't enough. Name recognition matters. Entire legions of 18-24 year olds passed up the Dreamcast because they waited for the PS2 and the EA Sports franchises that would never appear on the Dreamcast thanks to EA's experience with the whole Saturn fiasco.
> but the Dreamcast barely had games that
> anyone cared about.
Anyone remember Ready to Rumble boxing? That game was so much fun...
Perhaps Sega just wasn't good at the home market. Sega's strength was in the arcades.
I remember reading years ago that the reason they went with a Motorola 68000 for the Genesis was because that was what their arcade machines at the time were using, so they already had experience with the hardware, and it would make porting arcade games easier.
From a startup frame of mind, I have to wonder if this is the case of a company that did not understand why they succeeded, thus making it very hard to replicate the success.
It's worse than that. Each of Sega's divisions didn't know or care what the others were doing. The 32X was developed behind the backs of the Saturn developers. There was no grand plan here to first release an incremental update to the Genesis and then follow up with a new console. Sega's divisions were flat-out competing with each other to follow up on the Genesis.
> Sega themselves didn't even manage to release a flagship Sonic game.
More terrible decision making here: STI did significant work on a Sonic game for the Saturn, Sonic X-Treme, but the CEO was absolutely insistent on launching a Sonic game before Christmas. When Sonic X-Treme ran into delays and wouldn't make the Christmas launch window, the CEO cancelled it and replaced it with a port of Sonic 3D Blast, a Genesis game that wasn't particularly well-received the first time around.
Oh, and half of the reason for the delays was because STI's staff were fighting among themselves (Yuji Naka threatening to quit if they used an engine he wrote for another game took the cake: the team had to throw out two weeks of work because of that), and the other half of the reason was that the the lead developer and designer were both deathly ill (not exaggerating with the "deathly": one of them was actually told by his doctor that he had six months to live, though he wound up pulling a miracle and making it through).
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/16/3740422/the-life-and-death...
1. The Untold Story of How Sega Nearly Won the Console Wars - https://www.wired.com/2014/05/console-wars-book-sega/
2. Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle that Defined a Generation - https://www.amazon.com/Console-Wars-Nintendo-Defined-Generat...
http://www.seganerds.com/2015/02/23/kalinske-sega-seem-to-ha...
http://www.seganerds.com/2015/05/11/former-sega-president-gi...
Absolutely worth a read if the subject interests you, questionable dialogue aside. For what's worth, both Tom Kalinske and Al whatshislastname seem to approve and endorse the book and their portrayal.
The 2D performance of the Saturn appears to have been better than the PlayStation (the RAM expansion probably helped here too), but the 3D capabilities couldn't match up to the PlayStation (I suspect that would've still been the case even if the Saturn was easier to program for).
But the multi-CPU thing was a mess. Sony had a very simple architecture that could still do a very good job. Sony made that mistake with the PS2 but still survived (momentum + sales as a DVD player) and the PS3 which hit them hard (Xbox 360 was much easier, got a big win for it). As of the PS4 they've learned their lesson.
[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20100114191355/http://sega-16.co...?
Looks like the hang glider simulator is mentioned in this book, "Sex, Drugs and Tessellation: The Truth About Virtual Reality, as Revealed in the Pages of CyberEdge Journal" [1]
SIGGRAPH has been called "the original VR meetup." [2] Much of the VR technology back then was used for military training/simulation and wasn't shown to the world [3].
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Tessellation-Revealed-Cyber...
[2] Siggraph's VR Pioneers Panel – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdB8k_qn7qM
Sega Japan delayed the release of the SegaCD due to the politics of setting up alliances with other Japanese manufacturers and was also directly responsible for the complex design of the Saturn.
Sega USA stole a lot of thunder with the Genesis and Sega Japan wanted to take control back. Sega USA had an alternate design in the works, but Sega Japan insisted on the Saturn.
Up until that point, the "friendly rivalry" between Sega USA and its parent Sega Japan had been mostly beneficial. For example, Sonic would have turned out very differently if it were 100% developed in Japan or 100% developed in the USA. The back and forth on Sonic really benefitted the character and the game.
Without Sega I don't think the game would ever have been made, it was in development for years and they developed their own engine for it. Unfortunately it only just broke even, I think maybe they went slightly too far on the fear side. It really does take you to the edge whilst playing it and often feels like you're having to will yourself forward rather than having an enjoyable experience.
Having said that, I'm glad I finished it and props to Sega for funding it.
The platform was hurt big time by the lack of EA support. That being said, it did seem like everyone on MTV Cribs had one in their home.
Also, so many attempts that are nowhere now (Edge16 wasn't a bad idea). Markets are funny.
ps: To think that Nintendo Hubris gave birth to the competing Playstation which ate Sega's market.
You think I'm joking? You should read about consumer testing studies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth_generation_of_video_ga...
But much of the gaming public in the USA wants dark, aggressive-looking devices.
Another unfortunate strike against Dreamcast? The "supports Windows CE" thing. There were only like two Windows CE games on Dreamcast. But a lot of people thought that the Dreamcast "ran on Windows" -- at a time when everybody was dealing with Windows 98 and Windows ME computers that uh, well, didn't exactly thrill anybody.
People didn't want "dark and aggressive" so much as they wanted "understated and blends in". When the PS2 launched, reviews frequently mentioned that it looked like just another piece of A/V equipment on your shelf, no different from your VCR or your cable box, while older game consoles (except the original NES, see below) unmistakably look like game consoles. Given the reputation of video games at the time, "looks like a game console" was synonymous with "looks like a children's toy". Also, remember that a lot of the PS2's sales were driven by people buying it for use as a DVD player. For that to happen, it was important that the PS2 look like any other DVD player on the market.
This was the same reason why the original NES looks the way it did, by the way. The reputation of video games in the US was in the toilet after the crash of '83, so Nintendo was very careful to make the US version of the Famicom not look like a video game system. The front-loading apparatus, the dark gray color scheme, the box shape, and even the name "Nintendo Entertainment System" all came together to make the NES look like a fancy VCR and not an Atari competitor. In fact, Nintendo's marketing went out of their way to not use the phrase "video game" so as not to scare away people who were burned by the crash of '83.